A Safe and Sustainable World

A Safe and Sustainable World PDF Author: Nancy Jack Todd
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267813
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
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. Successfully proving through the Institute's designs and investigations that basic land sustainability is achievable, John Todd and the author founded a second non-profit research group, Ocean Arks International. Here they applied the New Alchemy's natural systems thinking to restoring polluted waters with the invention and implementation of biologically based living technologies called Ecomachines and Pond and Lake Restorers. A Safe and Sustainable World demonstrates what has and can be done--it also looks to what must be done to integrate human ingenuity and the four billion or so years of evolutionary intelligence of the natural world into healthy, decentralized, locally dreams hard won--and hope.

A Safe and Sustainable World

A Safe and Sustainable World PDF Author: Nancy Jack Todd
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267813
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Get Book

Book Description
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. Successfully proving through the Institute's designs and investigations that basic land sustainability is achievable, John Todd and the author founded a second non-profit research group, Ocean Arks International. Here they applied the New Alchemy's natural systems thinking to restoring polluted waters with the invention and implementation of biologically based living technologies called Ecomachines and Pond and Lake Restorers. A Safe and Sustainable World demonstrates what has and can be done--it also looks to what must be done to integrate human ingenuity and the four billion or so years of evolutionary intelligence of the natural world into healthy, decentralized, locally dreams hard won--and hope.

The Promise of Sustainability

The Promise of Sustainability PDF Author: R. I. T. Libraries
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557029910
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) students and alumni were challenged by a contest to submit poetry, creative prose, scholarly works, creative nonfiction, or images that speak to caring for our Planet in a sustainable fashion. Twenty six varied submissions representing many disciplines speak with one voice in concert with promoting strategies that ensure a quality of life. RIT College of Business professor and contest judge, Sandra Rothenberg, observes "It is interesting that people with such different backgrounds can see things the same!" This common goal can create an unprecedented collective effort to use our resources to benefit all.

The Promise

The Promise PDF Author: Nicola Davies
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536221716
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
“This tale is a sturdy one that is made even more emphatic by Davies’s terse writing style. The text is heightened in every way by Carlin’s outstanding mixed-media artwork.” — Booklist (starred review) On a mean street in a mean, broken city, a young girl tries to snatch an old woman’s bag. But the frail old woman says the thief can’t have it without giving something in return: the promise. It is the beginning of a journey that will change the girl’s life — and a chance to change the world, for good.

Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability

Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability PDF Author: Peter Blaze Corcoran
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 030648515X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This book challenges universities to rethink their missions and to re-structure courses, research programs, and campus life in terms of sustainability. The author offers valuable theoretical and practical resources for students, teachers, researchers, and administrators who seek sustainability in higher education. Sustainability is explored as an outcome and a process of learning, and also as a catalyst for educational change and institutional innovation.

The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress

The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress PDF Author: Cameron Muir
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317910583
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Food and the global agricultural system has become one of the defining public concerns of the twenty-first century. Ecological disorder and inequity is at the heart of our food system. This thoughtful and confronting book tells the story of how the development of modern agriculture promised ecological and social stability but instead descended into dysfunction. Contributing to knowledge in environmental, cultural and agricultural histories, it explores how people have tried to live in the aftermath of ‘ecological imperialism’. The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress: An environmental history journeys to the dry inland plains of Australia where European ideas and agricultural technologies clashed with a volatile and taunting country that resisted attempts to subdue and transform it for the supply of global markets. Its wide-ranging narrative puts gritty local detail in its global context to tell the story of how cultural anxieties about civilisation, population, and race, shaped agriculture in the twentieth century. It ranges from isolated experiment farms to nutrition science at the League of Nations, from local landholders to high profile moral crusaders, including an Australian apricot grower who met Franklin D. Roosevelt and almost fed the world. This book will be useful to undergraduates and postgraduates on courses examining international comparisons of nineteenth and twentieth century agriculture, and courses studying colonial development and settler societies. It will also appeal to food concerned general readers.

Breakthrough

Breakthrough PDF Author: Homi Kharas
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815739664
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Harnessing technology for a better future At a time when many people worry about stalled progress on the economic, social, and environmental challenges of sustainable development, Breakthrough is a reminder that the promise of a better future is within our grasp, across a range of domains. It will interest anyone who wonders about the world’s economic, social, and environmental future.

