The Impact of Climate Change on Our Life: The Questions of Sustainability

This book introduces the highly topical issue from many different angles, sensitizing readers to the various challenges to human life posed by climate change, identifying possible intentional and inadvertent anthropogenic factors and consequences, and seeking socially and environmentally viable solutions. The book begins by examining the impact of the climate change discussion on science, politics, economy and culture – from its historical origin in the first Club of Rome Report and  its inclusion in the UN's SDGs to the Paris Agreement and beyond. Comprising 12 chapters, it analyses the factors which caused the catastrophic 2014 Kelantan flood in Malaysia, focusing on the Kuala Krai district and discusses mud architecture in Wadi Hadramout, Yemen and mitigating the expected effects of climate change on this unique architecture and cultural heritage. It also examines the economic costs of climate change on health and the increased burden on individual expenditures and national health systems. The role of climate change in the water-energy nexus and efforts to increase efficiency in energy and water end-use to increase Queensland’s agricultural sector’s resilience in Australia is addressed, as is water security and climate change issues in developing countries and the potential of partnership procurement strategies for managing sustainable urban water supply in Nigerian cities.

It also includes a chapter offering a new approach to waste management, exploring to what extent waste can complicate our daily actions and influence environmental decay, and recommending that renewable materials be sorted and separated from other types of materials to avoid cross-contamination, to increase the value of the materials, and to ease the process of manufacturing. Subsequent chapters identify factors sustaining the municipal solid waste management and practices in Ajdabiya city in Libya, and look at accounting disclosure remedies by exploring areas in which sustainability reporting could expand beyond corporate environmental reporting to additional disclosures, curbing recklessness in pursuing merely economic goals. The book shows – from the perspective of agriculture – how human activities can increase the negative impacts of climate change on lifestyle in Malaysia, suggesting alternative lifestyles and encouraging international cooperative efforts. The last chapters evaluate the impacts of various environmental factors on the local tourism sector in Pakistan, and discuss strategies to tackle climate change, focusing on the opportunities and risks of climate engineering. Since these risks encompass inadvertent negative effects and targeted abuse for covert weather warfare and terrorism that violate the UN’s ENMOD convention, the author recommends viable alternatives to deal with climate change.

Abdelnaser Omran is currently working as a Visiting Scholar at Department of Risk Management and Insurance under School of Economics, Finance, and Banking at Universiti Utara Malaysia and he is also a permanent academic scholar under College of Engineering at Bright Star University in Libya. He has written widely on environmental engineering and waste management issues in Africa, Asia and Europe and he has also contributed many other publications in the field of project and construction management, sustainable development related issues, as well as risk management. So far, he has published more than 200 articles in international journals and proceedings papers at local and international conferences. Besides that, he has written seven books. Dr. Abdelnaser served as an international reviewer and an editorial member for quite a number of international journals, and he also served as scientific committee member for many local and international conferences and seminars.

Odile Schwarz-Herion studied law (major criminology) and economics, earned an MBA with specialization in industrial engineering from the Stuttgart Institute of Management and Technology (SIMT), and got her Ph.D. degree in economic sciences from the environmental department of the University of Hohenheim in 2005. Dr. Schwarz-Herion, who worked as sales engineer and Sustainable Development Consultant for large international companies, also acted as Keynote Speaker and Round Table Chairperson at international Sustainability Conferences. In 2011, ZAD-certified Detective and comprehensive state security license holder Dr. Schwarz-Herion founded Dres. Schwarz-Herion KG Detektei, an agency specialized in environmental crimes and White-Collar Crime. In 2015, Dr. Odile Schwarz-Herion joined the World Association of Detectives (WAD) and was elected as a designated Director to the WAD board in 2016. Schwarz-Herion is author and co-editor of several books and journal articles about SD, economics,international politics, and crime investigation.