Sustainability Library

DVDs (books below)

Architecture to Zucchini: The People, Companies and Organizations pioneering sustainability
Topics: Businesses, Economic Development, & Education: "Architecture to Zucchini" is an exploration of socially responsible businesses and the passionate leaders who drive them. These are the pioneers who have put the principles of sustainability to work. In the process, they've built thriving companies and sparked regional economic development. It also features insights of nationally recognized leaders of organizations that focus on sustainability - those who serve industry, education, communities and government. Through interviews and tours in 12 case studies, these innovators reveal the impact of merging economic, social and environmental considerations in their business plans and operations. And they share everything from lessons learned to the challenges they've faced, even the unexpected opportunities for strategic alliances within and outside their industries.
Climate Commitment Workshops (2 Disk Set)
Topics: Climate: No description.
Fifth U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions: Plan C Individual and Community Survival Strategies for the Energy Crisis" (4 Disk Set)
Topics: Peak oil: "It's not just what we eat, but how we grow it, ship it, process it and store it. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and to slow climate change, we need to grow, shop and eat local! In spite of improvements in efficiency, our homes today use more energy than they did 40 years ago. Why? They are bigger and use many more appliances than ever before. Just what is sustainable housing? The freedom of the road will soon be a thing of the past unless we can get over our love affair with the car, and reduce our society's reliance on cheap, polluting transportation. Global Warming: The Signs and the Science http://www.pbs.org/previews/globalwarming/ "Writer/Producer: David Kennard Writer/Director: Michael Taylor" Global Warming "In this documentary filmed throughout the U.S., Asia, and South America and originally aired on PBS Television, singer Alanis Morissette narrates as documentary filmmakers profile the people whose lives have been affected by global warming and explore the efforts made by scientists, individuals, and communities to make the planet safe for future generations.
In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts
Writer/Director/Producer: Danny Schechter
Topics: Credit & Debt: Emmy-winning journalist Danny Schechter investigates America's mounting debt crisis in this latest hard-hitting expose. The film reveals the unknown cabal of credit card companies, lobbyists, media conglomerates and the Bush administration itself who have colluded to deregulate the lending industry ensuring that a culture of credit dependency can flourish. Schechter exposes the hidden financial and political complex that allows the lowest wage earners to indebt themselves so heavily that even house repossessions are commonplace dubbed 21st-century serfdom - by an expert featured in the film. The whole world depends on the economic stability of the United States. Yet, as its national and consumer debt escalates, our interconnected global economy is at risk. This timely film delivers an urgent warning that can't be ignored.
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers
Producer/Director: Robert Greenwald
Topics: Effects of War: Join documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald in assessing the damage done to average Americans when corporations decide to wage war. For critics of the current administration, the connection between the war in Iraq and the private corporations who profit from the fighting is plain to see. For those who may not be so easily convinced, however, Greenwald and company not only explore the questionable motivations of the corporate decision-makers whose wartime profiteering has affected the lives of countless soldiers and their families, but also the increasingly negative international reputation of the United States as a result.
Maxed Out
Writer/Director/Producer: James D Scurlock
Topics: Credit & Debt: When Hurricane Katrina ravaged America's Gulf Coast, it laid bare an uncomfortable reality - America is not only far from the world's wealthiest nation; it is crumbling beneath a staggering burden of individual and government debt. Maxed Out takes us on a journey deep inside the American debt-style, where everything seems okay as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. Sure, most of us may have that sinking feeling that something isn't quite right, but we're told not to worry. After all, there's always more credit! Maxed Out shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of "preferred customer" and tells us why the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer. By turns hilarious and profoundly disturbing, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us.
National Geographic: Strange Days on Planet Earth; Volumes 1 & 2 (2 Episode Set)
Producers: Mark Shelley, Nancy Burnett, Richard Hutton, & Michael Rosenfeld
Topics: Pollution of Waterways, Temperature Shifts: A number of unusual scientific phenomena around the world raise serious questions about the planet's ecological balance in this four-part documentary produced by National Geographic. National Geographic: Strange Days on Planet Earth offers both fascinating and disquieting information on how and why certain species are showing up in places where they've never been before, the short- and long-term effects of a slight rise in the global temperature, how the elimination of certain predatory animals may be causing as much harm as good, and an investigation of how effective measures to clean our drinking water have been. National Geographic: Strange Days on Planet Earth features narration by actor Edward Norton.
Ripe for Change
Produced/ Directed by: Emiko Omori
Topics: Organic food, fossil fuel: Ripe for Change chronicles the intersection of food and politics in California over the last 30 years. California is at a crossroads in agriculture, fending off overdevelopment and the loss of farming traditions while simultaneously embracing innovative visions of sustainability. Always a fascinating marriage of opposing extremes, California is the state from which Cesar Chavez brought the plight of migrant farm workers and the hazards of industrial farming to the attention of the world. Yet it is also the state that embraced the biotechnology industry and spurred the fast-food movement. Alongside this movement are the leaders in redefining school lunch programs, the marketing system known as community supported agriculture (CSA) and calls for more sustainable farming that considers the impact on environment, community and workers. With diminishing resources and a growing population, how will the state cope with this dilemma? How can consumers participate in these life-affecting decisions? Revealing interviews with some of California's prominent farmers, chefs and food thinkers offer an opportunity to consider these complex questions. These stories are about survival, building communities and reclaiming the aesthetics of food, and how food nurtures our souls while sustaining our bodies.
The 11th Hour
Authors: Leila Conners Peterson & Nadia Conners
Topics: Global Warming: Leonardo DiCaprio's "The 11th Hour" is a feature length documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and their impact on the planet. "The 11th Hour" documents the cumulative impact of these actions upon the planet's life systems and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity. With the help of over fifty of the world's most prominent thinkers and activists, including reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, "The 11thHour" documents the grave problems facing the planet's life systems. Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans' habitats are all addressed, and their causes rooted in human activity. The combination of these crises call into question the very future not of the planet, but of humanity.
The Corporation
Produced/Directed by: Jennifer Abbott
Written by: Joel Bakan
Topics: oil industries, pharmaceutical industries: Provoking, witty, stylish and sweepingly informative, THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Part film and part movement, The Corporation is transforming audiences and dazzling critics with its insightful and compelling analysis. Taking its status as a legal "person" to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" The Corporation includes interviews with 40 corporate insiders and critics - including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore - plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.
The End of Suburbia
Producer: Barry Silverthorn
Topics: Peak Oil: Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia that has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness. Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream. But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary.
The True Cost of Food
Topics: Consumption impact on environment: This video was produced by the Sierra Club Sustainable Consumption Committee as part of a campaign to encourage people to think about the environmental impacts of their consumption choices.
The World According to Monsanto
Producer: Marie-Monique Robin
Topics: agricultural biodiversity: Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. This century-old empire has created some of the most toxic products ever sold, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the herbicide Agent Orange. Based on a painstaking investigation, The World According to Monsanto puts together the pieces of the company's history, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and numerous first-hand accounts.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Produced/ Directed by: Rovert Greenwald
Topics: Effects of big businesses: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is the documentary film sensation that's changing the largest company on earth. The film features the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to survive in a Wal-Mart world. It's an emotional journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop.
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Producer: Jessie Deeter
Topics: Cars, emissions, oil addiction: In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline. Ten years later, these cars were destroyed. It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert? "Who Killed the Electric Car?" chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business
Why We Fight
Author/Director: Eugene Jaecki
Topics: American war-making: In 1961, as Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his final address to the nation before leaving the office of President of the United States, he warned that America "must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex." Nearly 45 years later, as the United States finds itself waging a war in Iraq for reasons that seem increasingly unclear with the passage of time, Eisenhower's statement becomes all the more pertinent, and the question becomes more apt: has the machinery the United States established to wage war helped prevent conflict, or has it done more to inspire it? Documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki offers an in-depth look at how the United States has readied itself for battle, and why and how the nation goes to war in the film Why We Fight.. Why We Fight features interviews with foot soldiers, Army recruits, Pentagon personnel, decorated veterans, members of Congress, national security advisors, top military strategists, and many more as they talks about the core philosophies of American military strategy and how they have changed since the end of the Second World War. Why We Fight received the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
World in the Balance: The Population Paradox
Written/Produced/Directed by: Sarah Holt
Topics: Economy and Population: It took all of human history until 1800 for the world's population to reach its first billion. Now we add a new billion nearly every dozen years. Over the next half century, 98 percent of that growth will take place in our planet's poorest regions. And as the global total swells to nearly 9 billion by 2050, the social and environmental strains will be enormous. Through vivid personal stories, The People Paradox reveals many startling trends. In Japan, Europe and Russia, birth rates are shrinking and the population is aging. But in parts of India and Africa, more than half of the still growing population is under 25. The surprising conclusion: world population is now careening in two dramatically different directions. The second hour, China Revs Up, is an insider's look at China's booming economy and its growing impact on the environment. What will happen as China follows America's affluent lifestyle and begins to rival the U.S. as the world's biggest polluter?
