In the late sixties, as the world was waking to a need for Earth Day, a pioneering group founded a small non-profit research and education organization they called the New Alchemy Institute. Their aim was to explore the ways a safer and more sustainable world could be created. In the ensuing years, along with scientists, agriculturists, and a host of enthusiastic amateurs and friends, they set out to discover new ways that basic human needs—in the form of food, shelter, and energy—could be met. A Safe and Sustainable World is the story of that journey, as it was and as it continues to be.
The dynamics and the resilience of the living world were the Institute's model and the inspiration for their research. Central to their efforts then and now is, along with science, a spiritual quest for a more harmonious human role in our planet's future. The results of this work have now entered mainstream science through the emerging discipline of ecological design.
Nancy Jack Todd not only relates a fascinating journey from lofty ideals through the hard realities encountered in learning how to actually grow food, harness the energy of the sun and wind, and design green architecture. She also introduces us to some of the heroes and mentors who played a vital role in those efforts as well, from Buckminster Fuller to Margaret Mead. The early work of the Institute culminated in the design and building of two bioshelters—large greenhouse-like independent structures called Arks, that provided the setting for much of the research to follow.
Successfully proving through the Institute's designs and investigations that basic land sustainability is achievable, John Todd and the author founded a second non-profit research group, Ocean Arks International. Here they applied the New Alchemy's natural systems thinking to restoring polluted waters with the invention and implementation of biologically based living technologies called Ecomachines and Pond and Lake Restorers. A Safe and Sustainable World demonstrates what has and can be done--it also looks to what must be done to integrate human ingenuity and the four billion or so years of evolutionary intelligence of the natural world into healthy, decentralized, locally dreams hard won--and hope.
"Fundamentally, the salmon's decline has been the consequence of a vision based on flawed assumptions and unchallenged myths.... We assumed we could control the biological productivity of salmon and 'improve' upon natural processes that we didn't even try to understand. We assumed we could have salmon without rivers." --from the introduction
From a mountain top where an eagle carries a salmon carcass to feed its young to the distant oceanic waters of the California current and the Alaskan Gyre, salmon have penetrated the Northwest to an extent unmatched by any other animal. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the natural productivity of salmon in Oregon, Washington, California, and Idaho has declined by eighty percent. The decline of Pacific salmon to the brink of extinction is a clear sign of serious problems in the region.
In Salmon Without Rivers, fisheries biologist Jim Lichatowich offers an eye-opening look at the roots and evolution of the salmon crisis in the Pacific Northwest. He describes the multitude of factors over the past century and a half that have led to the salmon's decline, and examines in depth the abject failure of restoration efforts that have focused almost exclusively on hatcheries to return salmon stocks to healthy levels without addressing the underlying causes of the decline. The book:
Throughout, Lichatowich argues that the dominant worldview of our society -- a worldview that denies connections between humans and the natural world -- has created the conflict and controversy that characterize the recent history of salmon; unless that worldview is challenged and changed, there is little hope for recovery. Salmon Without Rivers exposes the myths that have guided recent human-salmon interactions. It clearly explains the difficult choices facing the citizens of the region, and provides unique insight into one of the most tragic chapters in our nation's environmental history.
Information regarding population status and abundance of rare species plays a key role in resource management decisions. Ideally, data should be collected using statistically sound sampling methods, but by their very nature, rare or elusive species pose a difficult sampling challenge.
Sampling Rare or Elusive Species describes the latest sampling designs and survey methods for reliably estimating occupancy, abundance, and other population parameters of rare, elusive, or otherwise hard-to-detect plants and animals. It offers a mixture of theory and application, with actual examples from terrestrial, aquatic, and marine habitats around the world.
Sampling Rare or Elusive Species is the first volume devoted entirely to this topic and provides natural resource professionals with a suite of innovative approaches to gathering population status and trend data. It represents an invaluable reference for natural resource professionals around the world, including fish and wildlife biologists, ecologists, biometricians, natural resource managers, and all others whose work or research involves rare or elusive species.
