In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and Helen and Scott Nearing, Coperthwaite has fashioned a livelihood of integrity and completeness-buying almost nothing, providing for his own needs, and serving as a guide and companion to hundreds of apprentices drawn to his unique way of being.A Handmade Life carries Coperthwaite's ongoing experiments with hand tools, hand-grown and gathered food, and handmade shelter, clothing, and furnishings out into the world to challenge and inspire. His writing is both philosophical and practical, exploring themes of beauty, work, education, and design while giving instruction on the hand-crafting of the necessities of life. Richly illustrated with luminous color photographs by Peter Forbes, the book is a moving and inspirational testament to a new practice of old ways of life.

    By excluding biophysical and social reality from its analyses and equations, conventional economics seems ill-suited to address problems in a world characterized by increasing human impacts and decreasing natural resources. Ecological Economics is an introductory-level textbook for an emerging paradigm that addresses this fundamental flaw in conventional economics. The book defines a revolutionary transdiscipline that incorporates insights from the biological, physical, and social sciences, and it offers a pedagogically complete examination of this exciting new field. The book provides students with a foundation in traditional neoclassical economic thought, but places that foundation within a new interdisciplinary framework that embraces the linkages among economic growth, environmental degradation, and social inequity. Introducing the three core issues that are the focus of the new transdiscipline -- scale, distribution, and efficiency -- the book is guided by the fundamental question, often assumed but rarely spoken in

    Now add the most delicious food imaginable, created by a host of talented artist-cooks using vegetables and flowers gathered from the center’s lush gardens, and presented with delicate care. Then think of the most well-known names from the body, mind, and soul circuit who frequently teach here, and the guests who hail from the furthest reaches of the continent. . . .This is Hollyhock. Located on Cortes Island in British Columbia’s Georgia Strait, Hollyhock is about nourishing those who work to make the world a better place. It has been attracting visitors like bees to honey for the past 25 years—partly because of its delicious food.Now, for the first time, Hollyhock Cooks showcases the best of its globally influenced cuisine, with more than 200 recipes including everything from soups and salads to entrées, sauces and spreads, desserts, and drinks. Special chapters focus on how to combine garden with kitchen, and on secrets for cooking for a crowd. And interspersed throughout are comments from the famous Hollyhock presenters—Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Robert Bly, Joan Borysenko and more—on their very favorite dishes."Maharaji said that we should eat only food cooked with love. The food at Hollyhock is tasty, cooked with care and love. I take away a soft sweetness and a fat stomach!"—Ram DassLinda Solomon is an award-winning journalism teacher and freelancer whose work has been widely published; she is also a contributing editor to Body and Soul Magazine. Moreka Jolar has worked with cooks at Hollyhock to collect and test their best recipes. Maria Robledo is one of New York’s best-known food photographers. All spend as much time as possible on Cortes Island in British Columbia.

    A field guide to primitive living skills

    In this remarkable anthology are fifteen essays from Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, Gene Logsdon, Brian Donahue, Eric Freyfogle, David Orr, and others. The Essential Agrarian Reader calls us to celebrate the gifts of the earth, through honest work and respect for the land.

    Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times.In The Party’s Over, Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the twentieth century and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the twenty-first century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the United States—the world’s foremost oil consumer—is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a “managed collapse” that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future.More readable than other accounts of this issue, with fuller discussion of the context, social implications and recommendations for personal, community, national and global action, Heinberg’s updated book is a riveting wake-up call for human-kind as the oil era winds down, and a critical tool for understanding and influencing current US foreign policy.Richard Heinberg, from Santa Rosa, California, has been writing about energy resources issues and the dynamics of cultural change for many years. A member of the core faculty at New College of California, he is an award-winning author of three previous books. His Museletter was nominated for the Best Alternative Newsletter award by Utne in 1993.

    There are many books on both of these subjects. Some warn, some inform, while others meditate on the disappearance of the forests or the meaning of trees. Few books, though, touch on so many aspects of trees, including ways to use them in garden design, as Arboretum America does.Beresford-Kroeger's remedy is what she calls the Bioplan. The plan consists of how each of twenty different tree groups relates to its natural environment and how these specific trees can be used to promote health or to counteract the effects of pollution and global warming. The plan also reveals the fascinating history of these trees in Native American culture, including their medicinal uses. Finally, the Bioplan offers practical design ideas and tips---where to plant these trees, what season they look best in, what native plants complement them---as well as organic care and how to grow them.Beresford-Kroeger captures the magic spell that trees cast over us. Yet her holistic approach urges us to think big while acting locally, so that we may someday restore the forest primeval.Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist, medical and agricultural researcher, lecturer, and self-defined "renegade scientist" in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry. She lives in Ontario, Canada.

