Mark Carey

Climate change is producing profound changes globally. Yet we still know little about how it affects real people in real places on a daily basis because most of our knowledge comes from scientific studies that try to estimate impacts and project future climate scenarios. This book is different, illustrating in vivid detail how people in the Andes have grappled with the effects of climate change and ensuing natural disasters for more than half a century. In Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range, global climate change has generated the world's most deadly glacial lake outburst floods and glacier avalanches, killing 25,000 people since 1941. As survivors grieved, they formed community organizations to learn about precarious glacial lakes while they sent priests to the mountains, hoping that God could calm the increasingly hostile landscape. Meanwhile, Peruvian engineers working with miniscule budgets invented innovative strategies to drain dozens of the most unstable lakes that continue forming in the twenty first century. But adaptation to global climate change was never simply about engineering the Andes to eliminate environmental hazards. Local urban and rural populations, engineers, hydroelectric developers, irrigators, mountaineers, and policymakers all perceived and responded to glacier melting differently-based on their own view of an ideal Andean world. Disaster prevention projects involved debates about economic development, state authority, race relations, class divisions, cultural values, the evolution of science and technology, and shifting views of nature. Over time, the influx of new groups to manage the Andes helped transform glaciated mountains into commodities to consume. Locals lost power in the process and today comprise just one among many stakeholders in the high Andes-and perhaps the least powerful. Climate change transformed a region, triggering catastrophes while simultaneously jumpstarting modernization processes. This book's historical perspective illuminates these trends that would be ignored in any scientific projections about future climate scenarios.

Climate Change and Andean Society

In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers

René M. Stulz

Until about twenty years ago, the consensus view on the cause of financial-system distress was fairly simple: a run on one bank could easily turn to a panic involving runs on all banks, destroying some and disrupting the financial system. Since then, however, a series of events—such as emerging-market debt crises, bond-market meltdowns, and the Long-Term Capital Management episode—has forced a rethinking of the risks facing financial institutions and the tools available to measure and manage these risks. The Risks of Financial Institutions examines the various risks affecting financial institutions and explores a variety of methods to help institutions and regulators more accurately measure and forecast risk. The contributors--from academic institutions, regulatory organizations, and banking--bring a wide range of perspectives and experience to the issue. The result is a volume that points a way forward to greater financial stability and better risk management of financial institutions.

The Risks of Financial Institutions

Tony Atcherley

As far as we know, this is the first attempt to deal with Roehm's life as a whole. We have tried to give a more rounded picture of him than appears in most accounts of Nazi history, and to correct the stereotype, thoughtlessly repeated in much of the literature, of him as a mere Nazi thug. After the story of his early military life and heroic performances in world War One, we tell of the major part he played into he early Nazi movement, culminating in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. We discuss the relationship between Röhm and Hitler, and especially why the latter, with his antipathy to homosexuality and strong sensitivity to public feeling, should nevertheless have given Roehm high office. We go into the effect Roehm's homosexuality had on his plans for the S.A. and the Reichswehr, which brought him into conflict with the Generals and finally with Hitler. We have sought to correct the lurid descriptions sometimes given of his final hours, and end with a refutation of Hitler's declared reasons for murdering Roehm while acknowledging that he really had no other option than to get rid of him.

The Story of Ernst Röhm, Chief of Staff of the SA

Hitler's Gay Traitor

John J. Clague

Christian Huggel

Andreas Kääb

This edited volume, showcasing cutting-edge research, addresses two primary questions - what are the main drivers of change in high-mountains and what are the risks implied by these changes? From a physical perspective, it examines the complex interplay between climate and the high-mountain cryosphere, with further chapters covering tectonics, volcano-ice interactions, hydrology, slope stability, erosion, ecosystems, and glacier- and snow-related hazards. Societal dimensions, both global and local, of high-mountain cryospheric change are also explored. The book offers unique perspectives on high-mountain cultures, livelihoods, governance and natural resources management, focusing on how global change influences societies and how people respond to climate-induced cryospheric changes. An invaluable reference for researchers and professionals in cryospheric science, geomorphology, climatology, environmental studies and human geography, this volume will also be of interest to practitioners working in global change and risk, including NGOs and policy advisors.

Environmental Changes and Human Risks

The High-Mountain Cryosphere

Provides a definitive overview of the global drivers of high-mountain cryosphere change and their implications for people across high-mountain regions.

Mark Carey

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