Cover image for
Title:
Earth at risk : natural capital and the quest for sustainability / Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana.
Author:
Henry, Claude, author.

Tubiana, Laurence, author.
Publication Information:
New York : Columbia University Press, [2018]
Call Number:
HC79.E5 H463 2018
Abstract:
We are squandering our planet's natural capital--its biodiversity, water and soil, and climate stability--at a blistering pace. Major changes must be made to steer our planet and people away from our current, doomed course. Though technology has been one of the drivers of the current trend of unsustainable development, it is also one of the essential tools for remedying it. Earth at Risk maps out the necessary transition to sustainability, detailing the innovations in science and technology, along with law, institutional design, and economics, that can and must be put to use to avert environmental catastrophe. Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana begin with a measure of the costs of ecological damage--the erosion of biodiversity; air, water, and soil pollution; and the wide-reaching effects of climate change--and then consider the solutions that are either now available or close on the horizon that may lead to a more sustainable global trajectory. What community-driven or market-based tools can be used to promote sustainable development? How can renewable energy and energy storage advances help us decrease our use of fossil fuels? How can we substitute agroecology for the damaging chemical methods of industrialized agriculture? Is international agreement on climate goals possible? Henry and Tubiana tackle a range of urgent questions, emphasizing possibilities for-and obstacles to-implementation and action. Building on the experience of the most significant climate negotiation of the decade, they show what a world organized along the principles of sustainability could look like.
ISBN:
9780231162524
Physical Description:
x, 360 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Contents:
Introduction -- Erosion of biological diversity -- The ubiquitous waste and growing scarcity of water and soil -- Energy : as little as possible -- Perspectives on climate change -- Enlisting the scientific method -- Sustainability at the intersection of science and nature -- Scientific uncertainty, fabricated uncertainty, and the vulnerability of regulation -- Producing and disseminating sustainability-enhancing innovations -- Economic instruments for sustainable development -- Global governance of sustainable development -- The geopolitics of environment -- The new multipolarity of sustainable development -- Conclusion.
Added Author:
Personal Author:
Copies: