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The Give and Take of Sustainability

Author : Michelle Hegmon

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 317 pages

File Size : 13,45 MB

Release : 2017-04-24

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 110816580X

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Book Description

Sustainability strives to meet the needs of the present without compromising the future, but increasingly recognizes the tradeoffs among these many needs. Who benefits? Who bears the burden? How are these difficult decisions made? Are people aware of these hard choices? This timely volume brings the perspectives of ethnography and archaeology to bear on these questions by examining case studies from around the world. Written especially for this volume, the essays by an international team of scholars offer archaeological and ethnographic examples from the southwestern United States, the Maya region of Mexico, Africa, India, and the North Atlantic, among other regions. Collectively, they explore the benefits and consequences of growth and development, the social costs of ecological sustainability, and tensions between food and military security.



Give and Take

Author : Elly Swartz

Publisher : Macmillan + ORM

Page : 213 pages

File Size : 16,12 MB

Release : 2019-10-15

Category : Juvenile Fiction

ISBN : 0374308209

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Book Description

Elly Swartz's Give and Take is a touching middle grade novel about family, friendship, and learning when to let go. Family has always been important to twelve-year-old Maggie: a trapshooter, she is coached by her dad and cheered on by her mom. But her grandmother's recent death leaves a giant hole in Maggie's life, one which she begins to fill with an assortment of things: candy wrappers, pieces of tassel from Nana's favorite scarf, milk cartons, sticks . . . all stuffed in cardboard boxes under her bed. Then her parents decide to take in a foster infant. But anxiety over the new baby's departure only worsens Maggie's hoarding, and soon she finds herself taking and taking until she spirals out of control. Ultimately, with some help from family, friends, and experts, Maggie learns that sometimes love means letting go. This title has Common Core connections.



Greening through IT

Author : Bill Tomlinson

Publisher : MIT Press

Page : 221 pages

File Size : 41,99 MB

Release : 2012-02-10

Category : Science

ISBN : 0262288354

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Book Description

How the tools of information technology can support environmental sustainability by tackling problems that span broad scales of time, space, and complexity. Environmental issues often span long periods of time, far-flung areas, and labyrinthine layers of complexity. In Greening through IT, Bill Tomlinson investigates how the tools and techniques of information technology (IT) can help us tackle environmental problems at such vast scales. Tomlinson describes theoretical, technological, and social aspects of a growing interdisciplinary approach to sustainability, “Green IT,” offering both a human-centered framework for understanding Green IT systems and specific examples and case studies of Green IT in action. Tomlinson descrobes many efforts toward sustainability supported by IT—from fishers in India who maximized the sales potential of their catch by coordinating their activities with mobile phones to the installation of smart meters that optimize electricity use in California households—and offers three detailed studies of specific research projects that he and his colleagues have undertaken: EcoRaft, an interactive museum exhibit to help children learn principles of restoration ecology; Trackulous, a set of web-based tools with which people can chart their own environmental behavior; and GreenScanner, an online system that provides access to environmental-impact reports about consumer products. Taken together, these examples illustrate the significant environmental benefits that innovations in information technology can enable.



Sustainability

Author : Tom Theis

Publisher :

Page : 644 pages

File Size : 13,12 MB

Release : 2018-01-23

Category : Education

ISBN : 9781680921533

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Book Description

With "Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation," first and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowldege - including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.



Sustainability and Water Management in the Maya World and Beyond

Author : Jean T. Larmon

Publisher : University Press of Colorado

Page : 269 pages

File Size : 40,63 MB

Release : 2022-07-15

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1646422325

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Book Description

Sustainability and Water Management in the Maya World and Beyond investigates climate change and sustainability through time, exploring how political control of water sources, maintenance of sustainable systems, ideological relationships with water, and fluctuations in water availability have affected and been affected by social change. Contributors focus on and build upon earlier investigations of the global diversity of water management systems and the successes and failures of their employment, while applying a multitude of perspectives on sustainability. The volume focuses primarily on the Precolumbian Maya but offers several analogous case studies outside the ancient Maya world that illustrate the pervasiveness of water’s role in sustainability, including an ethnographic study of the sustainability of small-scale, farmer-managed irrigation systems in contemporary New Mexico and the environmental consequences of Angkor’s growth into the world’s most extensive preindustrial settlement. The archaeological record offers rich data on past politics of climate change, while epigraphic and ethnographic data show how integrated the ideological, political, and environmental worlds of the Maya were. While Sustainability and Water Management in the Maya World and Beyond stresses how lessons from the past offer invaluable insight into current approaches of adaptation, it also advances our understanding of those adaptations by making the inevitable discrepancies between past and present climate change less daunting and emphasizing the sustainable negotiations between humans and their surroundings that have been mediated by the changing climate for millennia. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in climate change, sustainability, and water management in the archaeological record. Contributors: Mary Jane Acuña, Wendy Ashmore, Timothy Beach, Jeffrey Brewer, Christopher Carr, Adrian S. Z. Chase, Arlen F. Chase, Diane Z. Chase, Carlos R. Chiriboga, Jennifer Chmilar, Nicholas Dunning, Maurits W. Ertsen, Roland Fletcher, David Friedel, Robert Griffin, Joel D. Gunn, Armando Anaya Hernández, Christian Isendahl, David Lentz, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Dan Penny, Kathryn Reese-Taylor, Michelle Rich, Cynthia Robin, Sylvia Rodríguez, William Saturno, Vernon Scarborough, Payson Sheets, Liwy Grazioso Sierra, Michael Smyth, Sander van der Leeuw, Andrew Wyatt



How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

Author : Bill Gates

Publisher : Vintage

Page : 201 pages

File Size : 14,4 MB

Release : 2021-02-16

Category : Science

ISBN : 0385546149

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Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.