50 Ways to Save the Ocean
Author: David Helvarg
Topics: Marine Resources Conservation, Ocean & Seas: The oceans, and the challenges they face, are so vast that it's easy to feel powerless to protect them. 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, written by veteran environmental journalist David Helvarg, focuses on practical, easily-implemented actions everyone can take to protect and conserve this vital resource. Well-researched, personal, and sometimes whimsical, the book addresses daily choices that affect the ocean's health: what fish should and should not be eaten; how and where to vacation; storm drains and driveway run-off; protecting local water tables; proper diving, surfing, and tide pool etiquette; and supporting local marine education. Helvarg also looks at what can be done to stir the waters of seemingly daunting issues such as toxic pollutant runoff; protecting wetlands and sanctuaries; keeping oil rigs off shore; saving reef environments; and replenishing fish reserves.
A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned
Author: Jane Tompkins
Topics: Education System: Here one of our leading literary scholars looks back on her own life in the classroom, and discovers how much of what she learned there needs to be unlearned. Jane Tompkins' memoir shows how her education shaped her in the mold of a high achiever who could read five languages but had little knowledge of herself. As she slowly awakens to the needs of her body, heart, and spirit, she discards the conventions of classroom teaching and learns what her students' lives are like. A painful and exhilarating story of spiritual awakening, Tompkins' book critiques our educational system while also paying tribute to it.
A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design
Author: Nancy Jack Todd Ecological Design: In the late sixties, as the world was waking to a need for Earth Day, a pioneering group founded a small non-profit research and education organization they called the New Alchemy Institute. Their aim was to explore the ways a safer and more sustainable world could be created. In the ensuing years, along with scientists, agriculturists, and a host of enthusiastic amateurs and friends, they set out to discover new ways that basic human needs--in the form of food, shelter, and energy--could be met. A Safe and Sustainable World is the story of that journey, as it was and as it continues to be. The dynamics and the resilience of the living world were the Institute's model and the inspiration for their research. Central to their efforts then and now is, along with science, a spiritual quest for a more harmonious human role in our planet's future. The results of this work have now entered mainstream science through the emerging discipline of ecological design. Nancy Jack Todd not only relates a fascinating journey from lofty ideals through the hard realities encountered in learning how to actually grow food, harness the energy of the sun and wind, and design green architecture. She also introduces us to some of the heroes and mentors who played a vital role in those efforts as well, from Buckminster Fuller to Margaret Mead. The early work of the Institute culminated in the design and building of two bioshelters--large greenhouse-like independent structures called Arks, that provided the setting for much of the research to follow.
Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
Authors: John DeGraaf. David Wann, & Thomas H. Naylor
Topics: Popular Culture, Quality of Life, Wealth, Consumption: The authors define affluenza as "a painful, contagious, virally transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more". Behind the wordplay is a serious subject indeed: the increasing deterioration of the natural world in the face of over-consumption.
Appropriate Technology Sourcebook; Volume 1
Authors: Ken Darrow, Kent Keller, Rick Pam
Topics: Technology & Environmental Protection: No description
Basic Concepts of Environmental Chemistry
Author: Des W. Connell
Topics: Environmental Management, Natural Chemicals, Environmental Toxicology: Basic Concepts of Environmental Chemistry, Second Edition provides a theoretical basis for the behavior and biological effects of natural chemical entities and contaminants in natural systems, concluding with a practical focus on risk assessment and the environmental management of chemicals. The text uses molecular properties such as polarity, water solubility, and vapor pressure as the starting point for understanding the environmental chemistry of various contaminants in soil, water, and the atmosphere. It explains biological processes such as respiration and photosynthesis and their relationship to greenhouse gases. The book then introduces environmental toxicology and describes the distribution, transport, and transformation of contaminants, including PCBs and dioxins, plastics, petroleum and aromatic hydrocarbons, soaps and detergents, and pesticides. The author highlights the relationship between specific chemical properties and their environmental and biological effects. Other topics discussed include partition behavior, fugacity, and genotoxicity, particularly involving carcinogens.
Blessed Unrest
Author: Paul Hawken
Topics: Environmentalism, Environmental Justice: Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and hidden history, which date back many centuries. A culmination of Hawken's many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire and delight any and all who despair of the world's fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself. Fundamentally, it is a description of humanity's collective genius, and the unstoppable movement to reimagine our relationship to the environment and one another.
Blood and Oil
Author: Michael T. Klare
Topics: War & Oil: In his pathbreaking Resource Wars, world security expert Michael Klare alerted us to the role of resources in conflicts in the post-cold-war world. Now, in Blood and Oil, he concentrates on a single precious commodity, petroleum, while issuing a warning to the United States - its most powerful, and most dependent, global consumer. Since September 11 and the commencement of the "war on terror," the world's attention has been focused on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil. Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America's own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010 the United States will need to import 60 percent of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones - the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa - our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement. With clarity and urgency, Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers
Author: Alissa Quart
Topics: Marketing, Advertising: In Branded, Alissa Quart takes us to the dark side of marketing to teens, showing readers a disturbingly fast-paced world in which adults shamelessly insinuate themselves into "friendships" with young people in order to monitor what they wear, eat, listen to, and buy. We travel to a conference on advertising to teenagers and witness the breathless and insensitive pronouncements of lecturers there. We meet the unofficial teen "sales force" for a new girls' perfume (the unpaid daughters of the company's saleswomen) and observe the attempts of mega-corporations to purchase the time and space for product-placement in schools. We witness the aggressive and potentially emotionally damaging ways in which adults seek to control vulnerable young minds and wallets. But we also witness the bravery of isolated and increasingly Internet-linked kids who attempt to turn the tables on the cocksure corporations that so cynically strive to manipulate them. Eye-opening and urgent, Branded exposes and condemns a segment of American business whose high-paid job it is to reduce teens to their lowest common denominator, to systematically sap youth of individuality and creativity. Engaging and thought provoking, Branded ensures that consumers will never look at the American way of doing business in the same way again.
Building the Bridge as you Walk on it: A Guide for Leading Change
Author: Robert E. Quinn
Topics: Change, Leadership: Building the Bridge As You Walk On It tells the personal stories of people who have embraced deep change and inspired author Robert Quinn to take his concept one step further and develop a new model of leadership--"the fundamental state of leadership." The exploration of this transformative state is at the very heart of the book. Quinn shows how anyone can enter the fundamental state of leadership by engaging in the eight practices that center on the theme of ever-increasing integrity--reflective action, authentic engagement, appreciative inquiry, grounded vision, adaptive confidence, detached interdependence, responsible freedom, and tough love. After each chapter, Quinn challenges you to assess yourself with respect to each practice and to formulate a strategy for personal growth. Building the Bridge As You Walk On It emphasizes that developing leaders is not a simple matter of imparting a set of concepts or reaching into a toolkit of strategies and behaviors. To become a leader requires engagement in the process of deep change in oneself, thereby inviting others to do the same. Once this process is in motion, we truly begin to transform one another to become the type of leaders we strive to be.
