I am Sumit Lodhia, a Professor of Accounting at the University of South Australia who has a primary research interest in sustainability accounting and reporting. Sustainable development is something that I am very passionate about, and I consider myself lucky enough to research in this area and to teach a course on this subject matter to third year undergraduate accounting students. I am a former resident of the beautiful Fiji Islands, and my lived experiences here and in my current country of residence, Australia, have shaped my worldview that focuses on equity, transparency, democracy, morality, and compassion.
I wrote...
Mining and Sustainable Development: Current Issues
I found this book to be an excellent read which conveyed the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to address this issue immediately. I watched Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and it was riveting. I noted that there was a companion book and read this as a top priority.
I found the book to be written in layman’s terms–making it quite an easy read for anyone to understand why addressing climate change is fundamental to our future survival on this planet. I came across this book while I was close to finishing my PhD thesis on sustainability accounting and reporting, and it reassured me that what I was doing as a PhD topic played a part, albeit small, in addressing one of the most critical challenges for mankind.
An Inconvenient Truth—Gore's groundbreaking, battle cry of a follow-up to the bestselling Earth in the Balance—is being published to tie in with a documentary film of the same name. Both the book and film were inspired by a series of multimedia presentations on global warming that Gore created and delivers to groups around the world. With this book, Gore, who is one of our environmental heroes—and a leading expert—brings together leading-edge research from top scientists around the world; photographs, charts, and other illustrations; and personal anecdotes and observations to document the fast pace and wide scope of global warming. He…
I found this to be a very informative book, which stated a simple but significant proposition–climate change impacts our future economic viability. While many texts have addressed climate change from a moral as well as a scientific perspective, the economic implications were not fully outlined.
As someone with a business background, more specifically an accounting background, I found this book very interesting, as I could use the arguments in it to justify why business needs to be involved in sustainable development.
There is now clear scientific evidence that emissions from economic activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for energy, are causing changes to the Earths climate. A sound understanding of the economics of climate change is needed in order to underpin an effective global response to this challenge. The Stern Review is an independent, rigourous and comprehensive analysis of the economic aspects of this crucial issue. It has been conducted by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the UK Government Economic Service, and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The Economics of Climate Change will be invaluable for all…
I found this book a significant contribution to the climate change debate at a time when the scientific consensus on climate change was not easily accepted by all. Written by an Australian, I found that this book provided a scientific explanation of climate change in very simple terms.
This was actually one of the first books that I read on climate change, and it opened my eyes to the seriousness of climate change and the scientific basis that provided evidence of climate change as a fundamental issue impacting future human survival on this planet.
Terrifying and inspiring, The Weather Makers is a page-turning epic that brings the most elusive and powerful of natural phenomena within our grasp.
Internationally acclaimed writer, scientist and explorer, Tim Flannery takes us on a journey through history and around the globe as he describes the wondrous diversity of the world's ecosystems and explains how 'the great aerial ocean' unites us. Along the way, we meet polar bears and golden toads, and travel from ocean depths to mountaintops, via desert, swamp and rainforest. Flannery reveals how the earth's climate has changed, across millennia and decades, and how the slightest imbalance…
I found that this is a book that answered the question of why addressing climate change is such a complex issue. Written by a philosopher whose writing I had found very difficult to comprehend in the past, it was a pleasant surprise that the book had a very simple and effective writing style.
I comprehended that various vested political interests have made addressing climate change a complicated process that requires extensive negotiation and many compromises to seek effective solutions.
"A landmark study in the struggle to contain climate change, the greatest challenge of our era. I urge everyone to read it." -Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America
Since it first appeared, this book has achieved a classic status. Reprinted many times since its publication, it remains the only work that looks in detail at the political issues posed by global warming. This new edition has been thoroughly updated and provides a state-of-the-art discussion of the most formidable challenge humanity faces this century.
If climate change goes unchecked, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic for…
I found this book to be the definitive guide to understanding why businesses need to address environmental issues. This was the first book on environmental accounting that I had read in 1998, and it started a whole research agenda on environmental/sustainability accounting, which has continued to this day.
I learnt a lot from the book in relation to the tools businesses can use to be accountable for their environmental impacts. Reading this book helped shape my career and has made me proud of my research area.
The original edition of Accounting for the Environment was the first comprehensive overview of a subject ranging from environmental management to sustainability, and its publication helped shape the developing agenda of environmental accounting. This long-awaited new edition integrates the major advancements that have occurred since - in both research and practice - resulting in a user-friendly text that provides a solid grounding in both environmental accounting and environmental management.
Environmental concerns are now of real importance to accountants because of the extensive range of business issues they impact upon, whether legislative or market-based, profitable or cost incurring. Accounting for the…
This edited book addresses contemporary issues that affect the sustainability of the mining industry. It has contributions from authors from developed and developing countries. The book addresses opportunities and challenges in relation to sustainable development for the mining industry. This book should be of interest not just to research scholars and students but also to practitioners, the government, other policymakers, and civil society.
This book covers a range of topics, including the changing role of minerals in society, the social acceptance of mining, due diligence in the mining industry, critical and contemporary debates such as mining and Indigenous peoples and transit worker accommodation, corporate sustainability matters such as sustainability reporting and taxation, and sustainability solutions through an emphasis on renewable energy and shared-used infrastructure.
I am a Harvard- and MIT-trained physician-scientist, and I am drawn to research problems that bridge the basic and the practical – how a better understanding of cells and tissues can inform new therapies for cancer and other diseases. As children, we are all scientists – mini-hypothesis generators trying to make sense of the world. I suppose I never outgrew that curiosity. My list of best science books credits writers who bring to life the excitement that comes from looking at the natural world in a new way, a spirit that I try to emulate in my own writing. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?
FROM ONE CELL is a dive inside the cell and its evolutionary prerogatives to explain how these "endless forms most beautiful," as Charles Darwin called them, come about. Along the way, we learn about the scientific process, filled as it is with serendipity, as the story is told through the eyes of the scientists who informed…
From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine
Every animal on Earth begins life as a single cell. From this humble origin, the nascent creature embarks on a risky journey fraught with opportunities for disaster-yet with astounding regularity, it reaches its destination intact. From One Cell illuminates this epic transformation-still one of nature's most mysterious feats-to show where we all come from and where we're going.
Through the eyes of the scientists unraveling the secrets of development, we see how all the information needed to build a human fits into a fertilised egg, and how the trillions of cells that emerge know what to become and where to…
