Focusing on the struggles of minorities in the fight for clean resources and a healthy environment, this book explores the modern history of environmental injustices across the United States and Canada. It highlights significant events from Flint, Michigan, to Standing Rock, North Dakota, illustrating the ongoing challenges faced by marginalized communities in securing their rights to a sustainable environment.
The book explores the dual threats of nationalism and climate change, positing that humanity faces a dystopian future unless urgent action is taken. It highlights how rising global temperatures and nationalistic conflicts could lead to catastrophic outcomes. The author emphasizes that both issues stem from human innovation and stresses the necessity of collective human efforts to address these existential challenges.
The book delves into the hidden toxic legacy affecting Native North America, highlighting the numerous contaminated sites that have been neglected yet play a crucial role in the nation's industrial history. It reveals how these hazardous locations, including manufacturing plants and landfills, disproportionately impact Native communities, with about 40 percent of Superfund sites situated in these areas. By examining the implications of the 1980 CERCLA and the EPA's cleanup efforts, the narrative sheds light on environmental injustices faced by Indigenous populations.
Focusing on the scientific principles of climate change, this textbook draws on extensive empirical evidence to explain weather events that signify its evolution. It delves into significant topics, including political controversies and climate policy, while incorporating Native American perspectives. Additionally, the book explores potential solutions through policy recommendations and technological innovations aimed at addressing the challenges posed by climate change.
In this two-volume encyclopedia for general readers and students of all
levels, Bruce E. Johansen marshals scientific work on global warming into 300
articles presented in clear and understandable language.
Forty years after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, this important study examines the history, industrial uses, and harmful effects of the twelve most commonly used organochloride chemicals. All have been fully or partially banned by the Stockholm Protocol, an international treaty signed by about 120 countries in December 2000. Among the twelve are the dioxins (the active ingredient in Agent Orange) and polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs), which are toxic in minute quantities. Johansen pays special attention to the Inuit of the Arctic, where these chemicals have been bio-accumulating to dangerous levels, moving up the food chain to a degree of toxicity that some Inuit mothers are no longer able to safely breast-feed their infants. The polar stratospheric ozone has been devastated by emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and new scientific findings connect global warming near the Earth's surface to significant cooling in the stratosphere. This synergy aggravates ozone depletion because the chemical reactions that destroy the ozone become more energetic as temperatures drop. Synthetic toxins have taken their toll on minority ethnic groups in the United States, and persistent organic pollutants have inflicted physiological damage on humans and other animals. Finally, Johansen explores the estrogenic effects of such chemicals. Sperm counts have declined as much as 50% in 50 years.