Changing Lives Through Literature
Editors: Robert P. Waxler & Jean R. Trounstine
Topics: Literature & Criminals: Robert P. Waxler believes that stories can save us from the chaos of our lives. He began the "Changing Lives Through Literature" program to demonstrate that literature has the power to change the lives of criminal offenders. By examining the works of contemporary authors such as James Baldwin and Alice Walker, these reading groups, made up of eight convicted criminals, a probation officer, and a judge, became an exploration into the meaning of democracy. When the members of the group who had been pushed to the margins and refused a voice began to rediscover their identity, the idea for this anthology was born. Changing Lives Through Literature depends on the belief that modern literature is the best tool our society has to explore human identity, and to keep it alive. Through their tireless work in the Massachusetts prison system, co-editors Waxler and Jean R. Trounstine discovered that a study of modern literature enhances readers' verbal skills through an engagement with language, opens experience to a multitude of perspectives, enriches our sense of human diversity, and makes us self-reflective and thoughtful.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Author: Jared Diamond
Topics: Cultural Anthropology, Historical Geography, Human Geography: In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society's apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.
Coming Back To Life
Authors: Joanna Macy & Molly Young Brown
Topics: Environmental Protection, Conservation of Natural Resources, Citizen Participation, General Self-Help: Many of us feel called to respond to the ecological destruction of our planet, yet we feel overwhelmed, immobilized, and unable to deal realistically with the threats to life on Earth. Noted spiritual and environmental thinkers Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown contend that this crippling response to world crisis is a psychological defense mechanism that has been endemic since the years of the Cold War arms race, when we had to adapt within a single generation to the horrific possibility of nuclear holocaust. Since its publication in 1983, Joanna Macy's book, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age has sold nearly 30,000 copies and has been the primary resource for groups of men and women confronting the challenging realities of our time without succumbing to paralysis or panic. Coming Back to Life provides a much needed update and expansion of this pioneering work. At the interface between spiritual breakthrough and social action, Coming Back to Life is eloquent and compelling as well as being an inspiring and practical guide. The first third of the book discusses with extraordinary insight the angst of our era, and the pain, fear, guilt and inaction it has engendered; it then points forward to the way out of apathy, tio "the work that reconnects". The rest of the book offers both personal counsel and easy-to-use methods for working with groups in a number of ways to profoundly affect peoples' outlook and ability to act in the world.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Author: John Perkins
Topics: Conspiracy & Scandal Investigations, Economic Policy, Government & Business: In this shocking memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins tells of his own inner journey from willing servant of empire to impassioned advocate for the rights of oppressed people. Covertly recruited by the United States National Security Agency and on the payroll of an international consulting firm, he traveled the world - to Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other strategically important countries. His job was to implement policies that promoted the interests of the U.S. corporatocracy (a coalition of government, banks, and corporations) while professing to alleviate poverty - policies that alienated many nations and ultimately led to September 11 and growing anti-Americanism
Cooking with the Sun
Author: Beth Halacy & Dan Halacy
Topics: Solar Cooking: Cooking with the Sun shows how to harness the sun's energy in preparing food. it presents detailed plans, liberally illustrated with line drawings and photos, for building solar ovens (385 degrees F) that can cook a 12-pound turkey in three hours, and solar reflector "hot plate" (650 degrees F within minutes) that perks coffee and cooks steak, bacon and eggs, hot cakes and other stove-top meals. Over 90 delicious recipes included.
Dancing with the Tiger: Learning Sustainability Step by Natural Step
Authors: Brian Nattrass & Mary Altomare
Topics: Sustainable Living in Corporations, Communities, & other Organizations: Dancing with the Tiger - Learning Sustainability Step by Natural Step provides both inspiration and a road map for leaders and change agents in today's complex organizations seeking to engage in more sustainable and responsible business practices, while at the same time driving innovation and business success. Like a complex and intricate form of dance, the practice of corporate responsibility and sustainability is as much an art as it is a science. It is the human factor that stands between the unsustainable trajectory of the present and a future sustainable world, not just the science, engineering or technology. It is only through people that the innovations of greater sustainability and responsibility will be diffused and adopted within our corporations, our governments, and ultimately throughout our world.
Degrees That Matter: Climate Change and the University
Authors: Ann Rappaport & Sarah Hammond Creighton
Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Colleges & Universities: Universities and colleges are in a unique position to take a leadership role on global warming. As communities, they can strategize and organize effective action. As laboratories for learning and centers of research, they can reduce their own emissions of greenhouse gases, educate students about global warming, and direct scholarly attention to issues related to climate change and energy. Degrees That Matter offers practical guidance for those who want to harness the power of universities and other institutions, and provides perspectives on how to motivate change and inspire action within complex organizations.The authors, drawing on almost a decade of experience leading the Tufts Climate Initiative and other institutional "greening" efforts, provide both the basic facts and more detailed information about climate issues. Some chapters can be used as stand-alone action guides for specific areas, while others put climate action in scientific, economic, and political contexts. The authors discuss the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions on campus and the importance of an emissions inventory for setting goals and strategies. They consider decision making (and decision makers), costs, budgets, and institutional priorities, and describe different emission reduction projects. They look at the importance of master planning for the university and the value of action by individual community members. Finally, they suggest climate action projects for the classroom and offer guidance for tapping student energy. Their aim is to inspire others to take on global warming regardless of organizational setting.
Eco-Economy
Author: Lester R. Brown
Topics: Oil, Consumption, Global Economy: Eco-Economy discusses the need today for a similar shift in our worldview. The issue now is whether the environment is part of the economy or the economy is part of the environment. Lester R. Brown argues the latter, pointing out that treating the environment as part of the economy has produced an economy that is destroying its natural support systems. Brown notes that if China were to have a car in every garage, American style, it would need 80 million barrels of oil a day - more than the world currently produces. If paper consumption per person in China were to reach the U.S. level, China would need more paper than the world produces. There goes the world's forests. If the fossil fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economic model will not work for China, it will not work for the other 3 billion people in the developing world - and it will not work for the rest of the world.
Eco-Pioneers: Practical Visionaries Solving Today's Environmental Problems
Author: Steve Lerner
Topics: Environmental degradation, Environmental Conservation & Protection, Environmental Science: Lerner provides case studies of eco-pioneers who are exploring sustainable ways to log forests, grow food, save plant species, run cattle, build houses, clean up cities, redesign rural communities, generate power, conserve water, protect rivers and wildlife, treat hazardous waste, reuse materials, and reduce both waste and consumption. Some of those profiled run businesses, some address environmental practices within their immediate community, and some combine their environmental concerns with social goals such as the creation of inner-city jobs. Together they are creating ways of living and working that many analysts believe to be essential to an ecologically sustainable future.
Eco-Renovation: The Ecological Home Improvement Guide
Author: Edward Harland
Topics: Energy Conservation & Home Improvement: Architect Harland outlines paths toward ecological and energy-conserving reform in the ways we choose to shelter ourselves. Though compact, his book covers much ground, from the use of indoor plants as a source of benefits (oxygen production; pollution absorption) to the threat of radon gas and how to assess its presence. Harland does not pretend to solve all problems, but concentrates on projects that should be manageable to most of us: cutting down on water use; making the most of solar energy sources and collection methods; taking care to insulate windows, roofs, walls and floors properly; organic fruit and vegetable gardening, when possible, as a means of avoiding or endorsing "an unsustainable and polluting system of agriculture.''
Ecocities
Author: Richard Register
Topics: Cities, Ecological Principles: Most of the world's population now lives in cities. So if we are to address the problems of environmental deterioration and peak oil adequately, the city has to be a major focus of attention. EcoCities is about re-building cities and towns based on ecological principles for the long term sustainability, cultural vitality and health of the Earth's biosphere. Unique in the literature is the book's insight that the form of the city really matters - and that it is within our ability to change it, and crucial that we do. Further, that the ecocity within its bioregion is comprehensible and do-able, and can produce a healthy and potentially happy future. EcoCities describes the place of the city in evolution, nature and history. It pays special attention to the key question of accessibility and transportation, and outlines design principles for the ecocity. The reader is encouraged to plunge in to its economics and politics: the kinds of businesses, planning and leadership required. The book then outlines the tools by which a gradual transition to the ecocity could be accomplished. Throughout, this new edition is generously illustrated with the author's own inspired visions of what such rebuilt cities might actually look like.
