Download or read book Local Action on Climate Change written by Susie Moloney and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is growing interest in analysing the role and effectiveness of the local scale in responding to the global challenge of climate change. However, while accounts of urban climate change governance are growing, there is now a real need for further conceptual and empirical work to better understand processes of change and uptake across a range of climate change actions. Local Action on Climate Change examines how local climate change responses are emerging, being operationalized and evaluated within a range of geographical and socio-political contexts across the globe. Focussing on the role and potential of local governments, non-government organisations and community groups in driving transformative change, the authors analyse how local climate change responses have emerged and explore the extent to which they are or have the potential to be innovative or transformative in terms of governance, policy and practice change. Drawing on a diverse range of case studies, including examples from Vanuatu, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, the USA and India, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental policy and governance, and sustainability.

Download or read book A Beautiful Constraint written by Adam Morgan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-01-07 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring yet practical guide for transforming limitations into opportunities A Beautiful Constraint: How to Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages And Why It's Everyone's Business Now is a book about everyday, practical inventiveness, designed for the constrained times in which we live. It describes how to take the kinds of issues that all of us face today—lack of time, money, resources, attention, know-how—and see in them the opportunity for transformation of oneself and one's organization's fortunes. The ideas in the book are based on the authors' extensive work as business consultants, and are brought to life in 35 personal interviews from such varied sources as Nike, IKEA, Unilever, the U.S. Navy, Formula One racecar engineers, public school teachers in California, and barley farmers in South Africa. Underpinned by scientific research into the psychology of breakthrough, the book is a practical handbook full of tools and tips for how to make more from less. Beautifully designed and accessible, A Beautiful Constraint will appeal beyond its core business audience to anyone who needs to find the opportunity in constraint. The book takes the reader on a journey through the mindset, method and motivation required to move from the initial "victim" stage into the transformation stage. It challenges us to: Examine how we've become path dependent—stuck with routines that blind us from seeing opportunity along new paths Ask Propelling Questions to help us break free of those paths and put the most pressing and valuable constraints at the heart of our process Adopt a Can If mentality to answer these questions—focused on "how," not "if" Access the abundance to be found all around us to help transform constraints Activate the high-octane mix of emotions necessary to fuel the tenacity required for success We live in a world of seemingly ever-increasing constraints, driven as much by an overabundance of choices and connections as by a scarcity of time and resources. How we respond to these constraints is one of the most important issues of our time and will be a large determinant of our progress as people, businesses and planet, in the future. A Beautiful Constraint calls for a more widespread capability for constraint-driven problem solving and provides the framework to achieve that.

Download or read book Leading Change written by John P. Kotter and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.

Download or read book Social Change and Human Development written by Rainer K Silbereisen and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's world is characterized by a set of overarching trends that often come under the rubric of social change. In this innovative volume, Rainer K. Silbereisen and Xinyin Chen bring together, for the first time, international experts in the field to examine how changes in our social world impact on our individual development. Divided into four parts, the book explores the major socio-political and technological changes that have taken place around the world - from post- from the rapid upheavals in 1990s Europe to the gradual changes in parts of East Asia - and explains how these developments interplay with human development across the lifespan. Human Development and Social Change is a useful resource for students and researchers involved in all areas of human development, including developmental psychology, sociology and education.

Download or read book Sustainable Values Sustainable Change written by Bryan G. Norton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Systematically investigates the philosophical foundations of sustainable development in the context of the history of environmental policy. . . . Compelling.” —Choice Sustainability is a nearly ubiquitous concept today, but can we ever imagine what it would be like for humans to live sustainably on earth? One of the most trafficked terms in the press, on university campuses, and in the corridors of government, sustainability has risen to prominence as a buzzword before the many parties laying claim to it have agreed on how to define it. But the term’s political currency urgently demands that we develop an understanding of this elusive concept. While economists, philosophers, and ecologists argue about what in nature is valuable, and why, in Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change, Bryan Norton offers an action-oriented, pragmatic response to the disconnect between public and academic discourse around sustainability. Looking to the arenas in which decisions are made—and the problems driving these decisions—Norton reveals that the path to sustainability cannot be guided by fixed objectives; sustainability will instead be achieved through experimentation, incremental learning, and adaptive management. Drawing inspiration from Aldo Leopold’s famed metaphor of “thinking like a mountain” for a spatially explicit, pluralistic approach to evaluating environmental change, Norton outlines a new decision-making process guided by deliberation and negotiation across science and philosophy. Looking across scales to today’s global problems, Norton urges us to learn to think like a planet. “An excellent distillation of Norton’s extensive and groundbreaking work.” —Ben Minteer, Arizona State University, author of Refounding Environmental Ethics “Engaging and important.” —Sahotra Sarkar, University of Texas at Austin, author of Environmental Philosophy: From Theory to Practice

