Search results for ""island press""
Island Press Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Our Human Planet: Summary for Decision Makers
"Our Human Planet" summarizes the findings of the four working groups and serves as a reference guide to the four main volumes in the MA series. It presents the key findings of each of the working groups, and meets the needs of policy makers and other professionals. The summary also provides an overview of the framework used by the assessment, and will serve as a guide for assessment, planning, and management for the future.
£19.34
Island Press Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground
In the 1990s, influenced by the deconstructionist movement in literary theory and trends toward revisionist history, a cadre of academics and historians led by William Cronon began raising provocative questions about ideas of wilderness and the commitments and strategies of the contemporary environmental movement. While these critiques challenged some cherished and widely held beliefs -- and raised the hackles of many in the environmental community -- they also stimulated an important and potentially transformative debate about the conceptual foundations of environmentalism. Reconstructing Conservation makes a vital contribution to that debate, bringing together 23 leading scholars and practitioners -- including J. Baird Callicott, Susan Flader, Richard Judd, Curt Meine, Bryan Norton, and Paul B. Thompson -- to examine the classical conservation tradition and its value to contemporary environmentalism. Focusing not just on the tensions that have marked the deconstructivist debate over wilderness and environmentalism, the book represents a larger and ultimately more constructive and hopeful discussion over the proper course of future conservation scholarship and action. Essays provide a fresh look at conservation icons such as George Perkins Marsh and Aldo Leopold, as well as the contributions of lesser-known figures including Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye, and Scott Nearing. Represented are a wealth of diverse perspectives, addressing such topics as wilderness and protected areas, cultural landscapes, rural/agrarian landscapes, urban/built environments, and multiple points on the geographic map. Contributors offer enthusiastic endorsements of pluralism in conservation values and goals along with cautionary tales about the dangers of fragmentation and atomism. The final chapter brings together the major insights, arguments, and proposals contained in the individual contributions, synthesizing them into a dozen broad-ranging principles designed to guide the study and practice of conservation. Reconstructing Conservation assesses the meaning and relevance of our conservation inheritance in the 21st century, and represents a conceptually integrated vision for reconsidering conservation thought and practice to meet the needs and circumstances of a new, post-deconstructivist era.
£37.00
Island Press Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods: Design for Environment and Community
Includes farsighted and practical advice to create successful green neighborhoods. Cities are growing at unprecedented rates. Most continue to sprawl into the countryside. Some are only now adopting policies that attempt to control air pollution from vehicles, reduce water pollution from urban runoff, and repair fragmented urban ecosystems. Can good urban design and sound environmental design coincide at a neighborhood level to create healthy communities? Absolutely, and the strategies presented by Cynthia Girling and Ronald Kellett in "Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods" illustrate how to weave together contemporary thinking in urban planning with open space planning and urban ecology. Drawing from eighteen case studies, these green neighborhoods are the best examples of how the natural environment can play integral roles in neighborhoods. Green neighborhoods offer a mix of housing types in order to serve a broad cross-section of people with a finely-grained variety of land uses and services, all close to home. In ecologically sound communities, the urban landscape is a functioning part of the whole ecosystem. Wooded areas, meandering streams, wetlands, and open spaces are planned and engineered to clean the air and the water. Skinnier streets and practical pathways weave into a functional, economical network to provide a range of equally good transportation choices, from walking to mass transit, that move people efficiently and economically. This book moves beyond identifying problems to demonstrate proven methods and models that solve multiple, complex problems in concert. With innovative ideas and practical advice, "Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods" is a guide for today's planners, architects, engineers, and developers to better neighborhoods and a more natural metropolis.
£37.00
Island Press Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice
Assembly rules refer to the ecological principles that guide the 'assembly' of ecosystems. They offer guidance on planning which species should be restored first, and then which should be added in which order. This work explores the concepts and theories relating to assembly rules.
£38.00
Island Press In a Perfect Ocean: The State Of Fisheries And Ecosystems In The North Atlantic Ocean
In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean presents the first empirical assessment of the status of ecosystems in the North Atlantic. The authors analyze 14 large marine ecosystems, providing an indisputable picture of an ocean whose food webs have been dramatically altered, resulting in a phenomenon described by the authors as "fishing down the food web." The book: - provides a snapshot of the past health of the North Atlantic and compares it to its present status - presents a rigorous scientific assessment based on the key criteria of fisheries catches, biomass, and trophic level - considers the factors that have led to the current situation - describes the policy options available for halting the decline - offers recommendations for restoring the North Atlantic An original and powerful series of maps and charts illustrate where the effects of overfishing are the most pronounced and highlight interactions among the various factors contributing to the overall decline of the North Atlantic's ecosystems. This is the first in a series of assessments by the world's leading marine scientists, entitled In a Perfect Ocean. The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean is a landmark study and will be essential reading for policymakers at all levels concerned with fisheries management, as well for scientists, researchers, and activists concerned with marine issues or fishing and the fisheries industry.
£24.43
Island Press Designing Greenways: Sustainable Landscapes for Nature and People, Second Edition
How are greenways designed? What situations lead to their genesis, and what examples best illustrate their potential for enhancing communities and the environment? Designing greenways is a key to protecting landscapes, allowing wildlife to move freely, and finding appropriate ways to bring people into nature. This book brings together examples from ecology, conservation biology, aquatic ecology, and recreation design to illustrate how greenways function and add value to ecosystems and human communities alike. Encompassing everything from urban trail corridors to river flood-plains to wilderness-like linkages, greenways preserve or improve the integrity of the landscape, not only by stemming the loss of natural features, but also by engendering new natural and social functions. From 19th-century parks and parkways to projects still on the drawing boards, "Designing Greenways" is a fascinating introduction to the possibilities - and pitfalls - involved in these ambitious projects. As towns and cities look to greenways as a new way of reconciling man and nature, designers and planners will look to "Designing Greenways" as an invaluable compendium of best practices.