Ecological Design
Authors: Sim Van Der Ryn & Stuart Cowan
Topics: Environmental Conservation & Protection, Human Ecology, Environmental policy: Ecological Design is a landmark volume that helped usher in an exciting new era in green design and sustainability planning. This 10th anniversary edition makes the work available to a new generation of practitioners and thinkers concerned with moving our society onto a more sustainable path.
Energy Resources & Supply
Authors: J.T. McMullan, R. Morgan, & R.B. Murray: NO description
Energy Environmentalism & The Technologies of Tomorrow
Editors: Robert Olson & David Rejeski
Topics: Technology & Environmental Protection: We sit at the doorstep of multiple revolutions in robotic, genetic, information, and communication technologies, whose powerful interactions promise social and environmental transformations we are only beginning to understand. How can we anticipate their impacts and ensure that these new technologies help move us in a more sustainable direction? Environmentalism and the Technologies of Tomorrow is a collection of essays by leading scientists, technologists, and thinkers that examine the nature of current technological changes, their environmental implications, and possible strategies for the transition to a sustainable future. It offers a baseline understanding of new technological developments, as well as important insights for moving beyond business-as-usual by developing more anticipatory approaches to environmental protection and more comprehensive strategies for promoting the transformation of technology.
Evolutions Edge
Author: Graeme Taylor
Topics: Societies & Global Change: It is now 5 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, reflecting the fact that we are closer to assuring the obliteration of our species than we have been at any time since the early eighties. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point, where we will either transform our violent, exploitative global system into a peaceful, cooperative one, or enter a catastrophic decline. Evolution's Edge shows that limitless economic expansion is impossible on a finite planet. Our growth-based global system will collapse as critical resources become scarce and major ecosystems fail. However, new ideas, values and technologies can help us avoid disaster and create a better world.
From Eco-Cities to Living Machines: Principles of Ecological Design
Authors: Nancy Jack Todd & John Todd
Topics: Bioengineering, Organic farming, Environmental Conservation & Protection: From Eco-cities to Living Machines presents the ecologically-based working designs and prototypes of biologist John Todd and writer and environmental activist Nancy Todd. Since 1969 with the founding of New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, the Todds have become known world-wide for their leadership in the restoration of pure water, bioremediation of wild aquatic environments, food production, and urban design. In this new book the Todds further develop the idea of Eco-cities, designs for integrating agriculture and flowing pure water into green urban settings and introduce Living Machines, a family of technologies for purifying wastewaters to tertiary quality effluent without chemicals. Provocative and grounded firmly in the principles of biodiversity, the Todds' work encompasses site-specific technological interventions and systems-wide ecological thinking. It has already influenced a new generation of ecological planners and designers, environmental economists, and systems-based engineers working to change the way we utilize production, technology, water, and energy.
Garbage Land
Author: Elizabeth Royte
Topics: Consumption impact on environment, & Waste: Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys, tattered socks, eight-track cassettes, scratched CDs, banana peels... But where do these things go next? In a country that consumes and then casts off more and more, what actually happens to the things we throw away. In Garbage Land, acclaimed science writer Elizabeth Royte leads us on the wild adventure that begins once our trash hits the bottom of the can. Along the way, we meet an odor chemist who explains why trash smells so bad; garbage fairies and recycling gurus; neighbors of massive waste dumps; CEOs making fortunes by encouraging waste or encouraging recycling-often both at the same time; scientists trying to revive our most polluted places; fertilizer fanatics and adventurers who kayak among sewage; paper people, steel people, aluminum people, plastic people, and even a guy who swears by recycling human waste. With a wink and a nod and a tightly clasped nose, Royte takes us on a bizarre cultural tour through slime, stench, and heat - in other words, through the back end of our ever-more supersized lifestyles. By showing us what really happens to the things we've "disposed of," Royte reminds us that our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact - and that unless we undertake radical change, the garbage we create will always be with us: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we consume.
Getting Science Grants: Effective Strategies for Funding Success
Author: Thomas R. Blackburn
Topics: Writing Proposals: Getting Science Grants is your hands-on guide to writing compelling proposals that will attract funding. This book provides a step-by-step process for writing proposals to support your research projects while it offers you an insider's look at the motivations and inner workings of the scientific grant making community.
Greening the Ivory Tower: Improving the Environmental Track Record of Universities, Colleges, and Other Institutions
Author: Sarah Hammond Creighton
Topics: Universities, Environmental Principles: Universities can teach and demonstrate environmental principles and stewardship by taking action to understand and reduce the environmental impacts of their own activities. Greening the Ivory Tower, a motivational and how-to guide for staff, faculty, and students, offers detailed "greening" strategies for those who may have little experience with institutional change or with the latest environmentally friendly technologies.
I'd Rather Teach Peace
Author: Colman McCarthy
Topics: Teaching & Peace: I'd Rather Teach Peace is the story of one man's passion for peace education, as seen during one semester in six schools where risk-taking students found themselves challenged and inspired by an unconventional course and by a man who believes that if we don't teach our children peace someone else will teach than violence.
Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement
Editors: Jonathan Isham & Sissel Waage
Topics: Global Warming, Climate Change, Environmental Protection: The evidence is irrefutable: global warming is real. While the debate continues about just how much damage spiking temperatures will wreak, we know the threat to our homes, health, and even way of life is dire. So why isn't America doing anything? Where is the national campaign to stop this catastrophe? It may lie between the covers of this book. Ignition brings together some of the world's finest thinkers and advocates to jump start the ultimate green revolution. Including celebrated writers like Bill McKibben and renowned scholars like Gus Speth, as well as young activists, the authors draw on direct experience in grassroots organization, education, law, and social leadership. Their approaches are various, from building coalitions to win political battles to rallying shareholders to change corporate behavior. But they share a belief that private fears about deadly heat waves and disastrous hurricanes can translate into powerful public action. For anyone who feels compelled to do more than change their light bulbs or occasionally carpool, Ignition is an essential guide. Combining incisive essays with success stories and web resources, the book helps readers answer the most important question we all face: "What can I do?"
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
Author: Daniel Quinn
Topics:Human Ecology: The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?
It's Easy Being Green
Author: Crissy Trask
Topics: Guide to all over Earth-friendly Living: It's Easy Being Green is a handy tool to help you make better choices for the environment. This is what the busy person needs to start making changes today. Get informative, comprehensive and practical information for adopting greener buying habits and identifying earth-friendly products; shopping for green products online; participating in online activism; and learning from over 250 eco-tips for cultivating a sustainable environment. Take the difficulty and guesswork out of greener living by learning the following: Install rain gutters and rain barrels to collect rainwater from your roof to use in the garden. Shift appliance use to off-peak hours. Some utility companies offer off-peak rates! Make your own household cleaners instead of relying on toxic commercial products. Submerge a plastic bottle in your toilet tank to save one quart of water per flush and thousands of gallons a year. This book concurrently presents a plan, tips and an Internet resources list that you can use to follow-through on good intentions. An extensive product labels list is also provided to help interpret how some foods are produced. If you haven't invested in substantially greener behaviors, consumerism and politics because you didn't know how or thought it was difficult, help is here: It's Easy Being Green is a handbook for all those who aspire do more to protect the environment but want it to be simpler. You can make a difference!
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Authors: Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows
Topics: Economic Development, Economic Conditions, Sustainable Development: Just over 30 years ago a path-breaking book was published called The Limits to Growth. It posited the then controversial idea that unlimited growth on a finite planet would inevitably lead to ecological collapse. The book became a surprise international best-seller and was translated into more than a dozen languages. In 1992 Chelsea Green published Beyond the Limits, bringing the data and the systems analysis up to date. Now Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update takes the analysis into the first decade of the 21st century to show that while the situation remains precarious, there is still time to bring the Earth back from the brink of ecological collapse.
