In Buildings are for People: Human Ecological Design, Bill Caplan issues a clarion call for the design/build professions to expand their concept of sustainable design to be more inclusive of the social, as well as the physical, environment. Doing so, Caplan delivers what might be regarded by some as being nothing less than a manifesto for architects to take heed about doing a better job of interlinking people with ecosystems, at what he calls the "human ecological interface". Buildings, we are reminded, are much more than physical edifices that are constructed; rather, they can transform and in some cases actually create the ambient surroundings that they occupy. Buildings are for People is, as its title states, above all else about our relationships to the built environments we create and inhabit. It is a guidebook for achieving positive change in the way we reconfigure our world and our place therein. As such, it should find prominent position on the shelf beside other likeminded and worthy tomes, which challenge and encourage us all to do better.

Thwart Climate Change Now: Reducing Embodied Carbon Brick by Brick addresses an imperative-to slow the pace of climate change within the coming decade-before it's too late. While climate policy typically focuses on future decarbonization 10 to 20 years out, temperatures continue to rise. Greenhouse gases emitted upfront from the materials fabrication, construction, and renovation of our physical environment-embodied emissions-accelerate the rate of global warming now. Sadly, they increase atmospheric carbon before our buildings and infrastructure are even used. Often ignored or deemed too perplexing to resolve, the need to reduce embodied emissions immediately is the subject of this book. Written for a variety of readers-from policymakers and legislators to architects and developers-Thwart Climate Change Now addresses how to tackle the built environment's "embodied" carbon emissions, highlighting specific design and policy issues that overlook their own contribution to atmospheric carbon. The book brings together the science of climate change, sustainable design, and green policies in a language accessible to a diverse readership, followed by case study examples to support design, policy and legislative recommendations to slow emissions growth in the near term.