Environmental issues along the United States-Mexico border. Drivers of change and responses of citizens and Iinstitutions

The US-Mexico border region illustrates the challenges of binational environmental management in the context of a harsh physical environment, rapid growth, and economic integration. Transboundary and shared resources and conflicts include limited surface water supplies, depletion of groundwater, air and water pollution, hazardous waste, and conservation of important natural ecosystems. Public policy responses to environmental problems on the border include binational institutions such as the IBWC, BECC and CEC, the latter two established in response to environmental concerns about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Environmental social movements and nongovernmental organizations have also become important agents in the region. These new institutions and social movements are especially interesting on the Mexican side of the border where political and economic conditions have often limited environmental enforcement and conservation, and where recent policy changes also include changes in land and water law, political democratization, and government decentralization

Food security and global environmental change: Emerging challenges

Most research linking global environmental change and food security focuses solely on agriculture: either the impact of climate change on agricultural production, or the impact of agriculture on the environment, e.g. on land use, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and/or biodiversity. Important though food production is, many other factors also need to be considered to understand food security. A recent international conference on "Environmental Change and Food Security: Bridging Science, Policy and Development for Adaptation" included a range of papers that embraced the multiple dimensions of the food systems that underpin food security. The major conclusion from the conference was that technical fixes alone will not solve the food security challenge. Adapting to the additional threats to food security arising from major environmental changes requires an integrated food system approach, not just a focus on agricultural practices. Six key issues emerged for future research: (i) adapting food systems to global environmental change requires more than just technological solutions to increase agricultural yields; (ii) tradeoffs across multiple scales among food system outcomes are a pervasive feature of globalized food systems; (iii) within food systems, there are some key underexplored areas that are both sensitive to environmental change but also crucial to understanding its implications for food security and adaptation strategies; (iv) scenarios specifically designed to investigate the wider issues that underpin food security and the environmental consequences of different adaptation options are lacking; (v) price variability and volatility often threaten food security; and (vi) more attention needs to be paid to the governance of food systems

A non-consequentialist alternative to economics

Providing an up-to-date synthesis of knowledge relevant to the climate change issue, this book ranges from the basic science documenting the need for policy action to the technologies, economic instruments and political strategies that can be employed in response to climate change. Ethical and cultural issues constraining the societal response to climate change are also discussed. This book covers a very wide range of disciplines – core biophysical sciences involved with climate change (geosciences, atmospheric sciences, ocean sciences, ecology/biology) as well as economics, political science, health sciences, institutions and governance, sociology, ethics and philosophy, and engineering

Geomorphology and earth system science

Earth system science is an approach to obtain a scientific understanding of the entire Earth system on a global scale by describing how its component parts and their interactions have evolved, how they function, and how they may be expected to continue to evolve on all time-scales. The aim of this review is to introduce some key examples showing the role of earth surface processes, the traditional subject of geomorphology, within the interacting Earth system. The paper considers three examples of environmental systems in which geomorphology plays a key role: (i) links between topography, tectonics, and atmospheric circulation; (ii) links between geomorphic processes and biogeochemical cycles; and (iii) links between biological processes and the earth’s surface. Key research needs are discussed, including the requirement for better opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, clearer mathematical frameworks for earth system models, and more sophisticated interaction between natural and social scientists