Environmental Engineering

Historischer Blick und Zukunftsbild–Bestsellerautor Jeremy Rifkin kann beides. Er zeigt, wie industrielles Effizienzdenken alle Bereiche des Lebens durchdrungen und uns an den Rand des Abgrunds geführt hat. Ist die Menschheit noch zu retten? Ja, aber dafür bedarf es eines radikalen Wandels unseres Selbstbilds und unseres Denkens.

Signed on November 24, 1922, the Colorado River Compact is body of laws colloquially called the "Law of the River" that governs how human beings use water from the river system dubbed the "American Nile." No fewer than forty million people have come to rely on the Colorado River system in modern times-a system immersed in an unprecedented, unrelenting megadrought for more than two decades. Attempting to navigate this "new normal," policymakers are negotiating new management rules for the river system, a process coinciding with the compact's centennial that must be completed by 2026.

In this provocative manifesto, Assaad Razzouk shows that for too long our ideas about what's best for the environment have been unfocused and distracted, trying to go in too many directions and concentrating on individual behavior. While some of these things can be useful, they are dwarfed by one big thing that simply has to happen very soon if we're to avoid major environmental breakdown: curtailing the activities of the fossil fuel industry.

Wie wir Klimarettung und Demokratie neu denken müssen. Klimaschutz und Demokratie, das passt für viele Menschen nicht zusammen. Den einen geht der Kampf gegen die Klimakrise zu langsam voran, während die anderen sich von einer angeblichen Ökodiktatur bedroht sehen. SPIEGEL-Journalist Jonas Schaible räumt in diesem Debatten(hör-)buch mit solchen falschen Widersprüchen auf. Er zeigt, dass Klima und Demokratie sich sogar gegenseitig bedingen: Demokratie gibt es nur auf einem bewohnbaren Planten – und das Klima wird sich nur mit demokratischen Mitteln retten lassen.

"Der Klimawandel ist da, aber er führt nicht in die Apokalypse. Und er ist nicht einmal unser größtes Problem!" In seinem aktuellen Bestseller "Apocalypse never" zeigt sich der bekannte und international angesehene Umweltaktivist Michael Shellenberger als leidenschaftlicher Verfechter einer rationalen Umweltpolitik und erteilt dem Öko-Alarmismus eine klare Absage. Er legt dar, wie die vermeintlich alarmierenden Daten sachlich zu interpretieren sind und was wirklich hinter der Klimahysterie steckt: nämlich finanzielle Interessen, Machtstreben und die Sehnsucht nach einer Ersatz-Religion.

Perpetually covered in ice and snow, the mountainous Antarctic Peninsula stretches southward toward the South Pole where it merges with the largest and coldest mass of ice anywhere on the planet. Yet far from being an otherworldly "Pole Apart", the region has the most contested political history of any part of the Antarctic Continent. In Frozen Empires, Adrian Howkins argues that there has been a fundamental continuity in the ways in which imperial powers have used the environment to support their political claims in the Antarctic Peninsula region.

The big media have spoken on the question of global warming, and the debate is officially over. "Be afraid, be very afraid", warns Time magazine. But have Al Gore and his environmentalist allies really proven their case? Not even close, says Christopher C. Horner.

One woman's enlightening trek through the natural histories, cultural stories, and present perils of thirteen national monuments.

Die Energiewende steckt in einer tiefen Krise: Regierungspolitiker räumen mittlerweile ein, dass kaum etwas in dem deutschen Musterschülerprojekt nach Plan läuft. Millionen Stromkunden bringen mehr als 20 Milliarden Euro an jährlichen Subventionen auf, während nur wenige profitieren. Das grüne Jobwunder fand nur in Prognosen statt. Und zur Kohlendioxid-Reduzierung trägt die Ökoenergie nichts bei.

Climate catastrophe-inspired narratives like “Electrify Everything!” have a grip on people’s minds. The simplicity of the solution to the most complex endeavor ever faced by humans—the journey to a net zero future—is seductive, but it is fundamentally flawed. In Path to Zero: 12 Climate Conversations That Changed the World, author Tucker Perkins takes listeners on a series of future-casting journeys from the Year 2050 back to the present day to show us how a better way—a wide path to net zero carbon emissions—was, and can be, achieved in an accelerated time frame.

