Book picks similar to
People, Planet, Profit: How to Embrace Sustainability for Innovation and Business Growth by Peter Fisk
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The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature
David George Haskell - 2012
Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature’s path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.Each of this book’s short chapters begins with a simple observation: a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers. From these, Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology and ecology, explaining the science that binds together the tiniest microbes and the largest mammals and describing the ecosystems that have cycled for thousands—sometimes millions—of years. Each visit to the forest presents a nature story in miniature as Haskell elegantly teases out the intricate relationships that order the creatures and plants that call it home.Written with remarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Haskell is a perfect guide into the world that exists beneath our feet and beyond our backyards.
Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World
Rutger Bregman - 2014
A 15-hour workweek. Open borders. Does it sound too good to be true? One of Europe's leading young thinkers shows how we can build an ideal world today. "A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell."—The New York Times After working all day at jobs we often dislike, we buy things we don't need. Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian, reminds us it needn't be this way—and in some places it isn't. Rutger Bregman's TED Talk about universal basic income seemed impossibly radical when he delivered it in 2014. A quarter of a million views later, the subject of that video is being seriously considered by leading economists and government leaders the world over. It's just one of the many utopian ideas that Bregman proves is possible today. Utopia for Realists is one of those rare books that takes you by surprise and challenges what you think can happen. From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty, to Richard Nixon's near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history, and beyond the traditional left-right divides, as he champions ideas whose time have come. Every progressive milestone of civilization—from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy—was once considered a utopian fantasy. Bregman's book, both challenging and bracing, demonstrates that new utopian ideas, like the elimination of poverty and the creation of the fifteen-hour workweek, can become a reality in our lifetime. Being unrealistic and unreasonable can in fact make the impossible inevitable, and it is the only way to build the ideal world.
Year of Plenty: One Suburban Family, Four Rules, and 365 Days of Homegrown Adventure in Pursuit of Christian Living
Craig L. Goodwin - 2011
In Year of Plenty, Goodwin shares the winsome story of how an average suburban family stumbled onto the cultural cutting edge of locavores, backyard chickens, farmers markets, simple living, and going green. More than that, it is the timely tale of Christians exploring the intersections of faith, environment, and everyday life.This humorous yet profound book comes at just the right time for North American Christians, who are eager to engage the growing interest in the environmental movement and the quandaries of modern consumer culture. It speaks also to the growing legions of the "spiritual but not religious" who long for ways to connect heaven and earth in their daily lives."Craig Goodwin invites us into a life of paying attention. This is an experiment in God's ordinary: life centered in relationship, lived in a physical world of spiritual meaning, and expressed in daily acts of attentiveness that are unhooked from patterns that degrade us and imperil the world. It turns out to be a wonderful and complicating adventure. Free from grandiosity, sentimentality, or ideology, this book tells its story with captivating humanity and motivating honesty."-Mark LabbertonDirector, Ogilvie Institute for PreachingFuller Theological SeminaryAuthor of The Dangerous Act of Worship"As someone who had gotten good at resisting grumpy calls to reject our consumerist culture, I found this book delightfully refreshing and compelling. Craig Goodwin describes an experiment in 'familial art'-a creative effort to seek out new and very practical experiments living as more faithful stewardship of the earth's resources. I haven't started raising chickens or making homemade butter (yet!) after reading this wonderful book-but I have learned some profound lessons."-Richard J. MouwPresident and Professor of Christian PhilosophyFuller Theological Seminary"Many clergy and other church leaders ask for examples of how and where missional work is actually taking place. Here is a leader faithfully engaging this work in a practical, local, on-the-ground way that leads to new expressions of church in mission. This is the kind of story about a church-in-process we need to hear."-Alan J. RoxburghFounder of the Missional NetworkAuthor of The Missional LeaderAdjunct Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary"I heartily recommend Goodwin's charming, thoughtful, and extremely funny book. With remarkable insight and refreshing humility, Craig Goodwin takes us with him and his family as they learn who and what is behind the things we so often thoughtlessly purchase. Goodwin reminds us how much of community and life we have sacrificed in the name of convenience and low price. Through engaging narrative he skillfully integrates lessons on faith, life, and God, integrating the spiritual with the material and the local with the global. This is an important contribution to the ongoing conversation about our role as Christians in taking care of and enjoying God's creation."-Scott SabinExecutive Director, Plant With PurposeAuthor of Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God's PeopleReview in Eco-Journey
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
Paul Hawken - 2007
Hawken, an environmentalist and author, has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person causes, these organizations collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This is a movement that has no name, leader, or location, but is in every city, town, and culture. It is organizing from the bottom up and is emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s needs worldwide. Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of this movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries-old history. The culmination of Hawken’s many years of leadership in these fields, it will inspire, surprise, and delight anyone who is worried about the direction the modern world is headed. Blessed Unrest is a description of humanity’s collective genius and the unstoppable movement to re-imagine our relationship to the environment and one another. Like Hawken’s previous books, Blessed Unrest will become a classic in its field— a touchstone for anyone concerned about our future.