£32.41
Island Press Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy For Building Conservation Into Decision Making
£57.00
Island Press Searching Out the Headwaters: Change And Rediscovery In Western Water Policy
To the uninitiated, water policy seems a complicated, hypertechnical, and incomprehensible subject: a tangle of engineering jargon and legalese surrounding a complex, delicate, and interrelated structure. Decisions concerning the public's waters involve scant public participation, and in such a context, reform seems risky at best.Searching Out the Headwaters addresses that precarious situation by providing a thorough and straightforward analysis of western water use and the outmoded rules that govern it. The authors begin by tracing the history and evolution of the uses of western water. They describe the demographic and economic changes now occurring in the region, and identify the many communities of interest involved in all water-use issues. After an examination of the central precepts of current water policy, along with their original rationale and subsequent evolution, they consider the reform movement that has recently begun to emerge. In the end, the authors articulate the foundations for a water policy that can meet the needs of the new West and discuss the various means for effectively implementing such a policy, including market economics, regulation, the broad-based use of scientific knowledge, and open and full public participation.
£31.00
£45.00
£29.00
Island Press The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services
This is the first comprehensive exploration of the status and future of natural capital and ecosystem services in American law and policy. 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 are water issues, the Conservation Reserve Program, the National Conversation Buffer Initiative, pollution trading, among others.
£28.05
£31.00
Island Press Trains, Buses, People: 2021
In some US and Canadian cities, transit has quietly been expanding and improving over the last few years, despite funding and ridership challenges. How do we assess the advances and failures of our current systems to move forward strategically and wisely? The first edition of Trains, Buses, People was dubbed “a transit wonk’s bible” and guided “a smarter conversation about urban transit” in the US. This second edition is fully updated and expanded to include eight Canadian cities and two new US cities (Indianapolis and San Juan, Puerto Rico). In Trains, Buses, People, Second Edition: An Opinionated Atlas of US and Canadian Transit, transit expert and “transportation hero” Christof Spieler provides a new section on inclusivity to help agencies understand how to welcome riders regardless of race, gender, income, or disability. Select cities include new maps overlaying transit and poverty data, and systems that have started construction since the first edition in 2018 have been added. Other new sections address network typologies, guideway types, station types, and fares. Spieler has spent over a decade advocating for transit as a writer, community leader, urban planner, transit board member, and enthusiast. He strongly believes that just about anyone—regardless of training or experience—can identify what makes good transit with the right information. In the fun, accessible, and visually appealing Trains, Buses, People, Second Edition: An Opinionated Atlas of US and Canadian Transit, Spieler shows how cities can build successful transit. He profiles the 49 metropolitan areas in the US and eight metropolitan areas in Canada that have rail transit or BRT, using data, photos, and maps for easy comparison. Spieler ranks the best and worst systems and he offers analysis of how geography, politics, and history complicate transit planning. He shows how the unique circumstances of every city have resulted in very different transit systems. Trains, Buses, People, Second Edition is intended for non-experts—it will help any citizen, professional, or policymaker with a vested interest evaluate a transit proposal and understand what makes transit effective. It shows that it is possible, with the right tools, to build good transit.
£36.00
Island Press Leadership for Sustainability: Strategies for Tackling Wicked Problems
Solving today's environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book's strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the "plant-forward" movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.
£23.99
Island Press Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature
In March 2011, people in a coastal Japanese city stood atop a seawall watching the approach of the tsunami that would kill them. They believed—naively—that the huge concrete barrier would save them. Instead, they perished, betrayed by the very thing built to protect them. Erratic weather, blistering drought, rising seas, and ecosystem collapse now affect every inch of the globe. Increasingly, we no longer look to stop climate change, choosing instead to adapt to it. Never have so many undertaken such a widespread, hurried attempt to remake the world. Predictably, our hubris has led to unintended—and sometimes disastrous—consequences. Academics call it maladaptation; in simple terms, it’s about solutions that backfire. Over the Seawall tells us the stories behind these unintended consequences and about the fixes that can do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to the re-engineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the artificial ribbon of water supporting both farms and urban centres in parched Arizona, Stephen Robert Miller traces the histories of engineering marvels that were once deemed too smart and too big to fail. In each he takes us into the land and culture, seeking out locals and experts to better understand how complicated, grandiose schemes led instead to failure, and to find answers to the technologic holes we’ve dug ourselves into. Over the Seawall urges us to take a hard look at the fortifications we build and how they’ve fared in the past. It embraces humanity’s penchant for problem-solving, but argues that if we are to adapt successfully to climate change, we must recognize that working with nature is not surrender but the only way to assure a secure future.
£26.00
Island Press Beyond Polarization: Public Process and the Unlikely Story of California’s Marine Protected Areas
In a time when the United States is divided and positive collective action feels out of our grasp, Beyond Polarization tells a story of hope. That story goes back to 1999, when California passed a landmark piece of legislation to establish a system of marine protected areas off its coast that would safeguard miles of fragile ocean resources. After a contentious ten-year public process, passage of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPA) was considered nothing short of miraculous. As important as this achievement was, the legacy it left was even more enduring: a blueprint for successful public policy that can be replicated elsewhere. What lessons can we draw? California’s experience provides a rare opportunity to learn from a collaborative public process involving private interests and science-intensive decisions. Determined to do just that, Steven Yaffee, a renowned expert on negotiation and collaborative decision making, spent hundreds of hours researching the MPLA process in an effort to understand how California succeeded where other efforts have failed. The result is Beyond Polarization, a highly readable insider’s perspective on complicated decision-making processes and the strategic choices necessary for success. The book follows the initiative process region by region, each with its unique stakeholders and geographic concerns. These lessons can be applied to similar initiative processes across the country and world. Beyond Polarization presents an optimistic message about the public policy process in a time of civic division. It offers reassurance that, by using proven decision-making processes, policymakers, scientists, and local citizens can successfully collaborate to manage and protect natural resources we all have a stake in.