The research paper "Extinction Risk from Climate Change" published in the journal Nature in January 2004 created front-page headlines around the world. The notion that climate change could drive more than a million species to extinction captured both the popular imagination and the attention of policy-makers, and provoked an unprecedented round of scientific critique.
Saving a Million Species reconsiders the central question of that paper: How many species may perish as a result of climate change and associated threats? Leaders from a range of disciplines synthesize the literature, refine the original estimates, and elaborate the conservation and policy implications.
The book:
Saving a Million Species offers a clear explanation of the science behind the headline-grabbing estimates for conservationists, researchers, teachers, students, and policy-makers. It is a critical resource for helping those working to conserve biodiversity take on the rapidly advancing and evolving global stressor of climate change-the most important issue in conservation biology today, and the one for which we are least prepared.
Saving All the Parts is a journalist's exploration of the intertwining of endangered species protection and the economic future of resource dependent communities -- those with local economies based on fishing, logging, ranching, mining, and other resource intensive industries. Rocky Barker presents an insightful overview of current endangered species controversies and a comprehensive look at the wide-ranging implications of human activities.
The book analyzes trends in natural resource management, land use planning, and economic development that can lead to a future where economic activity can be sustained without the loss of essential natural values. Throughout, Barker provides a thorough and balanced analysis of both the ecological and economic forces that affect the lives and livelihoods of the nation's inhabitants -- both human and animal.
Written by two leading conservation biologists, Saving Nature's Legacy is a thorough and readable introduction to issues of land management and conservation biology. It presents a broad, land-based approach to biodiversity conservation in the United States, with the authors succinctly translating principles, techniques, and findings of the ecological sciences into an accessible and practical plan for action.
After laying the groundwork for biodiversity conservation -- what biodiversity is, why it is important, its status in North America -- Noss and Cooperrider consider the strengths and limitations of past and current approaches to land management. They then present the framework for a bold new strategy, with explicit guidelines on:
Broad-scale conservation of habitats is increasingly being recognized as a more effective means of protecting species and landscapes than single-species preservation efforts. While interest in the approach has grown tremendously in recent years, it remains controversial and the science behind it has yet to be fully developed.
In The Science of Conservation Planning, three of the nation's leading conservation biologists explore the role of the scientist in the planning process and present a framework and guidelines for applying science to regional habitat-based conservation planning. Chapters consider: history and background of conservation planning efforts criticisms of science in conservation planning principles of conservation biology that apply to conservation planning detailed examination of conservation plans specific recommendations for all parties involved.
The recommendations, interpretations, and questions provided are thoroughly based in the science of conservation biology, and the framework presented is adaptable to allow for revision and improvement as knowledge is gained and theories refined. The Science of Conservation Planning will serve as a model for the application of conservation biology to real-life problems, and can lead to the development of scientifically and politically sound plans that are likely to achieve their conservation goals, even in cases where biological and ecological information is limited.
The book is essential for scientists at all levels, including agency biologists, academic scientists, environmental consultants, and scientists employed by industry and conservation groups. It is also a valuable resource for elected officials and their staffs, environmentalists, developers, students, and citizen activists involved with the complex and contentious arena of conservation planning.
In 1988, forest fires raged in Yellowstone National Park, destroying more than a million acres. As the nation watched the land around Old Faithful burn, a longstanding conflict over fire management reached a fever pitch. Should the U.S. Park and Forest Services suppress fires immediately or allow some to run their natural course? When should firefighters be sent to battle the flames and at what cost?
In Scorched Earth, Barker, an environmental reporter who was on the ground and in the smoke during the 1988 fires, shows us that many of today's arguments over fire and the nature of public land began to take shape soon after the Civil War. As Barker explains, how the government responded to early fires in Yellowstone and to private investors in the region led ultimately to the protection of 600 million acres of public lands in the United States. Barker uses his considerable narrative talents to bring to life a fascinating, but often neglected, piece of American history. Scorched Earth lays a new foundation for examining current fire and environmental policies in America and the world.
