This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the human, social and economic aspects of science and technology. It examines a broad range of issues from a variety of perspectives, using examples and experiences from Australia and around the world. The authors present complex issues in an accessible and engaging form. Topics include the responsibilities of scientists, ethical dilemmas and controversies, the Industrial Revolution, economic issues, public policy, and science and technolo...

In this marriage of memoir and manifesto, Elizabeth May reflects on her extraordinary life and the people and experiences that have formed her and informed her beliefs about democracy, climate change, and other crucial issues facing Canadians. The book traces her development from child activist who warned other children not to eat snow because it contained Strontium 90 to waitress and cook on Cape Breton Island to law student, lawyer, and environmentalist and finally to leader of the Green...

Booker focuses his attention on the mother of all environmental scares: global warming.This original book considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history.Christopher Booker interweaves the science ...

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, a...

Witnessing at first-hand the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference and wondering what went wrong, Andrew Charlton realised the truth of a colleague's words: 'The world is split between those who want to save the planet and those who want to save themselves.'In this groundbreaking essay, Charlton discusses the rift that will shape our future- progress versus planet- rich versus poor. In recent times environmentalists have argued with mounting force that the...

Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge?This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the twenty-first century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the...

This book by two leading scholars offers the first systematic analysis of the relationship between globalization and the environment from the early Modern period to the present. Peter Christoff and Robyn Eckersley develop a broad conceptual framework for understanding the globalization of environmental problems and the highly uneven, often faltering, international political response. The authors develop linkages between economic globalization and environmental degradation and explore a ran...

In the first Quarterly Essay of 2006, Clive Hamilton throws out a challenge to Australia’s party of social democracy – to both its true believers and right-wing machine men. Will it be business-as-usual and creeping atrophy, or will the Labor Party find a new way of talking to individualistic, affluent Australia?According to Hamilton, Labor and the Left must acknowledge that the social democracy of old – with its strong unions, public ownership of assets and distinct social classes...

Every day, we are presented with a range of “sustainable” products and activities—from “green” cleaning supplies to carbon offsets—but with so much labeled as “sustainable,” the term has become essentially sustainababble, at best indicating a practice or product slightly less damaging than the conventional alternative. Is it time to abandon the concept altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure sustainability? If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best pr...

Welfare states vary across nations and change over time. And the balance between markets and government; free enterprise and social protection is perennially in question. But all developed societies have welfare states of one kind or another - they are a fundamental dimension of modern government. And even after decades of free-market criticism and reform, their core institutions have proven resilient and popular. This Very Short Introduction describes the modern welfare state, ex...

Capitalism likes us to believe in the steady, inevitable march of progress, from the abacus to the iPad. But the historical record tells of innumerable roads not taken, all of which could have led to better, more equal worlds, and still can.Academic and activist Bob Hughes puts flesh on the bones of the idea that 'another world is possible', using as evidence the technology that capitalism claims as quintessentially its own: the computer in all its forms.Contrary to popular...

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE... BANKING? DRUG REGULATION? NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT? PROSTITUTION? PENSIONS? It's no secret that a myriad of long-term problems facing our society are not effectively dealt with by our current system of government; indeed, many are simply set aside and disappear completely from the short-term political agenda. Why? Because they are 'too difficult' to solve. From immigration to welfare reform, from climate change to media regulation, the biggest issues consisten...