Böcker utgivna av Island Press

Each day, headlines warn that baby bottles are leaching dangerous chemicals, nonstick pans are causing infertility, and plastic containers are making us fat. What if rather than toxics, our economy ran on harmless, environmentally-friendly materials? This title tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products.

Anyone working in biodiversity conservation or field ecology should understand and utilize the common-sense process of scientific inquiry: observing surroundings, framing questions, answering those questions through well-designed studies, and, in many cases, applying results to decision making. Yet the interdisciplinary nature of conservation means many workers are not well versed in the methods of science and may misunderstand or mistrust this indispensable tool.Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation addresses that problem by offering a comprehensible, practical guide to using scientific inquiry in conservation work. In an engaging and accessible style, award-winning tropical ecologist and teacher Peter Feinsinger melds concepts, methods, and intellectual tools into a unique approach to answering environmental questions through field studies. Focusing on the fundamentals of common sense, independthinking, and natural history, he considers: framing the question and designing the study; interpreting and applying results; taking natural history into account; monitoring and assessing progress through approaches such as "e;bioindicator species"e; or "e;species diversity measures"e;; and helping other interested parties use scientific inquiry in addressing their own concerns. Throughout, the author challenges the reader to integrate conceptual thinking with on-the-ground practice in order to make conservation truly effective. Feinsinger concentrates on examples from Latin America but his approach applies to local conservation concerns or field biology questions in any landscape.Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation is an essential handbook for staff and researchers working with conservation institutions or projects worldwide, as well as for students and professionals in field ecology, wildlife biology, and related areas.

Nearly half the buildings that will be standing in 2030 do not exist today. That means we have a tremendous opportunity to reinvent our urban areas, making them more sustainable and livable for future generations. This book providing statistics about changes in population, jobs, housing, non-residential space, and other key factors.

Explores the implications of an idea: we must understand the oceans of the past to protect the oceans of the future. This title shows how skewed visions of the past have led to disastrous marine policies and why historical perspective is critical to revitalize fisheries and ecosystems.

Climate change is a global problem, but the problem begins locally. Cities consume 75% of the world's energy and emit 80% of the world's greenhouse gases. Changing the way we build and operate our cities can have major effects on greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, communities across the U.S. are responding to the climate change problem by making plans that assess their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and specify actions they will take to reduce these emissions.This is the first book designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop Climate Action Plans. CAPs are strategic plans that establish policies and programs for mitigating a community's greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. They typically focus on transportation, energy use, and solid waste, and often differentiate between community-wide actions and municipal agency actions. CAPs are usually based on GHG emissions inventories, which indentify the sources of emissions from the community and quantify the amounts. Additionally, many CAPs include a section addressing adaptation-how the community will respond to the impacts of climate change on the community, such as increased flooding, extended drought, or sea level rise.With examples drawn from actual plans, Local Climate Action Planning guides preparers of CAPs through the entire plan developmprocess, identifying the key considerations and choices that must be made in order to assure that a plan is both workable and effective.

A guide to the complex set of laws governing America's wetlands. After explaining the importance of these critical natural areas, it examines the evolution of federal law, principally the Clean Water Act, designed to protect them. It explores topics including the fundamentals of administrative law.

The environment that we construct affects both humans and our natural world in myriad ways. This title presents a diagnosis of - and offers treatment for - problems related to the built environment. Drawing on the scientific evidence, it imparts practical information, with an emphasis on demonstrated and promising solutions to the problems.

Presents a history of the field of ecological restoration as it has developed over the three decades. This title explores the development of the field and its importance to environmental management as well as to the larger environmental movement and our understanding of the world.

Examines past experience and future directions in the management of so-called 'wicked' environmental problems - those characterized by large-scale, long-term policy dilemmas and contentious political stalemates. This title offers approaches for managing environmental conflicts and shows how managers could apply these approaches.

Public transit is a tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. This title supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services.

There's a simple, straightforward way to cut carbon emissions - and we're rejecting it because of irrational political fears. This title weighs the merits of the four major approaches to curbing CO2: cap-and-trade; command and control regulation; government subsidies of alternative energy; and, carbon taxes.

Australia is similar to the United States in many ways, especially in its 'energy footprint.' This book looks at how 'green' solutions in Australia can benefit US cities. It describes 'green transport' projects, 'city farms,' renewable energy plans, green living programs, and more. It considers a host of public policy initiatives.

Restoration ecology is a field that integrates theory and knowledge from a range of disciplines, including the biological, physical, and social sciences as well as the humanities. This book offers a real-life introduction to the field and an interdisciplinary overview of the theory behind it.

Illustrating how architects and designers can use simple methods to address our innate needs for contact with nature. this book is an examination of how the inter-relationship between nature, architecture, and design is essential to human well-being. The author examines the inter-connectedness of people and nature.