£45.00
Island Press Schools That Heal: Design with Mental Health in Mind
What would a school look like if it was designed with mental health in mind? Too many public schools look and feel like prisons, designed out of fear of vandalism and truancy. But we know that nurturing environments are better for learning. Research consistently shows that access to nature, big classroom windows, and open campuses reduce stress, anxiety, disorderly conduct, and crime, and improve academic performance. But too few school designers and decision-makers apply this research to create healthy schools. Schools That Heal details the myriad opportunities, from furniture to classroom improvements to whole campus renovations, to make supportive learning environments for our children and teenagers. Schools around the world have been designed to support students’ health. A Japanese community decimated by a tsunami has incorporated water elements into the school campus to reconnect students to nature in a supportive way and promote environmental stewardship. Sandy Hook Elementary, creating a completely redesigned campus in the wake of a school shooting, began with an inclusive design process to ensure the new school could be a place of healing and learning. And while the larger mental and physical impacts of how COVID-19 has changed schooling aren’t known yet, Latané discusses how building elements like large windows, that can open to circulate fresh air, were once common in schools and could once again be useful as a cost-effective tactic for reducing virus exposure. Backed by decades of research, Schools That Heal showcases clear and compelling ways to create schools that support students’ mental health and feelings of safety. Written in an accessible tone, this book reviews the evidence connecting design to mental health and makes design and advocacy recommendations to support students’ well-being and sense of safety. With invaluable advice for school administrators, public health experts, teachers, and parents, Schools That Heal is a call to action and a practical resource to envision and implement nurturing and inspiring school environments. Healthy, healing campuses will better prepare students to take care of themselves, their communities, their cities, and their planet.
£26.00
Island Press Holistic Management Handbook, Third Edition: Regenerating Your Land and Growing Your Profits
Holistic management is a systems-thinking approach developed by biologist Allan Savory to restore the world's grassland soils and minimize the damaging effects of climate change and desertification on humans and the natural world. This third edition of Holistic Management Handbook: Regenerating Your Land and Growing Your Profits is the long-awaited companion volume to the classic text Holistic Management, Third Edition. Crafted under the direction of Savory's longtime collaborator Jody Butterfield, this handbook is the key to developing a comprehensive holistic land plan based on Savory's principles that will help you to restore health to your land and ensure a stable, sustainable livelihood from its bounty. This new edition, thoroughly revised, updated, and streamlined, explains the planning procedures described in Holistic Management, and offers step-by-step instructions for running a ranch or farm using a holistic management approach. Butterfield and her coauthors describe how to use the handbook in conjunction with the textbook to tailor a management plan for your unique combination of land, livestock, and finances. Their mantra is "plan, monitor, control, and replan." Using a four-part approach, the authors walk readers through basic concepts and techniques, help them put a plan onto paper, monitor the results, and adjust the details as needed. Appendixes provide updated worksheets, checklists, planning and monitoring forms, and detailed examples of typical scenarios a user might encounter. The handbook includes a comprehensive glossary of terms. Ranchers, farmers, pastoralists, social entrepreneurs, government agencies, and NGOs working to address global environmental degradation will find this comprehensive handbook an indispensable guide to putting the holistic management concept into action with tangible results they can take to the bank.
£26.60
Island Press Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places
Nearly every US city would like to be more walkable—for reasons of health, wealth, and the environment—yet few are taking the proper steps to get there. The goals are often clear, but the path is seldom easy. Jeff Speck’s follow up to his bestselling Walkable City is the resource that cities and citizens need to usher in an era of renewed street life. Walkable City Rules is a doer’s guide to making change in cities, and making it now. The 101 rules are practical yet engaging—worded for arguments at the planning commission, illustrated for clarity, and packed with specifications as well as data. For ease of use, the rules are grouped into 19 chapters that cover everything from selling walkability, to getting the parking right, escaping automobilism, making comfortable spaces and interesting places, and doing it now! Walkable City was written to inspire; Walkable City Rules was written to enable. It is the most comprehensive tool available for bringing the latest and most effective city-planning practices to bear in your community. The content and presentation make it a force multiplier for place-makers and change-makers everywhere.
£22.99
Island Press Urban Street Stormwater Guide
Streets make up more than 80 percent of all public space in cities, yet street space is often underutilised or disproportionately allocated to the movement of private motor vehicles. Excess impervious surface contributes to stormwater runoff, posing a threat to the environment and human health, and often overwhelming sewer systems. This excess asphalt also poses a threat to public safety, encouraging faster speeds and dangerous conditions for people walking and biking. The Urban Street Stormwater Guide begins from the principle that street design can support, or degrade, the urban area's overall environmental health. By incorporating Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) into the right-of-way, cities can manage stormwater and reap the public health, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of street trees, planters, and greenery in the public realm. With thoughtful design, GSI can bolster strategies to provide a safe and pleasant walking and cycling experience, efficient and reliable transit service, and safer streets for all users.Building on the successful NACTO urban street guides, the Urban Street Stormwater Guide provides the best practices for the design of GSI along transportation corridors. The authors consider context-sensitive design elements related to street design, character and use, zoning, posted speed, traffic volumes, and impacts to non-motorised and vehicular access. The Guide documents and synthesizes current practices being developed by individual agencies and recommends design guidance for implementation, as well as explores innovative new strategies being tested in cities nationwide. The guidance will focus on providing safe, functioning and maintainable infrastructure that meets the unique needs and requirements of the transportation corridors and its various uses and users. The state-of-the-art solutions in this guide will assist urban planners and designers, transportation engineers, city officials, ecologists, public works officials, and others interested in the role of the built urban landscape in protecting the climate, water quality, and natural environment.
