'Once, we were one form among many in the garden. We learned to hear the voices of the mountains, the rivers, the sky, of silence. The mice spoke, the trees spoke, the stars spoke, the deer and the fox spoke, the snake spoke - and from these words we made being. These words formed great cities and their machines ever clamouring, and we let the silence slip and the words of the whispering world fall away beyond the mirror of our making.' (From the Prologue.) --- These eighteen meditations, amplified by Jerry Shearing's striking illustrations, offer luminous words enlivened with the weight of much listening. Through these 'conversations', Peter Owen Jones offers a pathway to reconnect with nature. Just a few sentences a day will provide sustenance for the soul.

An illustrated, essential guide to engaging children and youth in the process of urban design From a history of children's rights to case studies discussing international initiatives that aim to create child-friendly cities, Placemaking with Children and Youth offers comprehensive guidance in how to engage children and youth in the planning and design of local environments. It explains the importance of children's active participation in their societies and presents ways to bring all generations together to plan cities with a high quality of life for people of all ages. Not only does it delineate best practices in establishing programs and partnerships, it also provides principles for working ethically with children, youth, and families, paying particular attention to the inclusion of marginalized populations. Drawing on case studies from around the world-in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States-Placemaking with Children and Youth showcases children's global participation in community design and illustrates how a variety of methods can be combined in initiatives to achieve meaningful change. The book features more than 200 visuals and detailed, thoughtful guidelines for facilitating a multiplicity of participatory processes that include drawing, photography, interviews, surveys, discussion groups, role playing, mapping, murals, model making, city tours, and much more. Whether seeking information on individual methods and project planning, interpreting and analyzing results, or establishing and evaluating a sustained program, readers can find practical ideas and inspiration from six continents to connect learning to the realities of students' lives and to create better cities for all ages.

Making Political Ecology presents a comprehensive view of an important new field in human geography and interdisciplinary studies of nature-society relations. Tracing the development of political ecology from its origins in geography and ecological anthropology in the 1970s, to its current status as an established field, the book investigates how late twentieth-century developments in social and ecological theories are brought together to create a powerful framework for comprehending environmental problems. Making Political Ecology argues for an inclusionary conceptualization of the field, which absorbs empirical studies from urban, rural, First World and Third World contexts and the theoretical insights of feminism, poststructuralism, neo-Marxism and non-equilibrium ecology. Throughout the book, excerpts from the writings of key figures in political ecology provide an empirical grounding for abstract theoretical concepts. Making Political Ecology will convince readers of political ecology's particular suitability for grappling with the most difficult questions concerning social justice, environmental change and human relationships with nature.

Translating Diverse Environmental Data into Reliable Information: How to Coordinate Evidence from Different Sources is a resource for building environmental knowledge, particularly in the era of Big Data. Environmental scientists, engineers, educators and students will find it essential to determine data needs, assess their quality, and efficiently manage their findings. Decision makers can explore new open access databases and tools, especially portals and dashboards. The book demonstrates how environmental knowledgebases are and can be built to meet the needs of modern students and professionals. Topics covered include concepts and principles that underpin air, water, and other public health and ecological topics. Integrated and systems perspectives are woven throughout, with clues on how to build and apply interdisciplinary data, which can increasingly be obtained from sources ranging from peer-reviewed research appearing in scientific journals to information gathered by citizen scientists. This opens the door to using vast amounts of open data and the necessary quality assurance and metadata considerations for their countless applications.

Living on a damaged planet challenges who we are and where we live. This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalize curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth. As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene. The essays are organized around two key figures that also serve as the publication’s two openings: Ghosts, or landscapes haunted by the violences of modernity; and Monsters, or interspecies and intraspecies sociality. Ghosts and Monsters are tentacular, windy, and arboreal arts that invite readers to encounter ants, lichen, rocks, electrons, flying foxes, salmon, chestnut trees, mud volcanoes, border zones, graves, radioactive waste—in short, the wonders and terrors of an unintended epoch. Contributors: Karen Barad, U of California, Santa Cruz; Kate Brown, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Carla Freccero, U of California, Santa Cruz; Peter Funch, Aarhus U; Scott F. Gilbert, Swarthmore College; Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford U; Donna J. Haraway, U of California, Santa Cruz; Andreas Hejnol, U of Bergen, Norway; Ursula K. Le Guin; Marianne Elisabeth Lien, U of Oslo; Andrew Mathews, U of California, Santa Cruz; Margaret McFall-Ngai, U of Hawaii, Manoa; Ingrid M. Parker, U of California, Santa Cruz; Mary Louise Pratt, NYU; Anne Pringle, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Deborah Bird Rose, U of New South Wales, Sydney; Dorion Sagan; Lesley Stern, U of California, San Diego; Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus U.