Citizens expect their governments to lead on sustainability. But from largely disappointing international conferences like Rio II to the U.S.'s failure to pass meaningful climate legislation, governments' progress has been lackluster. That's not to say leadership is absent; it just often comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Action-on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises-is being driven by local, people's, women's, and grassroots movements around the world, often in opposition to the agendas pursued by governments and big corporations.These diverse efforts are the subject of the latest volume in the Worldwatch Institute's highly regarded State of the World series. The 2014 edition, marking the Institute's 40th anniversary, examines both barriers to responsible political and economic governance as well as gridlock-shattering new ideas. The authors analyze a variety of trends and proposals, including regional and local climate initiatives, the rise of benefit corporations and worker-owned firms, the need for energy democracy, the Internet's impact on sustainability, and the importance of eco-literacy. A consistthread throughout the book is that informed and engaged citizens are key to better governance.The book is a clear-eyed yet ultimately optimistic assessmof citizens' ability to govern for sustainability. By highlighting both obstacles and opportunities, State of the World 2014 shows how to effect change within and beyond the halls of government. This volume will be especially useful for policymakers, environmental nonprofits, students of environmental studies, sustainability, or economics-and citizens looking to jumpstart significant change around the world.

Includes examples of sustainability that show how other cities can become greener and more livable. This title illustrates practices in urban planning.

It's a tough time to be a scientist: universities are shuttering science departments, federal funding agencies are facing flat budgets, and many newspapers have dropped their science sections altogether. But according to Marc Kuchner, this antiscience climate doesn't have to equal a career death knell-it just means scientists have to be savvier about promoting their work and themselves. In Marketing for Scientists, he provides clear, detailed advice about how to land a good job, win funding, and shape the public debate.As an astrophysicist at NASA, Kuchner knows that "e;marketing"e; can seem like a superficial distraction, whether your daily work is searching for new planets or seeking a cure for cancer. In fact, he argues, it's a critical componof the modern scientific endeavor, not only advancing personal careers but also society's knowledge.Kuchner approaches marketing as a science in itself. He translates theories about human interaction and sense of self into methods for building relationships-one of the mcritical skills in any profession. And he explains how to brand yourself effectively-how to get articles published, give compelling presentations, use social media like Facebook and Twitter, and impress potential employers and funders.Like any good scientist, Kuchner bases his conclusions on years of study and experimentation. In Marketing for Scientists, he distills the strategies needed to keep pace in a Web 2.0 world.

Outlines a tested interdisciplinary 'process model' for urban design. This title explains how to design a specific city precinct or public space, but to describe useful steps to approach the transformation of urban spaces. It illustrates the different stages in which the process is organized, using theories, techniques, images, and case studies.

Offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. This title demonstrates that rules like zoning and subdivision regulation are primary determinants of urban form.

Offers an analysis of agricultural development and transitions toward more sustainable management in one region. Suitable for researchers, policymakers, and students alike, this title examines approaches to make agricultural landscapes healthier for both the environment and people.

Animals such as wolves, sea otters, and sharks exert a disproportionate influence on their environment; dramatic ecological consequences can result when they are removed from-or returned to-an ecosystem.In The Wolf's Tooth, scientist and author Cristina Eisenberg explores the concept of "e;trophic cascades"e; and the role of top predators in regulating ecosystems. Her fascinating and wide-ranging work provides clear explanations of the science surrounding keystone predators and considers how this notion can help provide practical solutions for restoring ecosystem health and functioning.Eisenberg examines both general concepts and specific issues, sharing accounts from her own fieldwork to illustrate and bring to life the ideas she presents. She considers how resource managers can use knowledge about trophic cascades to guide recovery efforts, including how this science can be applied to move forward the bold vision of rewilding the North American continent. In the end, the author provides her own recommendations for local and landscape-scale applications of what has been learned about interactive food webs.At their mfundamental level, trophic cascades are powerful stories about ecosystem processes-of predators and their prey, of what it takes to survive in a landscape, of the flow of nutrients. The Wolf's Tooth is the first book to focus on the vital connection between trophic cascades and restoring biodiversity and habitats, and to do so in a way that is accessible to a diverse readership.

On her deathbed, Sue asked her sister for one thing: to write about the connection between the industrial pollution in their hometown and the rare cancer that was killing her. Fulfilling that promise has been Nancy Nichols' mission for more than a decade. This title tells the story of her investigation.

