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As humanity presses down inexorably on the natural world, people debate the extent to which we can save the Earth’s millions of different species without sacrificing human economic welfare. But is this argument wise? Must the human and natural worlds be adversaries? In this book, ecologist Michael Rosenzweig finds that ecological science actually rejects such polarization. Instead it suggests that, to be successful, conservation must discover how we can blend a rich natural world into the world of economic activity. This revolutionary, common ground between development and conservation is called reconciliation ecology: creating and maintaining species-friendly habitats in the very places where people live, work, or play. The book offers many inspiring examples of the good results already achieved. The Nature Conservancy, for instance, has a cooperative agreement with the Department of Defense, with more than 200 conservation projects taking place on more than 170 bases in 41 states. In places such as Elgin Air Force Base, the human uses-testing munitions, profitable timbering and recreation--continue, but populations of several threatened species on the base, such as the long-leaf pine and the red-cockaded woodpecker, have been greatly improved. The Safe Harbor strategy of the Fish & Wildlife Service encourages private landowners to improve their property for endangered species, thus overcoming the unintended negative aspects of the Endangered Species Act. And Golden Gate Park, which began as a system of sand dunes, has become, through human effort, a world of ponds and shrubs, waterfowl and trees. Rosenzweig shows that reconciliation ecology is the missing tool of conservation, the practical, scientifically based approach that, when added to the rest, will solve the problem of preserving Earth’s species.

Biodiversity loss is one of the major resource problems facing the world, and the policy options available are restricted by inappropriate economic tools which fail to capture the value of species and their variety. This study describes in non-technical terms how cost-benefit analysis techniques can be applied to species and species loss, and how they provide a measure of the efficiency of conservation measures. Only when conservation can be shown to pass such a basic economic test, the authors claim, will it be incorporated into policies.

This System is Killing Us is an insider look at the catastrophic effects that energy infrastructure and mining are having on communities, their land and our planet. Xander Dunlap spent a decade living and working with Indigenous activists and land defenders across the world to uncover evidence of the repression people have faced in the wake of untamed capitalist growth.From Zapotec and Ikoot people struggling against wind energy projects in Oaxaca, Mexico to the violence of the Hambach mine in the German Rhineland, Dunlap presents the truth that lies behind the green re-branding of capitalism that social movements in the Global North have been slow to challenge.By centring the struggles of people whose lives are being systematically destroyed, Dunlap reveals blind spots within the current official debates around climate change. The book also speaks to the feuds between socialist modernism and degrowth. While changing public policy could play a constructive role in remediating climate catastrophe, by understanding the successes and failures of those 'on the front lines', it becomes clear that decentralised-and ideally viral-self-organisation could be the only way out of this socioecological nightmare.*All royalties from the book are being donated to the Stop Cop City Movement and Atlanta Solidarity Fund* 

As scientific and observational evidence on global warming piles up every day, questions of economic policy in this central environmental topic have taken center stage. But as author and prominent Yale economist William Nordhaus observes, the issues involved in understanding global warming and slowing its harmful effects are complex and cross disciplinary boundaries. For example, ecologists see global warming as a threat to ecosystems, utilities as a debit to their balance sheets, and farmers as a hazard to their livelihoods. In this important work, William Nordhaus integrates the entire spectrum of economic and scientific research to weigh the costs of reducing emissions against the benefits of reducing the long-run damages from global warming. The book offers one of the most extensive analyses of the economic and environmental dynamics of greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change and provides the tools to evaluate alternative approaches to slowing global warming. The author emphasizes the need to establish effective mechanisms, such as carbon taxes, to harness markets and harmonize the efforts of different countries. This book not only will shape discussion of one the world's most pressing problems but will provide the rationales and methods for achieving widespread agreement on our next best move in alleviating global warming.

