Environmental Crises in
Central Asia: From Steppes to Seas, from Deserts to Glaciers has just been
published by Routledge as part of its Studies in Environmental
Communication and Media series.
The editors are Professor Eric Freedman, the Knight Chair in
Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, U.S., and Professor Mark Neuzil of the Department of
Communication and Journalism at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, U.S.
The multidisciplinary book explores an
array of environmental challenges in a strategically crucial part of the globe,
including the impact of climate change on glacial melt, desertification,
deforestation, destruction of biodiversity, hazardous wastes, water quality and
supply, energy exploration, air and pesticide pollution, and environmental
diseases.
Those challenges cross national borders and
may affect economic, political and cultural relationships on a vast geographic
scale at a time when the region’s governments are burdened by limited economic
resources, weak civil society institutions and political authoritarianism.
The book emphasizes the reality that
environmental conditions don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re influenced by
science, politics, history, public policy, culture, economics, public attitudes
and competing priorities, as well as past human decisions. In the case of
Central Asia, such Soviet-era decisions include irrigation systems and physical
infrastructure that are now crumbling, mine tailings that leach pollutants into
soil and groundwater, and abandoned factories that are physically decrepit and
contaminated with toxic chemicals.
Thus it draws on research in the social
sciences, natural sciences, media studies and health by scholars and practitioners
in Central Asia, Europe and the United States.
