ENV 111 - Social-Ecological Systems and Sustainability: eBooks

This open access book discusses the need to focus more directly on the goal of sustainable human well-being rather than merely GDP growth. This includes protecting and restoring nature, achieving social and intergenerational fairness (including poverty alleviation), stabilizing population, and recognizing the significant nonmarket contributions to human well-being from natural and social capital.

This book discusses the fields of social-ecology, resilience and environmental sociology. It explores the inherent deficits in environmental research and knowledge and the need for an integrated theory of society and nature. The text draws on economics, social theory and methodology, geography, sociology, environment studies, and encourages further multidisciplinary approaches to research.

This book examines the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting within an applied development content for Costa Rica. By doing so, it is possible to track changes as well as perhaps link these to overarching global issues, such as trade, globalization, and food security, among other emergent topics based findings stemming from this methodology.

This textbook provides an overview of economic perspectives on sustainability. It synthesises economic, ecological and interdisciplinary sustainability research and by applying an integrated social-ecological and economic framework, demonstrates how this research can be improved and implemented in practice.

This undergraduate text explores large-scale phenomena (global warming, ice ages, water, poverty, etc.) and uses these case studies as a motivation to explore nonlinear dynamics, power-law statistics, and complex systems. This book blends a tutorial approach to the mathematical aspects of complex systems with a complementary narrative on the global/ecological/societal implications of such systems.

This book presents a practice-oriented process to navigate the complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time. It brings together insights from the social sciences and beyond to introduce readers to ‘adaptive doing’ - a continuous and iterative process of experiential learning that provides an accessible structure and process for integrating a range of knowledge and practices.

This book advances a social-ecological theory to reconnect nature and society through sustainable transformation of interacting social and ecological systems. The author uses social-ecological theory to analyze and explain problems and processes of global change in modern society such as climate change and adaptation to it, and offers pathways of transformation to a future sustainable society.

This book traces the origins of environmental ethics as a discipline, and considers how it defends the independent value of living creatures, and the need to make decisions informed by the needs and interests of future generations. Exploring the diverse approaches to ethical decisions and judgements, this text highlights the importance of making processes of production and consumption sustainable and of addressing human population levels, together with policies for preserving species, sub-species, and their habitats.

This text provides an overview of the main features of environmental law, and discusses how environmental law deals with multiple interests, socio-political conflicts, and the limits of knowledge about the environment. Showing how interdependent societies across the world have developed robust and legitimate bodies of law to address environmental problems, this book discusses some of the major issues involved in environmental law's: nation statehood, power, the reframing role of law, the need to ensure real environmental improvements, and environmental justice.

This book traces the evolution of environmental principles from their origins as vague political slogans reflecting fears about environmental hazards to their embodiment in enforceable laws. This title will be relevant to those interested in environmental law and policy, in the relationship between law and science, and in the ways in which political and ethical values can become embodied in laws.

Examining Ecology: Exercises in Environmental Biology and Conservation explains foundational ecological principles using a hands-on approach that features analyzing data, drawing graphs, and undertaking practical exercises that simulate field work. The book provides students and lecturers with real life examples to demonstrate basic principles. The book helps students, instructors, and those new to the field learn about the principles of ecology and conservation by completing a series of problems. Prior knowledge of the subject is not assumed; the work requires users to be able to perform simple calculations and draw graphs.

This book examines the successes and failures of the Clean Air Act with the aim to offer lessons for future climate and energy policymaking in the U.S. at the federal and state level. It provides critical information to legislators, regulators, and scholars interested in understanding environmental policymaking.

This book provides a comprehensive look at the creation, implementation, and evaluation of environmental policy in the United States, which is of particular importance in the current era of congressional gridlock, increasing partisan rhetoric, and escalating debates about federal/state relations. It includes case studies, two chapters on food policy and natural resource policy, and public opinion data.

This book is a comprehensive and easy-to-understand primer that provides an overview of U.S. wildlife law for a broad audience. This text describes basic legal concepts while offering important updates that address recent legal topics. Chapter sidebars highlight relevant legal cases illustrating real-world application of the legal concepts covered in the main text.