Download or read book Sustainability for the Nation written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "sustainable society," according to one definition, "is one that can persist over generations; one that is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social system of support." As the government sector works hard to ensure sufficient fresh water, food, energy, housing, health, and education for the nation without limiting resources for the future generations, it's clear that there is no sufficient organization to deal with sustainability issues. Each federal agency appears to have a single mandate or a single area of expertise making it difficult to tackle issues such as managing the ecosystem. Key resource domains, which include water, land, energy, and nonrenewable resources, for example, are nearly-completely connected yet different agencies exist to address only one aspect of these domains. The legendary ecologist John Muir wrote in 1911 that "when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Thus, in order for the nation to be successful in sustaining its resources, "linkages" will need to be built among federal, state, and local governments; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and the private sector. The National Research Council (NRC) was asked by several federal agencies, foundations, and the private sector to provide guidance to the federal government on issues related to sustainability linkages. The NRC assigned the task to as committee with a wide range of expertise in government, academia, and business. The committee held public fact-finding meetings to hear from agencies and stakeholder groups; examined sustainability management examples; conducted extensive literature reviews; and more to address the issue. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connection and Governance Linkages is the committee's report on the issue. The report includes insight into high-priority areas for governance linkages, the challenges of managing connected systems, impediments to successful government linkages, and more. The report also features examples of government linkages which include Adaptive Management on the Platte River, Philadelphia's Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Managing Land Use in the Mojave.
Download or read book Sustainability for the Nation written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "sustainable society," according to one definition, "is one that can persist over generations; one that is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social system of support." As the government sector works hard to ensure sufficient fresh water, food, energy, housing, health, and education for the nation without limiting resources for the future generations, it's clear that there is no sufficient organization to deal with sustainability issues. Each federal agency appears to have a single mandate or a single area of expertise making it difficult to tackle issues such as managing the ecosystem. Key resource domains, which include water, land, energy, and nonrenewable resources, for example, are nearly-completely connected yet different agencies exist to address only one aspect of these domains. The legendary ecologist John Muir wrote in 1911 that "when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Thus, in order for the nation to be successful in sustaining its resources, "linkages" will need to be built among federal, state, and local governments; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and the private sector. The National Research Council (NRC) was asked by several federal agencies, foundations, and the private sector to provide guidance to the federal government on issues related to sustainability linkages. The NRC assigned the task to as committee with a wide range of expertise in government, academia, and business. The committee held public fact-finding meetings to hear from agencies and stakeholder groups; examined sustainability management examples; conducted extensive literature reviews; and more to address the issue. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connection and Governance Linkages is the committee's report on the issue. The report includes insight into high-priority areas for governance linkages, the challenges of managing connected systems, impediments to successful government linkages, and more. The report also features examples of government linkages which include Adaptive Management on the Platte River, Philadelphia's Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Managing Land Use in the Mojave.
Download or read book Sustainability and the U S EPA written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-10-08 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainability is based on a simple and long-recognized factual premise: Everything that humans require for their survival and well-being depends, directly or indirectly, on the natural environment. The environment provides the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Recognizing the importance of sustainability to its work, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to create programs and applications in a variety of areas to better incorporate sustainability into decision-making at the agency. To further strengthen the scientific basis for sustainability as it applies to human health and environmental protection, the EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to provide a framework for incorporating sustainability into the EPA's principles and decision-making. This framework, Sustainability and the U.S. EPA, provides recommendations for a sustainability approach that both incorporates and goes beyond an approach based on assessing and managing the risks posed by pollutants that has largely shaped environmental policy since the 1980s. Although risk-based methods have led to many successes and remain important tools, the report concludes that they are not adequate to address many of the complex problems that put current and future generations at risk, such as depletion of natural resources, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. Moreover, sophisticated tools are increasingly available to address cross-cutting, complex, and challenging issues that go beyond risk management. The report recommends that EPA formally adopt as its sustainability paradigm the widely used "three pillars" approach, which means considering the environmental, social, and economic impacts of an action or decision. Health should be expressly included in the "social" pillar. EPA should also articulate its vision for sustainability and develop a set of sustainability principles that would underlie all agency policies and programs.
