Global Ecology

The magnitude and rapidity of global environmental change threatens the perpetuation of life on Earth. Many aspects of this crisis are familiar to us - the destruction of tropical rainforests, the hole in the Antarctic ozone, desertification, soil erosion - yet we avoid the underlying challenge of a rapidly deteriorating ecological system and the breadth and complexity of responses demanded. Integrating an analysis of both social and environmental needs, the book explores the premises and problems of different paths towards global management. With its emphasis on flexible response, Global Ecology furthers our understanding of biospheric change and of our abilities and weaknesses in managing the transition to a sustainable society.

In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is our concept of ‘technology’ itself a cultural illusion? This book challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common development toward increasingly efficient technologies. Instead it argues that modern technology implies a kind of global ‘zero-sum game’ involving uneven resource flows, which make it possible for wealthier parts of global society to save time and space at the expense of humans and environments in the poorer parts. We tend to think of the functioning of machines as if it was detached from the social relations of exchange which make machines economically and physically possible (in some areas). But even the steam engine that was the core of the Industrial Revolution in England was indissolubly linked to slave labour and soil erosion in distant cotton plantations. And even as seemingly benign a technology as railways have historically saved time (and accessed space) primarily for those who can afford them, but at the expense of labour time and natural space lost for other social groups with less purchasing power. The existence of technology, in other words, is not a cornucopia signifying general human progress, but the unevenly distributed result of unequal resource transfers that the science of economics is not equipped to perceive. Technology is not simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society. From the very start it has been a global phenomenon, which has intertwined political, economic and environmental histories in complex and inequitable ways. This book unravels these complex connections and rejects the widespread notion that technology will make the world sustainable. Instead it suggests a radical reform of money, which would be as useful for achieving sustainability as for avoiding financial breakdown. It brings together various perspectives from environmental and economic anthropology, ecological economics, political ecology, world-system analysis, fetishism theory, semiotics, environmental and economic history, and development theory. Its main contribution is a new understanding of technological development and concerns about global sustainability as questions of power and uneven distribution, ultimately deriving from the inherent logic of general-purpose money. It should be of interest to students and professionals with a background or current engagement in anthropology, sustainability studies, environmental history, economic history, or development studies.

The world is caught in the mesh of a series of environmental crises. So far attempts at resolving the deep basis of these have been superficial and disorganized. Global Political Ecology links the political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of a series of environmental disasters and failed attempts at environmental policies. This critical volume draws together contributions from twenty-five leading intellectuals in the field. It begins with an introductory chapter that introduces the readers to political ecology and summarizes the books main findings. The following seven sections cover topics on the political ecology of war and the disaster state; fuelling capitalism: energy scarcity and abundance; global governance of health, bodies, and genomics; the contradictions of global food; capital’s marginal product: effluents, waste, and garbage; water as a commodity, a human right, and power; the functions and dysfunctions of the global green economy; political ecology of the global climate, and carbon emissions. This book contains accounts of the main currents of thought in each area that bring the topics completely up-to-date. The individual chapters contain a theoretical introduction linking in with the main themes of political ecology, as well as empirical information and case material. Global Political Ecology serves as a valuable reference for students interested in political ecology, environmental justice, and geography.

A textbook covering the study of human ecology and global ecology: ecological principles relevant to global concerns, the meaning of global change, human impact on the environment, population growth and regulation, world health, interactions of economics and ecology, and prospects of human future. The central theme of the book deals with the ways humans are altering the earth and how, in turn, these changes affect human life.

"Based on selected papers covering the presentations at the 7th European Conference on Ecological Modelling, organized by ISEM and hosted by The Microsoft Research--University of Trento Center for Computational and Systems Biology from 30 May to 2 June, 2011 in Riva del Garde, Italy"--P. xi.

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) - blooms that cause fish kills, contaminate seafood with toxins, or cause human or ecological health impacts and harm to local economies - are occurring more often, in more places and lasting longer than in past decades. This expansion is primarily the result of human activities, through increased nutrient inputs and various aspects of climate change. The Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (GEOHAB) programme promoted international collaboration to understand HAB population dynamics in various oceanographic regimes and to improve the prediction of HABs. This volume introduces readers to the overarching framework of the GEOHAB programme, factors contributing to the global expansion of harmful algal blooms, the complexities of HABs in different habitats, and the forward-looking issues to be tackled by the next generation of GEOHAB, GlobalHAB. The programme brought together an international team of contributing scientists and ecosystem managers, and its outcomes will greatly benefit the international research community.

Against the background of unprecedented rates of urbanisation in the Global South, leading to massive social, economic and environmental transformations, this book engages with the dire need to understand the ecology of such settings as the foundation for fostering sustainable and resilient human settlements in contexts that are very different to the Global North. It does so by bringing together scholars from around the world, drawing together research and case studies from across the Global South to illustrate, in an interdisciplinary and comprehensive fashion, the ecology of towns and cities in the Global South. Framed using a social-ecological systems lens, it provides the reader with an in-depth analysis and understanding of the ecological dynamics and ecosystem services and disservices within the complex and rapidly changing towns and cities of the Global South, a region with currently scarce representation in most of the urban ecology literature. As such the book makes a call for greater geographical balance in urban ecology research leading towards a more global understanding and frameworks. The book embraces the complexity of these rapid transformations for ecological and environmental management and how the ecosystems and the benefits they provide shape local ecologies, livelihood opportunities and human wellbeing, and how such knowledge can be mobilised towards improved urban design and management and thus urban sustainability.

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