The Hidden Half of Nature reveals why good health—for people and for plants—depends on Earth’s smallest creatures. Restoring life to their barren yard and recovering from a health crisis, David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé discover astounding parallels between the botanical world and our own bodies. From garden to gut, they show why cultivating beneficial microbiomes holds the key to transforming agriculture and medicine.

    Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development.Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs's twelve years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, his thirteen years advising the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals, and his recent presentation of these ideas in a popular online course, "The Age of Sustainable Development" is a landmark publication and clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

    The last decade's spate of superstorms, wildfires, heat waves, and droughts has accelerated the public discourse on this topic and lent credence to climatologist Lonnie Thomson's 2010 statement that climate change represents a clear and present danger to civilization. In June 2015, the Pope declared that action on climate change is a moral issue.This book offers the most up-to-date examination of climate change's foundational science, its implications for our future, and the core clean energy solutions. Alongside detailed but highly accessible descriptions of what is causing climate change, this entry in the What Everyone Needs to Know series answers questions about the practical implications of this growing force on our world:- How will climate change impact you and your family in the coming decades?- What are the future implications for owners of coastal property? - Should you plan on retiring in South Florida or the U.S. Southwest or Southern Europe? - What occupations and fields of study will be most in demand in a globally warmed world? - What impact will climate change have on investments and the global economy?As the world struggles to stem climate change and its effects, everyone will become a part of this story of the century. Here is what you need to know.

    Mr. Fukuoka is perhaps most known for his bestselling book The One-Straw Revolution (1978), a manifesto on the importance of no-till agriculture, which was at the time of publication a radical challenge to the global systems that supply the world's food, and still inspires readers today. Larry Korn, who apprenticed with Mr. Fukuoka in Japan at the time, translated the manuscript and brought it to the United States, knowing it would change the conversation about food forever. The One-Straw Revolution, edited by Korn and Wendell Berry, was an immediate international success, and established Mr. Fukuoka as a leading voice in the fight against conventional industrial agriculture. In this new book, through his own personal narrative, Larry Korn distills his experience of more than thirty-five years of study with Mr. Fukuoka, living and working on his farm on Shikoku Island, and traveling with Mr. Fukuoka to the United States on two six-week visits. One-Straw Revolutionary is the first book to look deeply at natural farming and intimately discuss the philosophy and work of Mr. Fukuoka. In addition to giving his personal thoughts about natural farming, Korn broadens the discussion by pointing out natural farming's kinship with the ways of indigenous cultures and traditional Japanese farming. At the same time, he clearly distinguishes natural farming from other forms of agriculture, including scientific and organic agriculture and permaculture. Korn also clarifies commonly held misconceptions about natural farming in ways Western readers can readily understand. And he explains how natural farming can be used practically in areas other than agriculture, including personal growth and development. The book follows the author on his travels from one back-to-the-land commune to another in the countryside of 1970s Japan, a journey that eventually led him to Mr. Fukuoka's natural farm. Korn's description of his time there, as well as traveling with Mr. Fukuoka during his visits to the United States, offers a rare, inside look at Mr. Fukuoka's life. Readers will delight in this personal insight into one of the world's leading agricultural thinkers.

    Bourne Jr. puts our fight against devastating world hunger in dramatic perspective. He travels the globe to introduce a new generation of farmers and scientists on the front lines of the next green revolution. He visits corporate farmers trying to restore Ukraine as Europe's breadbasket, a Canadian aquaculturist, the agronomist behind the world's largest organic sugarcane plantation, and many other extraordinary farmers, large and small, who are racing to stave off catastrophe as climate change disrupts food production worldwide.A Financial Times Best Book of the Year and a Finalist for the PEN / E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.

    Drawing on his personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative instincts, Estabrook covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of the country’s biggest pork producers. And he describes the threat of infectious disease and the possible contamination of our food supply. Through these stories shines Estabrook’s abiding love for these remarkable creatures. Pigs are social, self-aware, and playful, not to mention smart enough to master the typical house dog commands of “sit, stay, come” twice as fast as your average pooch. With the cognitive abilities of at least three-year-olds, they can even learn to operate a modified computer. Unfortunately for the pigs, they’re also delicious to eat.Estabrook shows how these creatures are all too often subjected to lives of suffering in confinement and squalor, sustained on a drug-laced diet just long enough to reach slaughter weight, then killed on mechanized disassembly lines. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Pig Tales presents a lively portrait of those farmers who are taking an alternative approach, like one Danish producer that has a far more eco-friendly and humane system of pork production, and new, small family farms with free-range heritage pigs raised on antibiotic-free diets. It is possible to raise pigs responsibly and respectfully in a way that is good for producers, consumers, and some of the top chefs in America.Provocative, witty, and deeply informed, Pig Tales is bound to spark conversation at dinner tables across America.

    Now Patagonia has captured Tools' best wisdom and advice into a book, creating a resource for any organization hoping to hone core skills like campaign and communication strategy, grassroots organizing, and lobbying as well as working with business, fundraising in uncertain times and using new technologies. Patagonia hopes the book will be dog-eared and scribbled in; a solid, inspiring guide and reliable companion. The book is organized in two sections: Strategies, and Tools. Each chapter, written by a respected expert in the field, covers essential principals as well as best practices. A hands-on case study accompanies each chapter and demonstrates the principles in action. Sprinkled throughout are inspirational thoughts from acclaimed activists, such as Jane Goodall, Bill McKibben, Wade Davis, Annie Leonard, and Terry Tempest Williams. An activist's companion in the environmental movement.

