Books, Nonfiction, Urban Planning & Development, Environmental Planning

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Rose George
The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
by Metropolitan Books (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-10-14)

An utterly original exploration of the world of human waste that will surprise, outrage—and entertainProduced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, and hidden by euphemism, bodily waste is something common to all and as natural as breathing, yet we prefer not to talk about it. But we should—even those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary conditions. For it’s not only in developing countries that human waste is a major public health threat: population growth is taxing even the most advanced sewage systems, and the disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, 1.95 million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable.The Big Necessity takes aim at the taboo, revealing everything that matters about how people do—and don’t—deal with their own waste. Moving from the deep underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York—an infrastructure ...

Daniel C. Esty, Andrew S. Winston
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
by Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD (CD) (Release Date: 2009-01-12)

Green to Gold is an essential guide for forward-thinking business leaders who see the Green Wave coming and want to profit from it. This audio explores what every executive must know to manage the environmental challenges facing society and business. Based on the authors’ years of experience and hundreds of interviews with corporate leaders around the world, Green to Gold, shows how companies generate lasting value – cutting costs, reducing risk, increasing revenues, and creating strong brands – by building environmental thinking into their business strategies. Green to Gold is written for executives at every level and for businesses of all kinds and sizes. Esty and Winston guide leaders through a complex new world of resource shortfalls, regulatory restrictions, and growing pressure from customers and other stakeholders to strive for sustainability. With a sharp focus on execution, Esty and Winston offer a hard-hitting yet inspiring road map that companies can use to cope ...

Peter M. Senge, Bryan Smith, Sara Schley, Joe Laur, ...
The Necessary Revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world.
by US Green Building Council (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-06-10)

Imagine a world in which the excess energy from one business would be used to heat another. Where buildings need less and less energy around the world, and where “regenerative” commercial buildings – ones that create more energy than they use – are being designed. A world in which environmentally sound products and processes would be more cost-effective than wasteful ones. A world in which corporations such as Costco, Nike, BP, and countless others are forming partnerships with environmental and social justice organizations to ensure better stewardship of the earth and better livelihoods in the developing world. Now, stop imagining – that world is already emerging.A revolution is underway in today’s organizations. As Peter Senge and his co-authors reveal in The Necessary Revolution, companies around the world are boldly leading the change from dead-end “business as usual” tactics to transformative strategies that are essential for creating a flourishing, ...

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
by North Point Press (Hardcover)

A manifesto by America's most controversial and celebrated town planners, proposing an alternative model for community design.There is a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and to replace the automobile-based settlement patterns of the past fifty years with a return to more traditional planning principles. This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day.Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is ...

Rowan Jacobsen
Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis
by Bloomsbury USA (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-09-16)

How the disappearance of the world’s honeybee population puts the food we eat at risk. Many people will remember that Rachel Carson predicted a silent spring, but she also warned of a fruitless fall, a time when “there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.” The fruitless fall nearly became a reality last year when beekeepers watched one third of the honeybee population—thirty billion bees—mysteriously die. The deaths have continued in 2008. Rowan Jacobsen uses the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder to tell the bigger story of bees and their’ essential connection to our daily lives. With their disappearance, we won’t just be losing honey. Industrial agriculture depends on the honeybee to pollinate most fruits, nuts, and vegetables—one third of American crops. Yet this system is falling apart. The number of these professional pollinators has become so inadequate that they are now trucked across the country and flown around the world, pushing them ever ...

Roger A. Hinrichs
Energy (Saunders Golden Sunburst Series)
by Harcourt School (Paperback)

ENERGY: ITS USE AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Third Edition is an introductory textbook that emphasizes the physical principles behind energy and its effects on our environment. It can be used in physics, technology, physical science, and environmental science courses for non-science majors. Many of the standard topics found in introductory physics textbooks are included. As a result, this book can be used as the text in a conceptual physics course with energy as the central theme. Much of the pedagogy used comes from a one-semester general education course the authors have taught at State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oswego, over the past 20 years. No math or other science prerequisite is necessary.

Thomas M. Kostigen
You Are Here: Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet
by HarperOne (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-09-23)

In this groundbreaking book, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Green Book Thomas M. Kostigen reveals the vital missing link in today's environmental crisis: how we as individuals are connected to the most tenuous geography on the planet. Despite the recent prominence of "green" issues in the news, the direct relationship between our actions and the earth is too often ignored. But the seemingly insignificant things we do every day have the power to literally alter the landscape in the ongoing battle to resuscitate the planet. There are living narratives of climate change that reveal the consequences of our everyday actions. You Are Here allows us to both comprehend and care about what's happening in these encampments of ruin. Kostigen shows us what may well be a glimpse of our future in Linfen City, China, one of the most polluted places on the planet. From a garbage patch twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to the melting arctic ice shelf, ...

Riki Ott
Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
by Chelsea Green Publishing (Paperback)

In the early 1970s, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens promised Cordova fishermen "not one drop" of oil would be spilled in Prince William Sound from proposed tanker traffic and the trans-Alaska pipeline project. Fishermen knew better. Spanning nearly 40 years, Not One Drop is an extraordinary tale of ordinary people who take on the world’s richest oil companies and most powerful politicians to protect Prince William Sound from oil accidents.Author Riki Ott, a rare combination of commercial salmon "fisherma'am" and PhD marine biologist, describes the firsthand impact of this broken promise when the Exxon Valdez oil spill decimated Cordova, Alaska, a small commercial fishing community set in 38,000 square miles of rugged Alaska wilderness.Ott illustrates in stirring fashion the oil industry'’s 20-year trail of pollution and deception that led to the tragic 1989 spill and delves deep into the disruption to the fishing community for the next 10 years. In vivid detail, she describes the ...

Al Gore
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit
by Rodale Books (Paperback) (Release Date: 2006-10-31)

Re-released on the heels of Al Gores #1 New York Times bestseller, An Inconvenient Truth, comes the paperback edition of his classic bestseller, Earth in the Balance. First published in 1992, it helped place the environment on the national agenda; now, as environmental issues move front-and-center in the public consciousness, the time is right to reflect deeply on the fate of our planet and commit ourselves to its future. While An Inconvenient Truth closely examines one menace to our environmentglobal warmingEarth in the Balance takes a broader approach, focusing on the threats that everyday choices pose to our climate, water, soil, and diversity of plant and animal life. A passionate, lifelong defender of the environment, Gore describesin brave and unforgettable termshow human actions and decisions can endanger or safeguard the vulnerable ecosystem that sustains us.

Graham Hill, Meaghan O'Neill
Ready, Set, Green: Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living
by Villard (Paperback) (Release Date: 2008-05-20)

The time to save the planet is now. Ready? Set? Green! