Download or read book Rethinking Sustainability to Meet the Climate Change Challenge written by Jessica Owley and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Has the concept of sustainability as we know it reached the end of its useful life? It is a term that means many things to many people, but it has been a positive driving force across all levels of society in a broad-based effort--either through laws and treaties or voluntary action--to keep our planet and our people healthy. But none of those efforts have managed to prevent climate change. It's a reality that's here to stay, and it's bigger than we would have imagined even 20 years ago. This volume presents a collection of papers from experts in the field articulating a wide range of thoughtful ways in which various conceptions of sustainability need to be re-examined, refined, or articulated in greater detail to address these challenges. The chapters reflect the kind of thoughtful and sophisticated thinking that is needed to accelerate the transition to sustainability in the face of a changing climate. As editors Jessica Owley and Keith Hirokawa note, one of the main challenges is the need for a better understanding of the issues and developing the proper means of communicating them. The chapter authors demonstrate that sustainability provides a creative space within which to develop ideas and proposals to further social, economic, and environmental goals at the same time. Many propose new or modified laws and policies. All of them contribute to a constructive and helpful discussion about how to address what is easily one of the most difficult and important questions facing the planet. Rethinking Sustainability will be helpful to a wide range of audiences--lawyers and policymakers as well as students and their teachers.
Download or read book Preface to written by Jessica Owley and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2011, a handful of young environmental law professors strategized on ways to bring together academics to share their research and collaborate on important environmental issues of the day. The vision led to the founding of the Environmental Law Collaborative (ELC). Inspired by early conferences at Airlie House, the group created a forum to bring together our fellow researchers to discuss and make progress on pressing environmental concerns. The Environmental Law Collaborative facilitates dialog among thought leaders on sustainable policy priorities, practical implementation strategies, assessment mechanisms, and cooperative analysis of science, economics, and ethics. This preface launches the ideas that emerged from the first gathering of the ELC. The group convened in Chester, Connecticut in the summer of 2012 to consider the meaning of sustainability in response to climate change. The resulting papers reflect the kind of thoughtful and sophisticated thinking that is needed to accelerate the transition to sustainability in the face of a changing climate. The chapters demonstrate that sustainability provides a creative space within which to develop ideas and proposals to further social, economic, and environmental goals at the same time. Many propose new or modified laws and policies. All of them contribute to a constructive and helpful discussion about how to address what is easily one of the most difficult and important questions facing the planet.
Download or read book Rethinking Corporate Sustainability in the Era of Climate Crisis written by Raz Godelnik and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-26 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a clear, critical, and timely analysis of the state of corporate sustainability within the context of the climate crisis. It offers not only a substantive critique of the current efforts but also clarity about the changes needed and how to implement them. The book goes beyond the more common debate on shareholder capitalism vs. stakeholder capitalism to explain the shortcomings of the current approach to sustainability in business, which the author describes as sustainability-as-usual. Using strategic design lenses, the author proposes a new model of awakened sustainability, which offers a transformational shift in corporate sustainability to ensure companies fairly and effectively address the climate crisis. The book presents the numerous changes needed in the environment in which companies operate to enable awakened sustainability and how these changes can be realized. Grounded in the scientific community’s calls for urgent action on climate change, this groundbreaking text provides scholars with an evaluation of current and future trends in corporate sustainability. It connects the dots between the progress made in the last five decades and the opportunities entailed in the work on a regenerative and just vision for companies in this decade and beyond.