Though seasonally dry tropical forests are equally as important to global biodiversity as tropical rainforests, and are one of the mrepresentative and highly endangered ecosystems in Latin America, knowledge about them remains limited because of the relative paucity of attention paid to them by scientists and researchers and a lack of published information on the subject.Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests seeks to address this shortcoming by bringing together a range of experts in diverse fields including biology, ecology, biogeography, and biogeochemistry, to review, synthesize, and explain the currstate of our collective knowledge on the ecology and conservation of seasonally dry tropical forests.The book offers a synthetic and cross-disciplinary review of recwork with an expansive scope, including sections on distribution, diversity, ecosystem function, and human impacts. Throughout, contributors emphasize conservation issues, particularly emerging threats and promising solutions, with key chapters on climate change, fragmentation, restoration, ecosystem services, and sustainable use.Seasonally dry tropical forests are extremely rich in biodiversity, and are seriously threatened. They represscientific terrain that is poorly explored, and there is an urgneed for increased understanding of the system's basic ecology. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests represents an important step in bringing together the mcurrscientific information about this vital ecosystem and disseminating it to the scientific and conservation communities.

David Orr has been one of the leading voices of the environmental movement, championing the cause of ecological literacy in higher education, helping to establish and shape the field of ecological design. This title brings together Professor Orr's most important works. It offers an introduction to the writings of David Orr.

Offers a road map for securing future energy supply while safeguarding wildlife. This title shows how science can help craft solutions to conflicts between wildlife and energy development by delineating core areas, identifying landscapes that support viable populations, and forecasting future development scenarios to aid in conservation design.

Coastal Governance provides a clear overview of how U.S. coasts are currently managed and explores new approaches that could make our shores healthier. Drawing on recent national assessments, Professor Richard Burroughs explains why traditional management techniques have ultimately proved inadequate, leading to polluted waters, declining fisheries, and damaged habitat. He then introduces students to governance frameworks that seek to address these shortcomings by considering natural and human systems holistically.The book considers the ability of sector-based management, spatial management, and ecosystem-based management to solve critical environmental problems. Evaluating governance successes and failures, Burroughs covers topics including sewage disposal, dredging, wetlands, watersheds, and fisheries. He shows that at times sector-based management, which focuses on separate, individual uses of the coasts, has been implemented effectively. But he also illustrates examples of conflict, such as the incompatibility of waste disposal and fishing in the same waters. Burroughs assesses spatial and ecosystem-based management's potential to address these conflicts.The book familiarizes students not only with current management techniques but with the policy process. By focusing on policy development, Coastal Governance prepares readers with the knowledge to participate effectively in a governance system that is constantly evolving. This understanding will be critical as students become managers, policymakers, and citizens who shape the future of the coasts.

Every day, we are presented with a range of "e;sustainable"e; products and activities-from "e;green"e; cleaning supplies to carbon offsets-but with so much labeled as "e;sustainable,"e; the term has become essentially sustainababble, at best indicating a practice or product slightly less damaging than the conventional alternative. Is it time to abandon the concept altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure sustainability? If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?In the latest edition of Worldwatch Institute's State of the World series, scientists, policy experts, and thought leaders tackle these questions, attempting to restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool. In State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?, experts define clear sustainability metrics and examine various policies and perspectives, including geoengineering, corporate transformation, and changes in agricultural policy, that could put us on the path to prosperity without diminishing the well-being of future generations. If these approaches fall short, the final chapters explore ways to prepare for drastic environmental change and resource depletion, such as strengthening democracy and societal resilience, protecting cultural heritage, and dealing with increased conflict and migration flows.State of the World 2013 cuts through the rhetoric surrounding sustainability, offering a broad and realistic look at how close we are to fulfilling it today and which practices and policies will steer us in the right direction. This book will be especially useful for policymakers, environmental nonprofits, and students of environmental studies, sustainability, or economics.

The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services is the first comprehensive exploration of the status and future of natural capital and ecosystem services in American law and policy. The book develops a framework for thinking about ecosystem services across their ecologic, geographic, economic, social, and legal dimensions and evaluates the prospects of crafting a legal infrastructure that can help build an ecosystem service economy that is as robust as existing economies for manufactured goods, natural resource commodities, and human-provided services. The book examines the geographic, ecological, and economic context of ecosystem services and provides a baseline of the currstatus of ecosystem services in law and society. It identifies shortcomings of currlaw and policy and the critical areas for improvemand forges an approach for the design of new law and policy for ecosystem services. Included are a series of nine empirical case studies that explore the problems caused by society's failure to properly value natural capital. Among the case study topics considered are water issues, The Conservation Reserve Program, the National Conservation Buffer Initiative, the agricultural policy of the European Union, wetland mitigation, and pollution trading. The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services is a groundbreaking look at the question of whether and how law and policy can shape a sustainable system of ecosystem service management. It is an accessible and informative work for faculty, students, and policy makers concerned with ecology, economics, geography, political science, environmental studies, law, and related fields.

Shows how climate change, free trade policies, genetic engineering, and loss of traditional knowledge are threatening our food supply. This book reveals just how much diversity has already been lost. It also shows what resilient farmers and scientists in many regions are doing to save the remaining living riches of our world.