    The marketplace distorts our values, and our modern dependence on petroleum in particular presents a serious barrier to creating a truly sustainable agriculture.For him the solution is, first and foremost, greater self-reliance, especially in the areas of food and energy. By avoiding any off-farm inputs (fertilizers, minerals, and animal manures), Bonsall has learned how to practice a purely veganic, or plant-based, agriculture—not from a strictly moralistic or philosophical perspective, but because it makes good business sense: spend less instead of making more.What this means in practical terms is that Bonsall draws upon the fertility of on-farm plant materials: compost, green manures, perennial grasses, and forest products like leaves and ramial wood chips. And he grows and harvests a diversity of crops from both cultivated and perennial plants: vegetables, grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and nuts—even uncommon but useful permaculture plants like groundnut (Apios).In a friendly, almost conversational way, Bonsall imparts a wealth of knowledge drawn from his more than forty years of farming experience."My goal," he writes, "is not to feed the world, but to feed myself and let others feed themselves. If we all did that, it might be a good beginning."

    With dozens of examples—from the private sector to government agencies—Stoknes shows how to retell the story of climate change and, at the same time, create positive, meaningful actions that can be supported even by deniers.In What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, Stoknes not only masterfully identifies the five main psychological barriers to climate action, but addresses them with five strategies for how to talk about global warming in a way that creates action and solutions, not further inaction and despair.These strategies work with, rather than against, human nature. They are social, positive, and simple—making climate-friendly behaviors easy and convenient. They are also story-based, to help add meaning and create community, and include the use of signals, or indicators, to gauge feedback and be constantly responsive.Whether you are working on the front lines of the climate issue, immersed in the science, trying to make policy or educate the public, or just an average person trying to make sense of the cognitive dissonance or grapple with frustration over this looming issue, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming moves beyond the psychological barriers that block progress and opens new doorways to social and personal transformation.

    Three years later the world’s largest travel publisher, Lonely Planet, named it one of the Top Ten cities to visit in the world.Creating Cities is about the unlikely events in between. How a failed idea to start a bar morphed into a scheme that has helped transform Newcastle, launched more than two hundred creative and community projects across Australia and is fast becoming a model for cities and towns around the world.In an engaging, thoughtful and observational style, Marcus Westbury argues that most towns and cities are wasting their most obvious opportunities: the talent, imagination, and passion of the people that live there. In a globalised age, local creativity has access to new possibilities that most places have barely begun to grasp.Marcus weaves a local story of how identifying and fixing small scale failures in Newcastle into a larger set of ideas and “why-to” strategy with potential applications in cities and towns around the world. Creating Cities is an inspiring must read for creative people, civic and business leaders, town planners, citizens and anyone who cares about the communities that they live in.

    She describes proven conservation techniques, explains how to create a water-wise landscape, and provides illustrated, step-by-step instructions for setting up a waterless composting toilet as well as systems to reuse greywater, harvest rainwater, and more.

    They offer a fascinating glimpse into our past and an inspiring vision for the future. They are the last Pristine Seas, and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala takes readers on an unforgettable journey to 10 of these astounding locations.   From the shark-rich waters surrounding Coco Island, Costa Rica, to the iceberg-studded sea off Franz Josef Land, Russia, this incredible photographic collection showcases the thriving marine ecosystems that Sala is working to protect. Offering a rare glimpse into the world's underwater Edens, more than 200 images take you to the frontier of the Pristine Seas expeditions, where Sala's teams explore the breathtaking wildlife and habitats from the depths to the surface—thriving ecosystems with healthy corals and a kaleidoscopic variety of colorful fish and stunning creatures that have been protected from human interference. With this dazzling array of photographs that capture the beauty of the water and the incredible wildlife within it, this book shows us the brilliance of the sea in its natural state. It is a beautiful reminder of what we have to gain by protecting our seas.

     Hummelo—near the village of the same name in Gelderland in the eastern Netherlands—is visited by thousands of gardeners seeking inspiration each year. It is Piet Oudolf’s home, his personal garden laboratory, a former nursery run by his wife Anja, and the place where he first tested new designs and created the new varieties of perennials that are now widely available. A follow-up to Oudolf’s successful Landscapes in Landscapes—Hummelo tells the story of how the garden has evolved over the past three decades since Oudolf, Anja, and their two young sons moved onto the property, with its loamy sand and derelict, wood stove-heated farmhouse, in 1982. Text by noted garden author and longtime personal friend Noel Kingsbury places Hummelo in context within gardening history, from The Netherlands’ counterculture and nascent green movement of the 1960s, to prairie restoration in the American Midwest, and shows how its development has mirrored that of Oudolf’s own outstanding career and unique naturalistic aesthetic. Oudolf has long been at the forefront of the Dutch Wave and New Perennial Style movements in garden design, which have ecological considerations at their base. His work stresses a deep knowledge of plants, eschewing short-lived annuals in favor of perennials that can be appreciated for both structure and blooms in every season. He is credited for leading the way to today’s focus on sustainability in garden design. The book will appeal to readers who favor beautiful, biodiverse, and ever-changing plantings: seed heads, grasses, sedges, and winter silhouettes. They will be drawn into its pages by lush photography, often demonstrating how Oudolf views his own work, and providing rare glimpses into his daily life. Short essays highlight important techniques, including scatter plants and matrix planting, and introduce other famed landscape designers—Karl Foerster, Henk Gerritsen, Rob Leopold, Ernst Pagels, and Mien Ruys—to create a full panorama of the movement Oudolf now leads.