This book looks anew at the question of nature preservation as public policy. The philosophy of nature preservation has to date focused on whether arguments for nature preservation should be centred on the value of nature itself (ecocentrism) or derived human benefits (anthropocentrism). This book argues that this way of thinking about the problem of preservation has been counter-productive for environmental ethics. Instead we need to unite both views around a concern for the irreplaceability of natural objects.

The concept of Anthropocene has been incorporated within a hegemonic narrative that represents 'Man' as the dominant geological force of our epoch, emphasizing the destruction and salvation power of industrial technologies. This Element develops a counter-hegemonic narrative based on the perspective of earthcare labour - or the 'forces of reproduction'. It brings to the fore the historical agency of reproductive and subsistence workers as those subjects that, through both daily practices and organized political action, take care of the biophysical conditions for human reproduction, thus keeping the world alive. Adopting a narrative justice approach, and placing feminist political ecology right at the core of its critique of the Anthropocene storyline, this Element offers a novel and timely contribution to the environmental humanities.

The Bulldozer in the Countryside is the first scholarly history of efforts to reduce the environmental costs of suburban development in the United States. The book offers a new account of two of the most important historical events in the period since World War II--the mass migration to the suburbs and the rise of the environmental movement. This work offers a valuable historical perspective for scholars, professionals, and citizens interested in the issue of suburban sprawl.

In spite of the expanding role of public participation in environmental decisionmaking, there has been little systematic examination of whether it has, to date, contributed toward better environmental management. Neither have there been extensive empirical studies to examine how participation processes can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice brings together, for the first time, the collected experience of 30 years of public involvement in environmental decisionmaking. Using data from 239 cases, the authors evaluate the success of public participation and the contextual and procedural factors that lead to it. Thomas Beierle and Jerry Cayford demonstrate that public participation has not only improved environmental policy, but it has also played an important educational role and has helped resolve the conflict and mistrust that often plague environmental issues. Among the authors' findings are that intensive "problem-solving" processes are most effective for achieving a broad set of social goals, and participant motivation and agency responsiveness are key factors for success. Democracy in Practice will be useful for a broad range of interests. For researchers, it assembles the most comprehensive data set on the practice of public participation, and presents a systematic typology and evaluation framework. For policymakers, political leaders, and citizens, it provides concrete advice about what to expect from public participation, and how it can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice concludes with a systematic guide for use by government agencies in their efforts to design successful public participation efforts.

There are many current socio-environmental conflicts and problems around the world that affect distinct nationalities, races, or ethnicities. Part of the solution to these issues involves interdisciplinary scholarship to make sense of the communication challenges that are involved. However, current research in this area has lacked clear focus on the ways in which environmental issues are culturally and socially constructed by racial and ethnic minorities. This volume aims to improve our understanding of culturally bounded rationalities across racial and ethnic groups facing environmental challenges, as they relate to the formation of environmental identities, environmental injustice, political activism, public engagement, and media representations, among others. The ideas presented in this book dovetail with the idea that environmental communication scholars and practitioners can effectively intervene to engage ethnic groups that traditionally are not included in decision making or deliberation processes that directly affect their livelihoods. Considering problems such as the siting of industrial facilities, flooding, droughts, climate change, and air and water pollution, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of environmental communication.