Download or read book Dynamics in Action written by Alicia Juarrero and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-01-25 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the difference between a wink and a blink? The answer is important not only to philosophers of mind, for significant moral and legal consequences rest on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior. However, "action theory"—the branch of philosophy that has traditionally articulated the boundaries between action and non-action, and between voluntary and involuntary behavior—has been unable to account for the difference. Alicia Juarrero argues that a mistaken, 350-year-old model of cause and explanation—one that takes all causes to be of the push-pull, efficient cause sort, and all explanation to be prooflike—underlies contemporary theories of action. Juarrero then proposes a new framework for conceptualizing causes based on complex adaptive systems. Thinking of causes as dynamical constraints makes bottom-up and top-down causal relations, including those involving intentional causes, suddenly tractable. A different logic for explaining actions—as historical narrative, not inference—follows if one adopts this novel approach to long-standing questions of action and responsibility.

Download or read book The Goal written by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant - or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days - Jonah - to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done. Described by Fortune as a 'guru to industry' and by Businessweek as a 'genius', Eliyahu M. Goldratt was an internationally recognized leader in the development of new business management concepts and systems. This 20th anniversary edition includes a series of detailed case study interviews by David Whitford, Editor at Large, Fortune Small Business, which explore how organizations around the world have been transformed by Eli Goldratt's ideas. The story of Alex's fight to save his plant contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt. Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal is the gripping novel which is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world. It is a book to recommend to your friends in industry - even to your bosses - but not to your competitors!

Download or read book All Change at Work written by Alex Bryson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the latest publication reporting the results of a series of workplace surveys conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service and the Policy Studies Institute. It addresses such contemporary employee relations issues as: * Have new configurations of labour-management practices become embedded in the British economy? * Did the dramatic decline in trade union representation in the 1980s continue throughout the 1990s, leaving more employees without a voice? * Are the vestiges of union organisation at the workplace a hollow shell? The focus of this book is on change, captured by gathering together the enormous bank of data from all four of the large-scale and highly respected surveys, and plotting trends from 1980 to the present. In addition, a special panel of workplaces, surveyed in both 1990 and 1998, reveals the complex processes of change. Comprehensive in scope, the results are statistically reliable and reveal the nature and extent of change in all bar the smallest British workplaces. A key text for anyone interested in employment and the changing world of work, whether as student, researcher, teacher, analyst, adviser or practitioner.

Download or read book Thinking for a Change written by Lisa J. Scheinkopf and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1999-01-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book begins with an overview of the constraint-based perspective on systems and organizations, commonly referred to as the theory of constraints or synchronous management. The first section will guide you through the fundamental principles and processes that are the backbone of the thinking process application tools. The second section contains the step-by-step guidelines for each of the five thinking process application tools. These tools utilize sufficient cause thinking and necessary condition thinking. Third section introduces two ways that two or more of the thinking process application tools are combined, providing robust processes for the understanding and communicating problems and solutions. This book can be used as a field guide to learning the five thinking process application tools as needed, based on their own particular issues. You will have a full understanding of the theory and practical application of these powerful processes, including when and when not to use each tool. The total benefit is not just to apply the thinking process, but to develop intuition and have the ability to combine logic and intuition in the same thinking process.

Download or read book Cities and Climate Change written by Daniel Hoornweg and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the latest knowledge and practice in responding to the challenge of climate change in cities. Case studies focus on topics such as New Orleans in the context of a fragile environment, a framework to include poverty in the cities and climate change discussion, and measuring the impact of GHG emissions.