Download or read book The Urban Climate Challenge written by Craig Johnson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon a variety of empirical and theoretical perspectives, The Urban Climate Challenge provides a hands-on perspective about the political and technical challenges now facing cities and transnational urban networks in the global climate regime. Bringing together experts working in the fields of global environmental governance, urban sustainability and climate change, this volume explores the ways in which cities, transnational urban networks and global policy institutions are repositioning themselves in relation to this changing global policy environment. Focusing on both Northern and Southern experience across the globe, three questions that have strong bearing on the ways in which we understand and assess the changing relationship between cities and global climate system are examined. The Urban Climate Challenge will be of interest to scholars of urban climate policy, global environmental governance and climate change. It will be of interest to readers more generally interested in the ways in which cities are now addressing the inter-related challenges of sustainable urban growth and global climate change. Chapter 9 and Chapter 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138776883_oachapter11.pdf Chapter 9 and Chapter 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138776883_oachapter9.pdf
Download or read book Future Ready written by Tom Lewis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-04-25 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethink climate, resilience, and sustainability for your organization In Future Ready: Your Organization’s Guide to Rethinking Climate, Resilience, and Sustainability, a team of business leaders with deep expertise in engineering, planning, finance, project, program implementation and advisory consulting perspective delivers an essential guide for executives, managers, and other business and infrastructure organization leaders to set and implement a resilience, sustainability and ESG strategy in complex project and operating environments. Through practical examples and proven insights, readers will learn to proactively engage with stakeholders, successfully plan, implement, and measure the impacts of their initiatives, and effectively communicate the results. In the book, the authors draw on hundreds of completed projects across a full range of client organizations, markets, sectors, and scales to equip readers with unprecedented insights and the behind-the-scenes work that went into making the projects successful. The authors also include: Strategies for identifying, cataloguing, and reporting risks—from the operational to the physical and transactional—as well as explanations of how climate risk scenarios can reveal hidden opportunities and unexpected vulnerabilities A Future Ready mindset and the specific examples of organizational sustainability and climate adaptation commitments and the paths companies have taken to meet their goals Critical questions that leaders must ask of themselves and their organizations before they begin a climate, resilience, and/or sustainability initiative A must-read guide for executives, board members, ESG professionals, and other business and infrastructure organization leaders, Future Ready belongs in the hands of anyone who finds themselves responsible for helping an organization achieve their environmental, social, and governance goals.
Download or read book Rethinking Climate Change Research written by Assoc Prof Søren Riis and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problems and debates surrounding climate change possess closely intertwined social and scientific aspects. This book highlights the importance of researching climate change through a multi-disciplinary approach; namely through cultural studies, communication studies, and clean-technology studies. These three dimensions taken together have the ability to constitute a positive agenda for climate change science in its broader understanding. To cope with the climate change challenge, not only do we need new energy efficient technologies, other ways of living, and new ways to communicate but we especially need new ways to start thinking about climate change across disciplines and backgrounds. We need to begin thinking across engineering, cultural science and communication in order to create innovative solutions, as well as to generate optimistic and progressive narratives about the future. Accentuating these 'softer' scientific disciplines, their overlaps, and the positive discourses they can create, this book provides some more profoundly researched themes pertaining to climate change and by that, strengthening the analytical as well as the integrative approaches toward the fundamental questions at stake.
Download or read book Rethinking Sustainability written by Jonathan Mark Harris and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together the thoughts of economists, political scientists, anthropologists, philosophers, and agricultural policy professionals, this volume focuses on the issues of sustainability in development. Examining such topics as international trade, political power, gender roles, legal institutions, and agricultural research, the contributors focus on the missing links in theory and practice that have been barriers to the achievement of truly sustainable development. Any theory of sustainable development must take into account economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Until recently, the question "What is development?" was often answered predominantly from the economist's perspective, with high priority being assigned to expansion of economic output. Social, political, institutional, and ethical aspects have often been neglected. But now that sustainable development has become a broadly accepted concept, it is impossible to maintain a narrowly economistic view of development. For this reason, the varied perspectives offered by the contributors to this volume are crucial to understanding the process of development as it relates to environmental sustainability and human well-being. The selection of articles is meant to be stimulating and provocative rather than comp-rehensive. They are roughly divided between those dealing with broad theoretical issues concerning the economic, political, and social aspects of development (Part I) and those presenting more applied analysis (Part II). The common thread is a concern for examining which factors contribute to making development socially just and environmentally sound. Rethinking Sustainability will be of interest to economists and social scientists, development professionals, and instructors seeking to offer their students a broad perspective on development issues. Jonathan Harris is Senior Research Associate, Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, as well as Adjunct Associate Professor of International Economics at Tufts University Fletcher School of Law.