Consumed: On Colonialism, Climate Change, Consumerism, and the Need for Collective Change
Aja Barber - 2021
And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn't (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth. In the second 'unlearning' half of the book, she will help you to understand the uncomfortable truth behind why you consume the way you do. She asks you to confront the sense of lack you have, the feeling that you are never quite enough and the reasons why you fill the aching void with consumption rather than compassion. And she makes you challenge this power disparity, and take back ownership of it. The less you buy into the consumer culture the more power you have. CONSUMED will teach you how to be a citizen not a consumer.
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
Naomi Klein - 2014
It's not about carbon—it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better. In her most provocative book yet, Naomi Klein, author of the global bestsellers Shock Doctrine and No Logo, exposes the myths that are clouding climate debate. You have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. You have been told it's impossible to get off fossil fuels when in fact we know exactly how to do it—it just requires breaking every rule in the 'free-market' playbook. You have also been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge. In fact, all around the world, the fight back is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring. It's about changing the world, before the world changes so drastically that no one is safe. Either we leap—or we sink. This Changes Everything is a book that will redefine our era.
The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years
James Canton - 2006
James Canton, a renowned futurist, CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, and Fortune 1000 advisor, charts a course to steer you through the volatile changes that lie 5, 10, and 20 years ahead. "The Extreme Future" is this generation's "Future Shock," Alvin Toffler's classic book on what's next and how to prepare for tomorrow.Get ready for fast, radical and complex change. Get ready for the Extreme Future. Our world is constantly buffeted by new and dramatic changes that we can't fully grasp. No one is fully prepared for the challenges, crises and risks that lie ahead. "The Extreme Future" is a blueprint for what's next and how to navigate these changes.An advisor to three White House's spanning more than 30 years, Dr. Canton challenges us that with the right information about future trends it is possible to identify probable outcomes. It is possible, with the right information to navigate the Extreme Future.The book covers the following major trends: How climate change and energy trends will reshape the planetHow shifting population trends will transform the workforceHow radical innovation trends will competitively drive businessHow astounding medicine trends will enhance people's lifeHow dangerous terrorism trends will threaten the individual.How the rise of China will bring on a new global power struggleThe answers to these questions are not only available, but contained within these pages. "The Extreme Future" is the forecasting handbook for the twenty-first century.
Sleeping Naked is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days
Vanessa Farquharson - 2009
But most of us do want to lessen our ecological footprint. With this in mind, Farquharson takes on the intense personal challenge of making one green change to her lifestyle every single day for a year to ultimately figure out what's doable and what's too hardcore.Vanessa goes to the extremes of selling her car, unplugging the fridge, and washing her hair with vinegar, but she also does easy things like switching to an all-natural lip balm. All the while, she is forced to reflect on what it truly means to be green.Whether confronting her environmental hypocrisy or figuring out the best place in her living room for a compost bin full of worms and rotting cabbage, Vanessa writes about her foray into the green world with self-deprecating, humorous, and accessible insight. This isn't a how-to book of tips, it's not about being eco-chic; it's an honest look at what happens when an average girl throws herself into the murkiest depths of the green movement.
