Earth Month

This book embarks on a transformative journey through the complex landscape of renewable energy, challenging prevailing myths and uncovering the realities that define our energy future. At the heart of this exploration lies the dynamic intersection of technology and sustainability, spotlighting the critical nexus where innovation meets eco-conscious solutions. Far from a mere debunking exercise, this book unfolds as a comprehensive narrative, weaving through the complex tapestry of challenges and opportunities that define the sustainable energy paradigm.   Unravelling misconceptions surrounding sustainable energy, the book places a particular emphasis on renewable sources like solar and wind, providing a profound understanding that extends beyond the surface. Engaging case studies and examples punctuate the narrative, offering a firsthand glimpse into the practical applications and challenges of sustainable energy projects.

The transformation of the global energy system to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions requires engagement at all levels of society - from communities, regions and governments to numerous other stakeholders across the public and private sectors. This report examines ways for Group of Twenty (G20) countries to mobilise effective, meaningful action on energy decarbonisation. Japan, holding the G20 presidency in 2019, asked the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) for a report on the implications of the global energy transformation for climate and sustainability in a broad sense. Along with preserving the environment, improving urban air quality, and protecting the world’s climate, the massive uptake or renewables and energy efficiency promises to bring financial and economic opportunities, wider prosperity and new jobs.

Contribution of renewable energy to human life is essential for sustainable life on Earth. The renewable energy industry is growing rapidly to fulfill the energy demand of the continuously developing world and has become the focal centre of many researchers across the globe. This development should meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development ties together concerns for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges faced by humanity.

Green Energy: A Sustainable Future looks at life cycle assessment theory, practice, and methodologies applied in renewable energy power plants. The state-of-the-art life cycle assessment methodologies applied in power generation units are discussed following LCA analysis and key findings from energy production processes. Providing fundamental knowledge of how to measure sustainability metrics using life cycle assessment in renewable power plants, this title outlines state-of-the-art research about LCA methodologies related to low-carbon energy systems, their outcome, and how to relate the sustainable power concept with a circular economy.

Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures explores how our dominant carbon and nuclear energy assemblages shape conceptions of participation, risk, and in/securities, and how they might be reengineered to deliver justice and democratic participation in transitioning energy systems. Chapters assess the economies, geographies and politics of current and future energy landscapes, exposing how dominant assemblages (composed of technologies, strategies, knowledge and authorities) change our understanding of security and risk, and how they these shared understandings are often enacted uncritically in policy. Contributors address integral relationships across the production and government of material and human energies and the opportunities for sustainable and democratic governance.In addition, the book explores how interest groups advance idealized energy futures and energy imaginaries. The work delves into the role that states, market organizations and civil society play in envisioned energy change. It assesses how risks and security are formulated in relation to economics, politics, ecology, and human health. It concludes by integrating the relationships between alternative energies and governance strategies, including issues of centralization and decentralization, suggesting approaches to engineer democracy into decision-making about energy assemblages.

This book refers to the various biomass valorisation in various fields like bio-fuel; biodiesel; hydrogen production; energy application, environmental pollution using recent clean technologies. Clean energy technology refers to any process, product or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, sustainable use of resources or environmental protection activities. It covers all aspects of new and renewable clean energy production technology. The concept of eco-efficiency involves both ecological and economic aspects of sustainable agriculture.

Eco-Materials and Green Energy for a Sustainable Future emphasizes the synergy between eco-materials and green energy solutions, highlighting their combined power to reduce carbon emissions, conserve resources, and create a more resilient and sustainable future. It provides a detailed discussion on cutting-edge green energy technologies and their potential to transform the energy landscape. Covering a range of applications and emerging technologies that are moving toward sustainable and green energy, this book includes topics on nano-batteries, nanoparticle treatments of toxic textile industry wastewater, and green building materials. It explores thin-film solar cells and luminescent materials in solar energy.

Agroenergy: Renewable and Sustainable Energy presents developments in agroenergy. With a particular focus on sustainability, each section of the book - crop productivity, biofuel production based on feedstock generation, and bioenergy production technologies - addresses different aspects of the agroenergetic production chain, identifying strategies for enhanced yields and reduced risks. Sample sections explain the theoretical and economic aspects related to crop productivity, along with issues related to circular economy, lifecycle assessments, and impacts of future climate scenarios.

There is virtually nowhere on earth that remains untouched by plastics and the situation presents a serious threat to our natural world. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the interventions most often put in place are consumer-led and market-based and only nominally capable of addressing the issue. As the problem worsens and neoliberal ideologies limit the world's responses to this crisis, there is a growing need for legislative frameworks that attend to the complex social and ecological issues associated with plastics. The contributors to this volume bring expertise from across academic disciplines to illustrate how plastics are produced, consumed, and discarded and to find holistic and integrated approaches that demonstrate an understanding of the wide-ranging problem. From the plasticization of earth's oceans to the endocrine disrupting chemicals that have the potential to seriously harm life as we know it, these essays beg the question that we all must answer: what is our plastic legacy?

Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we're starting to realize it's not such a healthy relationship. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this engaging and eye-opening book, we're nearing a crisis point. We've produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire twentieth century. We're drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices.  Freinkel gives us the tools we need with a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis. She combs through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives. She tells her story through eight familiar plastic objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soda bottle, and credit card. Her conclusion: we cannot stay on our plastic-paved path. And we don't have to. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love to hate but can't seem to live without.

In A Poison Like No Other, Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis, one even more disturbing than plastic bottles washing up on shores and grocery bags dumped in landfills. Dealing with discarded plastic is bad enough, but when it starts to break down, the real trouble begins. The very thing that makes plastic so useful and ubiquitous - its toughness - means it never really goes away. It just gets smaller and smaller: eventually small enough to enter your lungs or be absorbed by crops or penetrate a fish's muscle tissue before it becomes dinner. A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis, following the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. As Simon learns from these researchers, there is no easy fix. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.   

Plastics show up in every area of our lives. They are durable, cheap and light, properties that make them attractive but also problematic for the environment. The focus of this book is not just to highlight the problem of plastics, its definition, and how plastic pollution is impacting human health and environment but also to look at some best practices in both nature based solutions and in the field of law and policies. The first section of the book focuses on plastic pollution - it's origin, relationship to climate change, linear/circular economy, followed by sustainable plastics, scientific solutions, and how policies can address plastic pollution. This includes looking at better designs, more sustainable feedstocks, and partnerships between various stakeholders worldwide including USA, China, Canada, South Korea, Thailand. This book will interest those who are associated with the production industry, packaging industry, and waste management industry as well as, academicians, students and policymakers.

Plastic Waste and Recycling: Environmental Impact, Societal Issues, Prevention, and Solutions begins with an introduction to the different types of plastic materials, their uses, and the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle before examining plastic types, chemistry and degradation patterns that are organized by non-degradable plastic, degradable and biodegradable plastics, biopolymers and bioplastics. Other sections cover current challenges relating to plastic waste, explain the sources of waste and their routes into the environment, and provide systematic coverage of plastic waste treatment methods, including mechanical processing, monomerization, blast furnace feedstocks, gasification, thermal recycling, and conversion to fuel. This is an essential guide for anyone involved in plastic waste or recycling, including researchers and advanced students across plastics engineering, polymer science, polymer chemistry, environmental science, and sustainable materials.

An estimated 8 million metric tons (MMT) of plastic waste enters the world's ocean each year - the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic waste into the ocean every minute. Plastic waste is now found in almost every marine habitat, from the ocean surface to deep sea sediments to the ocean's vast mid-water region, as well as the Great Lakes. This report responds to a request in the bipartisan Save Our Seas 2.0 Act for a scientific synthesis of the role of the United States both in contributing to and responding to global ocean plastic waste. The United States is a major producer of plastics and in 2016, generated more plastic waste by weight and per capita than any other nation. Although the U.S. solid waste management system is advanced, it is not sufficient to deter leakage into the environment. Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste calls for a national strategy by the end of 2022 to reduce the nation's contribution to global ocean plastic waste at every step - from production to its entry into the environment - including by substantially reducing U.S. solid waste generation.

Plastics explains what plastics are, how they are made, how they are used, and the problems and opportunities they bring.

Due to the non-biodegradability of plastic substances, coupled with poor waste management practices, plastic pollution has become a major environmental issue within the past decade. However, the negative effects of plastic pollution are rarely opposed, or the solutions proposed are costly or still damaging to the environment. New strategies must be undertaken to prevent irreparable environmental damage from disposable plastic products while maintaining and maximizing the benefits of plastics in specialized cases, such as medicine and public health. The Handbook of Research on Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Plastic Pollution is a collection of innovative research that assesses the negative impacts of plastic on the environment, human health, and ecosystems, and explores biotechnological approaches to solve plastic pollution. While highlighting topics including medical wastes, biodegradability, and phthalate exposure, this publication intends to provide readers with the latest solutions for reducing the burden of plastic on the environment.

This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalize curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth. As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent "arts of living." Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival.

Building Green explores the experience of environmental architects in Mumbai, one of the world's most populous and population-dense urban areas and a city iconic for its massive informal settlements, extreme wealth asymmetries, and ecological stresses. Under these conditions, what does it mean to learn, and try to practice, so-called green design? The environmental architects profiled in Building Green act as key agents of urban change whose efforts are shaped by a complex urban development economy, layered political power relations, and a calculus of when, and how, their expert skills might be operationalized in service of the future.

In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization, and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and issues central to the environment in society, such as: social mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; debates about the relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation.

In Gaia's Body, Tyler Volk describes the environment that enables the biosphere to exist, various ways of looking at its "anatomy" and "physiology", the major biogeographical regions such as rainforests, deserts, and tundra, the major substances the biosphere is made of, and the chemical cycles that keep it in balance. Both adherents and skeptics have often been concerned that the "Gaia theory" contains too much goddess and too few verifiable hypotheses. This book describes, for scientists, students, and lay readers alike, its firm basis in science.