£30.00
Island Press Mitigation Banking: Theory And Practice
Mitigation banking is a concept which allows developers to compensate for damage to the environment. This book provides both an overview and real-life case studies of developing and operating a mitigation bank.
£42.00
Island Press When Driving Is Not an Option
£26.00
Island Press Green Growth That Works: Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms from Around the World
Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being. It has lifted millions out of poverty, raised standards of living, and increased life expectancies. But economic development comes at a significant cost to natural capital--the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, farmland--that support all life on earth, including our own. The dilemma of our times is to figure out how to improve the human condition without destroying nature's. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One answer is inclusive green growth--the efficient use of natural resources. Inclusive green growth minimizes pollution and strengthens communities against natural disasters while reducing poverty through improved access to health, education, and services. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it. Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth's myriad ecosystems, including: Government subsidies Regulatory-driven mitigation Voluntary conservation Water funds Market-based transactions Bilateral and multilateral payments Through a series of real-world case studies, the book addresses questions such as: How can we channel economic incentives to make conservation and restoration desirable? What approaches have worked best? How can governments, businesses, NGOs, and individuals work together successfully? Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.
£26.00
Island Press Bicycle City
Drawing on research and case studies from around the world, Bicycle City offers a compelling case of a car-free urbanfuture by harnessing the post-pandemic bike boom - perfect for professionals and advocates.
£26.00
Island Press The End of Automobile Dependence: How Cities are Moving Beyond Car-Based Planning
This book offers new guidance for urban and transportation planners and urban policy makers on how to accelerate development of cities away from automobile dependence. In The End of Automobile Dependence, Newman and Kenworthy look at how we can accelerate a planning approach to designing urban environments that can function reliably and conveniently on alternative modes, with a refined and more civilized automobile playing a very much reduced and manageable role in urban transportation. The authors examine the rise and fall of automobile dependence using updated data on 44 global cities to better understand how to facilitate and guide cities to the most productive and sustainable outcomes. This is the final volume in a trilogy by Newman and Kenworthy on automobile dependence (Cities and Automobile Dependence in 1989 and Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence in 1999). Like all good trilogies, this one shows the rise of an empire, in this case that of the automobile, the peak of its power, and the decline of that empire.
£33.86
Island Press Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems: Principles and Practices
Modern city dwellers are largely detached from the environmental effects of their daily lives. The sources of the water they drink, the food they eat, and the energy they consume are all but invisible, often coming from other continents, and their waste ends up in places beyond their city boundaries."Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems" shows how cities and their residents can begin to reintegrate into their bioregional environment, and how cities themselves can be planned with nature's organizing principles in mind. Taking cues from living systems for sustainability strategies, Newman and Jennings reassess urban design by exploring flows of energy, materials, and information, along with the interactions between human and non-human parts of the system.Drawing on examples from all corners of the world, the authors explore natural patterns and processes that cities can emulate in order to move toward sustainability. Some cities have adopted simple strategies such as harvesting rainwater, greening roofs, and producing renewable energy. Others have created biodiversity parks for endangered species, community gardens that support a connection to their foodshed, and pedestrian-friendly spaces that encourage walking and cycling.A powerful model for urban redevelopment, "Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems" describes aspects of urban ecosystems from the visioning process to achieving economic security to fostering a sense of place.
£27.32
Island Press Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times
It's a tough time to be a scientist: universities are shutting science departments, funding organisations are facing flat budgets, and many newspapers have dropped their science sections altogether. But according to Marc Kuchner, this anti-science 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 "marketing" 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 component of the modern scientific endeavour, 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 most critical 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.
£19.34
Island Press Community Planning: An Introduction To The Comprehensive Plan
This book introduces community planning as practiced in the United States, focusing on the comprehensive plan. Sometimes known by other names - especially master plan or general plan - the type of plan described here is the predominant form of general governmental planning in the United States. Although many government agencies make plans for their own programs or facilities, the comprehensive plan is the only planning document that considers multiple programs and that accounts for activities on all land located within the planning area, including both public and private property. Written by a former president of the American Planning Association, "Community Planning" is thorough, specific, and timely. For all readers, including professional planners, planning students, and interested citizens, it provides a valuable and pragmatic view of the comprehensive plan.
£38.93
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Island Press The Progress Illusion: Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics
We live under the illusion of progress: as long as GDP is going up and prices stay low, we accept poverty and pollution as unfortunate but inevitable byproducts of a successful economy. In fact, the infallibility of the free market and the necessity of endless growth are so ingrained in the public consciousness that they seem like scientific fact. Jon Erickson asks, why? With the planet in peril and humanity in crisis, how did we get duped into believing the fairytale of economics? And how can we get past the illusion to design an economy that is socially just and ecologically balanced? In The Progress Illusion, Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. Drawing on his own experience as a young economist inoculated in the 1980s era of “greed is good,” Erickson shows how pseudoscience came to dominate economic thought. He pokes holes in the conventional wisdom of neo-classical economics, illustrating how flawed theories about financial decision-making and maximizing efficiency ignore human psychology and morality. Most importantly, he demonstrates how that thinking shaped our politics and determined the course of American public policy. The result has been a system that perpetually concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, while depleting the natural resources on which economies are based. While the history of economics is dismal indeed, Erickson is part of a vigorous reform effort grounded in the realities of life on a finite planet. This new brand of economics is both gaining steam in academia and supporting social activism. The goal is people over profit, community over consumption, and resilience over recklessness. Erickson shows crafting a new economic story is the first step toward turning away from endless growth and towards enduring prosperity.