Human well-being relies critically on ecosystem services provided by nature. Examples include water and air quality regulation, nutrient cycling and decomposition, plant pollination and flood control, all of which are dependent on biodiversity. They are predominantly public goods with limited or no markets and do not command any price in the conventional economic system, so their loss is often not detected and continues unaddressed and unabated. This in turn not only impacts human well-being, but also seriously undermines the sustainability of the economic system. It is against this background that TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project was set up in 2007 and led by the United Nations Environment Programme to provide a comprehensive global assessment of economic aspects of these issues. This book, written by a team of international experts, represents the scientific state of the art, providing a comprehensive assessment of the fundamental ecological and economic principles of measuring and valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity, and showing how these can be mainstreamed into public policies. This volume and subsequent TEEB outputs will provide the authoritative knowledge and guidance to drive forward the biodiversity conservation agenda for the next decade.

Protecting the unique plants and animals that live on Madagascar while fueling economic growth has been a priority for the Malagasy state, international donors, and conservation NGOs since the late 1980s. Forest and Labor in Madagascar shows how poor rural workers who must make a living from the forest balance their needs with the desire of the state to earn foreign revenue from ecotourism and forest-based enterprises. Genese Marie Sodikoff examines how the appreciation and protection of Madagascar's biodiversity depend on manual labor. She exposes the moral dilemmas workers face as both conservation representatives and peasant farmers by pointing to the hidden costs of ecological conservation.

In 2005, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provided the first global assessment of the world’s ecosystems and ecosystem services. It concluded that recent trends in ecosystem change threatened human well-being due to declining ecosystem services, a bleak prophecy which has galvanized conservation organizations, ecologists, and economists to work towards rigorous valuations of ecosystem services at a spatial scale and with a resolution that can inform public policy. This book provides an intensive and technical analysis of ecosystem services to date. A key idea which guides the science is that the modelling and valuation approaches being developed should use data which are readily available around the world. In addition, the book documents a toolbox of ecosystem service mapping, modelling, and valuation models that both The Nature Conservancy and the World Wide Fund for Nature are beginning to apply around the world as they transform conservation from a biodiversity-only to a people and ecosystem services agenda. The book addresses land, freshwater, and marine systems at a variety of spatial scales, and includes discussion of how to treat both climate change and cultural values when examining tradeoffs among ecosystem services.

\"Intrepid conservation detective story.\" -- Nature \"A lucid, informed, and gripping account...a must-read.\" -- Science \"Passionate...a heartfelt and alarming tale.\" -- Publishers Weekly \"Gripping...a well-told and moving tale of environmentalism and conservation.\" -- Kirkus \"Compelling.\" -- Library Journal  In 2006, vaquita, a diminutive.

If our oil addiction is so bad for us, why don't we kick the habit? Looking beyond the usual culprits-Big Oil, petro-states, and the strategists of empire-Lifeblood finds a deeper and more complex explanation in everyday practices of oil consumption in American culture. Those practices, Matthew T. Huber suggests, have in fact been instrumental in shaping the broader cultural politics of American capitalism. How did gasoline and countless other petroleum products become so central to our notions of the American way of life? Huber traces the answer from the 1930s through the oil shocks of the 1970s to our present predicament, revealing that oil's role in defining popular culture extends far beyond material connections between oil, suburbia, and automobility. He shows how oil powered a cultural politics of entrepreneurial life-the very American idea that life itself is a product of individual entrepreneurial capacities. In so doing he uses oil to retell American political history from the triumph of New Deal liberalism to the rise of the New Right, from oil's celebration as the lifeblood of postwar capitalism to increasing anxieties over oil addiction. Lifeblood rethinks debates surrounding energy and capitalism, neoliberalism and nature, and the importance of suburbanization in the rightward shift in American politics. Today, Huber tells us, as crises attributable to oil intensify, a populist clamoring for cheap energy has less to do with American excess than with the eroding conditions of life under neoliberalism.

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, withnogrowth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels-they are accelerating, dramatically-and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification. In this book Gus Speth, author ofRed Sky at Morningand a widely respected environmentalist, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe. Speth contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. Our vital task is now to change the operating instructions for today's destructive world economy before it is too late. The book is about how to do that.