Uncertain Futures

Uncertain Futures
Author: Edmund Berger
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2017-02-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1785355015

Uncertain Futures: An Assessment of the Conditions of the Present provides a detailed look into the economic and political conditions of our present moment from a Marxist perspective. Key aspects of Marxist economic theory are illustrated in clear ways in order to provide an easy introduction to Marxist thought and their applicability. The book also examines the sluggish recovery from the Great Recession, in the context of the long-term feasibility of sustaining the capitalist system by placing it into a historical framework. It considers the necessity of social democratic reforms while calling for an anarchic re-invigoration of the politics of everyday life.

Environmental Modelling

Environmental Modelling
Author: Keith Beven
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2018-09-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1498717977

Uncertainty in the predictions of science when applied to the environment is an issue of great current relevance in relation to the impacts of climate change, protecting against natural and man-made disasters, pollutant transport and sustainable resource management. However, it is often ignored both by scientists and decision makers, or interpreted as a conflict or disagreement between scientists. This is not necessarily the case, the scientists might well agree, but their predictions would still be uncertain and knowledge of that uncertainty might be important in decision making. Environmental Modelling: An Uncertain Future? introduces students, scientists and decision makers to: the different concepts and techniques of uncertainty estimation in environmental prediction the philosophical background to different concepts of uncertainty the constraint of uncertainties by the collection of observations and data assimilation in real-time forecasting techniques for decision making under uncertainty. This book will be relevant to environmental modellers, practitioners and decision makers in hydrology, hydraulics, ecology, meteorology and oceanography, geomorphology, geochemistry, soil science, pollutant transport and climate change. A companion website for the book can be found at www.uncertain-future.org.uk

Uncertain Futures

Uncertain Futures
Author: Jens Beckert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2018-07-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0192552759

Uncertain Futures considers how economic actors visualize the future and decide how to act in conditions of radical uncertainty. It starts from the premise that dynamic capitalist economies are characterized by relentless innovation and novelty and hence exhibit an indeterminacy that cannot be reduced to measurable risk. The organizing question then becomes how economic actors form expectations and make decisions despite the uncertainty they face. This edited volume lays the foundations for a new model of economic reasoning by showing how, in conditions of uncertainty, economic actors combine calculation with imaginaries and narratives to form fictional expectations that coordinate action and provide the confidence to act. It draws on groundbreaking research in economic sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology to present theoretically grounded empirical case studies. These demonstrate how grand narratives, central bank forward guidance, economic forecasts, finance models, business plans, visions of technological futures, and new era stories influence behaviour and become instruments of power in markets and societies. The market impact of shared calculative devices, social narratives, and contingent imaginaries underlines the rationale for a new form of narrative economics.

The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting

The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting
Author: Anne Trubek
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1620402157

The future of handwriting is anything but certain. Its history, however, shows how much it has affected culture and civilization for millennia. In the digital age of instant communication, handwriting is less necessary than ever before, and indeed fewer and fewer schoolchildren are being taught how to write in cursive. Signatures--far from John Hancock’s elegant model--have become scrawls. In her recent and widely discussed and debated essays, Anne Trubek argues that the decline and even elimination of handwriting from daily life does not signal a decline in civilization, but rather the next stage in the evolution of communication. Now, in The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, Trubek uncovers the long and significant impact handwriting has had on culture and humanity--from the first recorded handwriting on the clay tablets of the Sumerians some four thousand years ago and the invention of the alphabet as we know it, to the rising value of handwritten manuscripts today. Each innovation over the millennia has threatened existing standards and entrenched interests: Indeed, in ancient Athens, Socrates and his followers decried the very use of handwriting, claiming memory would be destroyed; while Gutenberg’s printing press ultimately overturned the livelihood of the monks who created books in the pre-printing era. And yet new methods of writing and communication have always appeared. Establishing a novel link between our deep past and emerging future, Anne Trubek offers a colorful lens through which to view our shared social experience.