Our story begins when the West was yet to be won, with a colorful cast of characters: a civil war general and his soldiers, America's first investment banker, railroad men, naturalists, and fire-fighters-all of whom left their mark on Yellowstone. As the truth behind the creation of America's first national park is revealed, we discover the remarkable role the U.S. Army played in protecting Yellowstone and shaping public lands in the West. And we see the developing efforts of conservation's great figures as they struggled to preserve our heritage. With vivid descriptions of the famous fires that have raged in Yellowstone, the heroes who have tried to protect it, and the strategies that evolved as a result, Barker draws us into the very heart of a debate over our attempts to control nature and people.
This entertaining and timely book challenges the traditional views both of those who arrogantly seek full control of nature and those who naively believe we can leave it unaltered. And it demonstrates how much of our broader environmental history was shaped in the lands of Yellowstone.
To the uninitiated, water policy seems a complicated, hypertechnical, and incomprehensible subject: a tangle of engineering jargon and legalese surrounding a complex, delicate, and interrelated structure. Decisions concerning the public's waters involve scant public participation, and in such a context, reform seems risky at best.
Searching Out the Headwaters addresses that precarious situation by providing a thorough and straightforward analysis of western water use and the outmoded rules that govern it. The authors begin by tracing the history and evolution of the uses of western water. They describe the demographic and economic changes now occurring in the region, and identify the many communities of interest involved in all water-use issues. After an examination of the central precepts of current water policy, along with their original rationale and subsequent evolution, they consider the reform movement that has recently begun to emerge. In the end, the authors articulate the foundations for a water policy that can meet the needs of the new West and discuss the various means for effectively implementing such a policy, including market economics, regulation, the broad-based use of scientific knowledge, and open and full public participation.
John Wesley Powell was an American original. He was the last of the nation's great continental explorers and the first of a new breed of public servant: part scientist, part social reformer, part institution builder. His work and life reveal an enduringly valuable way of thinking about land, water, and society as parts of an interconnected whole; he was America's first great bioregional thinker.
Seeing Things Whole presents John Wesley Powell in the full diversity of his achievements and interests, bringing together in a single volume writings ranging from his gripping account of exploring the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon to his views on the evolution of civilization, along with the seminal writings in which he sets forth his ideas on western settlement and the allocation and management of western resources.
The centerpiece of Seeing Things Whole is a series of selections from the famous 1878 Report on the Lands of the Arid Region and related magazine articles in which Powell further develops the themes of the report. In those, he recommends organizing the Arid Lands into watershed commonwealths governed by resident citizens whose interlocking interests create the checks and balances essential to wise stewardship of the land. This was the central focus of John Wesley Powell's bioregional vision, and it remains a model for governance that many westerners see as a viable solution to the resource management conflicts that continue to bedevil the region.
Throughout the collection, award-winning writer and historian William deBuys brilliantly sets the historical context for Powell's work. Section introductions and extensive descriptive notes take the reader through the evolution of John Wesley Powell's interests and ideas from his role as an officer in the Civil War through his critique of Social Darwinism and landmark categorization of Indian languages, to the climatic yet ultimately futile battles he fought to win adoption of his land-use proposals.
Seeing Things Whole presents the essence of the extraordinary legacy that John Wesley Powell has left to the American people, and to people everywhere who strive to reconcile the demands of society with the imperatives of the land.
Questions of how the design of cities can respond to the challenge of climate change dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon responds to these questions. He addresses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design recommendations.
No other book so clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. No other book takes on this breadth of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to such convincing and practical solutions.
Shading Our Cities is a handbook to help neighborhood groups, local officials, and city planners develop urban forestry projects, not only to beautify their cities, but also to reduce energy demand, improve air quality, protect water supplies, and contribute to healthier living conditions.
Wade Davis has been called "a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life's diversity." In Shadows in the Sun, he brings all of those gifts to bear on a fascinating examination of indigenous cultures and the interactions between human societies and the natural world.
