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"Civilization, Western Forecasting."
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The collapse of Western civilization
The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization. In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called \"carbon combustion complex\" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.
eBook
The Retreat of Western Liberalism
An \"insightful and harrowing\" analysis of the state of Western-style democracy by the Financial Times columnist and author of Time to Start Thinking ( The New York Times ).In his widely acclaimed book Time to Start Thinking , Financial Times columnist Edward Luce charted the course of America's economic and geopolitical decline, proving to be a.
eBook
The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism
The Alchemy of Empire unravels the non-European origins of Enlightenment science. Focusing on the abject materials of empire-building, this study traces the genealogies of substances like mud, mortar, ice, and paper, as well as forms of knowledge like inoculation. Showing how East India Company employees deployed the paradigm of alchemy in order to make sense of the new worlds they confronted, Rajani Sudan argues that the Enlightenment was born largely out of Europe's (and Britain's) sense of insecurity and inferiority in the early modern world. Plumbing the depths of the imperial archive, Sudan uncovers the history of the British Enlightenment in the literary artifacts of the long eighteenth century, from the correspondence of the East India Company and the papers of the Royal Society to the poetry of Alexander Pope and the novels of Jane Austen.
eBook
Climate Models as Economic Guides Scientific Challenge or Quixotic Quest?
In the polarized climate change debate, cost-benefit analyses of policy options are taking on an increasingly influential role. These analyses have been presented by authoritative scholars as a useful contribution to the debate. But models of climate -- and especially models of the impact of climate policy -- are theorists' tools, not policy justification tools. Climate change is the quintessential \"wicked problem:\" a knot in the uncomfortable area where uncertainty and disagreement about values affect the very framing of what the problem is. The issue of climate change has become so resonant and fraught that it speaks directly to their individual political and cultural identities. Given their uncertainties, the value of climate models to the policy debate depends on the important difference between policy simulation (performed by scholars to gain insight in their discipline) and policy justification (where the same scholars or other parties produce evidence to support adopting a specific policy).
Journal Article
Trends of increase in western medical services in traditional medicine hospitals in china
Background
Compare changes in types of hospital service revenues between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospitals and Western-medicine based general hospitals.
Methods
97 TCM hospitals and 103 general hospitals were surveyed in years of 2000 and 2004. Six types of medical service revenue between the two types of hospitals were compared overtime. The national statistics from 1999 to 2008 were also used as complementary evidence.
Results
For TCM hospitals, the percentage of service revenue from Western medicine increased from 44.3% to 47.4% while the percentage of service revenue from TCM declined from 26.4% to 18.8% from 1999 to 2004. Percentages of revenue from laboratory tests and surgical procedures for both types of hospitals increased and the discrepancy between the two types of hospitals was narrowed from 1999 to 2004. For TCM hospitals, revenues from laboratory tests increased from 3.64% to 5.06% and revenues from surgical procedures increased from 3.44% to 7.02%. General hospitals' TCM drug revenue in outpatient care declined insignificantly from 5.26% to 3.87%, while the decline for the TCM hospitals was significant from 19.73% to 13.77%. The national statistics from 1999 to 2008 showed similar trends that the percentage of revenue from Western medicine for TCM hospitals increased from 59.6% in 1999 to 62.2% in 2003 and 66.1% in 2008 while the percentage of revenue from TCM for TCM hospitals decreased from 18.0% in 1999, 15.4% in 2003, and 13.7% in 2008.
Conclusion
Western medicine has become a vital revenue source for TCM hospitals in the current Chinese health care environment where government subsidies to health care facilities have significantly declined. Policies need to encourage TCM hospitals to identify their own special and effective services, improve public perception, increase demand, strengthen financial sources, and ultimately make contributions to preserving one of the national treasures.
Journal Article
On the study of foreign philosophy in Chinese cultural construction and its future
Since the \"Conference on Foreign Philosophy\" held in Wuhu in October 1978, the study of foreign philosophy in China has undergone a prosperous stage. This article discusses the significance of the study of foreign philosophy in the context of renovation, transformation and remolding of Chinese contemporary culture, explores the role of the discipline in the context of Chinese cultural construction, and anticipates the future of this discipline. A cross-cultural perspective is needed for a proper understanding of the significance of the learning and study of foreign philosophy in Chinese cultural construction; otherwise we might fall into cultural conservationism. Secondly, to make philosophy and social sciences prosperous is also a task for foreign philosophy studies, and whether or not foreign philosophy can be well studied should be a mark of the prosperousness of the construction of Chinese culture. Finally, philosophy is a product of human beings and should eventually serve human beings. Chinese culture should open itself up to the world and so should foreign philosophy studies in China.
Journal Article
Non-Heart-Beating Organ Transplantation
Non-heart-beating donors (individuals whose deaths are determined by cessation of heart and respiratory function rather than loss of whole brain function) could potentially be of major importance in reducing the gap between the demand for and available supply of organs for transplantation. Prompted by questions concerning the medical management of such donors-specifically, whether interventions undertaken to enhance the supply and quality of potentially transplantable organs (i.e. the use of anticoagulants and vasodilators) were in the best interests of the donor patient-the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asked the Institute of Medicine to examine from scientific and ethical points of view \"alternative medical approaches that can be used to maximize the availability of organs from [a] donor [in an end-of-life situation] without violating prevailing ethical norms...\"
This book examines transplantation supply and demand, historical and modern conceptions of non-heart-beating donors, and organ procurement organizations and transplant program policies, and contains recommendations concerning the principles and ethical issues surrounding the topic.
eBook
Producing Knowledge for Social Transformation: Precedents from the Diaspora for Twenty-First Century Research and Pedagogy
Study is conducted to examine the rationales and intended results of African Studies as a field, to identify the context that reveals critical gaps in the fields, explore the existing critical gaps, and identify historical predecessors whose practices already addressed present day gaps. Some of the ways are proposed by which these historical practices of the predecessors can be incorporated into African Studies curricula.
Journal Article
Other Futures
In Mike Nichols’s surprisingly literate filmWolf, a book editor, played by Jack Nicholson, is bitten by a wolf and turns into a werewolf with both predictable and unpredictable results. In western literature the werewolf and other ethereal villains of numerous horror films likeDraculahave been used as a metaphor for the darker side of humans, the natural animal within, which once unleashed is capable of untold savagery and demonic destruction. And sure enough, Nicholson’s werewolf, unable to control his lust for human flesh, sets off on an all too predictable murderous spree. At the beginning of the film,
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