Furious Winds and Parched Islands

Furious Winds and Parched Islands
Author: AnaMaria d’Aubert; Patrick D. Nunn
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2012-03-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1469170094

The modern understanding of climate extremes in the vast Pacific Ocean has been hampered by an incomplete picture of the incidence of such extremes in the past. For the first time in this book is given a largely complete account of extreme events – tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and droughts – culled from a myriad of sources, ranging from whalers’ logs to missionary diaries, as far back in time as written records extend. This book is an essential reference for anyone interested in the nature and recurrence times of climate extremes in the Pacific Ocean. It also provides fascinating insights into the historical impacts of extreme events on often highly vulnerable island populations and livelihoods and, in doing so, underscores their continuing vulnerability as they confront 21st-century climate change.

Small Island Developing States

Small Island Developing States
Author: Stefano Moncada
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030827747

This book explores how vulnerable and resilient communities from SIDS are affected by climate change; proposes and, where possible, evaluates adaptation activities; identifies factors capable of enhancing or inhibiting SIDS people’s long-term ability to deal with climate change; and critiques the discourses, vocabularies, and constructions around SIDS dealing with climate change. The contributions, written by well-established scholars, as well as emerging authors and practitioners, in the field, include conceptual papers, coherent methodological approaches, and case studies from the communities based in the Caribbean Sea and the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. In their introduction, the editors contextualise the book within the current literature. They emphasise the importance of stronger links between climate change science and policy in SIDS, both to increase effectiveness of policy and also boost scholarly enquiry in the context of whose communities are often excluded by mainstream research. This book is timely and appropriate, given the recent commission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of a Special Report that aims at addressing vulnerabilities, “especially in islands and coastal areas, as well as the adaptation and policy development opportunities” following the Paris Agreement. Coupled with this, there is also the need to support the policy community with further scientific evidence on climate change–related issues in SIDS, accompanying the first years of implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Ends of Empire

The Ends of Empire
Author: John Connell
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 531
Release: 2020-09-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811559058

This book offers a fresh analysis of constitutional, economic, demographic and cultural developments in the overseas territories of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Ranging from Greenland to Gibraltar, the Falklands to the Faroes, and encompassing islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Caribbean, these territories command attention because of their unique status, and for the ways that they occasionally become flashpoints for rival international claims, dubious financial activities, illegal migration and clashes between metropolitan and local mores. Connell and Aldrich argue that a negotiated dependency brings greater benefits to these territories than might independence.

Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options

Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options
Author: Walter Leal Filho
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 1066
Release: 2020-02-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 3030374254

This book addresses the issue of climate change risks and hazards holistically. Climate change adaptation aims at managing climate risks and hazards to an acceptable level, taking advantage of any positive opportunities that may arise. At the same time, developing suitable responses to hazards for communities and users of climate services is important in ensuring the success of adaptation measures. But despite this, knowledge about adaptation options, including possible actions that can be implemented to improve adaptation and reduce the impacts of climate change hazards, is still limited. Addressing this need, the book presents studies and research findings and offers a catalogue of potential adaptation options that can be explored. It also includes case studies providing illustrative and inspiring examples of how we can adapt to a changing climate.

Environmental Transformations and Cultural Responses

Environmental Transformations and Cultural Responses
Author: Eveline Dürr
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2017-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137533498

This book explores the various ways in which different communities and peoples in Oceania respond to and engage with recent environmental challenges and concurrent socio-political reconfigurations. Based on empirical research, the book discusses topics such as belonging, emotional attachment to land, and new forms of environmental knowledge. The theoretical framework of the book is inspired by current debates among diverse conceptualisations of the environment and thus, of various ways of knowing, making sense of, and interacting with worlds. With this focus in mind, the book provides new insights into recent socio-cultural and environmental dynamics in the Pacific.

Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene

Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene
Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 2290
Release: 2017-11-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 012813576X

Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene, Five Volume Set presents a currency-based, global synthesis cataloguing the impact of humanity’s global ecological footprint. Covering a multitude of aspects related to Climate Change, Biodiversity, Contaminants, Geological, Energy and Ethics, leading scientists provide foundational essays that enable researchers to define and scrutinize information, ideas, relationships, meanings and ideas within the Anthropocene concept. Questions widely debated among scientists, humanists, conservationists, politicians and others are included, providing discussion on when the Anthropocene began, what to call it, whether it should be considered an official geological epoch, whether it can be contained in time, and how it will affect future generations. Although the idea that humanity has driven the planet into a new geological epoch has been around since the dawn of the 20th century, the term ‘Anthropocene’ was only first used by ecologist Eugene Stoermer in the 1980s, and hence popularized in its current meaning by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000. Presents comprehensive and systematic coverage of topics related to the Anthropocene, with a focus on the Geosciences and Environmental science Includes point-counterpoint articles debating key aspects of the Anthropocene, giving users an even-handed navigation of this complex area Provides historic, seminal papers and essays from leading scientists and philosophers who demonstrate changes in the Anthropocene concept over time

Dust Off the Gold Medal

Dust Off the Gold Medal
Author: Sara L. Schwebel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-08-23
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1000417638

The oldest and most prestigious children’s literature award, the Newbery Medal has since 1922 been granted annually by the American Library Association to the children’s book it deems "most distinguished." Medal books enjoy an outsized influence on American children’s literature, figuring perennially on publishers’ lists, on library and bookstore shelves, and in school curricula. As such, they offer a compelling window into the history of US children’s literature and publishing, as well as into changing societal attitudes about which books are "best" for America’s schoolchildren. Yet literary scholars have disproportionately ignored the Medal winners in their research. This volume provides a critically- and historically-grounded scholarly analysis of representative but understudied Newbery Medal books from the 1920s through the 2010s, interrogating the disjunction between the books’ omnipresence and influence, on the one hand, and the critical silence surrounding them, on the other. Dust Off the Gold Medal makes a case for closing these scholarly gaps by revealing neglected texts’ insights into the politics of children’s literature prizing and by demonstrating how neglected titles illuminate critical debates currently central to the field of children’s literature. In particular, the essays shed light on the hidden elements of diversity apparent in the neglected Newbery canon while illustrating how the books respond—sometimes in quite subtle ways—to contemporaneous concerns around race, class, gender, disability, nationalism, and globalism.

Tracking the Literature of Tropical Weather

Tracking the Literature of Tropical Weather
Author: Anne Collett
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2017-01-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3319415166

This book tracks across history and cultures the ways in which writers have imagined cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons, collectively understood as “tropical weather.” Historically, literature has drawn upon the natural world for its store of symbolic language and technical device, making use of violent storms in the form of plot, drama, trope, and image in order to highlight their relationship to the political, social, and psychological realms of human affairs. Charting this relationship through writers such as Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Gisèle Pineau, and other writers from places like Australia, Japan, Mauritius, the Caribbean, and the Philippines, this ground-breaking collection of essays illuminates the specificities of the ways local, national, and regional communities have made sense and even relied upon the literary to endure the devastation caused by deadly tropical weather.

Climate Change and Impacts in the Pacific

Climate Change and Impacts in the Pacific
Author: Lalit Kumar
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2020-01-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030328783

This edited volume addresses the impacts of climate change on Pacific islands, and presents databases and indexes for assessing and adapting to island vulnerabilities. By analyzing susceptibility variables, developing comprehensive vulnerability indexes, and applying GIS techniques, the book's authors demonstrate the particular issues presented by climate change in the islands of the Pacific region, and how these issues may be managed to preserve and improve biodiversity and human livelihoods. The book first introduces the issues specific to island communities, such as high emissions impacts, and discusses the importance of the lithological traits of Pacific islands and how these physical factors relate to climate change impacts. From here, the book aims to analyze the various vulnerabilities of different island sectors, and to formulate a susceptibility index from these variables to be used by government and planning agencies for relief prioritization. Such variables include tropical cyclones, built infrastructures, proximity to coastal areas, agriculture, fisheries and marine resources, groundwater availability, biodiversity, and economic impacts on industries such as tourism. Through the categorization and indexing of these variables, human and physical adaptation measures are proposed, and support solutions are offered to aid the inhabitants of affected island countries. This book is intended for policy makers, academics, and climate change researchers, particularly those dealing with climate change impacts on small islands.

Defending the Island

Defending the Island
Author: James Otis
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2018-05-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 3732686604

Reproduction of the original: Defending the Island by James Otis