Life as politics

Sample

Frank Ahlhorn

The southern coast of the North Sea is mainly protected by a single line of defence against flooding. The traditional means for heightening and strengthening the existing coastal barriers are limited due to the increased enormous resource costs, i.e. building materials, funding and space. On the other hand, further interests and needs such as tourism, nature conservation and agriculture demand an integrated planning process according to the principle of a sustainable coastal development. The spatial protection concepts discussed in the book provide new options for sustainable coastal development in line with the integration of several types of land use. Furthermore, the multifunctional coastal protection zones offer new opportunities for the application of different options for coastal protection, i.e. holding the line, accommodation or retreat. This book also provides a sound basis for an integrated planning process in coastal zones combining participatory methods with adapted tools from socio-economic and ecologic evaluation.

Sample

Gregory C. Reinsel

This book is concerned with the analysis of multivariate time series data. Such data might arise in business and economics, engineering, geophysical sciences, agriculture, and many other fields. The emphasis is on providing an account of the basic concepts and methods which are useful in analyzing such data, and includes a wide variety of examples drawn from many fields of application. The book presupposes a familiarity with univariate time series as might be gained from one semester of a graduate course, but it is otherwise self-contained. It covers the basic topics such as autocovariance matrices of stationary processes, vector ARMA models and their properties, forecasting ARMA processes, least squares and maximum likelihood estimation techniques for vector AR and ARMA models. In addition, it presents some more advanced topics and techniques including reduced rank structure, structural indices, scalar component models, canonical correlation analyses for vector time series, multivariate nonstationary unit root models and co-integration structure and state-space models and Kalman filtering techniques.

Sample

Heather Rogers

In Green Gone Wrong environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today's much-touted "green" producers - carbon offsets, organic, food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes - really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods for "clean" ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet? This narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis may be disastrously off the mark. Rogers travels the world tracking how the conversion from a "perro" to a "green" society affects the most fundamental aspects of life - food, shelter, and transportation. Reporting from some of the most remote places on earth, Rogers uncovers shocking results that include massive clear-cutting, destruction of native ecosystems, and grinding poverty. Relying simply on market forces, people with good intentions wanting to just "do something" to help the planet are left feeling confused and powerless. Green Gone Wrong reveals a fuller story, taking the reader into forests, fields, factories, and boardrooms around the world to draw out the unintended consequences, inherent obstacles, and successes of eco-friendly consumption. What do the labels "USDA Certified Organic" and "Fair Trade" really mean on a vast South American export-driven organic farm? A superlow-energy "eco-village" in Germany's Black Forest demonstrates that green homes dramatically shrink energy use, so why aren't we using this technology in America? The decisions made in Detroit's executive suites have kept Americans driving gas-guzzling automobiles for decades, even as U.S. automakers have European models that clock twice the mpg. This expose pieces together a global picture of what's happening in the name of today's environmentalism. Rogers casts a sober eye on what's working and what's not.--

Sample

Jocelyn Wills

Selling Earth observation satellites on their abilities to predict and limit adverse environmental change, politicians, business leaders, the media, and technology enthusiasts have spent sixty years arguing that space exploration can create a more peaceful, prosperous world. Capitalist states have also socialized the risk and privatized the profits of the commercial space industry by convincing taxpayers to fund surveillance technologies as necessary components of sovereignty, freedom, and democracy. Jocelyn Wills's Tug of War reminds us that colonizing the cosmos has not only accelerated the arms race but also encouraged government contractors to compete for the military and commercial spoils of surveillance. Although Canadians prefer to celebrate their role as purveyors of peaceful space applications, Canada has played a pivotal part in the expansion of neoliberal policies and surveillance networks that now encircle the globe, primarily as a political ally of the United States and component supplier for its military-industrial complex. Tracing the forty-five-year history of Canada's largest space company - MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) - through the lens of surveillance studies and a trove of oral history transcripts, government documents, trade journals, and other sources, Wills places capitalism's imperial ambitions squarely at the centre of Canada-US relations and the privatization of the Canadian political economy. --Dust jacket.