Energy Environmental Visions For The New Millennium

No progress towards sustainable development is possible without the participation of informed and aware citizens and decision-makers. This book examines a dynamic sector – energy - and a space – city - that are critical for sustainability. Urban energy systems are capital intensive and have long lives. Immediate change is difficult, but innovation is crucial for progress toward more intelligent systems. Here is an informative guide for decision makers and citizens alike.

This book examines the sustainability of cities and regions and concludes that currently sustainability is not achievable. By identifying how cities and regions in the past have maintained or lost sustainability and how cities and regions of today might achieve sustainability in the future, it gives a clear definition, and an understanding of the true meaning, of sustainability provides a new conceptual framework for the assessment of the sustainability of cities and regions reveals what options are available for humankind to achieve or loose sustainability identifies research that will allow the systematic establishment of the appropriate indicators for sustainable development in cities and regions. Presenting a framework to guide and direct research in the measures needed to achieve and maintain sustainability, the book will be of considerable help to local authorities and political and government bodies responsible for establishing guidelines for the planning and monitoring of sustainable urban development. It will be of fundamental interest to ecologists, environmentalists, geographers, regional planners and urban designers, both in private practice and academia.

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At the dawn of the third millennium, planet Earth entered a zone of turbulence. The 2008 crisis added economic uncertainty to the threat of global warming and extreme events such as droughts, floods and cyclones, the persisting crisis of p- erty and the spectrum of pandemics and terrorism. Against this global landscape in an era of fragility, cities, already sheltering more than half of humankind, appear as Janus-faced realities, the best and worst of places, vulnerable but still full of hope and will to overcome the crisis of societal values and progress in the path of susta- able development. This book addresses the most critical challenges for cities, humanity’s collective masterpieces in danger, and analyses breakthrough responses for sustainable dev- opment, a globalisation with human face and the transition to inclusive post carbon communities. The ultimate wish is that experts, city planners, decision-makers and citizens in search of sustainable cities could find here some sources of information and inspiration to enhance the immense possibilities of cities and embrace the best possible trajectories of change.

This text addresses the use of innovative and eco-friendly techniques for energy production and for the management of the environment and its remediation.

"In Energy and Climate: Vision for the Future, McElroy provides a broad and comprehensive introduction to the issue of energy and climate change intended to be accessible for the general reader"--Jacket.