An Introduction to Sustainability
An Introduction to Sustainability

Author: Martin Mulligan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1134548826

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An Introduction to Sustainability provides students with a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and ideas which are encompassed within the growing field of sustainability. The book teases out the diverse but intersecting domains of sustainability and emphasises strategies for action. Aimed at those studying the subject for the first time, it is unique in giving students from different disciplinary backgrounds a coherent framework and set of core principles for applying broad sustainability principles within their personal and professional lives. These include: working to improve equality within and across generations, moving from consumerism to quality of life goals and respecting diversity in both nature and culture. Areas of emerging importance such as the economics of happiness and wellbeing stand alongside core topics including: Energy and society Consumption and consumerism Risk and resilience Waste, water and land. Key challenges and applications are explored through international case studies and each chapter includes a thematic essay drawing on diverse literature to provide an integrated introduction to fundamental issues. Launched with the brand-new Routledge Sustainability Hub, the book’s companion website contains a range of features to engage students with the interdisciplinary nature of Sustainability. Together these resources provide a wealth of material for learning, teaching and researching the topic of sustainability. This textbook is an essential companion to any sustainability course.

Environment and Society
Environment and Society

Author: Paul Robbins

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2022-03-17

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1119408245

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A comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the conceptual tools used to explore real-world environmental problems Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, Third Edition demonstrates how theoretical approaches such as environmental ethics, political economy, and social construction work as conceptual tools to identify and clarify contemporary environmental issues. Assuming no background knowledge in the subject, this reader-friendly textbook uses clear language and engaging examples to first describe nine key conceptual tools, and then apply them to a variety of familiar objects—from bottled water and French fries to trees, wolves, and carbon dioxide. Throughout the text, highly accessible chapters provide insight into the relationship between the environment and present-day society. Divided into two parts, the text begins by explaining major theoretical approaches for interpreting the environment-society relationship and discussing different perspectives about environmental problems. Part II examines a series of objects, each viewed through a sample of the theoretical tools from Part I, helping readers think critically about critical environmental topics such as deforestation, climate change, the global water supply, and hazardous e-waste. This fully revised third edition stresses a wider range of competing ways of thinking about environmental issues and features additional cases studies, up-to-date conceptual understandings, and new chapters in Part I on racializd environments and feminist approaches. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, Third Edition: Covers theoretical lenses such as commodities, environmental ethics, and risks and hazards, and applies them to touchstone environment-society objects like wolves, tuna, trees, and carbon dioxide Uses a conversational narrative to explain key historical events, topical issues and policies, and scientific concepts Features substantial revisions and updates, including new chapters on feminism and race, and improved maps and illustrations Includes a wealth of in-book and online resources, including exercises and boxed discussions, chapter summaries, review questions, references, suggested readings, an online test bank, and internet links Provides additional instructor support such as suggested teaching models, full-color PowerPoint slides, and supplementary teaching material Retaining the innovative approach of its predecessors, Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, Third Edition remains the ideal textbook for courses in environmental issues, environmental science, and nature and society theory.

Environment and Society
Environment and Society

Author: Magnus Boström

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-13

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 3319764152

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This book offers a critical analysis of core concepts that have influenced contemporary conversations about environment-society relations in academic, political, and civil circles. Considering these conceptualizations are currently shaping responses to environmental crises in fundamental ways, critical reflections on concepts such as the Anthropocene, metabolism, risk, resilience, environmental governance, environmental justice and others, are well-warranted. Contributors to this volume, working across a multitude of areas within environmental social science, scrutinize underlying worldviews and assumptions, asking a common set of key questions: What are the different concepts able to explain? How do they take into account society-environment relations? What social, cultural, or geo-political biases and blinders are inherent? What actions or practices do the concepts inspire? The transdisciplinary engagement and reflexivity regarding concepts of environment-society relations represented in these chapters is needed in all spheres of society—in academia, policy and practice—not the least to confront current tendencies of anti-reflexivity and denialism.

