The great expansion of economic activity since the end of World War II has caused an unprecedented rise in living standards, but it has also caused rapid changes in earth systems. Nearly all types of natural capital—the world’s stock of resources and services provided by nature—are in decline. Clean air, abundant and clean water, fertile soils, productive fisheries, dense forests, and healthy oceans are critical for healthy lives and healthy economies. Mounting pressures, however, suggest that the trend of declining natural capital may cast a long shadow into the future. Nature’s Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital presents a novel approach to address these foundational challenges of sustainability. A methodology combining innovative science, new data sources, and cutting-edge biophysical and economic models builds sustainable resource efficiency frontiers to assess how countries can sustainably use their natural capital more efficiently. The analysis provides recommendations on how countries can better use their natural capital to achieve their economic and environ mental goals. The report indicates that significant efficiency gaps exist in nearly every country. Closing these gaps can address many of the world’s pressing economic and environmental problems—economic productivity, health, food and water security, and climate change. Although the approach outlined in this report will entail demanding policy reforms, the costs of inaction will be far higher.
The great expansion of economic activity since the end of World War II has caused an unprecedented rise in living standards, but it has also caused rapid changes in earth systems. Nearly all types of natural capital—the world’s stock of resources and services provided by nature—are in decline. Clean air, abundant and clean water, fertile soils, productive fisheries, dense forests, and healthy oceans are critical for healthy lives and healthy economies. Mounting pressures, however, suggest that the trend of declining natural capital may cast a long shadow into the future. Nature’s Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital presents a novel approach to address these foundational challenges of sustainability. A methodology combining innovative science, new data sources, and cutting-edge biophysical and economic models builds sustainable resource efficiency frontiers to assess how countries can sustainably use their natural capital more efficiently. The analysis provides recommendations on how countries can better use their natural capital to achieve their economic and environ mental goals. The report indicates that significant efficiency gaps exist in nearly every country. Closing these gaps can address many of the world’s pressing economic and environmental problems—economic productivity, health, food and water security, and climate change. Although the approach outlined in this report will entail demanding policy reforms, the costs of inaction will be far higher.
Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), whose academic name was Gioviano, was the most important Latin poet of the fifteenth century as well as a leading statesman who served as prime minister to the Aragonese kings of Naples. His Dialogues are our best source for the humanist academy of Naples which Pontano led for several decades. They provide a vivid picture of literary life in the capital of the Aragonese seaborne empire, based in southern Italy and the Western Mediterranean. This first volume contains the two earliest of Pontano’s five dialogues. Charon, set in the underworld of classical mythology, illustrates humanist attitudes to a wide range of topics, satirizing the follies and superstitions of humanity. Antonius, a Menippean satire named for the founder of the Neapolitan Academy, Antonio Beccadelli, is set in the Portico Antoniano in downtown Naples, where the academicians commemorate and emulate their recently-deceased leader, conversing on favorite topics and stopping from time to time to interrogate passersby. This volume contains a freshly-edited Latin text of these dialogues and the first translation of them into English.
This book presents the overall vision and research outcomes of Nano-Tera.ch, which is a landmark Swiss federal program to advance engineering system and device technologies with applications to Health and the Environment, including smart Energy generation and consumption. The authors discuss this unprecedented nation-wide program, with a lifetime of almost 10 years and a public funding of more than 120 MCHF, which helped to position Switzerland at the forefront of the research on multi-scale engineering of complex systems and networks, and strongly impacted the Swiss landscape in Engineering Sciences.
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