     Architect + Entrepreneur Volume 2 challenges the foundations of traditional practice and asks: + In what ways can we hack our craft to serve both our personal lifestyle and our professional goals? + What if design practice capitalized on the architect’s drive to be creative and consumer buying culture in equal measure? + How can we turn our services into products? + How can young professionals compete in today’s marketplace leveraging the power of the Internet? Eric Reinholdt, founder of 30X40 Design Workshop describes in detail how his business model has evolved to leverage passive income producing products and offers a new paradigm for practice. It’s a manual of high-level strategies, field-tested tactics, and case studies showing how architects are reinventing practice in the 21st century. In this step-by-step manual you’ll discover: + How to develop multiple passive income streams for your business + How to work with only the clients best suited to your brand + Templates for innovative business models leveraging active and passive income streams + Case studies describing how founders and architects built six-figure incomes by developing products + How to leverage the Internet to convert visitors into customers (and clients) + Methodology for selling custom plans repeatedly + Why writing a book isn’t as difficult as you might think + Precise formula to earn your first $100 in passive income + How much you can earn from: affiliate relationships, advertising, and digital product development This manual provides a framework for young professionals to build passive revenue streams even before setting out on their own. Doing this builds wealth, professional freedom and increases the chances of success for nascent architecture businesses. It’s essential reading for any Architect + Entrepreneur.

    Along with backyard chickeners, balcony beekeepers, rooftop farmers, and community gardeners, urban composters are part of a bumper crop of pioneers who are redefining the green space of crowded towns and cities. You may think you need a big yard to compost. Think again. Compost City teaches you how to easily choose and care for a compost system that fits perfectly into your (tiny) space, (busy) schedule, and (multifaceted) lifestyle.Whether you live in a cramped apartment or a sprawling town house, or you dream of composting in a shared space with a group of friends or colleagues, Compost City provides simple and effective indoor and outdoor composting options. Packed with research, expert testimonies, and a healthy dose of humor, Compost City will help you:• compost your food scraps and yard waste with ease• ease your fears of backbreaking labor, obnoxious odors, big messes, and creepy crawlies (hint: you can compost successfully without any of the above!)• convince compost-wary family, friends, neighbors, and community leaders to green-light your compost dreams Compost City serves all eco-curious citizens from casual hobbyists to staunch activists.Put your compost cap on. Whether you compost one tea bag or whole honking barrelfuls of scraps at a time, you’re about to have a whole lot of fun.

    Instantly, the courageous critters spring into action, risking their own lives to rescue any animal they see suffering at the hands of humans. What the team doesn’t know is just how rampant this violence really is, and soon their exciting rescue missions turn shockingly dangerous and deadly. Will they succeed in saving the animals of the world from humans’ brutality, or will they fall victim to the powerful system of abuse they’re trying so desperately to end? Persimmon Takes On Humanity is the thrilling first novel in The Enlightenment Adventures, and for anyone who loved the intensity of The Hunger Games, the social commentary of The Jungle, and the heart of Charlotte’s Web, this will be your new favorite book.

    Greer and philanthropist David Weekley share a counter-cultural, relational approach to fundraising. Unlike guilt-inducing gimmickry, their model inspires generosity with a Kingdom perspective that values the giver and the receiver.

    Earthbag building is revolutionizing how people around the world are thinking about ways of providing shelter, both temporary and permanent. Such buildings can be remarkably durable and resistant to earthquakes, floods, fires and even bullets. Kelly Hart describes the basics of how to build this way, provides a history of the evolving technology and delves into detailed descriptions of the many different earthbag projects that he has been involved with over nearly two decades. A survey of 64 unique buildings from around the world proves just how versatile this approach to building can be. A look to the future of earthbag building and a Resource Guide complete the book. Some 240 color photographs help you visualize the possibilities of this unusual and sustainable approach to architecture.

    In this eye-opening book, a natural resource strategist reveals the critical importance of these transformative elements to our technological lifestyle and the consequences of our reliance upon them, including geopolitical instability and environmental degradation. To see our growing dependency, you need only look at your smartphone: cerium buffs the glass; indium allows your screen to respond to touch; terbium makes images more vibrant; and lithium helps it store energy. Abraham provides readers with a front-row seat to the life of these metals, tracing the paths of these high-tech elements through a dozen countries from the mine to our pockets. But it’s not just smartphones that rely on these metals; they are the building blocks of modern society because they are critical for nearly all our electronic, military, and “green” technologies. Just as oil, iron, and bronze revolutionized previous eras, so too will these metals. The challenges this book reveals, and the plans it proposes, make it essential reading for our rare metal age.

    Much of the impetus to move back to the land, raise our own food, and connect with our agricultural past is being driven by women. They raise sheep for wool, harvest honey from their beehives, grow food for their families and sell their goods at farmers' markets. What does a woman who wants to work the land need to do to follow her dream?First, she needs this book. It may seem strange to suggest that women farmers need a different guide than male farmers, but women often have different strengths and goals, and different ways of achieving those goals. Audrey Levatino shares her experiences of running a farm and offers invaluable advice on how to get started, whether you have hundreds of acres or a simple lot for an urban community garden. Filled with personal anecdotes and stories from other women farmers, from old hands to brand new ones, from agricultural icons like Temple Grandin, to her own sister, this book is a reassuring and inspirational guide that discusses: Should you do an internship or jump right in? How to find a farm or how to handle one that you’ve inherited Best practices for selling at the farmer’s market and how to sell your goods locally Farmhouse chores and how to get them done right How to handle large power tools, including a chainsaw Planning and growing an organic farm garden Incorporating animals as part of a farm ecosystem Where to get started if you want to farm-school your kids Tips for keeping your mind, body and spirit healthy while undertaking the demanding nature of farm work It's all here, in the same warm and friendly voice that readers embraced in The Joy of Hobby Farming. Full-color photography throughout provides step-by-step instructions for anything you’ll need to do on your farm.