Living at Nature's Peace: Farming & the American Dream
Author: Gene Logsdon
Topics: Farming & Ecology: For decades, Logsdon and his family have run a viable family farm. Along the way, he has become a widely influential journalist and social critic, documenting in hundreds of essays for national and regional magazines the crisis in conven-tional agri-business and the boundless potential for new forms of farming that reconcile tradition with ecology. Logsdon reminds us that healthy and economical agriculture must work "at nature's pace," instead of trying to impose an industrial order on the natural world. Foreseeing a future with "more farmers, not fewer," he looks for workable models among the Amish, among his lifelong neighbors in Ohio, and among resourceful urban gardeners and a new generation of defiantly unorthodox organic growers creating an innovative farmers-market economy in every region of the country
Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability
Author: Greg Horn
Topics: Guide to all over Sustainable Living: Over 85% of Americans today express concern about health and the environment, but only a small fraction say they know where to begin. Whether you are concerned about climate change, personal health, or just want to live more lightly on the planet, this book is for you. It helps you get past the worry and take positive action to improve both your health and the health of our environment. Based on a lifetime of research and practice, this practical guide for living green offers advice and solutions you can easily put into practice, like: *The 10 foods you should always eat organic to avoid pesticides, herbicides, hormones and antibiotics. *Affordable and practical ways to offset your "carbon footprint" and neutralize your personal impact on global warming. *The most chemically-intensive personal care, household cleaning and lawn care products, and their effective natural alternatives. *How soft plastic water bottles hurt your health, your pocket book and our environment, with a simple and refreshing alternative. *How a simple carbon filter can dramatically improve your everyday health and potentially add years to your life. *The truth about hybrids and flex fuels. *Why an organic mattress is the most important health investment you can make. Foreword by Jordan Rubin, New York Times best-selling author of The Maker's Diet.
Materials Matter
Author: Kenneth Geiser
Topics: Material, Toxic Chemicals, Environmental Damage: The products we purchase and use are assembled from a wide range of naturally occurring and manufactured materials. But too often we create hazards for the ecosystem and human health as we mine, process, distribute, use, and dispose of these materials. Until recently, most research has focused on the waste end of material cycles. This book argues that the safest and least costly point at which to avoid environmental damage is when materials are first designed and selected for use in industrial production. Materials Matter presents convincing evidence that we can use fewer materials and eliminate the use of many toxic chemicals by focusing directly on material (chemical) use when products are designed. It also shows how manufacturers can save money by increasing the effectiveness of material use and reducing the use of toxic chemicals. It advocates new directions for the material sciences and government policies on materials. And it argues that manufacturers, suppliers, and customers need to set more socially responsible policies for products and services to achieve higher environmental and health goals.
Mid-Course Correction
Author: Ray C. Anderson: Mid-Course Correction is the personal story of Ray Anderson's realization that businesses need to embrace principles of sustainability, and of his efforts, often frustrating, to apply these principles within a billion dollar corporation that is still measured by the standard scorecards of the business world. While the path has proved to have many curves, Interface is demonstrating that the principles of sustainability and financial success can co-exist within a business, and can lead to a new prosperity that includes human dividends as well.
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Authors: Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins
Topics: Environmental Conservation & Protection, Economic Forecasting, & Capitalism: Hawken (The Ecology of Commerce) and Amory and Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank, have put together an ambitious, visionary book advocating natural capitalism. Based on the principle that businesses can be good for the environment, Natural Capitalism shows how leading-edge companies are practicing a new type of industrialism that is both more efficient and more profitable, while simultaneously protecting the planet and creating jobs. Natural capitalism is a way of thinking that seeks to apply market principles to all sources of material value, most importantly natural resources. The authors have two related goals: first, to show the vast array of ecologically smart options available to businesses; second, to argue that it is possible for society and industry to adopt them
No Destination: An Autobiography
Author: Satish Kumar
Topics: Environmentalism, Religoin & Spirituality, & Conservation: At the age of nine, Satish Kumar renounced the world and became a wandering Jain monk. Leaving the monkhood when eighteen, he joined Vinoba Bhave's campaign for land reform, working to turn Gandhi's vision into reality. He undertook an 8,000 mile pilgrimage, walking from India to America without any money, through deserts, mountains, storms and snow. Since 1973 he has lived in Britain, becoming the guiding light behind a number of ecological, spiritual and educational ventures. Written with a penetrating simplicity, No Destination is an exhilarating account of an extraordinary life.
Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, & Survival? A Scientific Detective Story
Authors: Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, & John Peterson Myers
Topics: Man-Made Chemicals, Fertility: Our Stolen Future examines the ways that certain synthetic chemicals interfere with hormonal messages involved in the control of growth and development, especially in the fetus.The developing fetus uses these natural hormonal messages, which come from both from its own hormone system and from its mother, to guide development. They influence virtually all of the growing individual's characteristics, from determining its sex to controlling the numbers of toes and fingers to shaping intricate details of brain structure.Our Stolen Future then asks a broader, more difficult and more controversial set of questions. Given what is known from wildlife and laboratory studies, and from examples of well-studied human exposure, and given that exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the real world is widespread at levels comparable to those sufficient to cause animal harm, what effects should health scientists be looking for in people in general? Effects to be expected include declines in fertility and other impacts on the reproductive system of both men and women, impairments in disease resistance, and erosions in intelligence.
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil
Author: David Goodstein
Topics: Oil: Our rate of oil discovery has reached its peak and will never be exceeded; rather, it is certain to decline - perhaps rapidly - forever forward. Meanwhile, over the past century, we have developed lifestyles firmly rooted in the promise of an endless, cheap supply. In this book, David Goodstein, professor of physics at Caltech, explains the underlying scientific principles of the inevitable fossil fuel shortage we face. He outlines the drastic effects a fossil fuel shortage will bring down on us. And he shows that there is an important silver lining to the need to switch to other sources of energy, for when we have burned up all the available oil, the earth's climate will have moved toward a truly life-threatening state. With its easy-to-grasp explanations of the science behind every aspect of our most urgent environmental policy decisions, Out of Gas is a handbook for the future of civilization.
Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University
Authors: Michael M'Gonigle & Justine Starke
Topics: Economic Growth & Reforming Universities: Planet U places the university at the forefront of the sustainability movement. Questioning the university's ability to equip society to deal with today's serious challenges such as economic growth, democratic citizenship and planetary survival, it calls for a new social movement to take a lead in reforming the university - the world's largest industry. The book reviews the university's 900-year history from medieval religious philosopher, to Renaissance nation-builder, to its modern function as training grounds for the world's managerial class and the world's largest industry. It examines diverse campus initiatives across North America and Europe and their traditional concerns of green buildings, renewable energy and transportation demand management. But it also demonstrates the promise for social and ecological progress open to the "planetary university" once the university takes its place seriously and discovers its new mission: to create diverse models of local and global innovation centered around tough new questions about what universities - and their societies - can achieve: How might the university help move us to a post-automobile, energy-saving society? How might the university help move us to a post-automobile, energy-saving society? How might universities be governed for sustainability?
Residential Indoor Air Quality & Energy Efficiency
Authors: Peter du Pont & John Morrill
Topics: Energy Efficiency: No description.
Resource Wars
Author: Michael T. Klare
Topics: Warfare: From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia, Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations. International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on. A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet
Author: Michael T. Klare
Topics: Fossil Fuel, Renewable Energy: Oil recently hit $140 a barrel, and it is still climbing. Unlike the oil shocks of the 1970s, this dizzying leap is not the product of an OPEC embargo or a sudden flare-up in the Middle East. Rather, it is a harbinger of a permanent new structure of world power, one in which market forces and military strength matter far less than the scarcity of vital natural resources. Now in paperback, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet surveys the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape: Russia, the battered Cold War loser, is now the arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States, once the world's superpower, must now compete with the emerging "Chindia" juggernaut for finite and diminishing resources. Forecasting a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger, Michael T. Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, argues that the only route to survival in our radically altered world lies through international cooperation.
Rules of the Road
Author: Joan Bauer
Topics: Big Business, Road Rules: Meet Jenna Boller, star employee at Gladstone's Shoe Store in Chicago. Standing a gawky 5'11'' at 16 years old, Jenna is the kind of girl most likely to stand out in the crowd - for all the wrong reasons. But that doesn't stop Madeline Gladstone, the president of Gladstone's Shoes 176 outlets in 37 states, from hiring Jenna to drive her cross country in a last ditch effort to stop Elden Gladstone from taking over his mother's company and turning a quality business into a shop-and-schlock empire. Now Jenna Boller shoe salesperson is about to become a shoe-store spy as she joins her crusty old employer for an eye-opening adventure that will teach them both the rules of the road - and the rules of life.