    Too much ocean squeezes us. Clouds are to the Highlands as canals are to Venice. They belong here... Great sky-rollers crashing soundlessly ashore, thundering on to ice-shattered rocks polished smooth by the rain-wave of milions of rolling centuries. Long ago I came to the conclusion that this was once hell of a place to live."It was the Torrey Canyon oil disaster in 1967 that tipped John Lister-Kaye into becoming a naturalist and conservationist. It was a decision that led him to the Highlands of Scotland, and the derelict nineteenth-century mansion near Inverness that he turned into the world famous Aigas Field Centre.Song of the Rolling Earth is his celebration of nature and the land that have been his home and his work for over twenty-five years. It is a powerful evocation of the turbulent human history of the Highlands and the wealth of wildlife from the magnificent landscape of mountains, forests and lochs that surround his field centre. It is a journey of personal discovery; an enchanting account that captures the hills and glens in all their glory – the brown trout in the loch, the ospreys and swifts overhead, red-squirrels and spindle-legged roe deer of the woods – and a fascinating exploration of man’s ever changing relationship with his environment.

    Ever since Gilgamesh cut down the ancient cedar forests of Mesopotamia, civilizations and empires have foundered and collapsed in the wake of widespread deforestation. Today, with three quarters of the world's original forests gone and the pace of cutting, clearing, processing, and pulping ever accelerating, Jensen and Draffan lay bare the stark scenario we face--we being not only people, but the nonhuman fabric of life itself--unless deforestation is slowed and stopped. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the relationship between deforestation and our ecological crisis as well as an essential "handbook" for forest and anti-globalization activists.

    Gardening is a journey, not a destination. The day-by-day gardening experiences - planting a few onion sets in the first warm afternoon of spring... the surprises - a purple crocus before the snow has even gone ... the satisfaction - fresh green beans on the dinner table, or tomatoes, bright and red, safely in quart jars ... these are the things that keep the gardener coming back year after year."Month-by-Month Gardening in The Desert Southwest "is packed with information that explains what needs to be done and when it needs to be done in the southwestern garden. Topics include: The most effective planting techniques. How and when to prune. The best season for fertilizing your lawn. The differences between bare-root, container, and balled-and-burlapped plants. Eleven plant categories, including Annuals, Bulbs, Herbs, Vegetables, Houseplants, Lawns, Perennials, Roses, Shrubs, and Trees. Twelve monthly calendars for each plant category - 132 calendars in all! - that make is easy to find the proper gardening advice.Whatever your gardening interests or the time of year, you can take the guesswork and mystery out of gardening. You will become a more satisfied gardener ... and your garden will show it!

    It is easy, economical, aesthetically striking, energy-efficient, and environmentally sound.Cordwood Building collects the wisdom of more than 25 of the world’s best practitioners, detailing the long history of the method, and demonstrating how to build a cordwood home using the latest and most up-to-date techniques, with a special focus on building code issues.Author/editor Rob Roy has been building, researching, and teaching about cordwood masonry for 25 years and, with his wife, started Earthwood Building School in 1981. He has written 10 books on alternative building, presented four videos—including two about cordwood masonry—and has taught cordwood masonry all over the world.

    Arguing against those who say that our communities are powerless in the face of footloose corporations, DeFilippis considers what localities can do in the face of heightened capital mobility in order to retain an autonomy that furthers egalitarian social justice, and explores how we go about accomplishing this in practical, political terms.

    This colorful socio-economic history clears the smoke obscuring hemp's role in battles between Britain and the colonies, the North and South, the haves and have-nots, and the marijuana lobby and their foes. Deitch offers a look at major events in US and world history as they influenced, and as they may have been influenced by, the cultivation and use of hemp.

    Few fields encompass the breadth of science that is associated with this subject which is at the cutting edge of fields ranging from microbial genetics to ethology to treatment of human psychiatric illnesses. To recognise that no individual could do justice to the field in writing a comprehensive text, a group of experienced editors and contributors have collaborated to produce Chronobiology.

    Developing Ecological Consciousness offers an ecology-based, wonder-filled initiation to the Universe and the Planet Earth. It examines the ways in which humans are damaging the Earth and their own bodies and spirits. The book presents paradigms, values, and tools essential for both planetary and personal transformation.