    Seek the feral foundations of Scripture and the lessons that the prophets and disciples gleaned from wilderness testing. Packed with inspiring stories of how contemporary people and groups are caring for the land and each other, Rewilding the Way issues a call to action. Read about how reskilling and local food covenants are transforming churches, and how place-based activism and creative housing are nurturing communities. Learn from those who are recovering from affluenza, replacing visions of personal wealth with the commonwealth of the earth and restoring their humble place in the community of creation. Do you despair about life on our changing planet? Join the hopeful band of seekers of God and makers of change who are rewilding the Way.

    To ensure that even children trapped by war received health care and immunizations, he brokered humanitarian ceasefires by exploiting the political self-interests of presidents and warlords alike. Grant at first met fierce resistance at the United Nations and in his own organization, and some thought his ideas were crazy and dangerous. But as he kept toppling obstacle after obstacle, he eventually won over even his most stubborn detractors. Grant spearheaded a historic surge in worldwide childhood immunization rates and launched a movement that profoundly altered the face of global health and international development.

    And nowhere are those remedies more needed and desired than in our cities. The Permaculture City provides a new way of thinking about urban living, with practical examples for creating abundant food, energy security, close-knit communities, local and meaningful livelihoods, and sustainable policies in our cities and towns. The same nature-based approach that works so beautifully for growing food—connecting the pieces of the landscape together in harmonious ways—applies perfectly to many of our other needs. Toby Hemenway, one of the leading practitioners and teachers of permaculture design, illuminates a new way forward through examples of edge-pushing innovations, along with a deeply holistic conceptual framework for our cities, towns, and suburbs.The Permaculture City begins in the garden but takes what we have learned there and applies it to a much broader range of human experience; we’re not just gardening plants but people, neighborhoods, and even cultures. Hemenway lays out how permaculture design can help towndwellers solve the challenges of meeting our needs for food, water, shelter, energy, community, and livelihood in sustainable, resilient ways. Readers will find new information on designing the urban home garden and strategies for gardening in community, rethinking our water and energy systems, learning the difference between a “job” and a “livelihood,” and the importance of placemaking and an empowered community.This important book documents the rise of a new sophistication, depth, and diversity in the approaches and thinking of permaculture designers and practitioners. Understanding nature can do more than improve how we grow, make, or consume things; it can also teach us how to cooperate, make decisions, and arrive at good solutions.

    Ships, trucks, and trains are the backbone of civilization, hauling the goods that fulfill our every need and desire. Their powerful, highly-efficient diesel combustion engines are exquisitely fine-tuned to burn petroleum-based diesel fuel. These engines and the fuels that fire them have been among the most transformative yet disruptive technologies on the planet. Although this transportation revolution has allowed many of us to fill our homes with global goods even a past emperor would envy, our era of abundance, and the freight transport system in particular, is predicated on the affordability and high energy density of a single fuel, oil. This book explores alternatives to this finite resource including other liquid fuels, truck and locomotive batteries and utility-scale energy storage technology, and various forms of renewable electricity to support electrified transport. Transportation also must adapt to other challenges: Threats from climate change, financial busts, supply-chain failure, and transportation infrastructure decay. Robert Hirsch, who wrote the Peaking of World Oil Production report for the U.S. Department of Energy in 2005, said that planning for peak world production must start at least 10, if not 20 years ahead of time. What little planning exists focuses mainly on how to accommodate 30 percent more economic growth while averting climate change, ignoring the possibility that we are at, or near, the end of growth. Taken for granted, the modern transportation system will not endure forever. The time is now to take a realistic and critical look at the choices ahead, and how the future of transportation may unfold."

    A growing body of evidence has proven that its current cornerstone—incentives to attract and retain large, globally mobile businesses—is a dead end. Even those programs that focus on local business, through buy-local initiatives, for example, depend on ongoing support from government or philanthropy. The entire practice of economic development has become ineffective and unaffordable and is in need of a makeover.  The Local Economy Solution suggests an alternative approach in which states and cities nurture a new generation of special kinds of businesses that help local businesses grow. These cutting-edge companies, which Shuman calls “pollinator businesses,” are creating jobs and the conditions for future economic growth, and doing so in self-financing ways.  Pollinator businesses are especially important to communities that are struggling to lift themselves up in a period of economic austerity, when municipal budgets are being slashed. They also promote locally owned businesses that increase local self-reliance and evince high labor and environmental standards.  The book includes nearly two dozen case studies of successful pollinator businesses that are creatively facilitating business and neighborhood improvements, entrepreneurship, local purchasing, local investing, and profitable business partnerships. Examples include Main Street Genome (which provides invaluable data to improve local business performance), Supportland (which is developing a powerful loyalty card for local businesses), and Fledge (a business accelerator that finances itself through royalty payments). It also shows how the right kinds of public policy can encourage the spread of pollinator businesses at virtually no cost.

