Subject: Technology & Engineering / Environmental / General

Subject: Technology & Engineering / Environmental / General

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The Extraction State

|9780822966760|A History of Natural Gas in America|The history of the United States of America is also the history of the energy sector. Natural gas provides the fuel that allows us to heat our homes in winter and cool them in summer with the touch of a button or turn of a dial—when the industry runs smoothly. From the oil crisis of the 1970s to the fall of Enron and the California electricity crisis at the turn of the century to contemporary issues of hydraulic fracking, poorly conceived government policies have sometimes left us shivering, stranded, or with significantly lighter wallets….

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Coastal Metropolis

|9780822946526|Environmental Histories of Modern New York City|Built on an estuary, New York City is rich in population and economic activity but poor in available land to manage the needs of a modern city. Since consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898, New York has faced innumerable challenges, from complex water and waste management issues, to housing and feeding millions of residents in a concentrated area, to dealing with climate change in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, and everything in between. Any consideration of sustainable urbanism requires understanding how cities have developed the systems that support modern life and the challenges…

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Far Beyond the Moon

|9780822946540|A History of Life Support Systems in the Space Age|From the beginning of the space age, scientists and engineers have worked on systems to help humans survive for the astounding 28,500 days (78 years) needed to reach another planet. They’ve imagined and tried to create a little piece of Earth in a bubble travelling through space, inside of which people could live for decades, centuries, or even millennia. Far Beyond the Moon tells the dramatic story of engineering efforts by astronauts and scientists to create artificial habitats for humans in orbiting space stations, as well as on journeys to Mars…

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Krakow

|9780822946137|An Ecobiography|Like most cities, Poland’s Krakow developed around and because of its favorable geography. Before Warsaw, Krakow served as Poland’s capital for half a millennium. It has functioned as a cultural center, an industrial center, a center of learning, and home for millions of people. Behind all of this lies the city’s environment: its fauna and plant life, the Vistula River, the surrounding countryside rich with resources, and man-made change that has allowed the city to flourish. In Krakow: An Ecobiography, the contributors use the city as a lens to focus these social and natural intricacies to shed new light…

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Beyond the Lab and the Field

|9780822946373|Infrastructures as Places of Knowledge Production Since the Late Nineteenth Century| Beyond the Lab and the Field analyzes infrastructures as intense sites of knowledge production in the Americas, Europe, and Asia since the late nineteenth century. Moving beyond classical places known for yielding scientific knowledge, chapters in this volume explore how the construction and maintenance of canals, highways, dams, irrigation schemes, the oil industry, and logistic networks intersected with the creation of know-how and expertise. Referred to by the authors as “scientific bonanzas,” such intersections reveal opportunities for great wealth, but also distress and misfortune.This volume explores how innovative technologies…

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