£26.00
Island Press Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis
Much of what you’ve heard about plastic pollution may be wrong. Instead of a great island of trash, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of manmade debris spread over hundreds of miles of sea—more like a soup than a floating garbage dump. Recycling is more complicated than we were taught: less than nine percent of the plastic we create is reused, and the majority ends up in the ocean. And plastic pollution isn’t confined to the open ocean: it’s in much of the air we breathe and the food we eat. In Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hopping journey to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis. From the deck of a plastic-hunting sailboat with a disabled engine, to the labs doing cutting-edge research on microplastics and the chemicals we ingest, Cirino paints a full picture of how plastic pollution is threatening wildlife and human health. Thicker Than Water reveals that the plastic crisis is also a tale of environmental injustice, as poorer nations take in a larger share of the world’s trash, and manufacturing chemicals threaten predominantly Black and low-income communities. There is some hope on the horizon, with new laws banning single-use items and technological innovations to replace plastic in our lives. But Cirino shows that we can only fix the problem if we face its full scope and begin to repair our throwaway culture. Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste.
£17.99
Island Press Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food
"A compelling agricultural story skillfully told; environmentalists will eat it up." - Kirkus Reviews When Bob Quinn was a kid, a stranger at a county fair gave him a few kernels of an unusual grain. Little did he know, that grain would change his life. Years later, after finishing a PhD in plant biochemistry and returning to his family’s farm in Montana, Bob started experimenting with organic wheat. In the beginning, his concern wasn’t health or the environment; he just wanted to make a decent living and some chance encounters led him to organics. But as demand for organics grew, so too did Bob’s experiments. He discovered that through time-tested practices like cover cropping and crop rotation, he could produce successful yields—without pesticides. Regenerative organic farming allowed him to grow fruits and vegetables in cold, dry Montana, providing a source of local produce to families in his hometown. He even started producing his own renewable energy. And he learned that the grain he first tasted at the fair was actually a type of ancient wheat, one that was proven to lower inflammation rather than worsening it, as modern wheat does. Ultimately, Bob’s forays with organics turned into a multimillion dollar heirloom grain company, Kamut International. In Grain by Grain, Quinn and cowriter Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground, show how his story can become the story of American agriculture. We don’t have to accept stagnating rural communities, degraded soil, or poor health. By following Bob’s example, we can grow a healthy future, grain by grain.
£22.25
Island Press Justice and the Interstates: The Racist Truth about Urban Highways
“Seventy years of a car-only approach—not car-centric, it’s car-only—is actually not just non-driver hostile, it’s driver hostile. No one benefits.” —Beth Osborne, Director, Transportation for America The car-only approach in transportation planning and engineering has led to the construction of roadways that have torn apart and devalued communities, especially Black and Brown communities. Forging a new path to repair this damage requires a community solutions-based approach to planning, designing, and building our roadways. When Lynn Peterson began working as a transportation engineer, she was taught to evaluate roadway projects based only on metrics related to driver safety, allowable speed for the highest number of cars, project schedule, and budget. Involving the community and collaborating with peers were never part of the discussion. Today, Peterson is a recognized leader in transportation planning and engineering, known for her approach that is rooted in racial equity, guided by a process of community engagement, and includes collaboration with other professionals. In Roadways for People, Lynn Peterson draws from her personal experience and interviews with leaders in the field to showcase new possibilities within transportation engineering and planning. She incorporated a community-solutions based approach in her work at Metro, TriMet, and while running the Washington State Department of Transportation, where she played an instrumental role in the largest transportation bill in that state’s history. The community solutions-based approach moves away from the narrow standards of traditional transportation design and focuses instead on a process that involves consistent feedback, learning loops, and meaningful and regular community engagement. This approach seeks to address the transportation needs of the most historically marginalized members of the community. Roadways for People is written to empower professionals and policymakers to create transportation solutions that serve people rather than cars. Examples across the U.S.—from Portland, Oregon to Baltimore, Maryland—show what is possible with a community-centered approach. As traditional highway expansions are put on pause around the country, professionals and policymakers have an opportunity to move forward with a better approach. Peterson shows them how.
£21.99
Island Press Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing
Too many U.S. cities and towns have been focused on a model of economic development that relies on recruiting one big company (such as Amazon), a single industry (usually in technology), or pursuing other narrow or short-term fixes that are inequitable and unsustainable. Some cities and towns were changing, even before the historic retail collapse brought on by COVID-19. They started to shift to a new economic model that works with the community to invest in place in an inclusive and thoughtful way, with short-term wins that build momentum for long-term growth. A secret ingredient to this successful model is small-scale manufacturing. In Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing, community development expert Ilana Preuss explains how local leaders can revitalise their downtowns or neighbourhood main streets by bringing in and supporting small-scale manufacturing. Small-scale manufacturing businesses help create thriving places, with local business ownership opportunities and well-paying jobs that other business types can’t fulfil. Preuss draws from her experience working with local governments, large and small and illuminates her recommendations with real-world examples. She details her five-step method for recasting your city using small-scale manufacturing: (1) light the spark (assess what you can build on and establish goals); (2) find and connect (get out of your comfort zone and find connectors outside of your usual circles); (3) interview (talk to people and build trust); (4) analyse (look for patterns and gaps as well as what has not been said); and (5) act (identify short-term actions to help build long-term change). This work is difficult and sometimes uncomfortable, but necessary and critical for success. Preuss supports and inspires change by drawing from her work in cities from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Columbia, Missouri, to Fremont, California. In Recast Your City, Preuss shows how communities across the country can build strong local businesses through small-scale manufacturing, reinvest in their downtowns, and create inclusive economic opportunity. Preuss provides tools that local leaders in government, business, and real estate as well as entrepreneurs and advocates in every community can use.