'A fascinating portal into arguments about why we need to get beyond money' - Harry Cleaver What would a world without money look like? This book is a lively thought experiment that deepens our understanding of how money is the driver of political power, environmental destruction and social inequality today, arguing that it has to be abolished rather than repurposed to achieve a postcapitalist future. Grounded in historical debates about money, Anitra Nelson draws on a spectrum of political and economic thought and activism, including feminism, ecoanarchism, degrowth, permaculture, autonomism, Marxism and ecosocialism. Looking to Indigenous rights activism and the defence of commons, an international network of activists engaged in a fight for a money-free society emerges. Beyond Money shows that, by organising around post-money versions of the future, activists have a hope of creating a world that embodies their radical values and visions.

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch marking humanity's alteration of the Earth: its rock structure, environments, atmosphere. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene offers the most comprehensive survey yet of how literature can address the social, cultural, and philosophical questions posed by the Anthropocene. This volume addresses the old and new literary forms - from novels, plays, poetry, and essays to exciting and evolving genres such as 'cli-fi', experimental poetry, interspecies design, gaming, weird, ecotopian and petro-fiction, and 'new' nature writing. Studies range from the United States to India, from Palestine to Scotland, while addressing numerous global signifiers or consequences of the Anthropocene: catastrophe, extinction, 'fossil capital', warming, politics, ethics, interspecies relations, deep time, and Earth. This unique Companion offers a compelling account of how to read literature through the Anthropocene and of how literature might yet help us imagine a better world.

At the heart of the green debate are a set of basic contradictions concerning beliefs and actions. This book reveals the problems associated with these contradictions, including adherence to decentralized political forms while accepting authoritarian intervention on behalf of the environment; a belief that this is the politics of the new age but in practice split between left and right; a rejection of the rationalist scientific project and a reliance on the lessons of the science of ecology.

Cultural landscapes are usually understood within physical geography as those transformed by human action. As human influence on the earth increases, advances in palaeocological reconstruction have also allowed for new interpretations of the evidence for the earliest human impacts on the environment. It is essential that such evidence is examined in the context of modern trends in social sciences and humanities. This stimulating new book argues that convergence of the two approaches can provide a more holistic understanding of long-term physical and human processes. Split into two major sections, this book attempts to bridge the gap between the sciences and humanities. The first section, provides an analysis of the methodological tools employed in examining processes of environmental change. Empirical research in the fields of palaecology and Quaternary studies is combined with the latest theoretical views of nature and landscape occurring in cultural geography, archaeology and anthropology. The author examines the way in which environmental management decisions are made. The book then moves on to discuss the relevance of this perspective to contemporary issues through a wide variety of international case studies, including World Heritage protection, landscape preservation, indigenous people and cultural tourism.

'Sacred Gaia offers a number of deep insights and challenges to Christians and to all those who are concerned with the environment. The book is interesting and thought-provoking and is worth careful consideration.' - Green Christians

'This is a remarkable book ...' - Edward James

'I recommend this book to Friends interested in deepening their faith.' - Helen Fraser, The Friend

'This is a piece of visionary science and 'earthed' theology, taking the reader on a breathtaking tour of vast spheres of knowledge ... A challenging read in both senses: hard work, mind-stretching material, and opening up new vistas for a neglected area of theological thinking.' - Peter Selby, Theology

''She maps out this vast and alarming territory clearly in this vigorous and helpful book.' - Mary Midgley, The Tablet

Environmental Consciousness in China: Change with Social Transformation discusses the status of environmental consciousness within China from both an economic and political view. It then compares and contrasts the situation in China with Western nations. This is the first book that includes a comparison of urban and rural groups based on China's unique modernization background.

The urban condition is today being radically transformed. Urban restructuring is accelerating, new urban spaces are being consolidated, and new forms of urbanization are crystallizing. In New Urban Spaces, Neil Brenner argues that understanding these mutations of urban life requires not only concrete research, but new theories of urbanization. To this end, Brenner proposes an approach that breaks with inherited conceptions of the urban as a bounded settlement unit-the city or the metropolis-and explores the multiscalar constitution and periodic rescaling of the capitalist urban fabric. Drawing on critical geopolitical economy and spatialized approaches to state theory, Brenner offers a paradigmatic account of how rescaling processes are transforming inherited formations of urban space and their variegated consequences for emergent patterns and pathways of urbanization. The book also advances an understanding of critical urban theory as radically revisable: key urban concepts must be continually reinvented in relation to the relentlessly mutating worlds of urbanization they aspire to illuminate.