Sustainable Consumption, Promise or Myth? Case Studies from the Field

Sustainable Consumption, Promise or Myth? Case Studies from the Field PDF Author: Jean Léon Boucher
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527529339
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This book brings together a number of recent case studies from the broad field of sustainable consumption. As they evaluate the promises, myths, and critiques of sustainable consumption, these essays can also be categorized into a range of different societal perspectives, from the individual to collectivities. The first chapters explore the personal consumer, discussing how individual consumptive choices relate to lifestyle and culture, and how choices are reflected in the carbon footprints of consumers and vehicles like the automobile. The ongoing phenomenon of outsourcing production and thus the emissions of cities—in more affluent countries—and the resulting “low-carbon illusion” of cities is analysed, as is the inefficiency of density policies to mitigate these emissions. The volume then moves on to consider community-based resource sharing, environmental entrepreneurs, spillover effects and learning possibilities. Also investigated are intentional communities born of alternative economic thought, suburban neighborhoods, and questions of whether cultural activities can be considered within the field of sustainability in lower-income city outskirts. The third part of the book analyzes different social movements in sustainability, as well as the limits of policy, government regulation, and the potential for mainstreaming sustainable consumption. In each chapter, scholars explore sustainability, from the individual to the collective, in order to improve understandings of consumer lifestyles and provide critiques of the processes of societal transition toward more sustainable human-environmental life.

Green, Fair, and Prosperous

Green, Fair, and Prosperous PDF Author: Charles Connerly
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 160938721X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
At the center of what was once the tallgrass prairie, Iowa has stood out for clearing the land and becoming one of the most productive agricultural states in the nation. But its success is challenged by multiple issues including but not limited to a decline in union representation of meatpacking workers; lack of demographic diversity; the advent of job-replacing mechanization; growing income inequality; negative contributions to and effects of climate change and environmental hazards. To become green, fair, and prosperous, Connerly argues that Iowa must reckon with its past and the fact that its farm economy continues to pollute waterways, while remaining utterly unprepared for climate change. Iowa must recognize ways in which it can bolster its residents’ standard of living and move away from its demographic tradition of whiteness. For development to be sustainable, society must balance it with environmental protection and social justice. Connerly provides a crucial roadmap for how Iowans can move forward and achieve this balance.

The World's Greenest Buildings

The World's Greenest Buildings PDF Author: Jerry Yudelson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136177655
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The World’s Greenest Buildings tackles an audacious task. Among the thousands of green buildings out there, which are the best, and how do we know? Authors Jerry Yudelson and Ulf Meyer examined hundreds of the highest-rated large green buildings from around the world and asked their owners to supply one simple thing: actual performance data, to demonstrate their claims to sustainable operations. This pivotal book presents: an overview of the rating systems and shows "best in class" building performance in North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, China, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region practical examples of best practices for greening both new and existing buildings a practical reference for how green buildings actually perform at the highest level, one that takes you step-by-step through many different design solutions a wealth of exemplary case studies of successful green building projects using actual performance data from which to learn interviews with architects, engineers, building owners and developers and industry experts, to provide added insight into the greening process This guide uncovers some of the pitfalls that lie ahead for sustainable design, and points the way toward much faster progress in the decade ahead.

The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice

The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice PDF Author: Christopher H. Foreman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815717379
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Are we environmentally victimizing, perhaps even poisoning, our minority and low-income citizens? Proponents of "environmental justice" assert that environmental decisionmaking pays insufficient heed to the interests of those citizens, disproportionately burdens their neighborhoods with hazardous toxins, and perpetuates an insidious "environmental racism." In the first book-length critique of environmental justice advocacy, Christopher Foreman argues that it has cleared significant political hurdles but displays substantial limitations and drawbacks. Activism has yielded a presidential executive order, management reforms at the Environmental Protection Agency, and numerous local political victories. Yet the environmental justice movement is structurally and ideologically unable to generate a focused policy agenda. The movement refuses to confront the need for environmental priorities and trade-offs, politically inconvenient facts about environmental health risks, and the limits of an environmental approach to social justice. Ironically, environmental justice advocacy may also threaten the very constituencies it aspires to serve--distracting attention from the many significant health hazards challenging minority and disadvantaged populations. Foreman recommends specific institutional reforms intended to recast the national dialogue about the stakes of these populations in environmental protection.