£22.99
Island Press Understanding Disaster Insurance: New Tools for a More Resilient Future
The frequency and intensity of natural disasters—such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and storms—is on the rise, threatening our way of life and our livelihoods. Managing this growing risk will be central to economic and social progress in the coming decades. Insurance, an often confusing and unpopular tool, will be critical to successfully emerging from the effects of these crises. Its traditional role is to protect us from unforeseen and unanticipated risk, but as currently structured, insurance cannot adequately respond to these types of threats. How can we improve insurance to provide consistent and sufficient help following all disasters? How do we use insurance not just to help us recover, but also to help us prevent disasters in the first place? And how can insurance help us achieve broader social and environmental goals? Understanding Disaster Insurance provides an accessible introduction to the complexities—and exciting possibilities—of risk transfer markets in the U.S. and around the world. Carolyn Kousky, a leading researcher on disaster risk and insurance, explains how traditional insurance markets came to be structured and why they fall short in meeting the needs of a world coping with climate change. She then offers realistic, yet hopeful, examples of new approaches. With examples ranging from individual entrepreneurs to multi-country collaborations, she shows how innovative thinking and creative applications of insurance-based mechanisms can improve recovery outcomes for people and their communities. She also explores the role of insurance in supporting policy goals beyond disaster recovery, such as nature-positive approaches for larger environmental impact. The book holds up the possibility that new risk transfer markets, brought to scale, could help create more equitable and sustainable economies. Insurance and risk transfer markets can be a powerful tool for adapting to climate change, yet they are frequently misunderstood. Many find insurance confusing or even problematic and ineffective. Understanding Disaster Insurance is a useful guidebook for policymakers, innovators, students, and other decision makers working to secure a resilient future—and anyone affected by wind, fire, rain, or flood.
£26.00
Island Press A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land
In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Kentucky southward to Florida. One hundred and fifty years later, on a similar whim, veteran Atlanta reporter Dan Chapman, distressed by sprawl-driven environmental ills in a region he loves, recreated Muir’s journey to see for himself how nature has fared since Muir’s time. Channelling Muir, he uses humour, keen observation, and a deep love of place to celebrate the South’s natural riches. But he laments that a treasured way of life for generations of Southerners is endangered as long-simmering struggles intensify over misused and dwindling resources. Chapman seeks to discover how Southerners might balance surging population growth with protecting the natural beauty Muir found so special. Each chapter touches upon a local ecological problem—at-risk species in Mammoth Cave, coal ash in Kingston, Tennessee, climate change in the Nantahala National Forest, water wars in Georgia, aquifer depletion in Florida—that resonates across the South. Chapman delves into the region’s natural history, moving between John Muir’s vivid descriptions of a lush botanical paradise and the myriad environmental problems facing the South today. Along the way he talks to locals with deep ties to the land—scientists, hunters, politicians, and even a Muir impersonator—who describe the changes they’ve witnessed and what it will take to accommodate a fast-growing population without destroying the natural beauty and a cherished connection to nature. A Road Running Southward is part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur, and paints a picture of a South under siege. It is a passionate appeal, a call to action to save one of the loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world by understanding what we have to lose if we do nothing.
£22.98
Island Press Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America's Hometowns Through Clean Power
For decades, we’ve heard that local, renewable power is on the horizon, and cheaper technologies will one day revolutionise our energy system. Michelle Moore has spent her career proving this opportunity is already here—and any community, no matter how small, can build their own clean energy future. Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America’s Hometowns Through Clean Power is the inspiring and practical guide to igniting this transition today. In Rural Renaissance, Moore argues we don’t have to wait for new legislation or technologies to begin our work. From the White House to her hometown in rural Georgia, Moore has gathered the tools needed to bring the far-reaching benefits of clean power to small communities, particularly in rural America. In this accessible guide, Moore provides an overview of the current energy landscape, including the federal, state, and local policies that will shape each community’s unique approach. Next, she describes five pathways to clean power in rural America and strategies for achieving them, including energy efficiency, renewable power, resilience (including microgrids and battery storage), the electrification of transportation, and finally, broadband internet. Throughout this journey, Moore shares stories of challenges and successes and encourages readers to design programmes that address inequality. Clean energy shouldn’t be reserved for the wealthy or for sleek and modern city centres. Rural Renaissance offers a vision of thriving rural communities where clean power is the spark that leads to greater investment, vitality, and equity. We can start today—and this book provides the toolbox.
£26.00
Island Press Managing the Climate Crisis: Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought, and Wildfire
The climate, which had been relatively stable for centuries, is well into a new and dangerous phase. In 2020 there were 22 weather and climate disasters in the United States, which resulted in 262 deaths. Each disaster cost more than a billion dollars to repair. This dangerous trend is continuing with unprecedented heat waves, extended drought, extraordinary wildfire seasons, torrential downpours, and increased coastal and river flooding. Reducing the causes of the changing climate is the urgent global priority, but the country will be living with worsening climate disasters at least until mid-century because of greenhouse emissions already in the atmosphere. How to deal with the changing climate is an urgent national security problem affecting almost everyone. In Managing the Climate Crisis, design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw take a practical approach to addressing the inevitable and growing threats from the climate crisis using constructed and nature-based design and engineering and ordinary government programmes. They discuss adaptation and preventive measures and illustrate their implementation for seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages. The policies and investments needed to protect lives and property are affordable if they begin now, and are planned and budgeted over the next 30 years. Preventive actions can also be a tremendous opportunity, not only to create jobs, but also to remake cities and landscapes to be better for everyone. Flood defences can be incorporated into new waterfront parks. The green designs needed to control flash floods can also help shield communities from excessive heat. Combating wildfires can produce healthier forests and generate creative designs for low-ignition landscapes and more fire-resistant buildings. Capturing rainwater can make cities respond to severe weather more naturally, while conserving farmland from erosion and encouraging roof-top greenhouses can safeguard food supplies. Managing the Climate Crisis is a practical guide to managing the immediate threats from a changing climate while improving the way we live.