One-Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka
Larry Korn - 2015
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.
The Mindful Vegan: A 30-Day Plan for Finding Health, Balance, Peace, and Happiness
Lani Muelrath - 2017
Mindfulness can be the deciding factor between your successful adoption of a healthy vegan diet and repeated frustrating attempts. This simple technique goes under the surface of what is hampering your happiness, providing a sought-after solution to many of life's ups and downs by rewiring your reactivity to challenges.Certified mindfulness meditation facilitator, award winning health educator, and longtime vegan advocate Lani Muelrath has been practicing mindfulness meditation for 25 years. In The Mindful Vegan, she teaches you how to practice mindfulness and shows how it can bring freedom and a new joy to your eating--and living--experience.Backed by extensive research, with step-by-step instructions, personal stories, positivity, humor, and a handful of delicious recipes, The Mindful Vegan will help you emancipate yourself from the stranglehold that mindless and compulsive eating have on your weight, health, food choices, and, most of all, peace of mind. With Lani's guidance, you'll learn the techniques of mindfulness meditation, opening the door to creating a more resilient vegan lifestyle. You'll discover why eating in a way that lines up with your convictions about health, the environment, and ethics reduces stress and increases happiness.The Mindful Vegan sets you on a path to cultivating your capacity for genuine happiness and a more peaceful life--in a way that is personally satisfying and aligned with your deepest values. This book is for anyone who wants to be free of frustrating and baffling eating behaviors, experience a new ease around eating, and discover their naturally healthy body and weight.Stop stressing. Start living--and eating--mindfully. Your body and mind will thank you.
Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World
Diane McEachern - 2008
But how do we solve a problem that can seem overwhelming-even hopeless? As Diane MacEachern argues in Big Green Purse, the best way to fight the industries that pollute the planet, thereby changing the marketplace forever, is to mobilize the most powerful consumer force in the world-women. MacEachern's message is simple but revolutionary. If women harness the "power of their purse" and intentionally shift their spending money to commodities that have the greatest environmental benefit, they can create a cleaner, greener world. Spirited and informative, this book: - targets twenty commodities-cars, cosmetics, coffee, food, paper products, appliances, cleansers, and more-where women's dollars can make a dramatic difference; - provides easy-to-follow guidelines and lists so women can choose the greenest option regardless of what they're buying, along with recommended companies they should support; - encourages women to spend wisely by explaining what's worth the premium price some green products cost, what's not, and when they shouldn't spend money at all; and - differentiates between products that are actually "green" and those that are simply marketed as "ecofriendly." Whether readers want to start with small changes or are ready to devote the majority of their budget to green products, MacEachern offers concrete and immediate ways that women can take action and make a difference. Empowering and enlightening, Big Green Purse will become the "green shopping bible" for women everywhere who are asking, "What can I do?"
