{"id":650,"date":"2013-02-02T23:59:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T12:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2013-02-02T23:59:53","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T12:59:53","slug":"global-environmental-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Global Environmental Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"harris\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> \"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"☆\"<\/p>\n

Harris F. (ed). 2012. Global Environmental Issues. 2e. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978 0 470 68469 6<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Texts examining a range of global issues have a long and distinguished history in environmental publishing. Although the real growth of these compilation books came with the 1970s\/1980s (notionally under the guise of cultural ecology<\/a>) there were notable exceptions before that (of which the best would be “Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth<\/a>” in 1956. By now, there are thousands of such books (an Amazon search<\/a> realising over 30,00 titles!). In the early days of these books there was much to be gained from reading through them because the material was so new – people had not thought about such matters before (or, at least, not in any great numbers until “Silent Spring<\/a>“). Today, these issues are far better appreciated and so the value of such texts now rests not with the cases it mentions, but in the learning it gives the reader. An ideal issues book would provide a way of evaluating the case as well as present it. Due to this, most takes have a particular “angle” to show the reader<\/p>\n

This book starts with the idea that there are three factors behind environmental issues: science, stakeholders and lifestyle. The latter two contain issues external to the actual issue itself but the first is certainly amenable to research. There is much to be said for improving the level of scientific literacy (see PISA’s example<\/a>) and Harris has taken this as the focus. The opening chapter makes this clear but also gives some background to the issues including natural resource usage, Erhlich’s equation<\/a> and ecological footprint<\/a>. Part two looks at the politics and practice of environmental science covering issues such as the construction and use of research data, stakeholders and the growth of policy (using GM crops as a case). There is also a chapter looking at international agreements, studying their construction, negotiation and impact. Part three aims to look at the Earth’s surface, but the cases, global warming and biodiversity cover only a small portion of the issues that might have been tackled. Further, the idea of studying science has given way largely (with the exception of the middle chapter on climate science) to a discussion, albeit useful, on the politics of environmental issues. It’s not that are not done well (they are, and give much insight to the reader) it’s just that the science element is played down. Part four looks at meeting our needs in terms of food and energy. There’s a useful introduction on the agri-ecosystem and examples of some technical advances such as the\u00a0 Green Revolution<\/a> and GM food<\/a> but the focus is on human use and sustainability with little of the science visible. The focus on energy is supply with brief accounts of the key sources followed by such issues as pollution. Part five tackles the issues surrounding our impact starting with a good account of urbanisation (including sustainable living) and pollution , looking at waste disposal. A final chapter in part six\u00a0 sums up our impact and offers ways to change.<\/p>\n

Whereas there is much to like in this text it must be noted that the original call for a focus on science has not been fully developed in the text. It is mentioned but anyone wanting an environmental science education from this book would find there would be much needing to be added. In its place we do get a very good understanding of the complexity of the case and the ineffectiveness, at times, of getting decent solutions. the book was originally aimed at final year undergraduates but it would be equally well understood by senior school students. Overall, a mixed feeling. On the plus side, the cases are good, cover a lot of ground and demonstrate the complexity they espouse. Set against that, the lack of a basic science grounding is to be regretted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating: Harris F. (ed). 2012. Global Environmental Issues. 2e. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978 0 470 68469 6. Texts examining a range of global issues have a long and distinguished history in environmental publishing. Although the real growth of these compilation books came with the 1970s\/1980s (notionally under the guise of cultural ecology) there were notable exceptions before that (of which the best would be “Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth” in 1956. By now, there are thousands of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}