How can we live more simply, learn to appreciate what we have and root our way of being in the Earth we have inherited? By living simply and becoming an Earth Warrior. As life keeps urging us to go faster, many of us are moving in the opposite direction... we are looking for SLOWNESS, for stillness, to live more natural, less complex lives. Bob Hillary spent a year living off grid, an experience that taught him how to live simply. This meant downscaling, re-wilding, un-teching and finding and doing things that are free. These philosophies provided a framework for the 21 practices he shares in this book. They range from letting stillness be your friend to learning to say 'no' and practising gratitude, and they offer fun and practical ways for you to start making simple living part of your everyday life. Bob also looks at the crucial process of self-healing, which needs to take place so that you can fully embrace the book's closing section on action - how best to take the simple living message out into the world. This is a manual for modern times, teaching us how to be Earth Warriors and live in a more joyful, positive, meaningfully and above all simple way. It is guide to creating positive action, to walking the right path and making the right choices.

Many ways of thinking about and living with 'the environment' have their roots in the Bible and the Christian cultural tradition. Environmental Humanities and Theologies shows that some of these ways are problematic. It also provides alternative ways that value both materiality and spirituality. Beginning with an environmentally friendly reading of the biblical story of creation, Environmental Humanities and Theologies goes on to discuss in succeeding chapters the environmental theology of wetlands, dragons and watery monsters (including crocodiles and alligators) in the Bible and literature. It then gives a critical reading of the environmental theology of the biblical book of Psalms. Theological concepts are found in the works of English writers of detective and devotional stories and novels, American nature writers and European Jewish writers (as succeeding chapters show). Environmental Humanities and Theologies concludes with an appreciation for Australian Aboriginal spirituality in the swamp serpent. It argues for the sacrality of marsh monsters and swamp serpents as figures of reverence and respect for living bio- and psycho-symbiotic livelihoods in bioregions of the living earth in the Symbiocene. This is the hoped-for age superseding the Anthropocene. Environmental Humanities and Theologies is aimed at those who have little or no knowledge of how theology underlies much thinking and writing about 'the environment' and who are looking for ways of thinking about, being and living with the earth that respect and value both spirituality and materiality. It is a new text nurturing sacrality for the Symbiocene.

There is a growing need for public buy-in if democratic processes are to run smoothly. But who exactly is "the public"? What does their engagement in policy-making processes look like? How can our understanding of "the public" be expanded to include - or be led by - diverse voices and experiences, particularly of those who have been historically marginalized? And what does this expansion mean not only for public policies and their development, but for how we teach policy? Drawing upon public engagement case studies, sites of inquiry, and vignettes, this volume raises and responds to these and other questions while advancing policy justice as a framework for public engagement and public policy. Stretching the boundaries of deliberative democracy in theory and practice, Creating Spaces of Engagement offers critical reflections on how diverse publics are engaged in policy processes.

This book is the result of a four years' research project at the European Uni versity Institute in Florence, Italy. I am grateful to my supervisor, Mark Salmon, for his many ideas. I am also indebted to my co-supervisor, Aart de Zeeuw, for his and Alister Ulph. unfailing support and to Carlo Carraro, Louis Phlips I gratefully acknowledge the help and assistance of many people that advised at some stage, Scott Barrett, Peter Bohm, Lans Bovenberg, Partha Dasgupta, me Klaus Hasselman, Peter Kort, alIi Tahvonen, Cees Withagen and Clifford Wymer. Thanks also to the faculty and students of the Department of Economics of the European University Institute and especially to Jacqueline, Jessica, Marcia and Barbara for their moral support; my Italian teacher Camilla; my 'Gruppo di Lavoro' Tilman, Peter and Luisa; my dear Dutch friends Yvo, Pieter, Ida and Ellen; international friends Bogdan, Stuart, Melanie, Henning, Anantha, Paolo, Pompeo, Nikos, Christian, Analisa, Dorothea, Valeria and Stefani a; the members of the Working Group of Environmental Studies; and finally my girlfriends who gave up on me because they thought I was working too hard and not spending enough time with them. Also many thanks to my landlady Olga, who taught me the beauty of Italian literature and opera and my landlord Emilio and their dog Igor. I am also greatly indebted to Professor Larry Susskind and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I spent an extremely inspiring semester."