Earth Must BE Stopped (The Assassin Guild, #1)
Saxon Andrew - 2018
Fifty-colonies were founded hundreds of years ago, after Nordstrum Haladay discovered Phase Field technology. Millions of Colonists left Earth to escape the incessant wars, famine, and over-population plaguing the planet. Earth regressed to a primitive civilization after nuclear holocaust killed more than twelve-billion. They became little more than primitive farmers; blaming science and technology for the climactic nuclear war and abhorred all technology. The colonies were left to fend for themselves. Four-hundred-years after the war, the Colonies sent starships back to Earth to trade for the crops and forced an unfairly low price on the farmers. Earthlings came to detest the colonies and decided that technology might be needed for defense. Earth began evolving quickly and three-hundred-years, after the colony traders first arrived, Earth rivaled the colonies in advanced technology. However, Earth did not possess Phase Field Technology, and was held captive inside their Solar System for lack of stardrive technology. The colonies knew if Earth possessed a stardrive there would be reason to worry. The President of the Colonies’ Council has intel information that a scientist on Earth might be close to developing a working Phase Field Stardrive and felt that Earth must be stopped! The Assassins Guild was contracted to eliminate the scientist and all those working around him to prevent the discovery of a stardrive. The Assassins Guild kills millions of citizens in the colonies every year and receives billions in payment. This contract would be the most difficult ever accepted by the Guild. The assassins will take on the daunting task of blending in with Earth’s population, being forced to operate on a planet they are completely unfamiliar with while avoiding Earth’s formidable Security Forces. The top two ranked assassins are chosen for the contract and don’t know what lies ahead. The twists and turns in this full-length novel at 94,000 words will keep you guessing at what’s coming next as you keep turning the pages to find out. Excerpt: Earth Must Be Stopped Tal lowered his eyes, “The Council will be extremely unhappy if the Assassins Guild fails to carry out their contract.” The Guild Master’s face turned angry, “What are you saying? Is this a threat?” “No, Guild Master, I’ll accept the job on one condition?” “And what is that?” “I want the names of the guild members that paid you off to send us?” The Guild Master stared at Tal, and Tal continued, “You know you’d prefer to not have to look over your shoulder wondering if they’re angry if we survive. I’d be doing you a favor, Guild Master.” The Guild Master turned to Ka, “Are you in or out?” Tal turned to Ka, “He’s right, Ka. The reason he’s sending two-agents is because the security forces on Earth know that assassins usually work alone. If either of us tried to do this alone, Earth’s agents would be on us like white on rice. We know nothing about what we’ll be facing on Earth and scouting will be close to impossible. Going as a couple makes sense and increases the odds of success.” Ka stared at Tal and then turned back to the Guild Master, “I’m in, if you give him the names…” The Guild Master stared at her and she smiled, “before we leave.” “You won’t have time to do anything about it.” “Even so.” The Guild Master took out a business card from a desk drawer and wrote on the back of it.
The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More
Annie Raser-Rowland - 2017
You can save money and the world, inoculate yourself against many of the ills of modern life, andenjoy everything more on both the sensual and profound levels? Preposterous!Yet here is a toolkit to help you do just that. A tweak here, a twiddle there; every strategy in The Art Of Frugal Hedonism has been designed to help you target the most important habits of mind and action needed for living frugally but hedonistically. Apply a couple, and you ll definitely have a few extra dollars in your pocket and enjoy more sunsets. Apply the lot, and you ll wake up one day and realise that you re happier, wealthier, fitter, and more in lust with life than you d ever thought possible."
The Gorgeously Green Diet: How to Live Lean and Green
Sophie Uliano - 2009
And now, with The Gorgeously Green Diet, Sophie shows how to love food, live healthily, lose weight, and save money and the planet. Uliano offers three different lean and green eating plans-Light Green, Bright Green, and Deep Green. Each offers a cornucopia of the healthiest and most gorgeous food you've ever eaten as well as the secret to being healthy and staying that way. You'll learn how to reduce your impact on the environment by following the plan and how the Gorgeously Green Diet will improve your overall health. There are money- saving tips, including how to cook a healthy organic meal for five on less than it would cost to eat at Burger King, as well as nearly one hundred recipes and a gentle exercise plan. Readers can take the pledge to become green and lean, ask questions, and get support. This is the celebration of food, the planet, and healthy bodies that Sophie's many fans have been waiting for.
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Chris Anderson - 2006
The New York Times bestseller that introduced the business world to a future that s already here -- now in paperback with a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue.Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book of the Year.In the most important business book since The Tipping Point, Chris Anderson shows how the future of commerce and culture isn t in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as misses -- the endlessly long tail of that same curve.