Books about sustainability, nature, and the environment.
We have composed a recommended reading list for Earth Day Week 2020.
Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care »
How did we come to think of the planet and its limits as we do? Limits reclaims, redefines, and makes an impassioned plea for limits—a notion central to environmentalism—clearing them from their association with Malthusianism and the ideology and politics that go along with it. Giorgos Kallis rereads reverend-economist Thomas Robert Malthus and his legacy, separating limits and scarcity, two notions that have long been conflated in both environmental and economic thought.
"Malthus is a key figure for understanding how to survive the twenty-first century, yet Kallis shows we have spent the last two hundred years misunderstanding him. Quirky, provocative, and engaging, Limits is a must-read book for environmentalists and anti-environmentalists alike."
—Bill Adams, University of Cambridge
The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market with the Planet »
Magali A. Delmas and David Colgan argue that many green products now offer the total package—a "green bundle" that checks the environmental box, but also offers improved performance, health benefits, savings, and status. To help consumers cut through the noise and make their best decisions, we need new strategies. The award-winning The Green Bundle offers some of the best and most effective communication techniques for pushing consumers in the right direction. If you are looking to win over the convenient consumer or understand how companies can create the next tipping point in green consumption, this is the research-based, practical guide for you.
"The Green Bundle offers penetrating insight into green products, showing how businesses can fully realize this latent market. Synthesizing behavioral economics, human psychology, and basic business principals, the authors set forth a brilliant but practical guide on how to ignite consumer interest in sustainably produced goods."
—Steve McCormick, former CEO of The Nature Conservancy and former President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt »
In October 1902, the reservoir of the first Aswan Dam filled, and Egypt's relationship with the Nile River forever changed. Flooding villages of historical northern Nubia and filling the irrigation canals that flowed from the river, the perennial Nile not only reshaped agriculture and the environment, but also Egypt's colonial economy and forms of subjectivity.
Jennifer L. Derr follows the engineers, capitalists, political authorities, and laborers who built a new Nile River through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Lived Nile recounts the history and centrality of the environment to questions of politics, knowledge, and the lived experience of the human body itself.
"The Lived Nile offers a creative and smart account of a river and a nation, fluidly braiding together a history of labor, disease, and political economy, brimming with keen insight and filled with unexpected turns."
—Gregg Mitman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Can Business Save the Earth? Innovating Our Way to Sustainability »
In the award-winning Can Business Save the Earth?, Michael Lenox and Aaron Chatterji explain just how the private sector can help business leaders with developing new products, services, and business models that minimize environmental impact while driving economic growth. Many believe that markets will inevitably demand sustainable practices and force them to emerge. But Lenox and Chatterji see it differently. Based on more than a decade of research and work with companies, they argue that a bright green future is only possible with dramatic innovation across multiple sectors at the same time.
"This marvelous book unites rigorous research with in-depth examples to show how business really might be able to save the earth. It's the perfect answer to the question my students ask me all the time: How can I make a difference?"
—Rebecca M. Henderson, Harvard Business School
How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate »
This brief examines what causes people to reject or accept the scientific consensus on climate change. Synthesizing evidence from sociology, psychology, and political science, Andrew J. Hoffman lays bare the opposing cultural lenses through which science is interpreted. He then extracts lessons from major cultural shifts in the past to engender a better understanding of the problem and motivate the public to take action. The award-winning How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate makes a powerful case for a more scientifically literate public, a more socially engaged scientific community, and a more thoughtful mode of public discourse.
"This is a well-researched treatment of cultural dimensions of climate science and policy. Hoffman's ability to organize overlapping literatures into a cogent assessment of the current conditions makes for a wonderful book."
—Max Boykoff, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado-Boulder
The Grand Canyon has become a symbol of the American West—its Indian heritage, its pioneer spirit, its sublime beauty. It is one of the most photographed landmarks in America, and one of its earliest photographers was Henry G. Peabody. In 1879, Peabody was the first to use electricity to project lantern slides, becoming a father of the modern slideshow. Recognizing an opportunity to promote migration and tourism, western railroads and postcard companies hired Peabody to document the natural beauty of the American frontier. Originating from the Spatial History Project within the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford, Nicholas Bauch's Enchanting the Desert is a careful examination of Henry Peabody's early-twentieth-century slideshow of the Grand Canyon. By placing this study within the spatial framework of the Canyon itself, and embellishing Peabody's slideshow with rich overlays created through GIS mapping and virtual recreations of the canyon topography, Bauch has created a digital prototype for studying historical and cultural geography.
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