The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability

Author : Ann Thorpe

Publisher : Island Press

Page : 239 pages

File Size : 12,90 MB

Release : 2007-06-20

Category : Architecture

ISBN : 1610910605

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Book Description

Designing for sustainability is an innovation shaping both the design industry and design education today.Yet architects, product designers, and other key professionals in this new field have so far lacked a resource that addresses their sensibilities and concerns. The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability now explores the basic principles, concepts, and practice of sustainable design in a visually sophisticated and engaging style. The book tackles not only the ecological aspects of sustainable design-designers' choice of materials and manufacturing processes have a tremendous impact on the natural world-but also the economic and cultural elements involved. The Atlas is neither a how-to manual nor collection of recipes for sustainable design, but a compendium of fresh approaches to sustainability that designers can incorporate into daily thinking and practice. Illuminating many facets of this exciting field, the book offers ideas on how to harmonize human and natural systems, and then explores practical options for making the business of design more supportive of long-term sustainability. An examination of the ethical dimensions of sustainable development in our public and private lives is the theme present throughout. Like other kinds of atlases, The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability illustrates its subject, but it goes far beyond its visual appeal, stimulating design solutions for "development that cultivates environmental and social conditions that will support human well-being indefinitely."



Sustainability Made Simple

Author : Rosaly Byrd

Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield

Page : 215 pages

File Size : 27,60 MB

Release : 2017-03-17

Category : Self-Help

ISBN : 1442269103

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Book Description

Sustainability Made Simple is an introduction to sustainability and sustainable living that explores the relationship between everyday life and the intricate global environmental issues of today, including air and water pollution, deforestation, and climate change. Rosaly Byrd and Laurèn DeMates offer an optimistic yet realistic perspective on our impact on the environment, giving much needed guidance to those who are interested in finding new and relatively easy ways to incorporate sustainability into daily life. An excellent resource for those who are interested in learning what sustainability is about and picking up habits to be more sustainable, Sustainability Made Simple shows that adopting a sustainable lifestyle doesn’t require “going off the grid” or making drastic life changes that take time and cost money. Instead, Byrd and DeMates focus on the advantages and transformative changes associated with sustainability, demonstrating that although society is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, working towards sustainability is an opportunity to do things differently and do things better, enhancing aspects of life, such as health, work and community.



Green to Gold

Author : Daniel C. Esty

Publisher : John Wiley & Sons

Page : 423 pages

File Size : 20,49 MB

Release : 2009-01-09

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 0470393742

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Book Description

From the Publishers Weekly review: "Two experts from Yale tackle the business wake-up-call du jour-environmental responsibility-from every angle in this thorough, earnest guidebook: pragmatically, passionately, financially and historically. Though "no company the authors know of is on a truly long-term sustainable course," Esty and Winston label the forward-thinking, green-friendly (or at least green-acquainted) companies WaveMakers and set out to assess honestly their path toward environmental responsibility, and its impact on a company's bottom line, customers, suppliers and reputation. Following the evolution of business attitudes toward environmental concerns, Esty and Winston offer a series of fascinating plays by corporations such as Wal-Mart, GE and Chiquita (Banana), the bad guys who made good, and the good guys-watchdogs and industry associations, mostly-working behind the scenes. A vast number of topics huddle beneath the umbrella of threats to the earth, and many get a thorough analysis here: from global warming to electronic waste "take-back" legislation to subsidizing sustainable seafood. For the responsible business leader, this volume provides plenty of (organic) food for thought. "



Earth at Risk

Author : Claude Henry

Publisher : Columbia University Press

Page : 498 pages

File Size : 37,81 MB

Release : 2017-12-19

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 023154491X

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Book Description

We are squandering our planet’s natural capital—its biodiversity, water and soil, and climate stability—at a blistering pace. Major changes must be made to steer our planet and people away from our current, doomed course. Though technology has been one of the drivers of the current trend of unsustainable development, it is also one of the essential tools for remedying it. Earth at Risk maps out the necessary transition to sustainability, detailing the innovations in science and technology, along with law, institutional design, and economics, that can and must be put to use to avert environmental catastrophe. Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana begin with a measure of the costs of ecological damage—the erosion of biodiversity; air, water, and soil pollution; and the wide-reaching effects of climate change—and then consider the solutions that are either now available or close on the horizon and that may lead to a more sustainable global trajectory. What community-driven or market-based tools can be used to promote sustainable development? How can renewable energy and energy storage advances help us decrease our use of fossil fuels? How can we substitute agroecology for the damaging chemical methods of industrialized agriculture? Is international agreement on climate goals possible? Building on the experience of the most significant climate negotiation of the decade, Earth at Risk shows what a world organized along the principles of sustainability could look like, no matter how optimistic it may seem at the present moment. Though formidable obstacles remain to the realization of this significant transition, Henry and Tubiana present the case for collective initiatives and change that build momentum for implementation and action.