Ranging from the British Columbian wilderness to the jungles of the Amazon and the polar ice of the Arctic Circle, Shadows in the Sun is a testament to a world where spirits still stalk the land and seize the human heart. Its essays and stories, though distilled from travels in widely separated parts of the world, are fundamentally about landscape and character, the wisdom of lives drawn directly from the land, the hunger of those who seek to rediscover such understanding, and the consequences of failure.
As Davis explains, "To know that other, vastly different cultures exist is to remember that our world does not exist in some absolute sense but rather is just one model of reality. The Penan in the forests of Borneo, the Vodoun acolytes in Haiti, the jaguar Shaman of Venezuela, teach us that there are other options, other possibilities, other ways of thinking and interacting with the earth." Shadows in the Sun considers those possibilities, and explores their implications for our world.
Does going green change the face of design or only its content? The first book to outline principles for the aesthetics of sustainable design, The Shape of Green argues that beauty is inherent to sustainability, for how things look and feel is as important as how they’re made.
In addition to examining what makes something attractive or emotionally pleasing, Hosey connects these questions with practical design challenges. Can the shape of a car make it more aerodynamic and more attractive at the same time? Could buildings be constructed of porous materials that simultaneously clean the air and soothe the skin? Can cities become verdant, productive landscapes instead of wastelands of concrete?
Drawing from a wealth of scientific research, Hosey demonstrates that form and image can enhance conservation, comfort, and community at every scale of design, from products to buildings to cities. Fully embracing the principles of ecology could revolutionize every aspect of design, in substance and in style. Aesthetic attraction isn’t a superficial concern — it’s an environmental imperative. Beauty could save the planet.
This book presents a natural history of the Sierra Nevada that brings the land, the people, and the surrounding communities to life.
Cities are growing at unprecedented rates. Most continue to sprawl into the countryside. Some are only now adopting policies that attempt to control air pollution from vehicles, reduce water pollution from urban runoff, and repair fragmented urban ecosystems. Can good urban design and sound environmental design coincide at a neighborhood level to create healthy communities?
Absolutely, and the strategies presented by Cynthia Girling and Ronald Kellett in Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods illustrate how to weave together contemporary thinking in urban planning with open space planning and urban ecology. Drawing from eighteen case studies, these green neighborhoods are the best examples of how the natural environment can play integral roles in neighborhoods.
Green neighborhoods offer a mix of housing types in order to serve a broad cross-section of people with a finely-grained variety of land uses and services, all close to home. In ecologically sound communities, the urban landscape is a functioning part of the whole ecosystem. Wooded areas, meandering streams, wetlands, and open spaces are planned and engineered to clean the air and the water. Skinnier streets and practical pathways weave into a functional, economical network to provide a range of equally good transportation choices, from walking to mass transit, that move people efficiently and economically.
This book moves beyond identifying problems to demonstrate proven methods and models that solve multiple, complex problems in concert. With innovative ideas and practical advice, Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods is a guide for today's planners, architects, engineers, and developers to design better neighborhoods and a more natural metropolis.
Tim Palmer weaves natural history into a comprehensive account of the complex problems that plague natural resource management throughout the West, as well as the practical solutions that are available.
So Shall You Reap is a broad-gauged exploration of the intersections of farming and history. Beginning with the prehistorical era, Otto and Dorothy Solbrig describe the evolution of farming. When and how did people learn to irrigate, to fertilize, to rotate their crops -- and why?
Along with its fundamental importance to history, farming has radically altered the physical world. Natural landscapes have been completely transformed to provide room for growth on a large scale of a few species of plants and even fewer species of domesticated animals. Agriculture has altered the earth's biosphere and changed its geosphere: The soil has been modified, forests have been felled, swamps have been drained, rivers have been dammed and diverted.
So Shall You Reap presents a fresh and informed perspective on how farming and the crops we grow have changed us and our environment. By understanding the nature of the origins and evolution of agriculture, we will be better prepared to anticipate what the future may hold in store, and what must be done to increase food production while minimizing environmental problems.
The environmental impacts of sprawling development have been well documented, but few comprehensive studies have examined its economic costs. In 1996, a team of experts undertook a multi-year study designed to provide quantitative measures of the costs and benefits of different forms of growth. Sprawl Costs presents a concise and readable summary of the results of that study.