This book examines some of the main impacts that agriculture has on humans, nonhumans, and the environment, as well as some of the questions these impacts raise for the ethics of food production, consumption, and activism. The discussion ranges over cutting-edge topics such as effective altruism, abolition and regulation, revolution and reform, individual and structural change, single-issue and multi-issue activism, and legal and illegal activism.

This book examines why a close collaboration between the EU and China may result in the necessary impetus to solidify a vision and a roadmap for our common future in the Anthropocene. It introduces a novel perspective and narrative on climate action leadership through an analysis of international relations. It argues that a close EU-China collaboration may best help the global community move towards a low carbon future and navigate the new challenges of the Anthropocene.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. The priorities, principles, and immediate action that Jamieson suggests are practical and actionable. Despite the unprecedented nature of the challenge, it matters what we do and how we live.

In this collection of essays, Una Chaudhuri engages with the alternative modes of thinking, feeling, and making art offered by animals and animality, bringing insights from theatre practice and theory to animal studies as well as exploring what animal studies can bring to the study of theatre and performance. As our planet lives through what scientists call "the sixth extinction," and we become ever more aware of our relationships to other species, Chaudhuri takes a highly original look at the "animal imagination" of well-known plays, performances and creative projects, including works by: Caryl Churchill, Marina Zurkow, Edward Albee, Tennesee Williams, and Eugene Ionesco.

A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy Shale gas extraction--commonly known as fracking--is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet--whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet--is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent. The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend "up to heaven and down to hell," which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell casts America's ideas about freedom and property rights in a troubling new light, revealing how your personal choices can undermine your neighbors' liberty, and how the exercise of individual rights can bring unintended environmental consequences for us all.

What does it mean for the future of the planet when one of the world's most durable authoritarian governance systems pursues "ecological civilization"? Despite its staggering pollution and colossal appetite for resources, China exemplifies a model of state-led environmentalism which concentrates decisive political, economic, and epistemic power under centralized leadership. On the face of it, China seems to embody hope for a radical new approach to environmental governance.   In this thought-provoking book, Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro probe the concrete mechanisms of China's coercive environmentalism to show how 'going green' helps the state to further other agendas such as citizen surveillance and geopolitical influence. Through top-down initiatives, regulations, and campaigns to mitigate pollution and environmental degradation, the Chinese authorities also promote control over the behavior of individuals and enterprises, pacification of borderlands, and expansion of Chinese power and influence along the Belt and Road and even into the global commons. Given the limited time that remains to mitigate climate change and protect millions of species from extinction, we need to consider whether a green authoritarianism can show us the way. This book explores both its promises and risks.

A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. By investigating one of the world's most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.

In this thought-provoking study, Carolyn Finney looks beyond the discourse of the environmental justice movement to examine how the natural environment has been understood, commodified, and represented by both white and black Americans. Bridging the fields of environmental history, cultural studies, critical race studies, and geography, Finney argues that the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial violence have shaped cultural understandings of the "great outdoors" and determined who should and can have access to natural spaces.

In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation, multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier "SF"--string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far--Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.

This thoughtful, in-depth account of Native struggles against environmental and cultural degradation features chapters on the Seminoles, the Anishinaabeg, the Innu, the Northern Cheyenne, and the Mohawks, among others. Filled with inspiring testimonies of struggles for survival, each page of this volume speaks forcefully for self-determination and community. LaDuke's unique understanding of Native ideas and people is borne from long years of experience, and is deepened by inspiring testimonies from local Native activists sharing the struggle for survival.

Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything, makes the case for a Green New Deal--explaining how bold climate action can be a blueprint for a just and thriving society. An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.

The Right to Be Cold is the human story of life on the front lines of climate change, told by a woman who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most influential Indigenous environmental, cultural, and human rights advocates in the world. Raised by a single mother and grandmother in the small community of Kuujjuaq, Quebec, Watt-Cloutier describes life in the traditional ice-based hunting culture of an Inuit community and reveals how Indigenous life, human rights, and the threat of climate change are inextricably linked.

Are trees social beings? In The Hidden Life of Trees forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.

In this bracing response to climate change, Roy Scranton combines memoir, reportage, philosophy, and Zen wisdom to explore what it means to be human in a rapidly evolving world, taking readers on a journey through street protests, the latest findings of earth scientists, a historic UN summit, millennia of geological history, and the persistent vitality of ancient literature.

From one of the world's leading experts on the subject, a fully updated introduction to the sustainability movement from the 1600s to today The word is nearly ubiquitous: at the grocery store we shop for "sustainable foods" that were produced from "sustainable agriculture"; groups ranging from small advocacy organizations to city and state governments to the United Nations tout "sustainable development" as a strategy for local and global stability; and woe betide the city-dweller who doesn't aim for a "sustainable lifestyle." Seeming to have come out of nowhere to dominate the discussion-from permaculture to renewable energy to the local food movement-the ideas that underlie and define sustainability can be traced back several centuries. In this illuminating and fascinating primer, newly revised and updated, Jeremy L. Caradonna does just that, approaching sustainability from a historical perspective and revealing the conditions that gave it shape.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.

A bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world. Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry's relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth--its abundance of sweet, juicy berries--to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that "hoarding won't save us, all flourishing is mutual." Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.