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An authoritative desk-top reference work for students of geography, the environment and sustainability, which through a series of 101 interconnected questions and answers spanning ten thematic sections, provides a comprehensive survey of humankind's impact on the global environment from the Late Stone Age to the present day

A New Ecology: Systems Perspective, Second Edition, gives an overview of the commonalities of all ecosystems from a variety of properties, including physical openness, ontic openness, directionality, connectivity, a complex dynamic for growth and development, and a complex dynamic response to disturbances. Each chapter details basic and characteristic properties that help the reader understand how they can be applied to explain a wide spectrum of current ecological research and environmental management applications. --

Three revolutions that shaped our planet -- A Scottish janitor and a Serbian mathematician discover Earth's hair trigger -- A "wise man" arrives -- The Goldilocks epoch -- Three scientific insights have changed how we view Earth -- Planetary boundaries -- Hothouse Earth -- Emergency on planet Earth -- Planetary stewardship -- The energy transition -- Feeding 10 billion people wihtin planetary boundaries -- Inequality is destabilizing Earth -- Building tomorrow's cities -- The population bomb defused -- Taming the technosphere -- A global economy within planetary boundaries -- Earthshot politics and policies -- The roaring 2020s: Four tipping points are converging -- Wise Earth.

The recent 10,000 year history of climatic stability on Earth that enabled the rise of agriculture and domestication, the growth of cities, numerous technological revolutions, and the emergence of modernity is now over. We accept that in the latest phase of this era, modernity is unmaking the stability that enabled its emergence. But we are deeply worried that current responses to this challeng are focused on market-driven solutions and thus have the potential to further endanger our collective commons. Today public debate is polarized. On one hand we are confronted with the immobilizing effects of knowing "the facts" about climate change. On the other we see a powerful will to ignorance and the effects of a pernicious collaboration between climate change skeptics and industry stakeholders. Clearly, to us, the current crisis calls for new ways of thinking and producing knowledge. Our collective inclination has been to go on in an experimental and exploratory mode, in which we refuse to foreclose on options or jump too quickly to "solutions." In this spirit we feel the need to acknowledge the tragedy of anthropogenic climate change. It is important to tap into the emotional richness of grief about extinction and loss without getting stuck on the "blame game." Our research must allow for the expression of grief and mourning for what has been and is daily being lost. But it is important to adopt a reparative rather than a purely critical stance toward knowing. Might it be possible to welcome the pain of "knowing" if it led to different ways of working with non-human others, recognizing a confluence of desire across the human/non-human divide and the vital rhythms that animate the world? We think that we can work against singular and global representations of "the problem" in the face of which any small, multiple, place-based action is rendered hopeless. We can choose to read for difference rather than dominance; think connectivity rather than hyper-separation; look for multiplicity -- multiple climate changes, multiple ways of living with earth others. We can find ways forward in what is already being done in the here and now; attend to the performative effects of any analysis; tell stories in a hopeful and open way -- allowing for the possibility that life is dormant rather than dead. We can use our critical capacities to recover our rich traditions of counter-culture and theorize them outside the mainstream/alternative binary. All these ways of thinking and researching give rise to new strategies for going forward.

Our species has transitioned from being one among millions on Earth to the species that is single-handedly transforming the entire planet to suit its own needs. In order to meet the daunting challenges of environmental sustainability in this epoch of human domination - known as the Anthropocene - ecologists have begun to think differently about the interdependencies between humans and the natural world. This work provides the best available introduction to what this new ecology is all about - and why it matters more than ever before

Preliminary material /Editors The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace -- Preface: THE NATURE OF PEACE AND THE PEACE OF NATURE /ANDREW FIALA -- INTRODUCTION: VIOLENCE AND NONVIOLENCE IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT /ANDREW FIALA -- RETURN TO EARTH: A NEW NATURAL PHILOSOPHY? /ANDREW FITZ-GIBBON -- REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE /MICHAEL ALLEN FOX -- ON WAR AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A PROPOSED REVISION IN THE ETHICS OF RESTRAIN /LLOYD STEFFEN -- NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF MILITARISM ON THE ENVIRONMENT /WILLIAM GAY -- A PHENOMENOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF HUMAN DWELLING /WENDY C. HAMBLET -- MORAL EXTENSIONISM AND NONVIOLENCE: AN ESSENTIAL RELATION? /SANJAY LAL -- ANTHROPOCENTRISM, CONSERVATISM, AND GREEN POLITICAL THOUGHT /MICHAEL HEMMINGSEN -- GUERRILLA GARDENING AS NONVIOLENT PRAXIS: EXISTENTIALIST ETHICS IN FOOD DESERTS /DAMON BORIA -- SLOW VIOLENCE AND THE ESCHATOLOGICAL CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE /JONATHAN McCONNELL -- RESOLVING SOCIO-POLITICAL CONFLICT IN AFRICA /SOLOMON AKINYEMI LALEYE -- SEQUOYAH AND SEATTLE: CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS /DAVID BOERSEMA -- THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: A NEO-ARISTOTELIAN PERSPECTIVE /ANDREW FITZ-GIBBON -- ABOUT THE AUTHORS /Editors The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace -- INDEX /Editors The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace.

Intro -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Preface to the Seventh Edition -- About the Companion Website -- Part I: The Past and Present -- 1: Introduction -- The development of ideas -- The development of human population and stages of cultural development -- Hunting and gathering -- Humans as cultivators, keepers and metal workers -- Modern industrial and urban civilizations -- 2: The Human Impact on Vegetation -- Introduction -- The use of fire -- Fires: natural and anthropogenic -- Some consequences of fire suppression -- Some effects of fire on vegetation -- The role of grazing -- Deforestation -- Secondary rain forest -- The human role in the creation and maintenance of savanna -- The spread of desert vegetation on desert margins -- The maquis of the Mediterranean lands -- The prairies and other mid-latitude and high-altitude grasslands -- Post-glacial vegetational change in Britain and Europe -- Lowland heaths -- Introduction, invasion and explosion -- Air pollution and its effects on plants -- Forest decline -- Miscellaneous causes of plant decline -- The change in genetic and species diversity -- Conclusion: threats to plant life -- 3: Human Influence on Animals -- Domestication of animals -- Dispersal and invasions of animals -- Human influence on the expansion of animal populations -- Causes of animal contractions and decline: pollution -- Habitat change and animal decline -- Other causes of animal decline -- Animal extinctions in prehistoric times -- Modern-day extinctions -- 4: The Human Impact on the Soil -- Introduction -- Salinity: natural sources -- Human agency and increased salinity -- Irrigation salinity -- Dryland salinity -- Urban salinity -- Interbasin water transfers -- Coastal zone salinity -- Consequences of salinity -- Reclamation of salt-affected lands -- Lateritization -- Accelerated podzolization and acidification.