    Current trends show great promise for future urban mobility systems that enable freedom and connection, but not dependence. We are experiencing the phenomenon of peak car use in many global cities at the same time that urban rail is thriving, central cities are revitalizing, and suburban sprawl is reversing. Walking and cycling are growing in many cities, along with ubiquitous bike sharing schemes, which have contributed to new investment and vitality in central cities including Melbourne, Seattle, Chicago, and New York.   We are thus in a new era that has come much faster than global transportation experts Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy had predicted: the end of automobile dependence. In The End of Automobile Dependence, Newman and Kenworthy look at how we can accelerate a planning approach to designing urban environments that can function reliably and conveniently on alternative modes, with a refined and more civilized automobile playing a very much reduced and manageable role in urban transportation. The authors examine the rise and fall of automobile dependence using updated data on 44 global cities to better understand how to facilitate and guide cities to the most productive and sustainable outcomes.   This is the final volume in a trilogy by Newman and Kenworthy on automobile dependence (Cities and Automobile Dependence in 1989 and Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence in 1999). Like all good trilogies this one shows the rise of an empire, in this case that of the automobile, the peak of its power, and the decline of that empire.

    But our growing demand is not sustainable. This optimistic and richly-informed book evaluates all the options and explains how we can greatly reduce the amount of material demanded and used in manufacturing, while still meeting everyone's needs."Instead of the usual ya-boo about sustainability, this is a pragmatic guide to getting more value from less stuff. Researched with long-term co-operation from industry, it emphasizes facts and evidence but is aimed at a popular readership." - BBC News Magazine"A valuable, impartial expert source in an important debate." - Boing Boing

    Each book in the series is co-authored by leading leadership consultant Alan Watkins and a hand-picked expert in each subject field.The first book in the series looks at some of the most pressing and topical issues affecting the world today, from the clash of religions and cultures in a globalized world to the growing dominance of technology. Co-written with renowned social thinker and philosopher Ken Wilber the book sets the scene for debating the key challenges facing current and future generations, and sets possible agendas for how leaders, and potential leaders, can solve challenges through the wise application of multi-tiered multi-channel, multi-organizational intervention and lead in a highly developed, enlightened & selfless way.

    Help them grow to be fruitful, self-sufficient, happy, and healthy!

    State-of-the-art passenger jets are grounded because of a malfunctioning part. A strike halts shipments through a major port. A new digital device decimates the sales of other brands and sends established firms to the brink of bankruptcy. The interconnectedness of the global economy today means that unexpected events in one corner of the globe can ripple through the world's supply chain and affect customers everywhere. In this book, Yossi Sheffi shows why modern vulnerabilities call for innovative processes and tools for creating and embedding corporate resilience and risk management. Sheffi offers fascinating case studies that illustrate how companies have prepared for, coped with, and come out stronger following disruption--from the actions of Intel after the 2011 Japanese tsunami to the disruption in the "money supply chain" caused by the 2008 financial crisis.Sheffi, author of the widely read The Resilient Enterprise, focuses here on deep tier risks as well as corporate responsibility, cybersecurity, long-term disruptions, business continuity planning, emergency operations centers, detection, and systemic disruptions. Supply chain risk management, Sheffi shows, is a balancing act between taking on the risks involved in new products, new markets, and new processes--all crucial for growth--and the resilience created by advanced risk management.

    A staggering number of us spend as much as half our waking hours online. Right now, more people are gazing at a screen than looking out a window. As we are drawn deeper into a symbiotic relationship with the digital, there is also a growing desire for more tactile, immersive experiences. Touch screens don’t eliminate the need to touch something more palpable than an electronic visual display.It’s in this context that today’s "postdigital artisans" operate. Inescapably influenced by the digital world, they nonetheless reject strictly screen-based design and total reliance on automated production, such as 3D printing. They advocate a return to craft, with objects made from clay, metal, glass and wood. They neither turn their backs on technology nor glorify nostalgia, but the high-tech honeymoon is over. They see materials as the heart of art, design, fashion and architecture.Postdigital Artisans profiles sixty contemporary artists and designers, accompanied by rich illustrations of their work. Essays and interviews by and with leading figures such as Hans Ulrich Obrist, Nathan Jurgenson and Glenn Adamson deftly analyze all forms of postdigital creativity, from visual art and design to architecture and urban planning.

    One in seven people in low- and middle-income countries die as a result of it. Simply put, pollution is now the world’s most prevalent health risk.And yet, while most everyone has heard about “going green,” few are aware of the more dire and sinister “brown” pollution—places where man-made toxic pollutants have taken root and spread. Brown sites poison millions of people every year, causing needless suffering and death.After witnessing several brown sites firsthand and meeting families trapped by poverty in these toxic hot spots, environmentalist Richard Fuller founded the Blacksmith Institute, now renamed Pure Earth, a global nonprofit that initiates large-scale cleanups of some of the most polluted places on earth.The Brown Agenda details Fuller’s inspirational journey—from his dangerous yet ultimately successful fight to save hundreds of thousands of acres in the Amazon rain forest to his creation of Pure Earth.In this vivid account of his perilous travels to the earth’s most toxic locations, Fuller introduces readers to the plight of the “poisoned poor,” and suggests specific ways people everywhere can help combat pollution all over the world.