The authors analyze the extent of sprawl, define an alternative, more compact form of growth, project the magnitude and location of future growth, and compare what the total costs of those two forms of growth would be if each was applied throughout the nation. They analyze the likely effects of continued sprawl, consider policy options, and discuss examples of how more compact growth would compare with sprawl in particular regions. Finally, they evaluate whether compact growth is likely to produce the benefits claimed by its advocates.
The book represents a comprehensive and objective analysis of the costs and benefits of different approaches to growth, and gives decision-makers and others concerned with planning and land use realistic and useful data on the implications of various options and policies.
In wild places where nature thrives, humanity prospers; our well-being is inextricably linked with that of the planet's web of life. In fact, one could argue that the state of the world can be measured by the state of the wild.
But how do we gauge the state of earth's wildlife, wildlands, and oceans? State of the Wild is a new series that brings together some of the world's most renowned conservationists and writers-George Schaller, Alan Rabinowitz, Sylvia Earle, Rick Bass, Bill McKibben, Tom Lovejoy, and many others-to assess wildlife and wilderness, and to provide insights into how humans can become better stewards of the wild.
This new series combines evocative writings with a fascinating tour of news highlights and vital statistics from around the world. One-third of each volume will focus on a topic of particular concern to conservationists working to protect wildlife and our last wild places. This 2006 edition explores the impacts of hunting and the wildlife trade through a range of essays: Ted Kerasote traces the history of hunting in North America; Carl Safina, Eric Gilman, and Wallace J. Nichols quantify the toll taken by commercial fishing on seabirds, turtles, and other marine species; James Compton and Samuel K. H. Lee explore the global reach of the wildlife trade for traditional Asian medicine.
Contributors also examine other pivotal conservation issues, from the reasons why one in eight of the world's birds are endangered, to the impacts of global climate change, to the complexity of conserving seals, flamingos, zebras, and other wide-ranging species. The book's closing essay, "The Relative Wild," considers what exactly it means for a place to be "wild," where even the most remote corners of the planet have been altered by human activities.
Uniquely structured with magazine-like features up front, conservation news in the middle, and essay contributions from eminent authors and biologists throughout, this landmark series is an essential addition to any environmental bookshelf.
Statewide Wetlands Strategies offers comprehensive strategies that draw upon all levels of government and the private sector to focus and coordinate efforts to work toward the goal of no-net-loss of wetlands.
First published in 1977, this volume caused a sensation because of Daly's radical view that "enough is best." Today, his ideas are recognized as the key to sustainable development, and Steady-State Economics is universally acknowledged as the leading book on the economics of sustainability.
Steering a New Course offers a comprehensive survey and analysis of America's transportation system -- how it contributes to our environmental problems and how we could make it safer, more efficient, and less costly.
Every piece of land, no matter how remote or untrammeled, has a boundary. While sometimes boundary lines follow topographic or biological features, more often they follow the straight lines of political dictate and compromise. Administrative boundaries nearly always fragment a landscape, resulting in loss of species that must disperse or migrate across borders, increased likelihood of threats such as alien species or pollutants, and disruption of natural processes such as fire. Despite the importance and ubiquity of boundary issues, remarkably little has been written on the subject.
Stewardship Across Boundaries fills that gap in the literature, addressing the complex biological and socioeconomic impacts of both public and private land boundaries in the United States. With contributions from natural resource managers, historians, environmentalists, political scientists, and legal scholars, the book:
develops a framework for understanding administrative boundaries and their effects on the land and on human behavior examines issues related to different types of boundaries -- wilderness, commodity, recreation, private-public presents a series of case studies illustrating the efforts of those who have cooperated to promote stewardship across boundaries synthesizes the broad complexity of boundary-related issues and offers an integrated strategy for achieving regional stewardshi.
Stewardship Across Boundaries should spur open discussion among students, scientists, managers, and activists on this important topic. It demonstrates how legal, social, and ecological conditions interact in causing boundary impacts and why those factors must be integrated to improve land management. It also discusses research needs and will help facilitate critical thinking within the scientific community that could result in new strategies for managing boundaries and their impacts.