Download or read book Climate Change 2014 Impacts Adaptation and Vulnerability Part A Global and Sectoral Aspects Volume 1 Global and Sectoral Aspects written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-29 with total page 1150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This latest Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will again form the standard reference for all those concerned with climate change and its consequences, including students, researchers and policy makers in environmental science, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, atmospheric chemistry and environmental policy.

Download or read book The Structural Links between Ecology Evolution and Ethics written by Donato Bergandi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-01-06 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary biology, ecology and ethics: at first glance, three different objects of research, three different worldviews and three different scientific communities. In reality, there are both structural and historical links between these disciplines. First, some topics are obviously common across the board. Second, the emerging need for environmental policy management has gradually but radically changed the relationship between these disciplines. Over the last decades in particular, there has emerged a need for an interconnecting meta-paradigm that integrates more strictly evolutionary studies, biodiversity studies and the ethical frameworks that are most appropriate for allowing a lasting co-evolution between natural and social systems. Today such a need is more than a mere luxury, it is an epistemological and practical necessity.​

Download or read book The Changing Faces of Families written by Marina A. Adler and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-04 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a focus on nine different national contexts, this book explores contemporary family diversity. With attention to the different welfare states and cultures of care in each setting, it problematizes the pre-eminence of research and policy centered on heteronormative families, showing the extent to which family diversity exists cross-nationally in relation to different gendered and "family-friendly" policies. Considering variations in family forms, including differences in the number and marital status of parents, their gender, sexual orientation and biological relationship to the children (adoption), multicultural families, and families created by technological assistance or surrogacy, it presents demographic information, alongside quantitative and qualitative research, across a number of advanced countries. A contribution to our understanding of the diversity of family forms, how diversity is lived in families, and what family diversity means in various international policy contexts. The Changing Faces of Families will appeal to scholars with interests in the sociology of the family. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Download or read book Climate Change 2014 Impacts Adaptation and Vulnerability Global and Sectoral Aspects written by Christopher B. Field and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-29 with total page 1149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This latest Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will again form the standard reference for all those concerned with climate change and its consequences, including students, researchers and policy makers in environmental science, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, atmospheric chemistry and environmental policy.

Download or read book Carbon Governance Climate Change and Business Transformation written by Adam Bumpus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transformation to a low carbon economy is a central tenet to any discussion on the solutions to the complex challenges of climate change and energy security. Despite advances in policy, carbon management and continuing development of clean technology, fundamental business transformation has not occurred because of multiple political, economic, social and organisational issues. Carbon Governance, Climate Change and Business Transformation is based on leading academic and industry input, and three international workshops focused on low carbon transformation in leading climate policy jurisdictions (Canada, USA and the UK) under the international Carbon Governance Project (CGP) banner. The book pulls insights from this innovative collaborative network to identify the policy combinations needed to create transformative change. It explores fundamental questions about how governments and the private sector conceptualize the problem of climate change, the conditions under which business transformation can genuinely take place and key policy and business innovations needed. Broadly, the book is based on emerging theories of multi-levelled, multi-actor carbon governance, and applies these ideas to the real world implications for tackling climate change through business transformation. Conceptually and empirically, this book stimulates both academic discussion and practical business models for low carbon transformation.

Download or read book To Educate a Nation written by Carl F. Kaestle and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven stimulating essays--using case studies of major cities and their schools--suggest what might be done to better foster equity and diversity in educating American public schoolchildren, highlighting the complications inherent in today's education system, and providing a framework for grappling with these problems.

Download or read book Securing the Future written by Gerald I. Kendall and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1997-12-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's managers encounter tremendous resistance in getting others to buy-in to change. The ongoing rounds of downsizing and upheaval have taken their toll, leaving a legacy of skepticism. Therefore, managers must not only have ideas, but must be experts at "selling" the correct answers, information, and measurements to address issues of change. Securing the Future uses the Theory of Constraints, a breakthrough improvement methodology, to provide solutions to today's management problems. It documents the step-by-step approach to achieving a strategic vision of long-term competitive advantage, employment security, and customer satisfaction. Using a combination of parable, methodology, and case studies, this book presents an in-depth management road map to exponential improvement in any organization. If you are looking for concrete ideas on how to build the intellectual capital your organization will need in order to thrive in years to come, Securing the Future will show you the way.