Download or read book Our Common Journey written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-12-09 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored? Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science. Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainabilityâ€"in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energyâ€"and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.
Download or read book Pathways to Urban Sustainability written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globe's economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors.
Download or read book Sustainable Nation written by Douglas Farr and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PROSE Award Finalist 2019 Association of American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence As a follow up to his widely acclaimed Sustainable Urbanism, this new book from author Douglas Farr embraces the idea that the humanitarian, population, and climate crises are three facets of one interrelated human existential challenge, one with impossibly short deadlines. The vision of Sustainable Nation is to accelerate the pace of progress of human civilization to create an equitable and sustainable world. The core strategy of Sustainable Nation is the perfection of the design and governance of all neighborhoods to make them unique exemplars of community and sustainability. The tools to achieve this vision are more than 70 patterns for rebellious change written by industry leaders of thought and practice. Each pattern represents an aspirational, future-oriented ideal for a key aspect of a neighborhood. At once an urgent call to action and a guidebook for change, Sustainable Nation is an essential resource for urban designers, planners, and architects.
Download or read book Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2021-01-02 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade there has been a growing interest in sustainability education in colleges and universities across the United States, with a marked increase in the number of undergraduate and graduate degree programs, research institutes, and centers focused on sustainability. Evidence-based core competencies for interdisciplinary sustainability programs can provide suitable guidance for curricular and program development, research, policy, communication, and pedagogical approaches at academic institutions. They can also serve as a guide for students to select academic programs and potential career options, a reference for employers to understand qualifications of graduates, and the foundation for a potential specialized accreditation for interdisciplinary sustainability programs. The growing demand for well-qualified sustainability professionals within the public, private, and nonprofit sectors also points to the value of developing core competencies. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels provides expert insights for strengthening the emerging discipline of sustainability in higher education in the United States. This report describes the local, national, and global landscape related to sustainability education; examines the history and current status of sustainability education programs in the United States and globally; discusses employment prospects for sustainability graduates in terms of the opportunities and the skills that employers seek; and addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion in sustainability-related education and employment.
Download or read book Sustainability in America s Cities written by Matt Slavin and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-02-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sustainability" is more than the latest "green" buzzword. It represents a new way of viewing the interactions of human society and the natural world. Sustainability in America's Cities highlights how America's largest cities are acting to develop sustainable solutions to conflicts between development and environment. As sustainability rises to the top of public policy agendas in American cities, it is also emerging as a new discipline in colleges and universities. Specifically designed for these educational programs, this is the first book to provide empirically based, multi-disciplinary case studies of sustainability policy, planning, and practice in action. It is also valuable for everyone who designs and implements sustainability initiatives, including policy makers, public sector and non-profit practitioners, and consultants. Sustainability in America's Cities brings together academic and practicing professionals to offer firsthand insight into innovative strategies that cities have adopted in renewable energy and energy efficiency, climate change, green building, clean-tech and green jobs, transportation and infrastructure, urban forestry and sustainable food production. Case studies examine sustainability initiatives in a wide range of American cities, including San Francisco, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Milwaukee, New York City, Portland, Oregon and Washington D.C. The concluding chapter ties together the empirical evidence and recounts lessons learned for sustainability planning and policy.