    His findings, presented in this hugely readable book, will demystify the sustainability-change process by providing a theoretical framework and a methodology that managers can use to successfully transform their organisations to embrace sustainable development. and policy instruments to apply--have dominated the public dialogue on sustainability. Practitioners place comparatively little emphasis on how organisations can change their internal thought processes, assumptions and ingrained behaviours to embrace new tools and techniques. Organisational and cultural change is the key missing ingredient in the operationalisation of sustainable development. Without such change, sustainability efforts usually stall soon after they begin or fail outright. of organisations today hold a mechanistic, autocratic view of governance. In contrast, organisations that have made the most progress toward sustainability view all of their internal members, as well as external stakeholders, as vital parts of an interdependent system. In the leading sustainability organisations, these beliefs engender a skilful distribution of information, power and wealth among employees and stakeholders because managers realise that all of the parts of the organisational system must feel valued and be meaningfully involved for these higher purposes to be achieved. governance systems typically have good leadership. Effective sustainability leaders have the ability to keep their organisation focused on achieving its higher mission while simultaneously managing numerous, sometimes contradictory, streams of activity. Savvy leaders can inspire and mobilise employees and stakeholders to embrace change as an exciting opportunity to learn. In the exemplary organisations, this style of leadership pervades not only top management, but also most levels of the enterprise. and effective, forward-looking leadership, it is much more likely to be able to marshal the tremendous forces required to transform its culture and successfully adopt sustainability-based thinking, values and behaviours. When an organisation lacks an effective governance system or sufficient leadership, its culture will remain static and the adoption of a more sustainable path will be stymied, no matter what type of new technologies are adopted, quality-control tools are used, or consultants are hired. corporate and governmental cultures toward sustainability, the book argues that the key factors that facilitate change consistently appear in the ongoing and successful (but incomplete) efforts Doppelt examined at companies such as Nike, Starbucks, IKEA, Chiquita, Interface, Swisscom and Norm Thompson and in governmental efforts such as those in the Netherlands and Santa Monica in California. For these and other cutting-edge organisations, leading change is a philosophy for success. In fact, in many ways Leading Change toward Sustainability is just a restatement of what their leaders already know and do.

    This timely book examines the historical, scientific, political, legal, and institutional developments that are changing management priorities and policies - developments that compel us to view the public lands as an integrated ecological entity and a key biodiversity stronghold. resource controversy, ranging from the Pacific Northwest's spotted owl imbroglio to the struggle over southern Utah's Colorado Plateau country. Robert Keiter uses these case histories to analyse the ideas, forces, and institutions that are both fomenting and retarding change. public land agencies, federal courts, and western communities are each playing important roles in the transformation to an ecological management regime. At the same time, a newly emergent and homegrown collaborative process movement has given the public land constituencies a greater role in administering these lands. Arguing that we must integrate the new imperatives of ecosystem science with our devolutionary political tendencies, Keiter outlines a coherent new approach to natural resources policy.

    Today, it is at the heart of hundreds of school and community programs that recognize in all young people the capacity to lead healthy, successful lives. The key, as Benard reports in this synthesis of a decade and more of resiliency research, is the role that families, schools, and communities play in supporting, and not undermining, this biological drive for normal human development. Of special interest is the evidence that resiliency prevails in most cases by far -- even in extreme situations, such as those caused by poverty, troubled families, and violent neighborhoods. An understanding of this developmental wisdom and the supporting research, Benard argues, must be integrated into adults' vision for the youth they work with and communicated to young people themselves. Benard's analysis of how best to incorporate research findings to support young people is both realistic and inspirational. It is an easy-to-read discussion of what the research has found along with descriptions of what application of the research looks like in our most successful efforts to support young people.

    In the process, they were intervening in the world's natural environment in equally unprecedented and dramatic ways. A sweeping work of environmental history, The Unending Frontier offers a truly global perspective on the profound impact of humanity on the natural world in the early modern period. John F. Richards identifies four broadly shared historical processes that speeded environmental change from roughly 1500 to 1800 c.e.: intensified human land use along settlement frontiers; biological invasions; commercial hunting of wildlife; and problems of energy scarcity. The Unending Frontier considers each of these trends in a series of case studies, sometimes of a particular place, such as Tokugawa Japan and early modern England and China, sometimes of a particular activity, such as the fur trade in North America and Russia, cod fishing in the North Atlantic, and whaling in the Arctic. Throughout, Richards shows how humans—whether clearing forests or draining wetlands, transporting bacteria, insects, and livestock; hunting species to extinction, or reshaping landscapes—altered the material well-being of the natural world along with their own.

    Judaism, like the other world religions, only rarely raised issues concerning the environment in the past. This means that modern Judaism, the halakhic tradition no less than others, must build on a slim foundation in its efforts to give guidance. The essays in this volume mark the beginning of a new effort to face questions and formulate answers of vital importance.

    Mindful Conservatism examines how the misuse of our political vocabulary contributes to governmental, corporate, and educational policies that degrade the Earth's natural systems, and suggests ways to overcome this linguistic confusion to help recognize the fundamental connections between communities, sustainability, and the conservation of the world's diverse cultures.