Das Ziel der Pariser Klimakonferenz von 2015, die Erderwärmung auf 1,5 Grad Celsius zu beschränken, gilt für die Wissenschaft als gescheitert. Laut Weltklimarat steuert unser Planet bis zum Ende des Jahrhunderts auf eine Erwärmung von mindestens 2,8 Grad Celsius zu. Das brächte unser gesamtes Ökosystem zum Kippen und die Menschheit an den Rand der Überlebensfähigkeit: Stürme, schmelzende Polkappen, Dürren und Flutkatastrophen werden Städte und Länder bedrohen und damit den Lebensraum von Menschen und Tieren auf sämtlichen Kontinenten. Wie können wir diesen Kipppunkten entgegenwirken?

Wie eine Mutter und ihre Tochter von Pellworm die Politik bezwungen haben. Die Nordseeinseln Pellworm ist die Heimat von Sophie und Silke Backsen. Hier werden die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels besonders spürbar: Die Insel liegt heute bereits einen Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel, jede weitere Erhöhung desselben wäre katastrophal.

Recent years have seen out-of-control wildfires rage across remote Brazilian rainforests, densely populated California coastlines, and major cities in Australia. What connects these separate events is more than immediate devastation and human loss of life. In Global Burning, Eve Darian-Smith contends that using fire as a symbolic and literal thread connecting different places around the world allows us to better understand the parallel, and related, trends of the growth of authoritarian politics and climate crises and their interconnected global consequences.

Beyond Carbon Neutral: How We Fix the Climate Crisis Now details, step-by-step, what we need to do right now to avert disaster, showing that there is still hope for solving climate change. This award-winning book hopes to instill the passion and clarity for overcoming such a major problem. Author Dr. Samuel M. Goodman provides a tool to help you gain the understanding needed to advocate for a future free of this looming catastrophe in this thought-provoking work. Beyond Carbon Neutral speaks to everyone concerned about climate change.

China is setting an example for the US - and the world - to follow. We should all take note. China has been able to manage the difficult task of reducing pollution without slowing down economic growth. What can the US take away from China’s unique experience? Although the world often pits the US against China, when it comes to saving the planet, any progress by any country in reducing emissions is good for everyone. China has presided over the fastest industrialization and the fastest cleanup in history - it is worth taking a closer look to see how we can do better.

In a triumph of marketing, the Tasmanian salmon industry has for decades succeeded in presenting itself as world's best practice and its product as healthy and clean, grown in environmentally pristine conditions. But what are we eating when we eat Tasmanian salmon? Richard Flanagan's expose of the salmon farming industry in Tasmania is chilling. In the way that Rachel Carson took on the pesticide industry in her groundbreaking book Silent Spring, Flanagan tears open an industry that is as secretive as its practices are destructive and its product disturbing.

Imagine living without clean air. For the people who lived on the doorstep of Monkton Coke Works, their daily reality was a horrendous nightmare of hazardous and acrid sulfur dioxide emissions, all-pervading soot, and clamorous tannoys. Over decades, the facility grew unflaggingly, converting ever-increasing quantities of coal into coke without concern for the residents’ well-being.

Four decades ago, the areas around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks sheltered the last few hundred surviving grizzlies in the lower 48 states. Protected by the Endangered Species Act, their population has surged to more than 1,500, and this burgeoning number of grizzlies now collides with the increasingly populated landscape of the 21st-century American West. Montana journalist Robert Chaney chronicles the resurgence of this charismatic species against the backdrop of the country's long history with the bear.

While politicians, entrepreneurs, and even school children could tell you that sustainability is an important and nearly universal value, many of them, and many of us, may struggle to define the term, let alone trace its history. What is sustainability? Is it always about the environment? What science do we need to fully grasp what it requires? What does sustainability mean for business? How can governments plan for a sustainable future?

In Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalizing Judaism, Schwartz shows how now, perhaps more than ever, veganism offers a pathway for all of us of whatever faith (or no faith) to reduce hunger, conserve the environment, save water, reinstitute justice, and care for animals and the Earth. It is no coincidence, as Schwartz demonstrates, that many of these ideas are mandates in Jewish scripture, and that reincorporating a care for the world (tikkun olam) can itself reinvigorate the spirit of a faith and galvanize its practitioners to act.