The topic of streets and street design is of compelling interest today as public officials, developers, and community activists seek to reshape urban patterns to achieve more sustainable forms of growth and development. Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities traces ideas about street design and layout back to the early industrial era in London suburbs and then on through their institutionalization in housing and transportation planning in the United States. It critiques the situation we are in and suggests some ways out that are less rigidly controlled, more flexible, and responsive to local conditions.
Originally published in 1997, this edition includes a new introduction that addresses topics of current interest including revised standards from the Institute of Transportation Engineers; changes in city plans and development standards following New Urbanist, Smart Growth, and sustainability principles; traffic calming; and ecologically oriented street design.
When populations of striped bass began plummeting in the early 1980s, author and fisherman Dick Russell was there to lead an Atlantic coast conservation campaign that resulted in one of the most remarkable wildlife comebacks in the history of fisheries. As any avid fisherman will tell you, the striped bass has long been a favorite at the American dinner table; in fact, we've been feasting on the fish from the time of the Pilgrims. By 1980 that feasting had turned to overfishing by commercial fishing interests. Striper Wars is Dick Russell's inspiring account of the people and events responsible for the successful preservation of one of America's favorite fish and of what has happened since.
Striper Wars is a tale replete with heroes--and some villains--as the struggle to save the striper migrated down the coast from Massachusetts to Maryland. Russell introduces us to a postman at arms against a burly trap-net fisherman, a renowned state governor caving to special interests, and a fishing-tackle maker fighting alongside marine biologists. And he describes how champions of this singular fish blocked power plants and New York's Westway Project that would otherwise compromise its habitat. Unfortunately, those who cheered the triumphant ending to the campaign, as the coastal states enacted measures that enabled the striped bass to make its comeback, have found the peace transitory--there is now a new enemy emerging on the front.
In recent years a chronic bacterial disease has struck more than seventy percent of the striped bass population in the primary spawning waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Malnutrition seems to be a significant factor, brought on by the same overfishing that plagued the bass in the first battle--only this time, the overfishing is devastating menhaden, the silvery little fish upon which the bass feed. Lessons learned during the first conservation battle are being applied here, highlighting a need for a whole new ecosystem-based approach to conserving species.
Only with constant vigilance by concerned citizens, Dick Russell reminds us, can environmental victories be sustained. This particular fish story is a personal one for him, and he follows the striper's saga today all the way to California, where the fish was introduced in 1879 and where agribusiness now threatens its future. For his conservation work during the 1980s Russell received a citizen's Chevron Conservation Award.
In all societies, the main causes of environmental degradation are resource extraction and the generation of wastes by households and industries. Realistic strategies for mitigating these impacts require an understanding of both the technologies by which resources are transformed into products, and the lifestyle choices that shape household use of such products.
Structural Economics provides a framework for developing and evaluating such strategies. It represents an important new approach to describing household lifestyles and technological choices, the relationships between them, and their impact on resource use and waste. In this volume, economist Faye Duchin provides for the first time an authoritative and comprehensive introduction to the field, including its social as well as its technological dimensions. The presentation is accessible to non-specialists while also including a substantial amount of new research.
Duchin's primary achievement is to integrate a qualitatively rich understanding of technologies and lifestyles into a flexible, quantitative framework grounded in established principles of input-output economics and social accounting. She uses tools and insights from areas as diverse as demography and market research to conceptualize and describe different categories of households and their lifestyles. She also draws on the expertise of engineers and physical scientists to examine the potential for technological change. The framework Duchin develops permits the rigorous and detailed analysis of specific scenarios for alternative technologies and changes in lifestyle. The author uses the case of Indonesia for illustration and to refine new concepts by testing their relevance against factual information.
The new field of structural economics represents an important step forward in the effort to apply the power of science to solving the problems of modern societies. This book should prove invaluable to students and scholars of economics, sociology, or anthropology, as well as environmental scientists, policymakers at all levels, and anyone concerned with a practical interpretation of the elusive concept of sustainable development.