£26.00
Island Press Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America
Beth Hoffman was living the good life: she had a successful career as a journalist and professor, a comfortable home in San Francisco, and plenty of close friends and family. Yet in her late 40s, she and her husband decided to leave the big city and move to his family ranch in Iowa—all for the dream of becoming a farmer, to put into practice everything she had learned over decades of reporting on food and agriculture. There was just one problem: money. Half of America's two million farms made less than $300 in 2019. Between rising land costs, ever-more expensive equipment, the growing uncertainty of the climate, and few options for health care, farming today is a risky business. For many, simply staying afloat is a constant struggle. Bet the Farm chronicles this struggle through Beth’s eyes as a beginning farmer. She must contend with her father-in-law, who is reluctant to hand over control of the land. Growing oats is good for the environment but ends up being very bad for the wallet. And finding somewhere, in the midst of COVID-19, to slaughter grass-finished beef is a nightmare. The couple also must balance the books, hoping that farming isn’t a romantic fantasy that takes every cent of their savings. Even with a decent nest egg and access to land, making ends meet at times seems impossible. And Beth knows full well that she is among the privileged. If Beth can’t make it, how can farmers who confront racism, lack access to land, or don’t have other jobs to fall back on? Bet the Farm is a first-hand account of the perils of farming today and a personal exploration of more just and sustainable ways of producing food.
£20.79
Island Press Making Healthy Places, Second Edition: Designing and Building for Well-Being, Equity, and Sustainability
The first edition of Making Healthy Places offered a visionary and thoroughly researched treatment of the connections between constructed environments and human health. Since its publication over 10 years ago, the field of healthy community design has evolved significantly to address major societal problems, including health disparities, obesity, and climate change. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended how we live, work, learn, play, and travel. In Making Healthy Places, Second Edition: Designing and Building for Well-Being, Equity, and Sustainability, planning and public health experts Nisha D. Botchwey, Andrew L. Dannenberg, and Howard Frumkin bring together scholars and practitioners from across the globe in fields ranging from public health, planning, and urban design, to sustainability, social work, and public policy. This updated and expanded edition explains how to design and build places that are beneficial to the physical, mental, and emotional health of humans, while also considering the health of the planet. This edition expands the treatment of some topics that received less attention a decade ago, such as the relationship of the built environment to equity and health disparities, climate change, resilience, new technology developments, and the evolving impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the latest research, Making Healthy Places, Second Edition imparts a wealth of practical information on the role of the built environment in advancing major societal goals, such as health and well-being, equity, sustainability, and resilience. This update of a classic is a must-read for students and practicing professionals in public health, planning, architecture, civil engineering, transportation, and related fields.
£39.00
Island Press Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries: New Tools to End Hunger
In the US, there is a wide-ranging network of at least 370 food banks, and more than 60,000 hunger-relief organisations such as food pantries and meal programmes. These groups provide billions of meals a year to people in need. And yet hunger still affects one in nine Americans. Where are they going wrong? In Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries, Katie Martin argues that if handing out more and more food was the answer, we would have solved the problem of hunger decades ago. Martin instead presents a new model for charitable food, one where success is measured not by pounds of food distributed but by lives changed. The key is to focus on the root causes of hunger. When we shift our attention to strategies that build empathy, equity, and political will, we can implement real solutions. Martin shares those solutions in a warm, engaging style, with simple steps that anyone working or volunteering at a food bank or pantry can take today. Some are short-term strategies to create a more dignified experience for food pantry clients: providing client choice, where individuals select their own food, or redesigning a waiting room with better seating and a designated greeter. Some are longer-term: increasing the supply of healthy food, offering job training programs, or connecting clients to other social services. And some are big picture: joining the fight for living wages and a stronger social safety net. These strategies are illustrated through inspiring success stories and backed up by scientific research. Throughout, readers will find a wealth of proven ideas to make their charitable food organizations more empathetic and more effective. As Martin writes, it takes more than food to end hunger. Picking up this insightful, lively book is a great first step.
£20.99
Island Press Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy
The climate crisis is a crisis of leadership. Transformation to a renewable-based society requires leaders who connect social justice to climate and energy. During the Trump era, connections among white, male power; environmental destruction; and fossil fuel dependence have become more conspicuous. The inadequate and ineffective framing of climate change as a narrow, isolated, discrete problem to be "solved" by technical solutions is failing. The dominance of technocratic, white, male perspectives on climate and energy has inhibited investments in social innovations. With new leadership and diverse voices, we could strengthen climate resilience, reduce growing inequities, and promote social justice. In Diversifying Power, energy expert Jennie Stephens argues that the key to effectively addressing the climate crisis is diversifying leadership so that antiracist, feminist priorities are central. All politics is now climate politics, so all policies, from housing to health, now have to integrate climate resilience and renewable energy. Stephens takes a closer look at climate and energy leadership related to job creation and economic justice, health and nutrition, housing and transportation. She looks at why we need to resist by investing in bold diverse leadership to curb the "the polluter elite." We need to reclaim and restructure climate and energy systems so policies are explicitly linked to social, economic, and racial justices. Inspirational stories of diverse leaders who integrate antiracist, feminist values to build momentum for structural transformative change are woven throughout the book, along with Stephens' experience as a woman working on climate and energy. The shift from a divided, unequal, extractive, and oppressive society to a just, sustainable, regenerative, and healthy future has already begun. But structural change needs more bold and ambitious leaders at all levels, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with the Green New Deal, or the Secwepemc women of the Tiny House Warriors resisting the Trans Mountain pipeline. Diversifying Power offers hope and optimism. Stephens shows how anyone working on issues related to energy or climate (directly or indirectly) can leverage the power of collective action. By highlighting the creative individuals and organizations making change happen, she provides inspiration and encourages action on climate and energy justice.
