Renewable Natural Resources

Enormous in scope, this book presents in comprehensive and logical form the sum of our national knowledge about renewable energy resources. It deals with these resources in terms of opportunities and dangers, in terms of current availability and possible expansion, in terms of how natural resources relate to human resources and needs, and in terms of their replacement potential for nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels. It also puts domestic resources and needs into the context of international needs, supplies, and policies, emphasizing the issues facing an interdependent world and the urgent requirements perceived by countries less endowed than the United States. This is a handbook for the concerned citizen as well as for resource managers and policymakers at local, regional, and national levels. The analyses it contains underscore the fact that there are no easy answers: everything is part of an interlocking system, and every decision will affect multiple aspects of our daily lives and indeed our very existence. The authors emphasize the crucial importance of early planning, balanced management, and timely decisions, while suggesting that something more is required-a new ideology and a new educational approach.

Also of Interest -- Preface -- Renewable Natural Resources: Our Next Crisis or Our Next Opportunity -- Forces Shaping the Future of Renewable Natural Resources -- Why Effective Decision making is Currently Impossible -- Changing Values and the Environment -- Looking at Resource Trends Through a Population Lens -- A Perspective on Future Science and Technology and the Challenge of Renewable Resources -- Economic Forces -- Environmental Education -- Strategic Issues in Renewable Resources -- What Is an Emerging Issue? -- Forestlands and Rangelands -- Recreation, Fish, and Wildlife -- Environment, Land Use, and Land Management -- Air, Water, Weather, and Climate -- Energy -- Research, Technology, and Education -- Other Issues -- Turning Theory into Action -- A Futures Information and Monitoring System for Renewable Natural Resources -- An Integrated Perspective on Some Alternative Future Directions -- Implications for Legislative and Executive Branch Actions