1.2.2 Offshore fragments of industry The rise of global factories in the 1970s owed much to the rapid improvement in transport and communications technologies which took place at that time and which made it possible to keep in touch with, and control, production processes in different parts of the world. Just as significant was the fragmentation of industrial production whereby parts of the manufacturing process could be relocated over vast distances. Sewing in garment and footwear production, for instance, was among the
Carol of Lights 2012 Timelapse
This is a timelapse video from the Carol of Lights 2012, taken from the roof of the Math Building at Texas Tech.
2.2 Economic valuation: towards ecological economics The blue whale could have supplied indefinitely a sustainable yield of 6000 individuals a year. This is one of the earliest references to sustainability in the literature, taken from the 1971 edition of the science journal Nature (cited in Senge et al., 2006, p. 45). Here, the blue whale is given instrumental value – a means of measuring not the survival of the blue whale for its intrinsic v
2.1 Accounting for the consequences of environmental harm The ethical tradition of consequentialism informs not only what matters from the perspective of caring for the environment, but also what matters from the perspective of accountability towards it. In eighteenth-century Europe, the actual environmental consequences of rapid economic development, triggered by the industrial revolutions taking place at that time, prompted an increasing concern for accountability. The most evident expression of this came with ideas of sustainable development
1.2 The influence of narratives and spiritual traditions In his 1974 publication Man’s Responsibility for Nature, John Passmore – an Australian philosopher who pioneered a concern for developing a change of attitude towards the environment – argues from an explicitly anthropocentric perspective. He suggests that the special ties between parents and children provide the basis for continual development of obligations amongst humans, which can then translate into a more responsible engagement with the environment. People normally ca
1.1 Entitlements and obligations Informal conversation with nature invokes intuitive ideas about human understanding and appreciation of value. The conversation develops practical ideas about how our entitlements affect our access to, and our relationships with, other constituents of the natural world. It also helps us to develop a sense of obligation towards the natural world. These less formalised aspects of responsibility are shaped by, and give shape to, the more codified rights and duties that provide guidance on our re
Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying Environment & Development. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.
4 Further reading For information on changes to flora, click on Science magazine. For changes to fauna, and economic effects, go to Information Sheet 4, or for the paper quoted at the top of the screen, Information Sheet 1, both at Climatic Research Unit. Click on the link below to open the data-smoothing information
2 A 4.6 billion-year history Climate change is a natural process of warming and cooling that has occurred all through the Earth's history. Throughout geological time there have been ‘hot-house’ periods and ice ages. In order to understand the current situation, it is necessary to have some sense of context and perspective, from historical and geological time-scales. The document below shows a chart showing a generalised temperature history of the Earth. Click on the link below to see the chart
1 Natural climate change? The chart below shows a record of the global mean surface temperature of the Earth compiled for the past 140 years. Clearly there is an upward trend, but what does a chart like this really show? 5.7 Emergency planning – the process Usually, when emergency plans are prepared the hazards already exist, and may have been there for some time. The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stores in the middle of many cities are a classic example. They ‘grew’ in the former coal yards adjacent to railways. Their presence may be accepted, whereas a new development with similar hazard potential might give rise to objections. In the preparation of plans, the phenomenon known as ‘agenda setting’ must be taken into account. This 3.2 Multiple causes Now we will explore multiple causes using an example familiar to us all – road accidents. The deaths of about 10 people each day on the UK's roads are less dramatic than, for example, the capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise, but one feature that links them both is the element of risk associated with everything we do – and even with inaction. We have just seen that many factors contribute to the risks which result from the inherent hazards associated with something we do. 5.1 Pollution and loss of biodiversity Unfortunately, halting the disappearance of species cannot be achieved simply by measures such as putting fences around special habitats and asking people not to pick the flowers or disturb the breeding birds. Many species are vanishing because of pollution. You probably have a good understanding of the meaning of this term, but it is variously defined. The Open University has a course on environmental control and public health, in which pollution is defined as the introduction into th 4.5 The Kew Gardens Millennium Seed Bank Appeal 4.3 Dutch elm disease Not all change is a direct result of human intervention. Sometimes changes can occur over which we have little control. One such example is the case of Dutch elm disease (so-called because most of the early studies of the disease were carried out in Holland, although the disease was first observed in France in 1918). The disease is caused by a fungus, Ceratocystis ulmi, that has the elm, Ulmus procera, as its only habitat and food source. Spores of the fungus are carried by the Engineering small worlds: micro and nano technologies 2.4.2 Dispersion in single-mode fibre Because there is only one mode in single-mode fibre, there is no multimode distortion but pulses are spread by dispersion. Dispersion is the effect of different frequencies propagating at different speeds, and there are various mechanisms in optical fibre which mean that in general a fibre is dispersive. Given that dispersion takes place, a transmitted pulse will be spread because different frequency components in the pulse will take different lengths of time to propagate. 4.4 Evaluate solutions If the obvious solution has been identified and everyone is in agreement, then a formal evaluation of solutions is unnecessary, and we would move on to modelling the design. However, if there is dissent then some stricter method of elimination is required, and this is usually achieved through a process of rank-ordering. There is little to be lost and potentially much to be gained by returning to the customer at this point for opinion, clarification or guidance. Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: view solutions as belonging to particular categories, broadly classified as: innovation by context; innovation by practice; routine see how external factors affect engineering projects, and appreciate the range of engineering involved in meeting the basic needs of our society recognise and apply a range of problem-solving techniques from each stage of the engineering design cycle, to include the fol Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce materia
How do you see the invisible? Today, mechanical, electrical, chemical and biological engineering of ‘small worlds’ is revolutionising our lives. Atomic Force Microscopes are an important tool when creating engineering solutions on the micro and nano scale. The 4 video tracks on this album examine the AFM's engineering and operation, explain how it can be adapted for a wide range of applications and describe its use in the life sciences and semiconductor industries. This material forms part o
