Mercury stories : understanding sustainability through a volatile element / Henrik Selin and Noelle Eckley Selin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Selin, Henrik, 1971- author.

Eckley, Noelle, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mercury--Environmental aspects.

Mercury.

Mercury industry and trade--Environmental aspects.

Mercury industry and trade.

Sustainable development.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Mercury offers an opportunity to trace a millennial-scale history of human interactions with an element whose use has both benefited and harmed human well-being in complex and interacting ways. The book develops and applies an analytical framework using the perspective of a human-technical-environmental system to learn from the long history of human mercury use and exposure, and to inform strategies--here done in story form--by which people can effect change towards greater sustainability"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Mercury elementary

Analyzing human-technical-environmental systems

Global human-technical-environmental cycling : chasing quicksilver

Human health : mercury's caduceus

Energy, industry and pollution : mercury, winged messenger

Assets and liabilities : mercury, god of commerce

Mining and sustainable livelihoods : mercury, god of finance

Sustainability systems : seeing the matrix

Sustainability insights : Earth "under pressure"

Sustainability champions : "we'll keep on fighting..."

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

0-262-35910-3

0-262-35911-1

OCLC:

1187208843