An objective, comprehensive, and accessible examination of today's most crucial problem: preserving the environment in the face of society's insatiable demand for energy. In Energy at the Crossroads, Vaclav Smil considers the twenty-first century's crucial question: how to reconcile the modern world's unceasing demand for energy with the absolute necessity to preserve the integrity of the biosphere. With this book he offers a comprehensive, accessible guide to today's complex energy issues—how to think clearly and logically about what is possible and what is desirable in our energy future. After a century of unprecedented production growth, technical innovation, and expanded consumption, the world faces a number of critical energy challenges arising from unequal resource distribution, changing demand patterns, and environmental limitations. The fundamental message of Energy at the Crossroads is that our dependence on fossil fuels must be reduced not because of any imminent resource shortages but because the widespread burning of oil, coal, and natural gas damages the biosphere and presents increasing economic and security problems as the world relies on more expensive supplies and Middle Eastern crude oil. Smil begins with an overview of the twentieth century's long-term trends and achievements in energy production. He then discusses energy prices, the real cost of energy, and "energy linkages"—the effect energy issues have on the economy, on quality of life, on the environment, and in wartime. He discusses the pitfalls of forecasting, giving many examples of failed predictions and showing that unexpected events can disprove complex models. And he examines the pros and cons not only of fossil fuels but also of alternative fuels such as hydroenergy, biomass energy, wind power, and solar power. Finally, he considers the future, focusing on what really matters, what works, what is realistic, and which outcomes are most desirable.

International Education at the Crossroads captures the essence and complexity of international education in an interconnected and globalized world. Written by leading scholars, international educators, and policy makers, the 26 essays in this volume take stock of the unpredictable landscape of international education and demonstrate why international higher education is more essential now than ever before. Responding to a timely global moment where education and international engagement are being redefined and practiced in new ways, the authors call for a reconsideration of paradigms and critical reflection of the entire field of international education. At the same time, the authors show how international education is an imperative for the future of learning and the world, and also, crucially, that this work cannot be done in a silo. International Education at the Crossroads offers readers a chance to join in the conversation that is as global as it is meaningful in communities, the lives of learners, and institutions around the world. International education requires that everyone the world over work together to produce new knowledge, to navigate the "crossroads," and to collectively chart the directions in which the field will move into the future.

This innovative volume introduces readers to a variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches used to examine the intersections of religion and migration. A range of leading figures in this field consider the roles of religion throughout various types of migration, including forced, voluntary, and economic. They discuss examples of migrations at all levels, from local to global, and critically examine case studies from various regional contexts across the globe. The book grapples with the linkages and feedback between religion and migration, exploring immigrant congregations, activism among and between religious groups, and innovations in religious thought in light of migration experiences, among other themes. The contributors demonstrate that religion is an important factor in migration studies and that attention to the intersection between religion and migration augments and enriches our understandings of religion. Ultimately, this volume provides a crucial survey of a burgeoning cross-disciplinary, interreligious, and global area of study.

Global Crossroads: Rethinking Dominant Orders in Our Contested World is an edited collection of papers mostly presented at the 2019 DEN International Student Conference. This publication is one of the many annual projects conducted under the umbrella of the Democratic Education Network (DEN) which came to existence in 2016 at the then Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster. Today DEN has expanded across multiple departments within the University’s School of Social Sciences, aiming to inspire engagement with communities and involvement in student-led projects. DEN aspires to be a platform for empowering students, offering them opportunities for personal, intellectual and professional development, and enhancing students’ engagement and experience. This book is an articulation of the students’ research and analytical work on some of the most pressing global issues of our times. It is, further, a product of their hard work and skills, developed through DEN, in editing and compiling academic publications — a testimony to DEN’s ability to encourage and empower students to work together and achieve remarkable results.

At the Global Crossroads explores the many facets of a globalised world economy. This collection ranges from discussions of the global economic challenges of the twenty-first century to the particular economic opportunities for Canada and Latin America; from recession in the globalised economy to humanitarian aid for people displaced by conflict within their own country. At the Global Crossroads provides valuable and significant perspectives on global issues that affect all of us. Sylvia Ostry is one of Canada's foremost public servants. She reached the rank of deputy minister of the Canadian public service at the age of forty-five and served with distinction in three different federal departments as well as directing the Economic Council of Canada. She spent four years as chief economist at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, and was appointed the prime minister's personal representative for the Economic Summit from 1985 to 1988. After leaving the public service of Canada, she became successively chairman of the National Council of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, chancellor of the University of Waterloo, and chairman of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, where she is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Munk Centre. The Sylvia Ostry Foundation was established in April 1991 by several of Sylvia Ostry's Canadian friends and admirers with the objective of sponsoring a major annual or biennial lecture in Canada on the global economic or financial system. At the Global Crossroads is a collection of the six lectures given to date. Contributors are Sadoka Ogata, from 1990-2000 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission; Michael Camdessus, managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 1987-2000; Renato Ruggiero, director general of the World Trade Organization from 1995-1999 and former minister of Foreign Affairs, Government of Italy; Enrique V. Iglesias, president of the Inter-American Development Bank; and Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

A grounded and instructive analysis of the ways globalization affects a border city. Every marker of social difference can be easily interpreted in the fashionable language of "borderlands"--and if so, as Victor M. Ortiz-Gonzalez reveals, the practical reality of the border region is often grossly misrepresented and its people woefully served. He argues that amid the tantalizing abstractions generated by the sweeping reconfigurations of globalization, people in cities like El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, on the U.S.-Mexican border, are actually living the gritty realities of a new world order. With descriptions of grassroots initiatives to confront the challenges and opportunities that NAFTA represents for the city, El Paso challenges us to acknowledge and address the conceptual and sociopolitical tasks of a world in which abstract representations and nonlocal interests override concrete situations. Ortiz-Gonzalez also provides an indepth analysis of groups such as La Mujer Obrera, Unite El Paso, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and their attempts to give local residents and workers more autonomy and power. Balancing ethnographic detail with precise theoretical insights, El Paso offers a compelling case study and a stirring call to understand both the conceptual challenge and the social urgency of the effects of globalization in local settings.