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A Declaration of Energy Independence, written by one of the country's top energy experts, outlines seven economically and politically viable paths to energy independence. It also answers the questions many Americans have been asking:

• How can we break the links between oil consumption, terrorism, and the war in Iraq?
• Will it wreck our economy if we deal with the tough issues of energy?
• Which new technologies can help get us out of our current energy predicaments?
• What kind of a president do we need to lead us to a better energy future?
• Should we be pessimistic or optimistic about our energy prospects?

Between rising oil prices, global instability, and environmental degradation, most Americans acknowledge the need for energy independence. Yet our political dialogue tends to focus more on rhetoric than substance, leaving citizens scratching their heads about what they and the country can do to break free from energy dependence.

A Declaration of Energy Independence takes a nonpartisan, honest approach to energy issues and answers fundamental questions like whether the price of oil will ever go down; whether global warming is a real threat; and whether ethanol and other biofuels make sense in the long run.

As the head of the Energy Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy from 1993 to 2000, where he oversaw the collection and dissemination of America's official energy data and analysis, author Jay Hakes had an exclusive, inside look at America's energy problems. Now, combining undisputed facts and solid science with historical and political context, Hakes offers his expert insight on the situation and presents viable solutions for a more stable political, economic, and military future for America.

America's addiction to oil isn't just a pocketbook problem; in fact, it represents a grave security threat with even greater long-term consequences than the Iraq War. Far beyond the rising price of gas, our oil addiction puts dollars in the hands of foreign despots and funds international terrorism. In addition, any severe disruption in the flow of oil can leave our military virtually crippled and unable to respond to crises around the world.

America can break out of the energy trap if we approach the issue honestly, intelligently, and with the political will to create a better future. A Declaration of Energy Independence offers a real-world look -- without the ideological blinders of the right and the left -- at how we got into this mess and, more importantly, provides effective solutions to get us out of it.

Additional information:

Jay Hakes has given testimony before congressional committees on more than twenty-five occasions and is currently head of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta.

View televised interview of author with CBS affiliate in New Orleans.

This book views global environmental problems as complex issues with a network of causes, influenced by a range of actors with differing priorities. In addition to discussing the main biophysical causes, the book will illustrate how socio-economic and political factors determine why and how people use land, resources and technology, and how this in turn affects natural resource management. With an increased interest in the causes and consequences of environmental problems, this book will meet the needs of upper level undergraduates and Masters students within departments of environmental science and geography, who want a book that tackles the complexity of environmental change.

What kinds of international institutions are best suited to dealing with global environmental problems? Why are women and indigenous peoples still marginalized in global environmental politics? What are the consequences of the global ecological crisis for economic and security policies? This book makes sense of the often seemingly irreconcilable answers to these questions. It focuses throughout on the tensions between mainstream strategies, which seek to build support for reforms through existing institutions, and radical critiques, which argue that environmental degradation is a symptom of a dysfunctional world order that must itself be transformed if we are to meet the challenge of saving the planet.

This book explores the contributions and challenges presented when scientific authority enters the realm of environmental affairs. The author focuses on four major areas of environmental politics: the formation of environmental values and attitudes, management of natural resources such as forests and fish, efforts to address international environmental issues such as climate change, and decisions relating to environmental and health risks. In each area, practical examples and case studies illustrate that science must fulfill two functions if it is to contribute to resolving environmental controversies. First, science must be relevant and credible, and second, it must be democratic, where everyone has equal access to the information they need to present and defend their views on given issues.

Bridging perspectives from science studies, history, and environmental science, this book not only illuminates the complex and increasingly problematic relationship between science and environmental politics, it offers guidance as to how this relationship can be improved.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the fundamentals of probability and statistical thinking. It introduces the logic and language of probability (Chapter 1), explains common statistical distributions used in ecology (Chapter 2) and important measures of central tendency and spread (Chapter 3), explains P-values, hypothesis testing, and statistical errors (Chapter 4), and introduces frequentist, Bayesian, and Monte Carlo methods of analysis (Chapter 5). Part II discusses how to successfully design and execute field experiments and sampling studies. Topics include design strategies (Chapter 6), a "bestiary" of experimental designs (Chapter 7), and transformations and data management (Chapter 8). Part III discusses specific analyses, and covers the material that is the main core of most statistics texts. Topics include regression (Chapter 9), analysis of variance (Chapter 10), categorical data analysis (Chapter 11), and multivariate analysis (Chapter 12).

The book includes a comprehensive glossary, a mathematical appendix on matrix algebra, and extensively annotated tables and figures. Footnotes introduce advanced and ancillary material: some are purely historical, others cover mathematical/statistical proofs or details, and still others address current topics in the ecological literature.

Contributors consider key-questions regarding soils and sediments and the relationship between soil- and sediment- dwelling organisms and overall ecosystem functioning. The book is an important new synthesis for scientists and researchers studying a range of topics, including global sustainability, conservation biology, taxonomy, erosion, extreme systems, food production, and related fields. In addition, it provides new insight and understanding for managers, policymakers, and others concerned with global environmental sustainability and global change issues.

Introducing the three core issues that are the focus of the new transdiscipline -- scale, distribution, and efficiency -- the book is guided by the fundamental question, often assumed but rarely spoken in traditional texts: What is really important to us? After explaining the key roles played by the earth’s biotic and abiotic resources in sustaining life, the text is then organized around the main fields in traditional economics: microeconomics, macroeconomics, and international economics. The book also takes an additional step of considering the policy implications of this line of thinking.

Various chapters enlist different scales of analysis to explore the manifestation and causes of global environmental risks in all the diversity of their regional expression. Throughout, the editors and contributors accord prominence to the vulnerability of people and places to environmental degradation. Understanding vulnerability is a neglected key to assessing the nature of the risks and determining strategies for altering trajectories of threat. Global risk futures, the editors argue, are not intractable, and are still amenable to a risk-analysis enterprise that is democratic in principle, humanistic in concept, and geared to the realities that pertain to the particular societies, locales, and regions that will ultimately bear the risk.