Science, Society and the Environment
Science, Society and the Environment

Author: Michael R. Dove

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-24

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1134740417

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In an era when pressing environmental problems make collaboration across the divide between sciences and arts and humanities essential, this book presents the results of a collaborative analysis by an anthropologist and a physicist of four key junctures between science, society, and environment. The first focuses on the systemic bias in science in favour of studying esoteric subjects as distinct from the mundane subjects of everyday life; the second is a study of the fire-climax grasslands of Southeast Asia, especially those dominated by Imperata cylindrica (sword grass); the third reworks the idea of ‘moral economy’, applying it to relations between environment and society; and the fourth focuses on the evolution of the global discourse of the culpability and responsibility of climate change. The volume concludes with the insights of an interdisciplinary perspective for the natural and social science of sustainability. It argues that failures of conservation and development must be viewed systemically, and that mundane topics are no less complex than the more esoteric subjects of science. The book addresses a current blind spot within the academic research community to focusing attention on the seemingly common and mundane beliefs and practices that ultimately play the central role in the human interaction with the environment. This book will benefit students and scholars from a number of different academic disciplines, including conservation and environment studies, development studies, studies of global environmental change, anthropology, geography, sociology, politics, and science and technology studies.

An Introduction to Environment, Society and Sustainability
An Introduction to Environment, Society and Sustainability

Author: Helen Hazen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-07

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1040119603

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This timely and innovative book delves into the complex interplay of human activities and natural limits in generating today’s sustainability challenges. By contrasting the pressures of growing populations with ecological footprints associated with consumption, the volume navigates the contested terrain where human societies generate environmental impacts. Adorned with illustrative figures, examples and case studies throughout, this book presents insightful analysis of ecological, economic, technological, and social justice responses to the challenges faced by human civilization, including land degradation, climate change, pollution, and overexploitation of natural resources. Many of these issues are wicked problems, characterized by incomplete information, multiple stakeholders, and contested approaches to addressing them. In simple terms, sustainability issues are an interplay between population growth and rising consumption, which are placing impossible demands on finite resources. Potential solutions to the crisis are split between green growth approaches that emphasize technology and institutional capacity to guide economic growth in more sustainable ways, and degrowth approaches that call for a fundamental rethinking of the way we structure society and generate value. This book emerged from a student seminar where undergraduate and graduate students highlighted sustainability topics of concern, helped consider their framing, and then assisted with co-writing several of the chapters. The volume encourages readers to consider structural questions that underpin sustainability dilemmas, and begins with four theoretical frameworks for understanding sustainability issues: ideas from the natural sciences, the population/consumption debate, economic frameworks, and ethical approaches. It then uses a systems approach to apply these theoretical ideas to complex global systems such as the atmosphere, oceans, and agriculture. This volume will be of pivotal interest to students, scholars and academics in the fields of environmental studies, environment and society, human geography and environmental geography, as well as those with an interest in these areas more generally.

Environmental Values
Environmental Values

Author: John O'Neill

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-06-03

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 113476037X

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We live in a world confronted by mounting environmental problems; increasing global deforestation and desertification, loss of species diversity, pollution and global warming. In everyday life people mourn the loss of valued landscapes and urban spaces. Underlying these problems are conflicting priorities and values. Yet dominant approaches to policy-making seem ill-equipped to capture the various ways in which the environment matters to us. Environmental Values introduces readers to these issues by presenting, and then challenging, two dominant approaches to environmental decision-making, one from environmental economics, the other from environmental philosophy. The authors present a sustained case for questioning the underlying ethical theories of both of these traditions. They defend a pluralistic alternative rooted in the rich everyday relations of humans to the environments they inhabit, providing a path for integrating human needs with environmental protection through an understanding of the narrative and history of particular places. The book examines the implications of this approach for policy issues such as biodiversity conservation and sustainability. Written in a clear and accessible style for an interdisciplinary audience, this volume will be ideal for student use in environmental courses in geography, economics, philosophy, politics and sociology.