    We are biological beings whose senses and neural systems have developed over millions of years; it stands to reason that research in the life sciences, particularly neuroscience, can offer compelling insights into the ways our buildings shape our interactions with the world. This expanded understanding can help architects design buildings that support both mind and body. In Mind in Architecture, leading thinkers from architecture and other disciplines, including neuroscience, cognitive science, psychiatry, and philosophy, explore what architecture and neuroscience can learn from each other. They offer historical context, examine the implications for current architectural practice and education, and imagine a neuroscientifically informed architecture of the future.Architecture is late in discovering the richness of neuroscientific research. As scientists were finding evidence for the bodily basis of mind and meaning, architecture was caught up in convoluted cerebral games that denied emotional and bodily reality altogether. This volume maps the extraordinary opportunity that engagement with cutting-edge neuroscience offers present-day architects.ContributorsThomas D. Albright, Michael Arbib, John Paul Eberhard, Melissa Farling, Vittorio Gallese, Alessandro Gattara, Mark L. Johnson, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Iain McGilchrist, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Sarah Robinson

    Reflecting the very latest research, this book provides a critical review of the ways in which resilience of social-ecological systems, and the ecosystem services they provide, can be enhanced. With contributions from leaders in the field, the chapters are structured around seven key principles for building resilience: maintain diversity and redundancy; manage connectivity; manage slow variables and feedbacks; foster complex adaptive systems thinking; encourage learning; broaden participation; and promote polycentric governance. The authors assess the evidence in support of these principles, discussing their practical application and outlining further research needs. Intended for researchers, practitioners and graduate students, this is an ideal resource for anyone working in resilience science and for those in the broader fields of sustainability science, environmental management and governance.

    He is widely regarded as one of the world's most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.

    From Edward James's surreal sculpture garden Las Pozas in Mexico to Anselm Kiefer's sprawling studio complex in the French countryside, artists and art collectors are creating outdoor spaces in order to display sculpture and art that is both transformative and powerful. This book is filled with breathtaking photographs of 25 of these spaces from throughout the world--many of which are not open to the public. Captured in brilliant color, these spaces are populated by works that both enhance and are enhanced by the landscape: rolling hills, mountain lakes, shaded canyons, and empty deserts. Readers will discover Anish Kapoor's startling red steel tube draped across the rolling hills of New Zealand and an enormous pumpkin created by Yayoi Kusama, which sits on a pier overlooking Japan's Seto Inland Sea. Each park's concept is based on a unique theme or idea, and some of these spaces invite contemplation both spiritual and scientific, while others blend horticultural elements with manmade objects. As large-scale works grow in popularity, these collections--built and designed by entrepreneurs, landscape architects, environmentalists, artists, and garden experts--demonstrate the endless possibilities of displaying art in nature's realm. Lovers of art, landscape design, and travel will treasure this enchanting excursion into the world's most impressive outdoor museums.

    Any understanding of complex energy systems must rely on quantitative measures of many fundamental variables. Power density—the rate of energy flux per unit of area—is an important but largely overlooked measure. Smil provides the first systematic, quantitative appraisal of power density, offering detailed reviews of the power densities of renewable energy flows, fossil fuels, thermal electricity generation, and all common energy uses.Smil shows that careful quantification, critical appraisals, and revealing comparisons of power densities make possible a deeper understanding of the ways we harness, convert, and use energies. Conscientious assessment of power densities, he argues, proves particularly revealing when contrasting the fossil fuel–based energy system with renewable energy conversions.Smil explains that modern civilization has evolved as a direct expression of the high power densities of fossil fuel extraction. He argues that our inevitable (and desirable) move to new energy arrangements involving conversions of lower-density renewable energy sources will require our society—currently dominated by megacities and concentrated industrial production—to undergo a profound spatial restructuring of its energy system.

    Evolving onward from the patriarchal template of spiritual warriors and their quests, former nun Thanissara explores awakening from within a feminine view where the archetypes of lover and nurturer are placed as central and essential for a sustainable world.Vital is an investigation into the pinnacle of Buddhist practice, the realization of the "liberated heart." Thanissara questions the narrative of "transcendence" and invites us into the lived reality of our deepest heart as it guides our journey of healing, reclamation, and redemption. As the book unfolds, the author examines traditional Buddhism--often fraught with gender discrimination--and asks the important question, "Can Buddhist schools, overly attached to hierarchal power structures, and often divorced from the radical and free inquiry exemplified by the Buddha, truly offer the ground for maturing awakening without undertaking a fundamental review of their own shadows?"Chapter by chapter, the book relates Siddhartha Gautama's awakening to the sea-change occurring on Earth in present time as we as a civilization become aware of the ethical bankruptcy of the nuclear and fossil fuel industry and the psychopathic corporate and military abuse of power currently terrorizing our planet. Thanissara relates the Buddha's story to real-life individuals who are living through these transitional times, such as Iraq war veterans, First Nation People, and the Dalai Lama. Time to Stand Up gives examples of the Buddha's activism, such as challenging a racist caste system and violence against animals, stopping war, transforming a serial killer, and laying down a nonhierarchical structure of community governance, actions that would seem radical even today.Thanissara explores ways forward, deepening our understanding of meditation and mindfulness, probing its use to pacify ourselves as the cogs in the corporate world by helping people be more functional in a dysfunctional systems--and shows how these core Buddhist practices can inspire a wake-up call for action for our sick and suffering planet Earth.About the Sacred Activism seriesWhen the joy of compassionate service is combined with the pragmatic drive to transform all existing economic, social, and political institutions, a radical divine force is born: Sacred Activism. The Sacred Activism Series, published by North Atlantic Books, presents leading voices that embody the tenets of Sacred Activism--compassion, service, and sacred consciousness--while addressing the crucial issues of our time and inspiring radical action.

    This book explores the complex relationship that the corporate world has with climate change and examines the central role of corporations in shaping political and social responses to the climate crisis. The principal message of the book is that despite the need for dramatic economic and political change, corporate capitalism continues to rely on the maintenance of 'business as usual'. The authors explore the different processes through which corporations engage with climate change. Key discussion points include climate change as business risk, corporate climate politics, the role of justification and compromise, and managerial identity and emotional reactions to climate change. Written for researchers and graduate students, this book moves beyond descriptive and normative approaches to provide a sociologically and critically informed theory of corporate responses to climate change.