Download or read book Global Environmental Sustainability written by Choy Yee Keong and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2020-10-31 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global Environmental Sustainability: Case Studies and Analysis of the United Nations’ Journey toward Sustainable Development presents an integrated, interdisciplinary analysis of sustainable development, addressing global environmental problems in the contemporary world. It critically examines current actions being taken on global and local scales, particularly in relation to the UN’s efforts to promote sustainable development. This approach is supported by empirical analysis, drawing upon a host of interweaving insights spanning economics, politics, ecology, environmental philosophy, and ethics, among others. As a result, it offers a comprehensive and well-balanced assessment of the overall perspective of sustainable development supported by in-depth content analysis, theoretical evaluation, empirical and actual case studies premised on solid data, and actual field work. Also, the book marks a milestone in placing the Covid-19 pandemic into a perspective for understanding the universality of human collective environmental behavior and action.By utilizing in-depth analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, and challenging the status quo of what is expected in the global approach to sustainable development, Global Environmental Sustainability provides the theory and methodology of empirical sustainable development which is especially germane to our advanced society today, which is deeply entrenched in a crisis of environmental morality. More particularly, it serves as a salient source of moral reconstitution of society grounded in empirical reality to liberate man’s excessive spirit of individualism and self-aggrandizement to the detriment of the environment. Epistemologically, the book furnishes a remarkable tour de force with a new level of analytical insight to help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in sustainability and environmental science, as well as the many other disciplines involved in sustainable development, to better understand sustainability from a new perspective and provides a methodological direction to pursue solutions going forward. Provides a systematic exposition of sustainable development in all its complexity, with all the chapters complementing each other in an integral way Presents extensive empirical evidence of various environmental problems across the world including China, the United States, Canada, Southeast Asia, South America and Africa, and the extent to which the United Nations has succeeded in driving toward global environmental sustainability Provides a cogent examination of the treatment of our global commons by some of the world’s most powerful leaders Includes data from field studies and in-depth interviews with indigenous people in Borneo’s rainforests of the Malaysian state of Sarawak most affected by environmental change
Download or read book Metropolitan Sustainability written by F Zeman and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-09-11 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global populations have grown rapidly in recent decades, leading to ever increasing demands for shelter, resources, energy and utilities. Coupled with the worldwide need to achieve lower impact buildings and conservation of resources, the need to achieve sustainability in urban environments has never been more acute. This book critically reviews the fundamental issues and applied science, engineering and technology that will enable all cities to achieve a greater level of metropolitan sustainability, and assist nations in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations. Part one introduces key issues related to metropolitan sustainability, including the use of both urban metabolism and benefit cost analysis. Part two focuses on urban land use and the environmental impact of the built environment. The urban heat island effect, redevelopment of brownfield sites and urban agriculture are discussed in depth, before part three goes on to explore urban air pollution and emissions control. Urban water resources, reuse and management are explored in part four, followed by a study of urban energy supply and management in part five. Solar, wind and bioenergy, the role of waste-to-energy systems in the urban infrastructure, and smart energy for cities are investigated. Finally, part six considers sustainable urban development, transport and planning. With its distinguished editor and international team of expert contributors, Metropolitan sustainability is an essential resource for low-impact building engineers, sustainability consultants and architects, town and city planners, local/municipal authorities, and national and non-governmental bodies, and provides a thorough overview for academics of all levels in this field. Critically reviews the fundamental issues and applied science, engineering and technology that will enable all cities to achieve a greater level of metropolitan sustainability Will assist nations in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations Chapters discuss urban land use, the environmental impact of the build environment, the urban heat island effect, urban air pollution and emissions control, among other topics
Download or read book George P Mitchell and the Idea of Sustainability written by Jurgen Schmandt and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-11 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An energy tycoon, real estate developer, and philanthropist, George P. Mitchell is also an idealist, a big thinker who gave his time and fortune to the study of sustainability long before it became a household word. Jurgen Schmandt, who has worked for Mitchell for many years, explains and traces the idea of a sustainable society, from its origin in the eighteenth-century concept of the "commons" to its twentieth-century iteration in the 1987 United Nations report "Our Common Future." He then chronicles Mitchell’s commitment to this idea from the early 1960s, when the focus was on population growth, to today, when climate change and global warming dominate the debate. Mitchell advanced his belief that humankind could create "a balance between economic and ecological well-being" by organizing and hosting conferences, awarding prizes, supporting scholars and scientists, and funding research and publications. He did it at the Aspen Institute, at The Woodlands Conferences, at the National Academy of Sciences, at the Mitchell Center for Sustainable Development, and at the Houston Advanced Research Center. (Paradoxically, he did not always do it in his own energy company.) Documenting one important man’s engagement with one important idea, Schmandt has preserved a significant episode in the ongoing quest to create societies that are "capable of reaching and then sustaining a decent quality of life for their citizens."