In autumn 2006 an unnerving phenomenon hit the United States: honeybees were mysteriously disappearing from hives across the nation, with beekeepers reporting losses of between 30 and 90 per cent of their entire colonies. The problem soon spread to parts of Europe and even Asia, earning the name Colony Collapse Disorder. To this day nobody is absolutely sure why it is happening and what the exact causes are. However, in 1923 Rudolf Steiner, a scientist, philosopher and social innovator, predicted that bees would die out within 100 years if they were to be reproduced using only artificial methods. Startlingly, and worryingly, his prediction appears to be coming true. "Queen of The Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?" is a companion book to the critically-acclaimed film of the same name. Compiled by the film's director Taggart Siegel, it makes a profound examination of the global bee crisis through the eyes of biodynamic and organic beekeepers, scientists, farmers, philosophers and poets. Revealing the mysterious world of the beehive and the complex social community of bees, the book unveils millennia of beekeeping, highlighting our historic and sacred relationship with bees, and how this is being compromised by highly-mechanized and intensive agro-industrial practices. The bees are messengers and their disappearance is a resounding wake-up call for humanity! With full colour, stunning photography throughout, this engaging, alarming but ultimately uplifting anthology begins with an account of how Siegel's film came to be made. It continues with a wealth of articles, interviews and poems that offer unique philosophical and spiritual insights. Besides investigating many contributory causes of Colony Collapse Disorder, the book offers remedies as well as hope for the future. "Queen of the Sun" features contributions from Carol Ann Duffy, Taggart Siegel, Jon Betz, David Heaf, Gunther Hauk, Horst Kornberger, Jennifer Kornberger, Jacqueline Freeman, Johannas Wirz, Kerry Grefig, Michael Thiele, Raj Patel, Vandana Shiva, Jeffery Smith and Matthew Barton. These compelling voices signal a growing movement striving to found a culture fully in balance with nature.

If our planet is going to survive the climate crisis, we need to act rapidly. Taking cues from progressive cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Oslo, Shenzhen, and Sydney, this book is a summons to every city to make small but significant changes that can drastically reduce our carbon footprint. We cannot wait for national governments to agree on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage the average temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees. In Solved, David Miller argues that cities are taking action on climate change because they can - and because they must. Miller makes a clear-eyed and compelling case that, if replicated at pace and scale, the actions of leading global cities point the way to creating a more sustainable planet. Solved: How the World's Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis demonstrates that the initiatives cities have taken to control the climate crisis can make a real difference in reducing global emissions if implemented worldwide. By chronicling the stories of how cities have taken action to meet and exceed emissions targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, Miller empowers readers to fix the climate crisis. As much a "how to" guide for policymakers as a work for concerned citizens, Solved aims to inspire hope through its clear and factual analysis of what can be done - now, today - to mitigate our harmful emissions and pave the way to a 1.5-degree world.

Rethinking the American Environmental Movement post-1945 turns a fresh interpretive lens on the past, drawing on a wide range of new histories of environmental activism to analyze the actions of those who created the movement and those who tried to thwart them. Concentrating on the decades since World War II, environmental historian Ellen Griffith Spears explores environmentalism as a "field of movements" rooted in broader social justice activism. Noting major legislative accomplishments, strengths, and contributions, as well as the divisions within the ranks, the book reveals how new scientific developments, the nuclear threat, and pollution, as well as changes in urban living spurred activism among diverse populations. The book outlines the key precursors, events, participants, and strategies of the environmental movement, and contextualizes the story in the dramatic trajectory of U.S. history after World War II. The result is a synthesis of American environmental politics that one reader called both "ambitious in its scope and concise in its presentation." This book provides a succinct overview of the American environmental movement and is the perfect introduction for students or scholars seeking to understand one of the largest social movements of the twentieth century up through the robust climate movement of today.