New E-Reference Books| Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability
|
|||||
| USING THE LIBRARY | | | BORROWING LIBRARY MATERIALS | | | RESEARCH FAQS | | | LIBRARY INSTRUCTION | | | SERVICES FOR FACULTY | | | ABOUT SRJC LIBRARIES |
In the 10-volume Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability, experts around the world provide authoritative coverage of the growing body of knowledge about ways to restore the planet. Focused on solutions, this interdisciplinary print and online publication draws from the natural, physical, and social sciences—geophysics, engineering, and resource management, to name a few—and from philosophy and religion. The result is a unified, organized, and peer-reviewed resource on sustainability that connects academic research to real world challenges and provides a balanced, trustworthy perspective on global environmental challenges in the 21st century. SRJC ID and PIN required for off campus access.
The Spirit of Sustainability helps readers map
out a "territory of values"—the moral worlds,
axial concepts, and social practices—related to
sustainability. In collaboration with the Forum
on Religion and Ecology (FORE), an established
network of leading scholars, it explores a wide
range of topics and perspectives, from the promise
and problems of approaching sustainable lifeways
through global and indigenous religions, to major
theories in philosophy and environmental ethics,
and then to professional practices and social
movements. This volume presents the various goals
of sustainability—ecological integrity, economic
health, human dignity, fairness to the future, social
justice—and provides interpretive frameworks for
reasoning through the combined challenges each
goal presents, to both current and future generations.
The Business of Sustainability is a core resource
for policy makers, members of the development
community, entrepreneurs, and corporate
executives, as well as business and economics students
and their professors. It contains rich analysis
of how sustainability is being factored into industries
across the globe, with enlightening case studies
of businesses serving as agents of change. Contributing
authors provide a groundbreaking body
of research-based knowledge. They explain that
the concept of sustainability is being re-framed to
be positive about business instead of being tied to
the old notion of a trade-off between business and
society (that is, if business wins, society must lose),
and they explore how economic development can
contribute to building our common future.
The Law and Politics of Sustainability explores
efforts made to address pressing environmental
concerns through legislation, conventions, directives,
treaties, and protocols. Many articles explain
the mechanics of environmental law as well as
the concepts that shape sustainable development.
Others discuss case studies and rulings that have
set precedents, or consider approaches to sustainable
development taken by legal systems around
the world. Experts and scholars in the field raise
provocative questions about the effectiveness of international
law versus national law in protecting the
environment, and about the effect of current laws
on future generations. They analyze the successes
and shortcomings of present legal instruments, corporate
and public policies, social movements, and
conceptual strategies—offering readers a preview
of steps we must take in order to develop laws and
policies that will promote genuine sustainability.
Natural Resources
and Sustainability explores how human
needs and desires, from
sustenance and shelter to recreation and travel,
have spurred the consumption of Earth's material
resources. Scientists, ecologists, and other expert
authors present the historical impact of commercial
activities (in industries as varied as fisheries,
agriculture, energy, and mineral extraction), discuss
the global distribution and use of renewable and
nonrenewable resources, and focus on innovative
approaches for the future. Readers will learn why
renewal doesn't necessarily put a resource beyond
harm—and why the no-free-lunch adage applies to
all natural resources.
Ecosystem Management
and Sustainability not only analyzes humaninitiated
processes and
tools that foster sustainable
natural resource
use, preservation, and
restoration but examines
as well how humans interact
with plant, marine,
and animal life in both
natural and human-altered environments. Experts
in the field explain complex relationships among
non-human species—
endangered, endemic, invasive,
and enhanced—by addressing topics such as island
ecology, native habitat buffers, and rain gardens.
Measurements, Indicators,
and Research
Methods for Sustainability presents a thorough and accessible overview of
the ways in which sustainability is charted worldwide.
Some articles introduce basic concepts, such
as quantitative versus qualitative data; others examine
how indicators in specific areas (climate change,
soil conservation, agriculture and mining) have
been applied (or not) to different regions. Research
analysts explain the modes and media through
which these measurements are broadcast, stressing
the importance of developing methods that can be
understood by both experts and ordinary citizens.
They also examine the process of monitoring, itself
a controversial topic affecting national or international
policy, law, rules, and regulations.
China, India, and East
and Southeast Asia:
Assessing Sustainability provides unprecedented
analyses by regional experts,
and by scholars
elsewhere in the world,
on China, India, and their neighbors. Despite growing
demands on their natural resources (China and
India alone are home to more than one third of the
world's population), the expanding global economic
influence of this region makes these countries vital
players in a sustainable future for all citizens of the
Earth. Regional coverage includes topics such as
business and commerce, environmental and corporate
law, and lifestyles and values. The volume places
special focus on demographics, geography, educational
initiatives, international relationships and negotiations
related to sustainable practices, and the
role of government and corporations in promoting
or discouraging sustainable choices.
The Americas and
Oceania: Assessing
Sustainability provides
extensive coverage of
sustainability practices
in two regions linked
culturally and historically
by their relative isolation before the Columbian
exchange, by their colonization after it, and by the
challenges of pollution, resource overuse, and environmental
degradation. Regional experts and international
scholars focus on environmental history in
areas such as the South Pacific islands, now particularly
threatened by rising ocean levels due to climate
change, and on countries whose governments and
corporations can play a major role in promoting or
discouraging sustainable choices: Brazil, an emergent
power on the world stage; the United States,
the world's third most populous nation after China
and India; and New Zealand, seemingly on its way
to becoming an enviable model of sustainable development.
Afro-Eurasia: Assessing
Sustainability focuses on the
geographic area where humans originated and first
began to make use of the natural world—Earth's
largest landmass, stretching east from Portugal to
the islands of Southeast Asia and south to the Cape
of Good Hope. By examining the history of human
expansion, as well as 21st-century pressures to address
some of the ecosystem damage Afro-Eurasia
has caused, international scholars and regional experts
weave sustainability into core curricular subjects.
The volume's interdisciplinary approach includes
unprecedented analyses of factors across the
region that work to promote or discourage sustainable
choices - business and commerce, educational
institutions, law and government, and lifestyles and
values of the diverse populace.
The Future of Sustainability draws upon
the work of renowned
scholars and experts
who contributed, as editors
and/or authors, to
the Encyclopedia of Sustainability.
Essays include crucial topics in terms of the outlook for humanity and our relationship with the natural world. Articles cover aging and world population, cities and community, energy, agriculture, water, food security, mobility, and migration.