Chapter 6 proposes how the three categories of the voiceless can be better protected in the Anthropocene era. Drawing on promising recent developments integrating the categories of the voiceless, the chapter proposes a unified approach that draws on the mandate of sustainable development to limit climate change impacts on all three categories of the voiceless. It includes an extensive discussion of the recent landmark climate change advisory opinions from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and International Court of Justice as additional support for the proposal. The chapter concludes with interviews with two of the leading environmental lawyers in the world – Tony Oposa from the Philippines and Hugo Echeverria from Ecuador – for their perspectives on recent developments in the protection of future generations and the protection of rights of nature and wildlife, respectively, and a discussion of the challenges and opportunities as the law evolves toward a more ecocentric focus.

We perform detailed analysis of the phonon modes, their dispersion, and symmetry analysis in a wide variety of minerals. We study both metallic and insulating minerals, with simple, highly symmetric structures or with large asymmetric unit cells. We compare minerals with topological similarities but different chemistries. We interpret dynamical instabilities.

Chapter 3 addresses legal developments concerning the protection of future generations. It reviews scholarly writing, foundational cases outside the climate change content, and strategic youth climate litigation developments in the United States and around the world. It also reviews how international law instruments address the protection of future generations, largely with merely aspirational language. The chapter explores the challenge the law faces in seeking to define “future generations” and how strategic litigation around the world has offered different classifications and legal theories in seeking to raise the law’s ambition in protecting these vulnerable populations from climate change impacts. The chapter also provides in-depth analysis of the foundational Minors Oposa case from the Philippines and examines how the legal theory from that case is reflected in recent strategic climate litigation seeking to protect future generations in the domestic courts of many nations with varying degrees of success. Building on Minors Oposa, the cases relying on constitutional rights-based theories to protect future generations’ interests have enjoyed the most success in the courts.

Chapter 2 is a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of the extant academic literature on gender and the global climate crisis. It begins with a section showcasing how the emphasis has largely been on women at the micro level, which often ends up portraying women as victims that need rescuing, thus habitually overlooking women’s agency. The subsequent section discusses in brief the concept of climate governance, before moving onto a discussion of the theory of representation. This section focuses on Pitkin’s (1967) typology of representation as well as extant research on the four dimensions of representation, whilst simultaneously outlining and anchoring the research questions upon which the book rests. The nine research questions cover a range of topics, including (but not limited to) the factors governing the success of female parliamentarians, gendered portfolios, leadership opportunities, the role of political parties, women representing women, intersectionality, and gender quotas.

Chapter 2 reviews recent landmark decisions in strategic climate litigation against governments and the private sector in courts and tribunals in the United States and around the world. Many of these landmark decisions occurred in domestic courts and relied on Paris Agreement commitments as leverage in lawsuits seeking to raise domestic governments’ climate governance ambition. Other cases focused on human rights theories in seeking to compel governments to enhance protection of vulnerable communities facing disproportionate burdens from climate change impacts. The chapter also addresses the groundbreaking proceeding and decision in the Carbon Majors petition before the Philippines Human Rights Commission.

We explore the origin of mineral colour and optical properties, including absorption, luminescence, and fluorescence. We examine crystal field theory within the context of electronic bands, providing insights into the underlying principles. Additionally, we discuss optical constants and address the challenge of determining the optical gap.

The topic of chapter 6 is unequal representation with particular emphasis on intersecting identities, voice and agency. The chapter digs deeper into the issue of policy priorities with a view to uncover who — and to some extent also what issues — female parliamentarians in the region represent as well as the reasoning behind their choices, not based on voting patterns as has traditionally been the case in such analyses, but anchored in personal narratives. The chapter accordingly explores the quality of representation (symbolic, descriptive and substantive) and helps us gain an understanding of which women and policy areas are represented, and which are underrepresented in politics at the national level, something which has very significant implications for not only climate change mitigation, but also adaptation and impacts. As the analysis progresses, it becomes clear that the female parliamentarians in the MENA tend to represent ‘people like me’, a reality which poses a serious problem for the quality of women’s representation, because the majority of women are simply not represented in earnest.

We treat the crystalline structure as a vibrating ensemble. The energy is expressed as a Taylor series, whose different terms correspond to various physical properties. The solution is provided using perturbation theory.

Chapter 5 examines constitutional, legislative, and judicial developments in protecting the rights of nature in the United States and around the world. While significant progress has been made in advancing the rights of nature, there is an evolving backlash movement that has sought to declare such efforts unconstitutional. In the United States, rights of nature initiatives have been successfully implemented in many Indigenous communities and at the local government level, though some states have invalidated or are seeking to invalidate local rights of nature protections. The chapter provides an in-depth exploration of nations that have implemented rights of nature measures in their constitutions, legislation, and case law. Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia have been leaders in Latin America in promoting rights of nature protections. The chapter also compares New Zealand’s leadership on rights of nature measures with Australia’s challenges in making progress in this space. The chapter concludes with summaries of leading International Rights of Nature Tribunal decisions from various countries, with a focus on rights of nature analysis in the context of climate change challenges.

Starting from the phonon density of states, we first derive the contribution of the lattice to the thermodynamic properties. Then we treat the response of the structure and energy to strains and thus derive the elastic constants tensor, as well as its associated properties. We explain the mass-dependent isotope fractionation starting from the analysis of the phonons.

We comprehensively analyse different aspects of electronic properties, including the electron density, the band structure, the density of states, atomic charges, differences between metals and insulators, and so on. Numerous real-world examples facilitate understanding, equipping readers with the knowledge to interpret and apply these properties effectively in computational mineral physics.