Download or read book Public Health Linkages with Sustainability written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1992 world leaders met at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to reaffirm the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that was established on June 16, 1972 in Stockholm. The meeting resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21 by the member states which is a framework for the transition to a more sustainable world. In 2012 the members gathered to assess and reaffirm the importance of progress towards the efforts of Agenda 21. In response to this the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop to inform the policies that are discussed at the 2012 Earth Summit. The workshop, held in Woods Hole, Massachusetts on July 25-26, 2011, focused on the issue of sustainability and health as well as the linkages that are currently present between the two. The workshop included presentations and discussions which are summarized in Public Health Linkages with Sustainability: Workshop Summary. The report presents how different areas of public health, such as food and water resources, link to sustainability and opportunities or venues that can be examined.
Download or read book The Sustainable Nation written by Liam Leonard and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-10 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on almost 20 years of Liam Leonard’s research in the field, this volume provides a detailed case study of a modern European state’s tumultuous development through first decades of the Millennium. The book provides an in depth and up to date study on Ireland's growth and the substantial changes experienced there during the last two decades.
Download or read book Digital Nations Smart Cities Innovation and Sustainability written by Arpan Kumar Kar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-03 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 16th IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services and e-Society, I3E 2017, held in Delhi, India, in November 2017. The 45 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 92 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: Adoption of Smart Services; Assessment of ICT Enabled Smart Initiatives; Analytics for Smart Governance; Social Media and Web 3.0 for Smartness; and Smart Solutions for the Future.
Download or read book Computing Research for Sustainability written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-07-06 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad and growing literature describes the deep and multidisciplinary nature of the sustainability challenges faced by the United States and the world. Despite the profound technical challenges involved, sustainability is not, at its root, a technical problem, nor will merely technical solutions be sufficient. Instead, deep economic, political, and cultural adjustments will ultimately be required, along with a major, long-term commitment in each sphere to deploy the requisite technical solutions at scale. Nevertheless, technological advances and enablers have a clear role in supporting such change, and information technology (IT) is a natural bridge between technical and social solutions because it can offer improved communication and transparency for fostering the necessary economic, political, and cultural adjustments. Moreover, IT is at the heart of nearly every large-scale socioeconomic system-including systems for finance, manufacturing, and the generation and distribution of energy-and so sustainability-focused changes in those systems are inextricably linked with advances in IT. The focus of Computing Research for Sustainability is "greening through IT," the application of computing to promote sustainability broadly. The aim of this report is twofold: to shine a spotlight on areas where IT innovation and computer science (CS) research can help, and to urge the computing research community to bring its approaches and methodologies to bear on these pressing global challenges. Computing Research for Sustainability focuses on addressing medium- and long-term challenges in a way that would have significant, measurable impact. The findings and recommended principles of the Committee on Computing Research for Environmental and Societal Sustainability concern four areas: (1) the relevance of IT and CS to sustainability; (2) the value of the CS approach to problem solving, particularly as it pertains to sustainability challenges; (3) key CS research areas; and (4) strategy and pragmatic approaches for CS research on sustainability.
Download or read book Anti nation written by Fred H. Knelman and published by Oakville, Ont. : Mosaic Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sustainability written by Kent E. Portney and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-10-09 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise and accessible examination of sustainability in a range of contemporary contexts, from economic development to government policy. The word “sustainability” has been connected to everything from a certain kind of economic development to corporate promises about improved supply sourcing. But despite the apparent ubiquity of the term, the concept of sustainability has come to mean a number of specific things. In this accessible guide to the meanings of sustainability, Kent Portney describes the evolution of the idea and examines its application in a variety of contemporary contexts—from economic growth and consumption to government policy and urban planning. Portney takes as his starting point the 1987 definition by the World Commission on Environment and Development of sustainability as economic development activity that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” At its heart, Portney explains, sustainability focuses on the use and depletion of natural resources. It is not the same as environmental protection or natural resource conservation; it is more about finding some sort of steady state so that the earth can support both human population and economic growth. Portney looks at political opposition to the promotion of sustainability, which usually questions the need for sustainability or calls its costs unacceptable; collective and individual consumption of material goods and resources and to what extent they must be curtailed to achieve sustainability; the role of the private sector, and the co-opting of sustainability by corporations; government policy on sustainability at the international, national, and subnational levels; and how cities could become models for sustainability action.
