A witty, readable, and highly original tour through the history of America's suburbs and cities to uncover the human impulses that keep sprawl spreading
Transhumanism is an international movement which anticipates humans developing posthuman capacities in the near future.This work provides an introduction to transhumanism and the ethical and philosophical issues raised by radical human enhancement. The book investigates these questions in a way that is timely and accessible to the non-specialist.
The chemical pollution that irrevocably damages today's environment is, although many would like us to believe otherwise, the legacy of conscious choices made long ago. During the years before and just after World War II, discoveries like leaded gasoline and DDT came to market, creating new hazards even as the expansion and mechanization of industry exacerbated old ones. Dangers still felt today--smog, pesticides, lead, chromium, chlorinated solvents, asbestos, even global warming--were already recognized by chemists, engineers, doctors, and business managers of that era. A few courageous individuals spoke out without compromise, but still more ignored scientific truth in pursuit of money and prestige. The Polluters reveals at last the crucial decisions that allowed environmental issues to be trumped by political agendas. It spotlights the leaders of the chemical industry and describes how they applied their economic and political power to prevent the creation of an effective system of environmental regulation. Research was slanted, unwelcome discoveries were suppressed, and friendly experts were placed in positions of influence, as science was subverted to serve the interests of business. The story of The Polluters is one that needs to be told, an unflinching depiction of the onslaught of chemical pollution and the chemical industry's unwillingness to face up to its devastating effects.
Secrets, Silences, and Betrayals is an invitation to readers to consider factoring in the often discarded or censored but useful information held by the dominated. The book's principal claim is that the unsaid weighs in significantly on the scale of semantic construction as that which is said. Thus, it legitimates the impact of the absentee in broadening and clarifying knowledge and understanding in most disciplines. In other words, just as exogenous epistemologies have underlain and explicated the basis for understanding diverse encounters-social, political, historical, cultural, literary, etc.-Secrets, Silences, and Betrayals challenges, from a pluridisciplinary angle, such highly dominant approaches to investigating the origin, nature, ways of knowing, and limits of human knowledge. It thus yields to the deontological basis to critically reexamine our understanding of the world around us. It is in this regard that the present volume points towards the need for human history to become a cumulative record and re-recording of every human journey and endeavor in life; it brings together disparate voices illuminating topical issues that would be or have been legated to posterity as nonexistent, partial, or half-truths.
Understanding the role of humans in environmental change is one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. Environmental narratives – written texts with a focus on the environment – offer rich material capturing relationships between people and surroundings. We take advantage of two key opportunities for their computational analysis: massive growth in the availability of digitised contemporary and historical sources, and parallel advances in the computational analysis of natural language. We open by introducing interdisciplinary research questions related to the environment and amenable to analysis through written sources. The reader is then introduced to potential collections of narratives including newspapers, travel diaries, policy documents, scientific proposals and even fiction. We demonstrate the application of a range of approaches to analysing natural language computationally, introducing key ideas through worked examples, and providing access to the sources analysed and accompanying code. The second part of the book is centred around case studies, each applying computational analysis to some aspect of environmental narrative. Themes include the use of language to describe narratives about glaciers, urban gentrification, diversity and writing about nature and ways in which locations are conceptualised and described in nature writing. We close by reviewing the approaches taken, and presenting an interdisciplinary research agenda for future work. The book is designed to be of interest to newcomers to the field and experienced researchers, and set out in a way that it can be used as an accompanying text for graduate level courses in, for example, geography, environmental history or the digital humanities.
Harmsworth. A remote, mist-shrouded island in the Russian Arctic. Archaeology Professor Callum Ross makes the discovery of a lifetime: a prehistoric ice mummy preserved for thousands of years by the sub-zero temperatures. Only, they didn’t die of natural causes...
It was in Italy that Janet Ross truly discovered her gifts for agriculture, food and writing. In this fascinating biography, Sarah Benjamin details Janet's passion for nature and food, uncovering a life shot through with talent, generosity, ideas, family secrets and intrigue.
An essential preparation book for the ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist examination, ACSM’s Resources for the Exercise Physiologist, 3rd Edition, is an essential volume for certification candidates and practicing Exercise Physiologists looking to boost their exam confidence and achieve success in practice. This updated edition is fully aligned with the eleventh edition of ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription and reflects the most current standards and practices in exercise physiology. Published by the American College of Sports Medicine, this practical resource is organized around the scope of ACSM-EP practice domains. A clear introduction to understanding exercise, physical activity, and pre-exercise screening opens the book, followed by thorough coverage of assessment and programming for healthy populations, assessment and programming for special populations, counseling and behavioral strategies for encouraging exercises, and legal, management and professional issues relevant to practice.
This report “Physical Chemistry: The Continuing Gifts of Prometheus” serves two purposes. The first, is to impart a living, joyous sense of the difference between mere money and true value. The qualitative nature of real human advancement is best seen in broad terms by looking at the changing use of fire, from which Prometheus says man “shall learn many arts.” From wood to coal to nuclear power, the platforms for activity provided by these power sources mark successive stages of human economic development. In this report, we will use the development of physical chemistry, whose origins stretch to the beginning of human prehistory, with the uses of fire to change materials, from the birth of metallurgy to today's semiconductors and nuclear science, to give an image of true physical value. The second purpose, is to sketch out the foundation for a human future based upon this concept of Promethean value. Value, which lies in what will be brought about in the future, can always be expressed in specific, wide-ranging goals. The specific goals that will measure the depth of our powers to develop will be covered briefly: the development of controlled nuclear fusion and theimplementation of continental water management. Reference is made to our previous Special Report: “Nuclear NAWAPA XXI: Gateway to the Fusion Economy.” Prometheus was a true non-mythical historical personality, who endured the wrath of the god Zeus for daring to bring “fire” from heaven to man (along with poetry, astronomy, and science in general). Though chained by Zeus to a rock to have the torture of an eagle devouring his liver every day, Prometheus was unawed by Zeus's power to punish him, and held him in utter contempt.The story of the Olympian god Zeus and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer is not fictional, not a piece of idle drama. Here we find the most pure expression of the fight that has dominated large-scale political and economic conflict throughout mankind's existence. We find the essence of the confrontation between an oligarchical outlook, in which some few rulers maintain capricious power over (preferably stupefied) masses, and the humanist outlook—in which the true identity of every human being as a potential genius is embraced and in which providing the opportunity (physical, moral, and emotional) for every individual to lead a functionally immortal life is the ultimate goal. “Every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.” Our exploration of the successful applications of this Promethean power will take us through four main fields, which can all be grouped under the general concept of physical chemistry. These fields are: metallurgy, the birth of modern chemistry, the world of electromagnetism, and the science of the nucleus. After our voyage, we'll be able to reach new conclusions. . . . “Though they had eyes to see, they saw to no avail.” What really matters? What matters to us of peoplefrom three millenia ago? Those who developed bronze or made their lives possible contributed something of unquestionably durable importance to human civilization, an evolution of the species: not a genetic evolution, but a super-genetic one. What do the lives of those who wasted their potential in dissipating pleasures mean to us today? What opportunity for long-lasting contributions are afforded to those subject to grinding poverty, unable, by their conditions of life, to develop their mental faculties? Truly, creating the conditions for the elevation of allmembers of the human race, to being meaningfully human, is the greatest of political goals, and the most noble aspiration for the life of any individual. This is the Promethean outlook, and it can no longer coexist with the oligarchical. — Jason Ross
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