    Society is entering a new era in which biophysical limits related to natural resource extraction rates and the biosphere's waste assimilation capacity are becoming binding constraints on mature economies. Unfortunately, the data needed for policy-makers to understand and manage economic growth in this new era are not universally available. All stakeholders need a new way to understand our economy in the context of the biosphere s ability to provide essential natural capital, and we suggest that detailed information about materials, energy, embodied energy, and energy intensity should be routinely gathered, analyzed, and disseminated from a centralized location to provide markets and policymakers with a more comprehensive understanding of the biophysical economy. However, a firm theoretical foundation is needed before proceeding along this new path, which this book is intended to provide.After arguing that the stock of manufactured capital is an important driver of material and energy demands imposed upon the biosphere, a new accounting framework is derived from the laws of thermodynamics to reflect the fact that material and embodied energy accumulate within the capital stock of economic sectors. This framework extends the Energy Input-Output (EI-O) techniques first developed by Bullard, Herendeen, and others to estimate energy intensity of economic products. Implications from the new framework are discussed, including the value of economic metrics for policy-making, the need for physically-based rather than product-based EI-O formulations, a re-assessment of the concept of economic growth, and an evaluation of recycling, reuse, and dematerialization. The framework also provides an opportunity to assess an array of definitions for Daly's steady-state economy in relation to the ideal of a sustainable economy.The book ends with a list of steps to be taken in creating a more comprehensive system of national accounts:National accounting agencies worldwide should develop and maintain balance sheets of both natural and manufactured capital in addition to national income statementsAll stocks and inter-sector flows should be provided in physical as well as financial unitsIn the US, the Bureau for Economic Analysis (BEA) should restart detailed Capital, Labor, Energy, Material, and Services (KLEMS) reportingNational accounting agencies should routinely estimate the energy intensity of economic products, and all of the above should be estimated and disseminated on an annual basis."

    Life for those in the region would never be the same. This book is about the awakening that follows disaster. About the minutes and months and years that come after now. It is about what happens when we're smacked on the side of the head and open our eyes, startled out of the trance in which we have been living our days. It is about the opportunities always present, often invisible, to create the lives we want, now.

    This ground breaking text moves between environmental sociology and environmental geography, political and social ecology and critical design studies to provide a definitive mapping of the state of environmental social theory in the age of the anthropocene.Environments, Natures and Social Theory provokes dialogue and confrontation between critical political economists, actor network theorists, neo-Malthusians and environmental justice advocates. It maps out the new environmental politics of hybridity moving from hybrid neo-liberals to end times ecologists, from post environmentalists to cyborg eco-socialists. White, Rudy and Gareau insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within our grasp. This will only be brought into being, however, by reclaiming, celebrating and channeling the reconstructive potential of entangled hybrid humans as inventive hominids, creative gardeners, critical publics and political agents. Written in an accessible style, Environments, Natures and Social Theory is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences.

     A former Fortune 50 manufacturing executive, Fedrizzi became a leader of the modern environmental movement when he played an instrumental role in creating the most important and far-reaching sustainability movement of our time: the green building movement. Today, Fedrizzi’s work and ideas are transforming the real estate industry, one of the largest sectors of the global economy, and one of the largest contributors to climate change. As a co-founder of the U.S. Green Building Council, Fedrizzi oversaw the creation of LEED—Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design—which has certified more than four billion square feet of sustainable real estate worldwide. According to Paul Hawken, a legendary environmentalist, “USGBC may have had a greater impact than any other single organization in the world on materials saved, toxins eliminated, greenhouse gases avoided, and human health enhanced.” But that’s only half the story: the green building industry has also sparked billions of dollars of economic impact and created millions of jobs. This stunning revelation—that sustainability is profitable—is at the heart of Fedrizzi’s call to action in Greenthink. For decades, environmentalists and the private sector have been at odds. Activists have decried the impact of industry on the environment. Business leaders, meanwhile, resent environmentalists for “job-killing regulations.” But in Greenthink, Fedrizzi turns conventional wisdom on its head by showing how profit can save the planet, and how sustainability is the biggest business opportunity of the 21st century. With the urgency of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the illuminating stories of Tom Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and the insight of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, Fedrizzi calls the reader’s attention to hidden yet fundamental truths about our environment, our society, and our economy. His message is as controversial as it is clear: leverage the profit motive to save the world—and its humans—from environmental catastrophe. With a heartfelt foreword by actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio, Greenthink is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of our environment, or the future of our economy. Because, in Fedrizzi’s words, “they will share the same fate.”

     Informed by significant research into the physiological basis of behaviour conducted by author Dr Jim Penman and a team of scientists at RMIT University and the Florey Institute in Melbourne, Australia, Biohistory examines how a complex interplay between culture and biology has shaped civilisations from the Roman Empire to the modern West. Penman proposes that historical changes are driven by changes in the prevailing temperament of populations, based on physiological mechanisms that adapt animal behaviour to changing food conditions. It details the history of human society by mapping the effects of these epigenetic changes on cultures, and on historical tipping points including wars and revolutions. It shows how laboratory studies can be used to explain broad social and economic changes, including the fortunes of entire civilizations. The author’s shocking conclusion is that the West is in terminal and inevitable decline, and that its only hope may lie with the biological sciences. Drawing on the disciplines of history, biology, anthropology and economics, Biohistory is the first theory of society that can be tested with some rigour in the laboratory. It explains how environment, cultural values and childrearing patterns determine whether societies prosper or collapse, and how social change can be both predicted—and potentially modified—through biochemistry.