£26.00
Island Press Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes: A California Study in Rebalancing the Needs of People and Nature
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. At the same time, climate change, soil degradation, and water scarcity mean that productivity of many of these lands is deteriorating. In many desert dryland regions, drinking wells are drying up and the land above them is sinking, soil salinity is increasing, and poor air quality is contributing to health problems in farm communities. "Rewilding" the least productive of these cultivated landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage from intensive agriculture. These ecological restoration efforts can recover natural diversity while guaranteeing the long-term sustainability of the remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, ground-breaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes uses the southern Central Valley of California, which is one of the most productive and important agricultural regions in the world, as a case study for returning a balance to agricultural lands and natural ecosystems. This project—one of the largest rewilding studies of its kind in dryland ecosystems—has shown that rewilding can slow desertification and provide ecosystem services, such as recharged aquifers, cleaner air, and stabilised soils, to nearby farms and communities. Chapters examine what scientists have learned about the natural history of this dryland area, how retired farmland can be successfully restored to its natural wild state, and the socioeconomic and political benefits of doing so. The book concludes with a vision of a region restored to ecological balance and equipped for inevitable climate change, allowing nature and people to prosper. The editors position the book as a case study with a programmatic approach and straightforward lessons that can be applied in similar regions around the world. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water mangers looking for inspiration and practical advice solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.
£39.00
Island Press The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man's Search for Justice
Lee Johnson was a man with simple dreams. All he wanted was a steady job and a nice home for his wife and children, something better than the hard life he knew growing up. He never imagined that he would become the face of a David-and-Goliath showdown against one of the world’s most powerful corporate giants. But a workplace accident left Lee doused in a toxic chemical and facing a deadly cancer that turned his life upside down. In 2018, the world watched as Lee was thrust to the forefront of one the most dramatic legal battles in recent history. The Monsanto Papers is the inside story of Lee Johnson’s landmark lawsuit against Monsanto. For Lee, the case was a race against the clock, with doctors predicting he wouldn’t survive long enough to take the witness stand. For the eclectic band of young, ambitious lawyers representing him, it was a matter of professional pride and personal risk, with millions of dollars and hard-earned reputations on the line. For the public at large, the lawsuit presented a question of corporate accountability. With enough money and influence, could a company endanger its customers, hide evidence, manipulate regulators, and get away with it all, for decades? Readers will be astounded by the depth of corruption uncovered, captivated by the shocking twists, and moved by Lee’s quiet determination to see justice served. With gripping narrative force that reads like fiction, The Monsanto Papers takes readers behind the scenes of a gruelling legal battle, pulling back the curtain on the frailties of the American court system and the lengths to which lawyers will go to fight corporate wrongdoing.
£26.00
Island Press Water Is for Fighting Over: And Other Myths about Water in the West
"Illuminating." --New York Times WIRED's Required Science Reading 2016 When we think of water in the West, we think of conflict and crisis. In recent years, newspaper headlines have screamed, "Scarce water and the death of California farms," "The Dust Bowl returns," "A 'megadrought' will grip U.S. in the coming decades." Yet similar stories have been appearing for decades and the taps continue to flow. John Fleck argues that the talk of impending doom is not only untrue, but dangerous. When people get scared, they fight for the last drop of water; but when they actually have less, they use less. Having covered environmental issues in the West for a quarter century, Fleck would be the last writer to discount the serious problems posed by a dwindling Colorado River. But in that time, Fleck has also seen people in the Colorado River Basin come together, conserve, and share the water that is available. Western communities, whether farmers and city-dwellers or US environmentalists and Mexican water managers, have a promising record of cooperation, a record often obscured by the crisis narrative. In this fresh take on western water, Fleck brings to light the true history of collaboration and examines the bonds currently being forged to solve the Basin's most dire threats. Rather than perpetuate the myth "Whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin' over," Fleck urges readers to embrace a new, more optimistic narrative--a future where the Colorado continues to flow.
£21.53
Island Press The Great Lakes Water Wars
For over a century the Great Lakes have been the target of controversial diversion schemes to sell, send, or ship water to thirsty communities, sometimes far from the source. In 2008, eight US states signed the historic Great Lakes Compact designed to protect the region’s precious freshwater resources. Now water diversion controversies of a different kind are pitting communities and states against one another. Will the water wars ever be settled?
£26.60
Island Press The Farm Bill: A Citizen's Guide
The Farm Bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation the American president signs. Negotiated every five to seven years, it has tremendous implications for food production, nutrition assistance, habitat conservation, international trade, and much more. Yet at nearly 1,000 pages, it is difficult to understand for policymakers, let alone citizens. In this primer, Dan Imhoff and Christina Badaracco translate all the “legalease" and political jargon into an accessible, graphics-rich 200 pages. Readers will learn the basic elements of the bill, its origins and history, and perhaps most importantly, the battles that will determine the direction of food policy in the coming years. The authors trace how the legislation has evolved, from its first incarnation during the Great Depression, to today, when America has become the world’s leading agricultural powerhouse. They explain the three main components of the bill—farm subsidies, food stamps or SNAP, and conservation programs—as well as how crucial public policies are changing. As Congress ramps up debate about the next farm bill, we all need to understand the implications of their decisions. Will there be limits on subsidies to huge agribusinesses? Can we shift toward programs that reward sustainable farming practices? Will hungry kids get the help they need? These are questions that affect not only farmers, but everyone who eats. You have a stake in the answers. The Farm Bill is your guide.
£20.99
Island Press Vacant to Vibrant: Creating Successful Green Infrastructure Networks
Potential insights and inexpensive tools for converting small, vacant lots to community green space. Vacant lots, so often seen as neighborhood blight, have the potential to be a key element of community revitalization. Sandra Albro offers practical insights through her experience leading the five-year Vacant to Vibrant project, which piloted the creation of green infrastructure networks in Gary, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York. Vacant to Vibrant provides a point of comparison among the three cities as they adapt old systems to new, green technology. Albro offers insights from every step of the Vacant to Vibrant project, including planning, design, community engagement, implementation, and maintenance successes and challenges of creating a green infrastructure network from vacant lots in neighborhoods. Landscape architects and other professionals whose work involves urban greening will learn new approaches for creating infrastructure networks and facilitating more equitable access to green space.
£20.99