Overall Score:
| Target Readership | Sen secondary | For help with criteria, click here | ||||
| Presentation/Style |  |
|
|
|
|
|
| Content | |
|
|
|||
| Literature | |
|
|
|||
| Originality | |
|
|
|||
| Overall | |
|
|
|
|
|
Contents:
1 - Environmental responses: radioactive risks and uncertainty; 2 - Design for urban environments; 3 - Economic analyses and environmental responses; 4 - Environmental policies: society's capacity for political response; 5 - Climate change: global responses under uncertainty; 6 - Sustainable environmental futures: opportunities and constraints; Epilogue: environmental futures.
Review:
This is the fourth book in the series (see also Hinchliffe, Bingham and Morris) describing the ways in which environmental issues can be responded to. In this context there are two responses that can be seen: that of the Earth's processes reacting to changing circumstances e.g. enhanced global warming and the human reactions to that. The aim of this text is to show how these two can interact in given cases. What follows an introduction outlining these points are a series of critical studies illustrating these ideas. Our first case in the impact of radiation pollution in Cumbria following the Chernobyl reactor accident. To understand this we need to now how much radiation was received, what this means in terms of reactions by animals (sheep were the central concern during this time) and how it was dealt with (in this case, less than satisfactorily). The complexity of the Chernobyl incident was never in doubt and yet there were still matters that could have been handled better. Chapter two looks at urban design and the impact settlements have on the environment. The focus of the book is issue - problem - resolution which is translated here as growing global settlements - complex systems - urban design. Having set up the problem we are then shown a range of ways in which it might be managed. Chapter three turns to resource usage and how we might better manage our stocks. The reader is given two cases to examine: fish and water representing key current concerns. In both cases regulation is seen as necessary but this throws up other issues such as policing the system. The chapter also looks at international agreements and ethics showing that these issues are neither national nor purely financial but have a range of concepts and ideas embedded in them. Chapter four tackles the one issue that one might expect be answered earlier - politics. Given the central role of power and governance in addressing environmental issues seen in the cases presented here (a range of examples from throughout the EU) we are shown that even good ideas are not always enough. Chapter five introduces another key concept: risk analysis. Here the case is global warming. The authors present us with a number of ways of analysing the situation and show how and why problems can occur. The final chapter looks at the idea of sustainability and how it might (or might not) be able to operate. The focus is biodiversity with the aim of following Constanza's work on ecosystem services as a method of assessing the viability of a range of options.
This last book in the series has kept up the high standard of the others. There is the usual high quality of design that we expect of an Open University production. To help readers understand the text there are comments, activities and summaries. References (often to other books in the series) point to further work but without the range normally seen in texts thus giving those new to the subject a chance to broaden knowledge without being lost in a maze of reading. Overall the quality of both text and learning material is extremely high. This book and its companion volumes should be seen as essential reading to those learning more about environmental processes and responses.