    From the American Dream to globalization to the digital and information revolutions, we assume that humans have taken control of our collective destinies in spite of potholes in the road such as the Great Recession of 2007-2009. However, these attitudes were formed during a unique 100-year period of human history in which a large but finite supply of fossil fuels was tapped to feed our economic and innovation engine. Today, at the peak of the Oil Age, the horizon looks different. Cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas are situated where water and other vital ecological services are scarce, and the enormous flows of resources and energy that were needed to create the megalopolises of the 20th century will prove unsustainable. Climate change is a reality, and regional impacts will become increasingly severe. Economies such as Las Vegas, which are dependent on discretionary income and buffeted by climate change, are already suffering the fate of the proverbial canary in the coal mine.Finite resources will mean profound changes for society in general and the energy-intensive lifestyles of the US and Canada in particular. But not all regions are equally vulnerable to these 21st-century megatrends. Are you ready to look beyond “America’s Most Livable Cities” to the critical factors that will determine the sustainability of your municipality and region? Find out where your city or region ranks according to the forces that will impact our lives in the next years and decades.Find out how:·resource availability and ecological services shaped the modern landscape·emerging megatrends will make cities and regions more or less livable in the new century·your city or region ranks on a “sustainability” map of the United States·urban metabolism puts large cities at particular risk·sustainability factors will favor economic solutions at a local, rather than global, level·these principles apply to industrial economies and countries globally.

    You'd be surprised at the bounty of wild food you can find practically on your doorstep: some native plants, some escapes from ancient gardens and all delicious. Most of these foods are within easy reach - however, you've got to know what you're looking for and where to go and when. Arranged in a directory of categories divided into wild plants, herbs, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, seaweeds and shellfish, this book has all of the information you need alongside clear illustrations to help you identify a wholesome and natural food store, all for free. Hints on how to prepare and eat your foraged bounty are also included, along with advice on seasonality.

    South Korea followed a conventional capitalist route: labor movements challenged the system long before environmental movements did. In Taiwan, pro-environment struggles gained strength before labor activism. Liu argues that part of the explanation lies in an analysis of how movements advance their causes by utilizing different types of power. Whereas labor movements have the power of economic leverage, environmental movements depend on the power of ideology. Therefore, examining material factors versus ideational factors is crucial to understanding the successes (or failures) of social movements.Leverage of the Weak is a significant contribution to the literature on social movements, to the study of East Asian political economies, and to the progress of the comparative-historical method. It enhances knowledge of movement emergence, investigates the possibilities and obstacles involved in forging labor–environment alliances, and offers the first systematic, multilayered comparisons across movements and nations in East Asia.

    In this book, D. G. Webster describes how the political economy of fisheries has evolved and highlights patterns that are linked to sustainable transitions in specific fisheries. Grounded in the concept of responsive governance, Webster's interdisciplinary analysis goes beyond the conventional view of the tragedy of the commons." Using her Action Cycle/Structural Context framework, she maps long-running patterns that cycle between depletion and rebuilding in a process that she terms the management treadmill.Webster documents the management treadmill in settings that range from small coastal fishing communities to international fisheries that span entire oceans. She identifies the profit disconnect, in which economic incentives are out of sync with sustainable use, and the power disconnect, in which those who experience the costs of overexploitation are politically marginalized. She examines how these disconnects shaped the economics of expansion and documents how political systems failed to prevent related cycles of serial resource depletion. Webster also traces the increasing use of restrictive management in response to worsening fisheries crises and the emergence of new, noncommercial interests that demand greater management but also generate substantial conflict. She finds that the management treadmill is speeding up with population growth and economic development, and so concludes that sustainable fisheries can only exist within a sustainable global economic system.

    This second, heavily revised edition brings the material on this rapidly changing field completely up to date, with major scholars from around the world mapping out trajectories of research and issuing specific calls for action. The new editionintroduces new "foundational" chapters--laying out what anthropologists know about climate change today, new theoretical and practical perspectives, insights gleaned from sociology, and international efforts to study and curb climate change--making the volume a perfect introductory textbook;presents a series of case studies--both new case studies and old ones updated and viewed with fresh eyes--with the specific purpose of assessing climate trends;provides a close look at how climate change is affecting livelihoods, especially in the context of economic globalization and the migration of youth from rural to urban areas;expands coverage to England, the Amazon, the Marshall Islands, Tanzania, and Ethiopia;re-examines the conclusions and recommendations of the first volume, refining our knowledge of what we do and do not know about climate change and what we can do to adapt.

    Norton in Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change. One of the most trafficked terms in the press, on university campuses, and in the corridors of government, sustainability has risen to prominence as a buzzword before the many parties laying claim to it have come close to agreeing how to define it. But the term’s political currency urgently demands that we develop an understanding of this elusive concept. While economists, philosophers, and ecologists argue about what in nature is valuable, and why, Norton here offers an action-oriented, pragmatic response to the disconnect between public and academic discourse around sustainability. Looking to the arenas in which decisions are made—and the problems that are driving these decisions—Norton reveals that the path to sustainability cannot be guided by fixed, utopian objectives projected into the future; sustainability will instead be achieved through experimentation, incremental learning, and adaptive management. Drawing inspiration from Aldo Leopold’s famed metaphor of “thinking like a mountain” for a spatially explicit, pluralistic approach to evaluating environmental change, Norton replaces theory-dependent definitions with a new decision-making process guided by deliberation and negotiation across science and philosophy, encompassing all stakeholders and activists and seeking to protect as many values as possible. Looking across scales to today’s global problems, Norton urges us to learn to think like a planet.