Reconstructing Sustainability Science

Reconstructing Sustainability Science PDF

Author: Thaddeus R. Miller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-05

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 1135960100

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The growing urgency, complexity and "wickedness" of sustainability problems—from climate change and biodiversity loss to ecosystem degradation and persistent poverty and inequality—present fundamental challenges to scientific knowledge production and its use. While there is little doubt that science has a crucial role to play in our ability to pursue sustainability goals, critical questions remain as to how to most effectively organize research and connect it to actions that advance social and natural wellbeing. Drawing on interviews with leading sustainability scientists, this book examines how researchers in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of sustainability science are attempting to define sustainability, establish research agendas, and link the knowledge they produce to societal action. Pairing these insights with case studies of innovative sustainability research centres, the book reformulates the sustainability science research agenda and its relationship to decision-making and social action. It repositions the field as a "science of design" that aims to enrich public reasoning and deliberation while also working to generate social and technological innovations for a more sustainable future. This timely book gives students, researchers and practitioners a valuable and unique analysis of the emergence of sustainability science, and both the opportunities and barriers faced by scientific efforts to contribute to social action.

Reconstructing Sustainability Science

Reconstructing Sustainability Science PDF

Author: Thaddeus R. Miller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-05

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1135960178

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The growing urgency, complexity and "wickedness" of sustainability problems—from climate change and biodiversity loss to ecosystem degradation and persistent poverty and inequality—present fundamental challenges to scientific knowledge production and its use. While there is little doubt that science has a crucial role to play in our ability to pursue sustainability goals, critical questions remain as to how to most effectively organize research and connect it to actions that advance social and natural wellbeing. Drawing on interviews with leading sustainability scientists, this book examines how researchers in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of sustainability science are attempting to define sustainability, establish research agendas, and link the knowledge they produce to societal action. Pairing these insights with case studies of innovative sustainability research centres, the book reformulates the sustainability science research agenda and its relationship to decision-making and social action. It repositions the field as a "science of design" that aims to enrich public reasoning and deliberation while also working to generate social and technological innovations for a more sustainable future. This timely book gives students, researchers and practitioners a valuable and unique analysis of the emergence of sustainability science, and both the opportunities and barriers faced by scientific efforts to contribute to social action.

The Principles of Green and Sustainability Science

The Principles of Green and Sustainability Science PDF

Author: Adenike A. Akinsemolu

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-03-28

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9811524939

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book uses the concept of sustainability in science to address problems afflicting the environment, and to devise measures for improving economies, societies, behaviors, and people. The book pursues a scientific approach, and uses scientific evidence as the basis for achieving sustainability. The key topics addressed include: unemployment, health and disease, unsustainable production, our common future, renewable energies, waste management, environmental ethics, and harmful anthropogenic activities. Whereas past literature has mainly examined sustainability as an environmental issue, this book expands the conversation into various sciences, including mathematics, biology, agriculture, computer science, engineering, and physics, and shows how sustainability could be achieved by uniting these fields. It offers a wealth of information across various disciplines, making it not only an intriguing read but also informative and insightful.

Reconstructing Earth

Reconstructing Earth PDF

Author: Braden Allenby

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1597266205

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Earth's biological, chemical, and physical systems are increasingly shaped by the activities of one species-ours. In our decisions about everything from manufacturing technologies to restaurant menus, the health of the planet has become a product of human choice. Environmentalism, however, has largely failed to adapt to this new reality. Reconstructing Earth offers seven essays that explore ways of developing a new, more sophisticated approach to the environment that replaces the fantasy of recovering pristine landscapes with a more grounded viewpoint that can foster a better relationship between humans and the planet. Braden Allenby, a lawyer with degrees in both engineering and environmental studies, explains the importance of technological choice, and how that factor is far more significant in shaping our environment (in ways both desirable and not) than environmental controls. Drawing on his varied background and experience in both academia and the corporate world, he describes the emerging field of "earth systems engineering and management," which offers an integrated approach to understanding and managing complex human/natural systems that can serve as a basis for crafting better, more lasting solutions to widespread environmental problems. Reconstructing Earth not only critiques dysfunctional elements of current environmentalism but establishes a foundation for future environmental management and progress, one built on an understanding of technological evolution and the cultural systems that support modern technologies. Taken together, the essays offer an important means of developing an environmentalism that is robust and realistic enough to address the urgent realities of our planet. Reconstructing Earth is a thought-provoking new work for anyone concerned with the past or future of environmental thought, including students and teachers of environmental studies, environmental policy, technology policy, technological evolution, or sustainability.