Seeing Nature: Deliberate Encounters with the Visible World
Author: Paul Krafel
Topics: Nature: Written by a naturalist, this book is a valuable contribution to envi_ronmental ethics. Through stories and perceptive observation and thinking, Krapfel tells how he grad_ually became aware of the experien_tial and ethical implications of the two laws of thermody_namics, the first of which says that energy is neither created nor destroyed; the second of which says that all activ_ities, left to their own devices, tend toward greater disorder and fewer possibilities.As Krapfel comes to understand the second law of thermodynamics more deeply, he also comes to wonder whether human beings can do nothing but consume and destroy the earth: "I despair at not being able to do more than live at the expense of the world". His book depicts his personal efforts to find ways whereby is is more attunded to the second law so that he less often consumes possibili_ties faster than they are created, especially in regard to the natural environment.
Simplify Your Work Life: Ways to Change the Way You Work So That You Have More Time to Live
Author: Elaine St. James
Topics: Simplifying Work Life: With more than 2 million copies sold, Elaine St. James' SIMPLIFY series has taught the world how to start doing less and enjoying it more. In her first bestseller, she showed us how to reduce the clutter in our lives, from cleaning out our closets to cleaning up our relationships. Since then she has helped readers simplify their inner lives, their lives with their kids, and their holidays. Now Elaine helps us cut back in one of life's most difficult arenas -- the world of work. With tremendously helpful advice -- and easy yet profoundly smart suggestions -- she shows us big and small ways to scale down and simplify life on the job."
Spiritual Compass
Author: Satish Kumar
Topics: Spiritual Communication: In our modern, materialistic world it is easy to separate spirituality from everyday life. But spirituality is not just for saints, neither is it confined to the Sunday Service, Friday prayers or holy books. It must be a part of our ordinary, everyday existence: it needs to be implicitly present in business, in politics, in farming, in cooking, and in our relationships. To illustrate this, Satish Kumar draws on the Indian Ayurvedic tradition which characterises the mind as having three gunas, or primary qualities: sattva (characterised by calmness, clarity and purity), rajas (energy and passion), and tamas (dullness and ignorance). These qualities can be applied to our work and the environment: for example, there are sattvic foods, rajasic foods and tamasic foods. The Ayurvedic aim is to live a life which is simple and close to nature (sattvic), to reduce rajasic tendencies, and to avoid tamasic. When we see ourselves in the light of the three gunas, they can orient us towards the direction in which we wish to go. They can help us to recover the art of living, and lead us towards a peaceful and contented existence. Extending the meaning of spirtuality further, Satish explains that there is no dualism between spirit and matter, all matter is imbued with spirit, and spirit manifests through matter. This integrated world-view forms the core of his book.
Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things
Authors: John C. Ryan & Alan Thein Durning
Topics: Consumer Products: This small book explores a very simple but critical meme: most of the seemingly benign stuff in our everyday lives has a very complicated past that's energy-intensive and environmentally damaging. To convey this, Stuff follows a typical North American citizen through a single day and backtracks the inputs required for their coffee, T-shirt, computer, hamburger, etc. The findings are startling: did you know that it takes 700 gallons of water just so you can have your Quarter-Pounder? Statistics like this create a kind of social unease, hopefully enough to bring awareness to the significant environmental aftermath of our everyday lives.
Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods
Authors: Dan Chiras and Dave Wann
Topics: Communities, Ecosystem: It's time we moved from commuting to community and Superbia!, a MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, tells you how. An inspiring book about connecting with our neighbors, connecting our communities to the ecosystem, and connecting our everyday lives to our search for quality and joy. The book is full of practical ideas for creating more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. It is about remaking suburban and urban neighborhoods to serve people better and to reduce human impact on the environment. The authors first trace the history of the suburbs, showing how they fail to meet many peoples' needs. They then describe how existing neighborhoods can be transformed, offering cohousing and new urbanist communities as examples. The reader is then guided through the transformation of a fictitious neighborhood that adopts the authors' 31 steps. Ideas for the blossoming of the suburb are described in order of difficulty, from easy to boldest, including: the creation of a neighborhood newsletter to foster a sense of neighborhood identity and cooperation; regular community dinners, discussion groups, and babysitting co-ops; the removal of backyard fences to create park-like spaces for community play areas, or gardens; retrofitting homes for energy efficiency, and installing community energy systems. Examples from all over North America and beyond provide real-life proof that citizen planners can create superbia! And the most comprehensive resource listing imaginable puts all the tools needed at your fingertips.
Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change
Editors: Peggy F. Barlett & Geoffrey W. Chase
Topics: Environmental Resposibility, Universities & Campuses: These personal narratives of greening college campuses offer inspiration, motivation, and practical advice. Written by faculty, staff, administrators, and a student, from varying perspectives and reflecting divergent experiences, these stories also map the growing strength of a national movement toward environmental responsibility on campusIn Sustainability on Campus campus leaders recount inspiring stories of strategies that moved eighteen colleges and universities toward a more sustainable future. This book is for faculty, students, administrators, staff, and community partners, whether hesitant or committed, knowledgeable or newcomer. Scholars and activists have recognized the crucial role that higher education can play in the sustainability effort, and each chapter in the book is full of ideas about how to get started, revitalize efforts, and overcome roadblocks. Human and at times joyful, these stories illustrate many forms of leadership, in new courses and faculty development, green buildings and administrative policies, student programs, residential life, and collaborations with local communities
Teaching Sustainability at Universities
Editor: Walter Leal Filho
Topics: Ecology, Environmental Science, Education: It is now beyond any doubt that higher education institutions around the world are beginning to recognize that they have a unique responsibility towards the goal of sustainability. Universities are an integral part of the global economy and since they prepare most of the professionals who are occupying key positions today and who will do so in the future, they are uniquely positioned to influence the direction we choose to take as a society. This book, published in cooperation with the University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF), documents a wide range of works undertaken in respect of sustainability teaching, with inputs from various authors from countries as varied as Brazil, Mexico, Latvia, South Africa, UK, Spain, The Netherlands, Canada and the United States. Via the descriptions of approaches, methods and projects, it shows how different universities in various parts of the world are facing the challenge of sustainability in respect of teaching. It is a state-of-the-art publication, with a strong technical substance distributed over 31 chapters and in excess of 570 pages. It is a valuable tool to university lecturers, researchers, administrators, university students and other professionals concerned with the implementation of a sustainable development dimension as part of university curricula.
The Book Group Book: A Thoughtful Guide to Forming and Enjoying a Stimulating Book Discussion Group
Author: Ellen Slezak
Topics: Book Groups: Seventeen new essays and 37 new book lists have been added to this classic primer on book groups. Here is everything any book lover needs to know about forming and enjoying a successful book discussion group. Forty-six essays describe how individual groups are organized and portray their strengths, weaknesses, and unique characters. Special-interest groups, groups with professional leaders or sponsors, new groups, and groups that have been meeting for decades are all represented. Readers discover what makes a good group tick, from how to organize meetings, select members and books, and stimulate discussion to turning a flagging group around. More than three dozen reading lists supplied by the groups themselves help to provide insight and inspiration for all who currently belong to a book group or are tempted to start a group of their own.
The Carbon Age
Author: Eric Roston
Topics: Carbon, Geochemistry: The story of carbon - the building block of life that is, ironically, humanity's great threat. It could be said that all of us are a little alien - our bodies' carbon atoms first shot forth from supernovas billions of years ago and far, far away. Carbon has always been the ubiquitous architect and chemical scaffolding of life and civilization; indeed, all living things draw carbon from their environments to stay alive, and the great cycle by which carbon moves through organisms, ground, water, and atmosphere has long been a kind of global respiration system that helps keep Earth in balance. And yet, when we hear the word today, it is more often than not in a crisis context: carbon dioxide emissions have sped up the carbon cycle; chlorofluorocarbons are destroying the ozone layer and warming the planet; the volatile Middle East explodes atop its stores of volatile hydrocarbons; carbohydrates threaten obesity and diabetes. In The Carbon Age, Eric Roston evokes this essential element, its journey illuminating history from the Big Bang to modern civilization. Charting the science of carbon - how it was formed, how it came to Earth and built up - he chronicles the often surprising ways mankind has used it over centuries, and the growing catastrophe of the industrial era, leading us to now attempt to wrestle the Earth's geochemical cycle back from the brink. Blending the latest science with original reporting, Roston makes us aware, as never before, of the seminal impact carbon has, and has had, on our lives.