Download or read book The End of Sustainability written by Melinda Harm Benson and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time has come for us to collectively reexamine—and ultimately move past—the concept of sustainability in environmental and natural resources law and management. The continued invocation of sustainability in policy discussions ignores the emerging reality of the Anthropocene, which is creating a world characterized by extreme complexity, radical uncertainty, and unprecedented change. From a legal and policy perspective, we must face the impossibility of even defining—let alone pursuing—a goal of “sustainability” in such a world. Melinda Harm Benson and Robin Kundis Craig propose resilience as a more realistic and workable communitarian approach to environmental governance. American environmental and natural resources laws date to the early 1970s, when the steady-state “Balance of Nature” model was in vogue—a model that ecologists have long since rejected, even before adding the complication of climate change. In the Anthropocene, a new era in which humans are the key agent of change on the planet, these laws (and American culture more generally) need to embrace new narratives of complex ecosystems and humans’ role as part of them—narratives exemplified by cultural tricksters and resilience theory. Updating Aldo Leopold’s vision of nature and humanity as a single community for the Anthropocene, Benson and Craig argue that the narrative of resilience integrates humans back into the complex social and ecological system known as Earth. As such, it empowers humans to act for a better future through law and policy despite the very real challenges of climate change.
Download or read book Rethinking Sustainable Cities written by David Simon and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2016-08-31 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable urbanization has moved to the forefront of political debate and policy agendas for numerous reasons. Among the most important are a growing appreciation both of the implications of rapid urbanization now occurring in China, India, and many other low and middle income countries with historically low urbanization levels and of the related challenges posed to urban areas worldwide by climate and environmental change. Conceptualizing urban sustainability for this new era, this compact book makes a clear contribution to the sustainable urbanization agenda through authoritative interventions that contextualize, assess, and explain the importance of three central characteristics of sustainable towns and cities everywhere: that they should be fair, green, and accessible.
Download or read book A People s Curriculum for the Earth written by Bill Bigelow and published by Rethinking Schools. This book was released on 2014-11-14 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution—as well as on people who are working to make things better. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth has the breadth and depth ofRethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, one of the most popular books we’ve published. At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at risk, here is a resource that helps students see what’s wrong and imagine solutions. Praise for A People's Curriculum for the Earth "To really confront the climate crisis, we need to think differently, build differently, and teach differently. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is an educator’s toolkit for our times." — Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate "This volume is a marvelous example of justice in ALL facets of our lives—civil, social, educational, economic, and yes, environmental. Bravo to the Rethinking Schools team for pulling this collection together and making us think more holistically about what we mean when we talk about justice." — Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Bigelow and Swinehart have created a critical resource for today’s young people about humanity’s responsibility for the Earth. This book can engender the shift in perspective so needed at this point on the clock of the universe." — Gregory Smith, Professor of Education, Lewis & Clark College, co-author with David Sobel of Place- and Community-based Education in Schools
Download or read book The challenge of sustainability written by Atkinson, Hugh and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely and accessible book explores the links between politics, learning and sustainability. Its central focus is the future of people and the planet itself. The challenges that we face in combatting climate change and building a more sustainable world are complex and the book argues that if we are to successfully meet these challenges we need a fundamental change in the way we do politics and economics, embedding a lifelong commitment to sustainability in all learning. We have no option but to make things work for the better. After all, planet earth is the only home we have! The book will be important reading for academics and students in a variety of related subjects, including politics, public policy, education, sustainable development, geography, media, international relations and development studies. It will also be a valuable resource for NGOs and policy makers.
Download or read book Rethinking the Green State written by Karin Bäckstrand and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-12 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative book is one of the first to conduct a systematic comprehensive analysis of the ideals and practices of the evolving green state. It draws on elements of political theory, feminist theory, post-structuralism, governance and institutional theory to conceptualise the green state and advances thinking on how to understand its emergence in the context of climate and sustainability transitions. Focusing on the state as an actor in environmental, climate and sustainability politics, the book explores different principles guiding the emergence of the green state and examines the performance of states and institutional responses to the sustainable and climate transitions in the European and Nordic context in particular. The book’s unique focus on the Nordic countries underlines the important to learn from Nordics, which are perceived to be in the forefront of climate and sustainability governance as well as historically strong welfare states. With chapter contributions from leading international scholars in political science, sociology, economics, energy and environmental systems and climate policy studies, this book will be of great value to postgraduate students and researchers working on sustainability transitions, environmental politics and governance, and those with an area studies focus on the Nordic countries.