Future Imperfect

Future Imperfect
Author: David D. Friedman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2008
Genre: Technological forecasting
ISBN: 9780511423772

A Vast Machine

A Vast Machine
Author: Paul N. Edwards
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 547
Release: 2010-03-12
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262290715

The science behind global warming, and its history: how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere, to measure it, to trace its past, and to model its future. Global warming skeptics often fall back on the argument that the scientific case for global warming is all model predictions, nothing but simulation; they warn us that we need to wait for real data, “sound science.” In A Vast Machine Paul Edwards has news for these skeptics: without models, there are no data. Today, no collection of signals or observations—even from satellites, which can “see” the whole planet with a single instrument—becomes global in time and space without passing through a series of data models. Everything we know about the world's climate we know through models. Edwards offers an engaging and innovative history of how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere—to measure it, trace its past, and model its future.

Sustainable Thinking

Sustainable Thinking
Author: Rebekkah Smith Aldrich
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2018-01-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0838916953

This book will show you how to harness sustainable thinking to move forward with confidence into the unknown.

Adapting to Climate Change

Adapting to Climate Change
Author: Matthew Kahn
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2021-03-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300258577

A revelatory study of how climate change will affect individual economic decisions, and the broad impact of those choicesSelected by Publishers Weekly as one of its Top Ten books in Business and Economics for Spring 2021 It is all but certain that the next century will be hotter than any we’ve experienced before. Even if we get serious about fighting climate change, it’s clear that we will need to adapt to the changes already underway in our environment. This book considers how individual economic choices in response to climate change will transform the larger economy. Using the tools of microeconomics, Matthew E. Kahn explores how decisions about where we live, how our food is grown, and where new business ventures choose to locate are impacted by climate change. Kahn suggests new ways that big data can be deployed to ease energy or water shortages to aid agricultural operations and proposes informed policy changes related to public infrastructure, disaster relief, and real estate to nudge land use, transportation options, and business development in the right direction.

Revolutionary Power

Revolutionary Power
Author: Shalanda Baker
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1642830674

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, completely upending the energy grid of the small island. The nearly year-long power outage that followed vividly shows how the new climate reality intersects with race and access to energy. The island is home to brown and black US citizens who lack the political power of those living in the continental US. As the world continues to warm and storms like Maria become more commonplace, it is critical that we rethink our current energy system to enable reliable, locally produced, and locally controlled energy without replicating the current structures of power and control. In Revolutionary Power, Shalanda Baker arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. She argues that people of color, poor people, and indigenous people must engage in the creation of the new energy system in order to upend the unequal power dynamics of the current system. Revolutionary Power is a playbook for the energy transformation complete with a step-by-step analysis of the key energy policy areas that are ripe for intervention. Baker tells the stories of those who have been left behind in our current system and those who are working to be architects of a more just system. She draws from her experience as an energy-justice advocate, a lawyer, and a queer woman of color to inspire activists working to build our new energy system. Climate change will force us to rethink the way we generate and distribute energy and regulate the system. But how much are we willing to change the system? This unique moment in history provides an unprecedented opening for a deeper transformation of the energy system, and thus, an opportunity to transform society. Revolutionary Power shows us how.

Uncertain Future

Uncertain Future
Author: Mark Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2019-08-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000733513

In July 2015, eight parties – France, Germany and the United Kingdom, together with the European Union and China, Russia and the United States on the one side, and Iran on the other – adopted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the agreement, Iran accepted limits to its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Hailed by some as a diplomatic achievement, detractors – both in the US and the Middle East – saw the deal as overly lenient. In May 2018, US President Donald Trump announced that the US would cease waiving sanctions and withdraw from the agreement. This Adelphi book assesses that Trump’s decision was a grave error. Like any multilateral agreement, the deal was not perfect, but Iran had been honouring its commitments. Drawing on a deep understanding of the non-proliferation regime and technical expertise, the authors trace the emergence of antipathy to the JCPOA and set out how many of the politicised criticisms of the accord are demonstrably incorrect. They argue that the little-known Procurement Channel – established by the JCPOA to give Iran a legitimate route to procure goods and services for its now-limited nuclear programme – has been an effective check on Iran’s illicit procurement of nuclear-related goods. Moreover, this book demonstrates that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes are not intrinsically linked, as not all Iranian missiles are designed to be nuclear-capable. While the deal endures for now, its survival will ultimately depend on Iran.