The Community of the Future and The Future of Community
Author: Arthur E. Morgan Community Organization: No description.
The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability
Author: Paul Hawken
Topics: Economic Development, Sustainable Development, Leadership & Social Resposibility of Business: A visionary new program that businesses can follow to help restore the planet.
The Forest for the Trees
Author: Betsy Lerner Publishing: Who knows the mind, the motives, and the mistakes of a writer better than his or her editor? Betsy Lerner-in addition to being a prize-winning poet and an author's agent-has spent years editing for major New York houses. In this unusual and compelling book, she shares the wisdom and insights she's gained from that work. Far more than a how-to manual, this book offers inspiration, inside views, and a colorful, anecdotal look at the publishing world-all delivered in the smart, funny, unpretentious voice that has helped to make Lerner one of the most prominent names in the business.
The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
Author: Thomas Berry
Topics: Ecology, Economics, Education: Thomas Berry is one of the most eminent cultural historians of our time. Here he presents the culmination of his ideas and urges us to move from being a disrupting force on the Earth to a benign presence. This transition is the Great Work - the most necessary and most ennobling work we will ever undertake. Berry's message is not one of doom but of hope. He reminds society of its function, particularly the universities and other educational institutions whose role is to guide students into an appreciation rather than an exploitation of the world around them. Berry is the leading spokesperson for the Earth, and his profound ecological insight illuminates the path we need to take in the realms of ethics, politics, economics, and education if both we and the planet are to survive.
The Green Belt Movement
Author: Wangari Maathai
Topics: Forestry & Silviculture, Natural Resources Management: In The Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai tells why she began her movement, how it operates, and where it is going. She includes the philosophy behind it, its challenges and objectives, and the specific steps involved in starting a similar grassroots environmental and social justice organization
The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought
Editors: Alan Bullock & Oliver Stallybrass
Topics: Dictionary: A unique work of reference and a companion to all fields of modern thought. How often are attempts to broaden your knowledge of modern thought frustrated by terms and allusions that you do not understand? In this age of rapid-fire informational exchange and unprecedented specialization, no one can honestly claim to know the whole vocabulary of modern thought, yet most people would like to understand more. The Norton Dictionary of Modern Thought now provides us with a rich and reliable resource for staying on top of trends and actually enhancing our cultural literacy. With thousands of entries written by an international cast of artists, scholars, and scientists, this book offers an authoritative treasure trove of concepts defining the world in which we live. More discursive than an ordinary dictionary, more compact than an encyclopedia, and more selective than either, it covers the whole range of modern thought from the latest developments in astrophysics to recent trends in the arts. This volume is indispensable as a reference book, irresistible for browsing through --practically an education in itself.
The House on Mango Street
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Topics: Growing Up: The House on Mango Street, which appeared in 1983, is a linked collection of forty-four short tales that evoke the circumstances and conditions of a Hispanic American ghetto in Chicago. The narrative is seen through the eyes of Esperanza Cordero, an adolescent girl coming of age. These concise and poetic tales also offer snapshots of the roles of women in this society. They uncover the dual forces that pull Esperanza to stay rooted in her cultural traditions on the one hand, and those that compel her to pursue a better way of life outside the barrio on the other. Throughout the book Sandra Cisneros explores themes of cultural tradition, gender roles, and coming of age in a binary society that struggles to hang onto its collective past while integrating itself into the American cultural landscape
The Key to Sustainable Cities: Meeting Human Needs Transforming Community Systems
Author: Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Topics: City Planning, Social Systems, Economic Systems, Environmental Systems: Most of the world's population now live in cities, but despite wide agreement on the core values of sustainable societies, municipalities are so busy solving current problems, they don't have the time or resources to plan effective action for sustainability. The Key to Sustainable Cities uses the principles of system dynamics to demonstrate how today's problems were yesterday's solutions. The book points to a new approach to city planning that builds on assets as a starting point for cities to develop healthy social, governance, economic, and environmental systems. Gwendolyn Hallsmith has worked to build sustainable communities for over twenty years as a municipal manager, a regional planning director, and with the Institute for Sustainable Communities
The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities and Towns can Change to Sustainable Practices
Authors: Sarah James & Torbjorn Lahti
Topics: Environmental Conservation & Protection, Sustainable Development, Urban ecology: Sustainability may seem like one more buzzword, and cities and towns like the last places to change, but The Natural Step for Communities provides inspiring examples of communities that have made dramatic changes toward sustainability, and explains how others can emulate their success. The book first clarifies the concept of sustainability, offering guiding principles -- the Natural Step framework -- that help identify sustainable action in any area. It then introduces the sixty-plus eco-municipalities of Sweden that have adopted changes to sustainable practices throughout municipal policies and operations. The third section explains how they did it, and outlines how other communities in North America and elsewhere can do the same. Key to success is a democratic "bottom-up" change process, and clear guiding sustainability principles such as the Natural Step framework.
The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention
Author: David W. Or
Topics: Philosophy & Social Aspects, & Ecology: The environmental movement has often been accused of being overly negative-trying to stop "progress". The Nature of Design, on the other hand, is about starting things, specifically an ecological design revolution that changes how we provide food, shelter, energy, materials, livelihood, and deal with waste. Ecological design is an emerging field aiming to recalibrate what humans do in the world with how the world works as a biophysical system. Design in this sense is a large concept having to do as much with politics and ethics as with buildings and technology. This is a book that combines theory, practicality, and action.
The Oil Depletion Protocol
Author: Richard Heinberg
Topics: Peak Oil: Richard Heinberg's new book, The Oil Depletion Protocol, coherently describes the Protocol and why such an agreement is necessary. Written for policy makers and the general public, the book is an informative and easy-to-understand must-read. Specifically, the book: provides an overview of the data concerning Peak Oil and its timing, briefly explains the Protocol and its implications for the reader and for decision makers in government and industry around the world, deals with frequently asked questions and objections, and explains how the Protocol can be adopted and how municipalities and ordinary citizens can facilitate the process. Timely and critically important, The Oil Depletion Protocol is a must-read for all who seek to avert a Peak Oil collapse.
The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
Author: Richard Heinberg
Topics: Oil, War, Industrial Societies: The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times. In The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the twentieth century and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the twenty-first century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the United States-the world's foremost oil consumer-is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future
The Place You Love is Gone http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall06/032928.htm
Author: Melissa Holbrook Pierson
Topics: Expasion & Home Destroying: Has the future - ever more people with their houses, stores, roads, and sprawl - been wrecking your past? Melissa Holbrook Pierson, with unalloyed insight, elucidates how it feels to lose that landscape of home. In the past twenty years, like countless towns it resembles, Akron, Ohio, has lost its singularity, and much of what native-daughter Pierson loves about it. She then moves to Hoboken, New Jersey, a forgotten appendage of New York - until stockbrokers discover it. Finally, she speaks of rural areas, telling of the thousands of upstate New Yorkers displaced by city reservoirs.
The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Your Carbon Footprint: What it is. Why it's important. How you can lower it.
Author: Nancy S. Grant
Topics: Sustainable Living, Energy Consumption, & Energy Conservation: Awareness of global climate change has reached critical mass around the world, and people are looking to see how the choices they make affect the environment. This highly practical and easy-to-use reference helps readers understand how to do their part to combat global warming in simple but effective ways. Clear explanations of the relationship between energy use and carbon emissions, and an individual's carbon "footprint". The topic is gaining momentum on a worldwide basis. Easy-to-use, with accessible information.
