Solidarity Economy: Building Alternatives for People and Planet


Book Description

The emergence of the global grassroots economic structural reform movement known as the Solidarity Economy. This book contain the core papers, discussion and debates on the topic at the U.S. Social Forum of 10,000 people in Atlanta in the summer of 2007.




Building with Vision


Book Description

Part green building primer, part architectural photo essay, this is an essential resource for professionals and homeowners interested in the leading edge of environmental building. Imhoff traveled extensively to document and photograph beautiful and novel alternatives to wood intensive-building. Building with Vision is the first book to link residential building with forest impacts. Nearly 1.5 million new houses are built in the United States each year, 90 percent framed with wood, and the average house consuming an acre's worth of trees. But as Building with Vision shows, from framing and siding to new building systems and finish materials, there are many ways architects, contractors, and homeowners can make high-quality, resourceful, long-lasting and beautiful decisions. Details include building techniques as well as materials, including Styrofoam, steel, concrete, straw bales, rammed earth, adobe and much more.




Team Building


Book Description




Alternatives to Capitalism


Book Description

What would a viable free and democratic society look like? Poverty, exploitation, instability, hierarchy, subordination, environmental exhaustion, radical inequalities of wealth and power—it is not difficult to list capitalism’s myriad injustices. But is there a preferable and workable alternative? Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy presents a debate between two such possibilities: Robin Hahnel’s “participatory economics” and Erik Olin Wright’s “real utopian” socialism. It is a detailed and rewarding discussion that illuminates a range of issues and dilemmas of crucial importance to any serious effort to build a better world.







Building Alternatives


Book Description

The Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society (ULCCS) in northern Kerala is a remarkable institution, founded as part of the early 20th century anticaste movement. The Cooperative's raison d'etre - as enshrined in its bylaws - is to "promote the economic interests of the labourers of the Society". Despite ups and downs over its 90-year history, the ULCCS is a highly successful cooperative, both in terms of its profitability and in its enhancing the lives of its workerowners. This, despite the neoliberal policies that have suffocated much economic activity that lies outside of monopoly capitalism's interests. Building Alternatives provides an honest appraisal of a heroic venture of a cooperative enterprise, demonstrating that cooperatives are not only able to survive in a small niche, but are able to grow into substantial institutions within the social life of a region. The book does not gloss over the problems that come with this history, providing a rich empirical account that helps us learn from the challenges and successes. The story of ULCCS is not merely an inspiration to the world, but a guidebook to the resilience of cooperatives as alternatives within capitalism.







Emerging Energy Alternatives for Sustainable Environment


Book Description

Sustainability of environment is an emerging global issue at present. Unsustainable or deteriorating environment is a matter of concern as it has threatened the survival of living creatures. Recently, climate change has been a matter of great concern at a global platform owing to imbalances in natural environment. Increasing population has increased the demand for energy, which has ultimately put pressure on natural resources and caused a paradigm shift from resource generation to exploitation. Emerging Energy Alternatives for Sustainable Environment aims to address the role of sustainable technologies in energy generation options for clean environment. It covers a wide spectrum of energy generation approaches, with an emphasis on five key topics: (i) renewable energy sources and recent advances, (ii) emerging green technologies for sustainable development, (iii) assessment of biomass for sustainable bioenergy production, (iv) solid waste management and its potential for energy generation, and (v) solar energy applications, storage system, and heat transfer. This book provides essential and comprehensive knowledge of green energy technologies with different aspects for engineers, technocrats and researchers working in the industry, universities, and research institutions. The book is also very useful for undergraduate and graduate students of science and engineering who are keen to know about the development of renewable energy products and their corresponding processes. Please note: This volume is Co-published with The Energy and Resources Institute Press, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka







Alternatives to Privatization


Book Description

There is a vast literature for and against privatizing public services. Those who are against privatization are often confronted with the objection that they present no alternative. This book takes up that challenge by establishing theoretical models for what does (and does not) constitute an alternative to privatization, and what might make them ‘successful’, backed up by a comprehensive set of empirical data on public services initiatives in over 40 countries. This is the first such global survey of its kind, providing a rigorous and robust platform for evaluating different alternatives and allowing for comparisons across regions and sectors. The book helps to conceptualize and evaluate what has become an important and widespread movement for better public services in the global South. The contributors explore historical, existing and proposed non-commercialized alternatives for primary health, water/sanitation and electricity. The objectives of the research have been to develop conceptual and methodological frameworks for identifying and analyzing alternatives to privatization, and testing these models against actually existing alternatives on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Information of this type is urgently required for practitioners and analysts, both of whom are seeking reliable knowledge on what kind of public models work, how transferable they are from one place to another and what their main strengths and weaknesses are.