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Ecology of Everyday Life examines the ecological impulse as a 'desire for nature', a desire that emerges as people within industrial capitalist contexts respond to the personal and aesthetic, rather than the physical and political implications of ecological breakdown. While exploring the historical causes of this romantic 'desire for nature', Heller also offers a way to reconstruct ideas of both `nature' and 'desire', drawing from feminist, anarchist, and social ecological theory. She provides an activist response to ecological questions, arguing that the ecology movement too often links ecological problems to personal, psychological, and spiritual concerns, rather than to concerns of social justice. Yet rather than dismiss such personal and qualitative concerns, Heller links the desire for a more meaningful and integral quality of life to the activist impulse itself. Questioning assumptions about 'nature', 'desire', and 'the ecological agenda', the author encourages readers to consider new ways of desiring nature that entail changes not only in personal life-style and outlook, but changes in social institutions as well. Chaia Heller holds a MA in psychology and has worked for many years as a clinical social worker counselling and advocating for women struggling with issues of domestic abuse and poverty. In addition, she has had a long career as a teacher and international lecturer in the fields of social ecology and ecofeminism and is currently on the faculty at the Institute for Social Ecology. She also teaches at the University of Massachusetts where she is pursuing a PhD.
Ecology isn't just for academics; nonscientists are exposed to it every day. The squirrels in the backyard, the trees and grasses in the neighborhood, and the green energies and fossil fuels powering houses and cars are all part of ecology. Aligning with the Next Generation Science Standards by addressing the interactions, dynamics, and energy in ecosystems, this book educates readers on a variety of ecological issues, including the problems with detergents, the big deal about green plants, and why some animals don't need energy from sunlight for photosynthesis. Through relatable examples enhanced by hands-on activities, interesting sidebars, and vivid photographs, students will learn the scientific principles, implications, and breakthroughs of ecology.
Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life offers inspiring and practical guidance for reconnecting to the sacred in every day life and transforming our relationship with the Earth. Describing the power of simple, daily practices such as Walking, Gardening, Cooking with Love, and Prayer, this small book supports profound changes in how we think about and respond to the ecological crisis of our times. Our groundbreaking book, Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, (now in its second edition)—which included spiritual perspectives on climate change, species loss, deforestation, and other aspects of our present environmental crises from renowned spiritual teachers, scientists, and indigenous leaders—drew an overwhelmingly positive reaction from readers, many of whom are asking: "What can I do?" Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life answers that question with inspiring, personal anecdotes from the author—Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee—and simple practices we all can do. Rooted in the mystical foundation of the world's great spiritual traditions, with a particular connection to Sufism, these timeless practices remind readers of our deep connections to life, each other, and the Earth, and invite a return of meaning to our desecrated world. As Rumi says, "there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground," and it is this sacred ground that is calling to us, that needs our living presence, our attentiveness. This small book offers simple ways to reconnect so that we can once again feel the music, the song of our living connection with the Earth. "This small book, exquisite in its luminous simplicity, brings me home to my life. Even in a dark time, its practices center me in a sense of the sacred, our birthright." —JOANNA MACY, teacher, activist, and author of Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects “Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's book on practices for Spiritual Ecology in everyday life awakens us to the potential to take small steps towards big transformation. It overcomes the artificial divide between nature and humans, and spirituality and action. No matter who we are, where we live, these are steps each of us can take.” —VANDANA SHIVA, activist and author “A beautiful book. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart do a brilliant job sharing simple and powerful practices that help readers connect to the sacredness within nature, the earth, and our own daily lives.” —SANDRA INGERMAN, author, Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of Shamanic Life
Your house is flooded by 'unseasonal' heavy rain. What do you learn from this experience? Do you shrug your shoulders and call your insurer? Or do you choose to learn about climate change, switch to renewable energy and lobby politicians? In this insightful book, John Blewitt explores the possibilities for developing a sustainable society through 'lifelong learning' that is, learning that happens in everyday environments and activities as diverse as shopping, community, 'edutainment', information and communication technology, the internet, broadcasting, people's experience of place and space, green building, social networks and consumer culture. Drawing on a range of sociological, anthropological and educational studies as well as new research, The Ecology of Learning is ideal for educators, teachers, corporate trainers and consultants working to integrate environmental education, sustainability and innovation in non-traditional learning situations. The coverage is extensive, with an accessible but informed engagement with both theory and practice and a wide range of examples. Throughout, the voices, stories and experiences of many people are used to illustrate the ways people may reshape our understanding of learning and sustainability.