The emergent discipline of ecological economics is based on the idea that the world's economies are a function of the earth's ecosystems -- an idea that radically reverses the world view of neoclassical economics. A Survey of Ecological Economics provides the first overview of this new field, and a comprehensive and systematic survey of its critical literature.
The editors of the volume summarize ninety-five seminal articles, selected through an exhaustive survey, that advance the field of ecological economics and represent the best thinking to date in the area. Each two- to three-page summary is far more comprehensive than a typical abstract, and presents both the topics covered in each paper and the most important arguments made about each topic. Sections cover:
A Survey of Ecological Economics is the first volume in the Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series produced by the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University.
Perpetual economic growth is physically impossible on a planet with finite resources. Many concerned with humanity's future have focused on the concept of "sustainable development" as an alternative, as they seek means of achieving current economic and social goals without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own goals. Sustainable development brings together elements of economics, public policy, sociology, ecology, resource management, and other related areas, and while the term has become quite popular, it is rarely defined, and even less often is it understood.
A Survey of Sustainable Development addresses that problem by bringing together in a single volume the most important works on sustainable human and economic development. It offers a broad overview of the subject, and gives the reader a quick and thorough guide to this highly diffuse topic. The volume offers ten sections on topics including:
Each section is introduced with an essay by one of the volume editors that provides an overview of the subject and a summary of the mainstream literature, followed by two- to three-page abstracts of the most important articles or book chapters on the topic.
A Survey of Sustainable Development is the sixth and final volume in the Frontier Issues of Economic Thought series produced by the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University. Each book brings together the most important articles and book chapters in a "frontier" area of economics where important new work is being done but has not yet been incorporated into the mainstream of economic study. The book is an essential reference for students and scholars concerned with economics, environmental studies, public policy and administration, international development, and a broad range of related fields.
Sustainability Strategies for Industry contains essays by members of the Greening of Industry Network that examine the emerging picture of sustainability and its implications for industry and for the relationship between industry and other social actors -- consumers, employees, and the community at large. The book seeks to define sustainability in an industrial context, and addresses how the shift to sustainaibility will affect the role of industry in society, its managerial functions, and its relationships with stakeholders and the environment.
An introductory chapter establishes the scope of the book and its contents, sets out the historical context, and explores the unifying concepts and themes running through the text. Chapters examine.
the meaning of sustainability for industry from a theoretical stance corporate environmentalism company paradigms technology reporting and management systems the role of networks and systems developing country perspectives implications for business research and management educatio.
Contributors -- including Thomas Gladwin, Richard Welford, Andrew Hoffman, John Ehrenfeld, and David Pearce -- offer a bold vision of the sustainable industrial organization of the future and the role and approach that managers in sustainable organizations will assume.
Sustainability Strategies for Industry represents an important work for those interested in the relationship between sustainability and environmental management and protection, and for those interested in the future direction of industrial organization. It will be a valuable text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in business and economics, as well as in environmental studies programs, and for researchers interested in business strategy and interactions between business practice and the environment.
The Sustainable Company shows how to create value for shareholders while balancing responsibilities to society and the environment. Its step-by-step approach and tool-kit for managers make this book the solutions manual for the twenty-first-century manager.
Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Soils and Sediments brings together the world's leading ecologists, systematists, and evolutionary biologists to present scientific information that integrates soil and sediment disciplines across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems. It offers a framework for a new discipline, one that will allow future scientists to consider the linkages of biodiversity below-surface, and how biota interact to provide the essential ecosystemservices needed for sustainable soils and sediments.
Contributors consider key-questions regarding soils and sediments and the relationship between soil- and sediment- dwelling organisms and overall ecosystem functioning. The book is an important new synthesis for scientists and researchers studying a range of topics, including global sustainability, conservation biology, taxonomy, erosion, extreme systems, food production, and related fields. In addition, it provides new insight and understanding for managers, policymakers, and others concerned with global environmental sustainability and global change issues.
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