Reconstructing Value

Reconstructing Value PDF

Author: Elizabeth Kurucz

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1442694831

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Reconstructing Value prepares contemporary business leaders for the increasingly important task of developing a sustainability vision and translating it across levels in an organization. The book is based on insights gained over the past decade from research involving hundreds of practitioners, front line managers to senior executives, who have been working to integrate sustainability within their organizations. It illustrates how building capacity for managing the complex issues of sustainability requires key process skills that leaders need to develop. This book equips readers to respond to the risks and opportunities presented by global sustainability issues and reinvent new ways of doing business that will enhance organizational effectiveness while also building a more sustainable world. Each chapter includes process questions to guide reflective practice and to build the requisite leadership capabilities for turning a sustainability vision into a value-added organizational strategy. Reconstructing Value helps readers to build integrative thinking skills – such as how to engage critical, complexity, strategic and design thinking capabilities to enable organizational change – that can assist them with becoming successful sustainability champions within their organizations.

Transnational Environmental Policy

Transnational Environmental Policy PDF

Author: Reiner Grundmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-11

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1134592248

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Transnational Environmental Policy analyses a surprising success story in the field of international environmental policy making: the threat to the ozone layer posed by industrial chemicals, and how it has been averted. The book also raises the more general question about the problem-solving capacities of industrialised countries and the world society as a whole. Reiner Grundmann investigates the regulations which have been put in place at an international level, and how the process evolved over twenty years in the US and Germany.

Sustainability Science

Sustainability Science PDF

Author: Harald Heinrichs

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-03-27

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789402413229

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This textbook provides a comprehensive compilation of conceptual perspectives, methodological approaches and empirical insights of inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability science. Written by an international team of authors from leading sustainability institutions, the textbook covers key perspectives and topics of the scientific discourse on sustainable development. More than two decades after conceptualizing sustainability as societal guiding vision and regulative idea the necessity of concretizing and realizing sustainability in societal praxis is bigger than ever. Sharply improved individual and societal sustainable decision-making and action is necessary for a better future of humankind and the planet. On that account problem- and solution-oriented perspectives and competencies are crucial. The different chapters assemble an encompassing view of essential foundations and specific areas of research and action in sustainability science and practice. The textbook aims at fostering the further establishment of sustainability science in higher education and to enable the next generation of sustainability experts to tackle the challenging and exciting topic of sustainable development.

Sustainability Science for Strong Sustainability

Sustainability Science for Strong Sustainability PDF

Author: Tom Dedeurwaerdere

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2014-09-26

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1783474564

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

øThe dynamism of science has been catalytic for human prosperity in recent history. Conventional perspectives of the ivory tower model of modern science are, however, rivalled by the failure of humanity to tackle global crises of an economic, environme

Reconstructing Earth's Climate History

Reconstructing Earth's Climate History PDF

Author: Kristen St. John

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-04-12

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13: 1119959896

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The context for understanding global climate change today lies in the records of Earth’s past. This is demonstrated by decades of paleoclimate research by scientists in organizations such as the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL), and many others. The purpose of this full colour textbook is to put key data and published case studies of past climate change at your fingertips, so that you can experience the nature of paleoclimate reconstruction. Using foundational geologic concepts, students explore a wide variety of topics, including: marine sediments, age determination, stable isotope paleoclimate proxies, Cenozoic climate change, climate cycles, polar climates, and abrupt warming and cooling events, students are invited to evaluate published scientific data, practice developing and testing hypotheses, and infer the broader implications of scientific results. It is our philosophy that addressing how we know is as important as addressing what we know about past climate change. Making climate change science accessible is the goal of this book. This book is intended for earth science students at a variety of levels studying paleoclimatology, oceanography, Quaternary science, or earth-system science. Additional resources for this book can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/stjohn/climatehistory.

Sustainability Science: Field Methods and Exercises

Sustainability Science: Field Methods and Exercises PDF

Author: Miguel Esteban

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-07-29

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 3319329308

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book builds up on the experience and lessons learnt by academics at the Graduate Program in Sustainability Science, Global Leadership Initiative (GPSS-GLI) at the University of Tokyo. A number of scholars in the new field of sustainability science describe how field methods and exercises are carried out in this discipline, together with the theoretical basis for such exercises. Case studies of various countries around the world where these exercises are carried out are showcased, emphasizing the various socio-economic considerations and problems facing humanity and possible ways forward to build more sustainable and resilient societies. The final objective is to enrich the field of sustainability science by describing the novel aspects used in the field exercises carried out by practitioners of this cross-disciplinary field.