William Durham – författare

The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America is a timely examination of critical cases of land degradation, deforestation, and resource depletion in Central and South America. The contributors—seasoned researchers with years of experience in the regions they discuss—convincingly document the idea that the causes of environmental destruction have their origins in social relations, specifically the dynamics of social classes with fundamentally divergent interests. The conditions facing impoverished families on the one hand, and the granting of land on a concessionary basis to powerful individuals and corporations on the other, create incentives to extensive land use without conservation. The book thus refutes simplistic arguments that address environmental destruction as an outcome of population growth and suggests that advocacy for social equity is not merely an idealistic quest but an ecological imperative. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in development issues and should appeal particularly to anthropologists, sociologists, economists, demographers, and geographers.

Recent space missions to the outer solar system, Galileo (1996–2003) and Cassini-Huygens (2004–today), together with ground observations, have revealed that the moons of the outer solar system are enigmatic objects, introducing extraordinary challenges for geologists, astrobiologists, organic chemists, and planetologists. Chemical exchange exists through the different layers that form their interiors, and also from the interior to the surface. The most convincing evidence is certainly the discovery of water vapour and ice particles emerging from Enceladus’s active south polar region. Evidence for exchange with a subsurface liquid ocean has also been provided by the inference of hydrated salts on the surfacesof Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Ganymede, as well as the detection of sodium salts in particles originating in Enceladus’s plumes. Aqueous exchange with the rocky core may also be possible, considering that 40Ar has been observed in the plumes of Enceladus during one flyby of Cassini and in the atmosphere of Titan. The ongoing CH4 replenishment in Titan’s atmosphere is additional striking evidence of exchange processes within the moons.