Download or read book Outside the Green Box written by Steve Goreham and published by . This book was released on 2017-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, businesses are trapped in the green box of sustainable development. Academics, government leaders, public opinion, and thousands of laws and regulations demand the adoption of sustainability. In response, companies spend billions on renewable energy, carbon credits, biofuels, and other green policies in an effort to counter the coming environmental apocalypse. But a look at data and trends shows that the ideology of environmental sustainable development is based on false concepts. Population growth is slowing, nations continue to reduce air and water pollution, climate change is dominated by natural factors, with the effects from human greenhouse emissions are negligible, and societal access to resources continues to grow. Society and business should adopt a policy that is sensibly green, continuing to reduce air and water pollution, but at other policies aimed at stopping global warming and halting hydrocarbon use. These policies do little for Earth's environment. Outside the Green Box is a well-illustrated and amusing look and society's quest to be sustainable, and the resulting misguided policies that provide little benefit for the environment.
Download or read book Toward Social Ecological Well Being written by Éloi Laurent and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-09-14 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the deep economic causes of environmental unsustainability and offers a new vision to rebuild sustainability economics. While sustainability scholars are hard at work with documenting the tangible systemic crisis of our Biosphere, the economic roots of this crisis are rarely exposed, examined nor addressed. This book’s central contribution to sustainability studies is to argue that what we should sustain is not economic growth but social-ecological well-being defined as a combination of planetary health, cooperation and justice resulting in human holistic prosperity. The long-term prosperity of humanity indeed relies on generating health and fostering cooperation informed by justice: social-ecological well-being should be the cornerstone of sustainability economics for the 21st century. Within this framework, this book attempts to explain why the three key dimensions of sustainability are jointly in crisis, show what vision can articulate those dimensions to rethink sustainability economics for our century, what practical policies should be undertaken to give life to these visions before concluding on the need to reinvent the narratives that sustain economic analysis.
Download or read book Urban Climate Resilience written by van der Berg, Angela and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This significant book addresses the most important legal issues that cities face when attempting to adapt to the changing climate. This includes how to become more resilient against the impacts of climate change such as sea level rise, increases in the intensity and frequency of storms, floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures.
Download or read book The Big Thaw written by Ezra B. W. Zubrow and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the unprecedented and rapid climate changes occurring in the Arctic environment. Climate change, one of the drivers of global change, is controversial in political circles, but recognized in scientific ones as being of central importance today for the United States and the world. In The Big Thaw, the editors bring together experts, advocates, and academic professionals who address the serious issue of how climate change in the Circumpolar Arctic is affecting and will continue to affect environments, cultures, societies, and economies throughout the world. The contributors discuss a variety of topics, including anthropology, sociology, human geography, community economics, regional development and planning, and political science, as well as biogeophysical sciences such as ecology, human-environmental interactions, and climatology. At the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Ezra B. W. Zubrow is Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology. At the University of Buffalo’s School of Law, Errol Meidinger is Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor of Law. At the University of Buffalo’s School of Law, Kim Diana Connolly is Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Advocacy and Experiential Education.
Download or read book The Sustainable Economy written by Robert Devine and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An original, engaging guide to creating a sustainable economy that will combat global warming while also improving our quality of life. Pick an environmental issue. Maybe air pollution, toxic waste, or deforestation. These all seem like solid choices, but none of these is actually an environmental problem--at least, not at its heart. Deep down, they are economic problems. Nearly all the issues we classify as environmental stem from defects in the DNA of America's current market system. This is emphatically true of our greatest environmental threat: global warming. With a focus on climate change, journalist and author Robert S. Devine reveals the fundamental flaws in the economy that enable environmental degradation. The Sustainable Economy is a book about economics, but it skips the equations and eases through the jargon, opting instead for compelling stories and surprising humor. Readers will encounter high-tech narwhals, struggling coal workers, orbiting giant mirrors, the kids who are suing the U.S. government over climate policy, and vanishing Alaskan towns. The Sustainable Economy looks at many of the most pressing climate issues, such as melting ice caps and farm-killing droughts, but by viewing them through the revealing lens of economics, the book delivers a fresh perspective. Devine shows how the basic mechanisms of supply and demand fail when it comes to global warming and the environment. Fortunately, he also lays out a path to an improved economy that can boost our well-being while also fostering a healthy environment. Most importantly, The Sustainable Economy shows how we can overcome the political and personal obstacles blocking progress toward a sustainable, just, and prosperous economy.