The Sustainability Revolution
Author: Andres R. Edwards
Topics: Environmental Conservation & Protection, Social Change, & Human Ecology: Sustainability has become a buzzword in the last decade, but its full meaning is complex, emerging from a range of different sectors. In practice, it has become the springboard for millions of individuals throughout the world who are forging the fastest and most profound social transformation of our time - the Sustainability Revolution. This book, now in its fifth printing, paints a picture of this largely unrecognized phenomenon from the point of view of five major sectors of society, concluding that the values emerging from sustainability work define a major paradigm shift. The first book of its kind, it will appeal to business and government policy makers, academics, and all interested in sustainability.
The Universe Story: From Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era: A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos
Authors: Brain Swimme & Thomas Berry
Topics: Cosmology, geology, biology, & sociology: Grounded in contemporary scientific understanding and inspired by the world's great wisdom traditions, cosmologist Brian Swimme and cultural historian Thomas Berry meld the findings of contemporary science - cosmology, geology, biology, and sociology - with the human search for meaning. The resulting account articulates fifteen billion years of existence with awe, delight, and vision. Swimme and Berry remind us of the importance of story - "story is the only way of providing, in our times, what the mythic stories of the universe provided for tribal peoples and for the earlier classical civilizations in their times." In a richly detailed narrative of epic sweep, they recount the unfolding of the universe, from the "primordial flaring forth" and the formation of galaxies and supernovas to the "human emergence," classical civilizations, and imminent Ecozoic era. The Universe Story compellingly explores humanity's place in the evolving cosmos and our ecological imperative. Crippling the Earth's biodiversity, "we are deciding what species will live or perish, we are determining the chemical structure of the soil and the air and the water, we are mapping out the areas of wilderness that will be allowed to function in their own natural modalities."
The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth
Author: Tim Flannery
Topics: Weather, Global Warming, Climate Changes: Sometime this century the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all other natural factors. Over the past decade, the world has seen the most powerful El Niño ever recorded, the most devastating hurricane in two hundred years, the hottest European summer on record, and one of the worst storm seasons ever experienced in Florida. With one out of every five living things on this planet committed to extinction by the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point. The Weather Makers is both an urgent warning and a call to arms, outlining the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future. Along with a riveting history of climate change, Tim Flannery offers specific suggestions for action for both lawmakers and individuals, from investing in renewable power sources like wind, solar, and geothermal energy, to offering an action plan with steps each and every one of us can take right now to reduce deadly CO2 emissions by as much as 0 percent.
The World We Have
Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Topics: Population Growth, Consumption, Fossil Fuel, Inner Peace: In this provocative book, noted Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh offers a dramatic vision of the future of a planet overheated by rapidly disappearing fossil fuels, degraded by massive overconsumption, and besieged by unsupportable population growth. Hanh finds answers to these critical problems in the Buddhist teaching of the impermanence of all things. He demonstrates how this teaching can offer inner peace and help us use our collective wisdom and technology to restore the Earth's balance. Mixing inspiring insights with practical strategies, Hanh cites projects his own monastic community has undertaken that can serve as models for any community. Both his "No Car Day," observed once a week, and the "Earth Peace Treaty Commitment Sheet" can impact our ecological footprint on the Earth. Above all, he shows how acceptance of problems is that first critical step toward a deeper understanding of the best way to care for our Earth.
This Moment on Earth
Authors: John Kerry & Teresa Heinz Kerry
Topics: Climate Changes, Environmental Protection: The environment, and the movement that grew up to protect it, is under attack - concerted and purposeful. Yet the need for solutions to pressing environmental problems grows more urgent each day. Teresa Heinz Kerry and Senator John Kerry traveled across the country in a national campaign to see at first hand how these issues unite people across party and ideological lines. From the San Juan Basin to the Gulf of Mexico to the South Bronx, from mothers on Cape Cod to Colorado ranchers, they found a vibrant coalition of people and communities deploying ingenuity, technology, and sheer will power to save the world they know and love. Now, in this passionate and personal book, Senator John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry shine the spotlight on an inspiring crosssection of these new environmental pioneers. The book combines intensive research with keenly observed personal experiences to present a portrait of Americans devoted to the natural diversity and spectacular uniqueness of our country. It also includes an extensive guide on where and how readers can get involved.
Toward Sustainable Communities: Resources for Citizens and their Governments
Author: Mark Roseland
Topics: Transportation, Recycling, Waste Reduction, Housing: Local governments increasingly are caught between rising expectations that development initiatives be sustainable and the fact that more and more services are being downloaded to the municipal level. The third edition of this classic text offers practical suggestions and innovative solutions to a range of community problems - including energy efficiency, transportation, land use, housing, waste reduction, recycling, air quality, and governance. In clear language, with updated tools, initiatives and resources, a new preface and foreword, this sustainable practices resource is for both citizens and governments.
Transportation & Sustainable Campus Communities
Authors: Will Toor & Spenser W. Havlick
Topics: Transportation, Campuses & Universities: Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities presents a comprehensive examination of techniques available to manage transportation in campus communities. It gives readers the understanding they need to develop alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles, and sets forth a series of case studies that show how transportation demand management programs have worked in a variety of campus communities, ranging from small towns to large cities. The case studies highlight what works and what does not, as well as the programmatic and financial aspects involved. Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities is a unique source of information and ideas for anyone concerned with transportation planning and related issues.
Turning off the Heat: Why America Must Double Energy Efficiency to Save Money & Reduce Global Warming
Author: Thomas R. Casten
Topics: Global Warming, Energy: Global warming, the result of increasing carbon dioxide emissions from energy producers and users, has become a danger to humans, threatening radical climate changes, severe storms, and ecological havoc. "Turning Off the Heat" targets a main source of overuse of fossil fuels--the energy producers themselves who, through their government-approved monopolies, have led... More to energy inefficiency and needless pollution.
What Can I Do? An Alphabet for Living
Author: Lisa Harrow
Topics: How To: Sustainable Living: What Can I Do? is Lisa's response, a guidebook on how to take action. What Can I Do? initially accompanied performances of Lessons from Copernicus as a resource for audiences to take home. Its immediate success led Lisa to expand the guide for public and educational use. Now available to the general public, What Can I Do? is at once practical and charming. The book is written as "An Alphabet for Living," providing readers with an extensive annotated list of Web sites where anyone can begin to explore the practices of sustainable living. Each site in the book has been selected for its wealth of information and links, and each serves as a valuable tool for finding fresh ways to view the world and live gently in it.
You Are Here
Author: Thomas M. Kostigen
Topics: Pollution, Global Warming: There are living narratives of climate change that reveal the consequences of our everyday actions. You Are Here allows us to both comprehend and care about what's happening in these encampments of ruin. Kostigen shows us what may well be a glimpse of our future in Linfen City, China, one of the most polluted places on the planet. From a garbage patch twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to the melting arctic ice shelf, to the flood zone that is Mumbai, India, to the dwindling rainforests of the Amazon, You Are Here describes the environmental crisis in a way we can feel, see, and touch. Kostigen presents us with opportunities for change and shows us how to take action on the spot, wherever we are. Combining groundbreaking research and page-turning frontline reporting, Kostigen pulls back the curtain on the most pressing and provocative issues of the day and in so doing we see the earth and our place on it in a brand new light.
You Are Therefore I Am
Author: Satish Kumar
Topics: Society, Environmental Philosophy: This book traces the spiritual journey of Satish Kumar?child monk, peace pilgrim, ecological activist and educator. In it he traces the sources of inspiration which formed his understanding of the world as a network of multiple and diverse relationships. You Are, Therefore I Am is in four parts. The first describes his memories of conversations with his mother, his teacher and his Guru, all of whom were deeply religious. The second part recounts his discussions with the Indian sage Vinoba Bhave, J. Krishnamurti, Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, and E.F. Schumacher. These five great activists and thinkers inspired him to engage with social, ecological and political issues. In the third part Satish narrates his travels in India, which have continued to nourish his mind and reconnect him with his roots. The fourth part brings together his world-view, which is based in relationships and the connections between all things, rather than the philosophy of dualism, division and separation which are found in Ren? Descartes? famous maxim ?I think, therefore, I am?. Satish Kumar holds an emergent world-view, encapsulated in a fundamental Sanskrit dictum So Hum, well known in India but not in the West, which can be translated as ?You are, therefore I am?. This mantra underpins all the experiences brought together in this book."

Sustainability Library

DVDs (books below)

Books (DVDs above)