Introduction to Energy, Environment, Sustainability
Introduction to Energy, Environment, Sustainability

Author: Paul Gannon

Publisher:

Published: 2013-04-29

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9781465218155

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An accessible, comprehensive primer to critical and contemporary issues in science, Introduction to Energy, Environment and Sustainability published by Kendall Hunt, was developed for an entry-level, non-science college audience, and aims to facilitate both new and old courses covering these topics. Originally created to meet Paul Gannon's (Montana State University - Chemical Engineering) new core science course, ECHM 205CS: Energy and Sustainability, the updated edition is now easily adaptable to basic science and engineering courses, in addition to those in the social and political sciences, e.g., law, public administration, business, sociology or economics. Introduction to Energy, Environment and Sustainability is organized into ten sequential chapters and is designed for a single academic term: Chapters 1-3 present an overview of human society and its impacts, as well as energy and environmental sciences and Earth System dynamics. Chapter 4 reviews the basics of combustion (fire), its utility, and its globalized impacts since the Industrial Revolution, focusing on atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation and anthropogenic global climate destabilization. Chapter 5 discusses non-renewable energy sources (fossil fuels) and related exploration, production and conversion technologies. Chapter 6 covers atomic energy basics and nuclear energy technologies. Chapters 7 and 8 overview renewable energy sources and conversion technologies, and introduce basic concepts of electricity and hydrogen. Chapter 9 considers the complexities and vulnerabilities of modern food and water systems. Chapter 10 concludes with reflections on science, sustainability and globalizing human society. The improved 2nd edition includes updated information on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), climate change and energy use, as well as links to interactive learning opportunities. To facilitate new and existing courses for instructors, the textbook is accompanied website, which includes: Example course syllabi and advertisements, Sample lecture slides from each chapter, Solutions to end-of-chapter quiz and problem sets , Suggested class-room activities/demonstrations and interactive course projects, designed to engage students and communities, Sample quizzes and exams -- P. vii.

Sustainability
Sustainability

Author: John C. Ayers

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-06-26

Total Pages: 612

ISBN-13: 1351727524

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This book presents an earth science-based overview of the challenges to sustainability. It provides a detailed study of climate change, as well as energy, food, and water security across different regions. The author uncovers the problems caused by current social and environmental practices, and offers potential solutions. Focusing on systems theory, footprint analysis, risk, and resilience, many examples are given of how to use resources sustainably, especially common pool resources such as the atmosphere, oceans, and groundwater. The book develops its ideas from an array of practical case studies, centering on communal objectives and shared responsibilities.

Indigenous Resurgence
Indigenous Resurgence

Author: Jaskiran Dhillon

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2022-03-31

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1800732465

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From the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s resistance against the Dakota Access pipeline to the Nepalese Newar community’s protest of the Fast Track Road Project, Indigenous peoples around the world are standing up and speaking out against global capitalism to protect the land, water, and air. By reminding us of the fundamental importance of placing Indigenous politics, histories, and ontologies at the center of our social movements, Indigenous Resurgence positions environmental justice within historical, social, political, and economic contexts, exploring the troubling relationship between colonial and environmental violence and reframing climate change and environmental degradation through an anticolonial lens.

The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society
The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society

Author: Jules Pretty

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2007-10-30

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 1446250083

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"A monumental and timely contribution to scholarship on society and environments. The handbook makes it easy and compelling for anyone to learn about that scholarship in its full manifestations and as represented by some of the most highly respected researchers and thinkers in the English-speaking world. It is wide-reaching in scope and far-reaching in its implications for public and private action, a definite must for serious researchers and their libraries." - Bonnie J McCay, Rutgers University "This is the desert island book for anyone interested in the relationship between society and the environment. The editors have assembled a masterful collection of contributions on every conceivable dimension of environmental thinking in the social sciences and humanities. No library should be without it!′ - Robyn Eckersley, University of Melbourne The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society focuses on the interactions between people, societies and economies, and the state of nature and the environment. Editorially integrated but written from multi-disciplinary perspectives, it is organised in seven sections: Environmental thought: past and present Valuing the environment Knowledges and knowing Political economy of environmental change Environmental technologies Redesigning natures Institutions and policies for influencing the environment Key themes include: locations where the environment-society relation is most acute: where, for example, there are few natural resources or where industrialization is unregulated; the discussion of these issues at different scales: local, regional, national, and global; the cost of damage to resources; and the relation between principal actors in the environment-society nexus. Aimed at an international audience of academics, research students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers, The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society presents readers in social science and natural science with a manual of the past, present and future of environment-society links.