Suchergebnisse

chapter Introduction: A Most Controversial Technology -- chapter 1 A Community of Scientists: Atomic Theory over the Centuries -- chapter 2 Government Mobilizes the Atom: War, Big Science, and the Manhattan Project -- chapter 3 Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Aftermath: From Total War to Cold War -- chapter 4 The Cold War and Atomic Diplomacy: Deterrence, Espionage, and the Superbomb -- chapter 5 Invincible to Vulnerable in the Age of Anxiety: Massive Retaliation, Fallout, and the Sputnik Crisis -- chapter 6 Too Cheap to Meter, Too Tempting to Ignore: Peaceful Uses of the Atom -- chapter 7 To the Brink in Berlin and Cuba: The Military-Industrial Complex and the Arms Race -- chapter 8 Nuclear Power versus The Environment: The Bandwagon Market and the Energy Crisis -- chapter 9 The Post-TMI World, Chernobyl, and the Future of Nuclear Power -- chapter 10 Pax Atomica—or Pox Atomica—at the End of the Cold War -- chapter 11 Proliferation, Terrorism, and Climate Change: The Atom in the Twenty-First Century.

As an essential resource, water has been the object of warfare, political wrangling, and individual and corporate abuse. It has also become an object of commodification, with multinational corporations vying for water supply contracts in many countries. In Precious Commodity, Martin V. Melosi examines water resources in the United States and addresses whether access to water is an inalienable right of citizens, and if government is responsible for its distribution as a public good. Melosi provides historical background on the construction, administration, and adaptability of water supply

pt. I. The age of miasmas : from colonial times to 1880 -- 1. Sanitation practices in pre-Chadwickian America -- 2. Bringing the serpent's tail into the serpent's mouth : Edwin Chadwick and the sanitary idea" in England -- 3. The "sanitary idea" crosses the Atlantic -- 4. Pure and plentiful : from protosystems to modern waterworks, 1830-1880 -- 5. Subterranean networks : wastewater systems as works in progress, 1830-1880 -- pt. II . The bacteriological revolution, 1880-1945 -- 6. On the cusp of the new public health : bacteriology, environmental sanitation, and the quest for permanence, 1880-1920 -- 7. Water supply as a municipal enterprise, 1880-1920 -- 8. Battles at both ends of the pipe : sewerage systems and the new health paradigm, 1880-1920 -- 9. The third pillar of sanitary services : the rise of public refuse management, 1880-1920 -- 10. The Great Depression, World War II, and public works, 1920-1945 -- 11. Water supply as a national issue : the federal government, expansion of service, and the threat of pollution, 1920-1945 -- 12. Sewerage, treatment, and the "broadening viewpoint," 1920-1945 -- 13. The "orphan child of sanitary engineering" : refuse collection and disposal, 1920-1945 -- pt. III . The new ecology, 1945-2000s -- 14. The challenge of suburban sprawl and the "urban crisis" in the age of ecology, 1945-1970 -- 15. A time of unease : the "water crisis" in an effluent society, 1945-1970 -- 16. Beyond their limits : decaying sewers, overflows, and foaming plants, 1945-1970 -- 17. Solid waste as "third pollution," 1945-1970 -- 18. From Earth Day to infrastructure crisis : forces shaping the new sanitary city -- 19. Beyond broken pipes and tired treatment plants : water supply, wastewater, and pollution since 1970 -- 20. Out of state, out of mind : the garbage crisis in America -- Epilogue

As recently as the 1880s, most American cities had no effective means of collecting and removing the mountains of garbage, refuse, and manure-over a thousand tons a day in New York City alone-that clogged streets and overwhelmed the senses of residents. In his landmark study, Garbage in the Cities, Martin Melosi offered the first history of efforts begun in the Progressive Era to clean up this mess. Since it was first published, Garbage in the Citieshas remained one of the best historical treatments of the subject. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes two new chapters that expand the discussion of developments since World War I. It also offers a discussion of the reception of the first edition, and an examination of the ways solid waste management has become more federally regulated in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Melosi traces the rise of sanitation engineering, accurately describes the scope and changing nature of the refuse problem in U.S. cities, reveals the sometimes hidden connections between industrialization and pollution, and discusses the social agendas behind many early cleanliness programs. Absolutely essential reading for historians, policy analysts, and sociologists, Garbage in the Citiesoffers a vibrant and insightful analysis of this fascinating topic.--

The emergence of the environmental justice movement in the 1980s has stimulated much debate on the extent to which race and class have been or should become central concerns of modern environmentalism. Leaders in the environmental justice movement have charged that mainstream environmental organizations and, in turn, environmental policy have demonstrated a greater concern for preserving wilderness and animal habitats than addressing health hazards of humans, especially those living in cities; have embraced a "Save the Earth" perspective at the expense of saving people's lives and protecting their homes and backyards. Some advocates of environmental justice have gone so far as to dissociate their movement from American environmentalism altogether, rather identifying with a broader social justice heritage as imbedded in civil rights activities of the 1950s and 1960s.

Incineration has too often been perceived as a potential disposal panacea rather than one of several disposal options that meet varying criteria. Rather than trying to explain its advantages and disadvantages vis-à-vis other methods, we should first attempt to determine under what circumstances incineration best serves what disposal needs. The historical trend lines from 1885—when incinerators first appeared—to the present suggest that, in practice, incineration has been most notably a niche technology. To measure its success or failure in terms of aggregate numbers in the total pool of disposal options is to insufficiently understand its function over time, as part of a more complex system of solid waste disposal affected by several variables, including economic, environmental, and regulatory externalities.

The pariah garbage barge on a two-month odyssey with 3,100 tons of unwanted trash drew throngs of sightseers and reporters Sunday as it anchored just outside New York Harbor while city officials decide its fate.The trek of the Mobro is well known. On 22 March 1987 the fully loaded garbage barge left Islip, New York, looking for a landfill that would take its unwanted cargo. Five states—North Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida—as well as three countries, Mexico, Belize, and the Bahamas, had banned the barge from unloading. Reluctantly, the captain turned the Mobro toward home, where it received an unceremonious, and dispirited, welcome.

Social scientists Lawrence J. R. Herson and John M. Bolland describe the connection between the city as government and the city as an urban place in terms of "rules that direct and constrain behavior on behalf of the collective good; services that make collective living possible; and money—raised through taxes—that pays the people who enforce the rules and provide city services."