This illuminating book provides an essential overview of the sociology of religion. Staf Hellemans explores the core concepts and rationales that have been developed since the discipline expanded in the West after 1960, shedding light on existing literature and future avenues of research.Hellemans surveys the debate on secularization, on whether, why and how the major religions of the world are in long-term decline. With a particular focus on Christianity, the book engages with the...

Drawing on recent research on the internal politics of the Belgian ecology parties, Agalev and Ecolo, this work demonstrates how political careers in contemporary social movements lead to activism in left-libertarian politics and influence political ideology. Beyond the European Left is the first comprehensive survey of ecology parties in Europe that presents detailed empirical information on the careers, organizational practices, and political beliefs of the activists involved.

This "must-read book describes in disturbing detail" how the energy industry has fueled a bogus controversy about manmade climate change ( Toronto Star).This book rips the lid off the campaign to discredit scientists, confuse journalists, and deny climate change. The tactics have been slick, but PR expert James Hoggan and investigative journalist Richard Littlemore have compiled a readable, accessible guidebook through the muck. Beginning with leaked memos...

As the U.N. moves closer to a new global warming treaty, it is time to examine the calls for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The health and welfare of humanity has benefited from access to fossil fuels, and any drastic move to limit that access must have extraordinary evidence to support it.While alternative energy technologies will increasingly be relied upon in the face of dwindling fossil fuel supplies, leading climate researcher Dr. Roy W. Spencer argues that the free m...

Global sustainability in the 21st century seems to be an elusive goal. There are too many issues, too many problems—and, increasingly, too many people—to make the major changes required in the time various experts tell us we have left before it’s too late.To create a sustainable future, we need to change the game itself. We cannot simply try to solve our problems one at a time. Instead, we need to reimagine sustainability in all its dimensions—social, cultural, environmental and ec...

As president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister was known for being a straight shooter, willing to challenge his peers throughout the industry. Now, he's a man on a mission, the founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, crisscrossing the country in a grassroots campaign to change the way we look at energy in this country. While pundits proffer false new promises of green energy independence, or flatly deny the existence of a problem, Hofmeister offers an insider's view of what's behind the ene...

The chemical pollution that irrevocably damages today's environment is, although many would like us to believe otherwise, the legacy of conscious choices made long ago. During the years before and just after World War II, discoveries like leaded gasoline and DDT came to market, creating new hazards even as the expansion and mechanization of industry exacerbated old ones. Dangers still felt today--smog, pesticides, lead, chromium, chlorinated solvents, asbestos, even global warming--were al...

“There are two problems for our species’ survival—nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, ” says Noam Chomsky in this new book on the two existential threats of our time and their points of intersection since World War II.While a nuclear strike would require action, environmental catastrophe is partially defined by willful inaction in response to human-induced climate change. Denial of the facts is only half the equation. Other contributing factors include extreme techniques for...

Why is the United Nations not more effective on global environmental challenges? The UN Charter mandates the global organization to seek four noble aspirations: international peace and security, rule of law among nations, human rights for all people, and social progress through development. On environmental issues, however, the UN has understood its charge much more narrowly: it works for "better law between nations" and "better development within them." This approach treats peace and huma...

An essential guide to sustainable development for students and practitionersSustainability is a global imperative and a scientific challenge like no other. This concise guide provides students and practitioners with a strategic framework for linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable development, and serves as an invaluable companion to more narrowly focused courses dealing with sustainability in particular sectors such as energy, food, water, and ...

Saving the world won't happen on the silver screen. In our fragile ecosystem, climate change is swiftly becoming the defining issue of how to prepare—and protect—the earth for the future.The climate change debate raged on in America in 2015, but the facts and the science now show irrefutably that our world is rapidly changing, and that irreparable damage has already begun. From rising sea levels to the spread of disease-carrying insects, from disappearing glaciers to the hottest tem...

This book explores environmental policymaking in Mexico as a vehicle to understanding the broader changes in the policy process within a system undergoing a democratic transformation. It constitutes the first major analysis of environmental policymaking in Mexico at the national level, and examines the implementation of forestry policy in Mexico's largest rain forest, the Selva Lacandona of the state of Chiapas.