The nineteenth-century saw a significant transformation in the United States. In one short century, the nation had seen the populating of the Great Plains and West, the decimation of native Indian tribes, the growth of national transportation and communication networks, and the rise of major cities. The century also witnessed the destruction of the nation's forests, battles over land and water, and the ascent of agribusiness. With these changes in resource use patterns and values came a concordant shift in attitudes toward nature. Conservation and preservation emerged as watchwords for the 1900s. The century that started with an attitude of environmental conquest thus ended by embracing conservation and a new environmental awareness.
Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.
The rise of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century forged a new ecological order in North American and Western European states, radically transforming the environment through science and technology in the name of human progress. Far less known are the dramatic environmental changes experienced by Eastern Europe, in many ways a terra incognita for environmental historians and anthropologists. A New Ecological Order explores, from a historical and ethnographic perspective, the role of state planners, bureaucrats, and experts—engineers, agricultural engineers, geographers, biologists, foresters, and architects—as agents of change in the natural world of Eastern Europe from 1870 to the early twenty-first century. Contributors consider territories engulfed by empires, from the Habsburg to the Ottoman to tsarist Russia; territories belonging to disintegrating empires; and countries in the Balkan Peninsula, Central and Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. Together, they follow a rhetoric of “correcting nature,” a desire to exploit the natural environment and put its resources to work for the sake of developing the economies and infrastructures of modern states. They reveal an eagerness among newly established nation-states, after centuries of imperial economic and political impositions, to import scientific knowledge and new technologies from Western Europe that would aid in their economic development, and how those imports and ideas about nature ultimately shaped local projects and policies.
Our Unsustainable Life: Why We Can't Have Everything We Want With the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the 19thCentury, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduced. The authors show that they are a main driver of the ecological crisis and economic and political instability. The Imperial Mode of Living implies that people's everyday practices, including individual and societal orientations, as well as identities, rely heavily on the unlimited appropriation of resources; a disproportionate claim on global and local ecosystems and sinks; and cheap labour from elsewhere. This availability of commodities is largely organised through the world market, backed by military force and/or the asymmetric relations of forces as they have been inscribed in international institutions. Moreover, the Imperial Mode of Living implies asymmetrical social relations along class, gender and race within the respective countries. Here too, it is driven by the capitalist accumulation imperative, growth-oriented state policies and status consumption. The concrete production conditions of commodities are rendered invisible in the places where the commodities are consumed. The imperialist world order is normalized through the mode of production and living.
Winner, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award in Politics/Current Events: A systems theorist and a legal scholar present a new paradigm for protecting our planet. This is the first book to trace the fascinating parallel history of law and science from antiquity to modern times, showing how the two disciplines have always influenced each other—until recently. In the past few decades, science has shifted from seeing the natural world as a kind of cosmic machine best understood by analyzing each cog and sprocket to a systems perspective that views the world as a vast network of fluid communities and studies their dynamic interactions. The concept of ecology exemplifies this approach. But law is stuck in the old mechanistic paradigm: The world is simply a collection of discrete parts, and ownership of these parts is an individual right, protected by the state. Fritjof Capra, physicist, systems theorist, and bestselling author of The Tao of Physics, and distinguished legal scholar Ugo Mattei show that this obsolete worldview has led to overconsumption, pollution, and a general disregard on the part of the powerful for the common good. Capra and Mattei outline the basic concepts and structures of a legal order consistent with the ecological principles that sustain life on Earth that better addresses many of the economic and social crises we face today. This is a visionary reconceptualization of the very foundations of the Western legal system, a kind of Copernican revolution in the law, with profound implications for the future of our planet. “Thoughtful . . . The authors propose a philosophy and jurisprudence that is deeply radical—upending centuries of Western tradition and culture—but possibly crucial to solving looming environmental problems.” —Publishers Weekly
In the 150 years since Darwin, evolutionary biology has proven as essential as it is controversial, a critical concept for answering questions about everything from the genetic code and the structure of cells to the reproduction, development, and migration of animal and plant life. But today, as David P. Mindell makes undeniably clear in The Evolving World, evolutionary biology is much more than an explanatory concept. It is indispensable to the world we live in. This book provides the first truly accessible and balanced account of how evolution has become a tool with applications that are thoroughly integrated, and deeply useful, in our everyday lives and our societies, often in ways that we do not realize. When we domesticate wild species for agriculture or companionship; when we manage our exposure to pathogens and prevent or control epidemics; when we foster the diversity of species and safeguard the functioning of ecosystems: in each of these cases, Mindell shows us, evolutionary biology applies. It is at work when we recognize that humans represent a single evolutionary family with variant cultures but shared biological capabilities and motivations. And last but not least, we see here how evolutionary biology comes into play when we use knowledge of evolution to pursue justice within the legal system and to promote further scientific discovery through education and academic research. More than revealing evolution's everyday uses and value, The Evolving World demonstrates the excitement inherent in its applications--and convinces us as never before that evolutionary biology has become absolutely necessary for human existence.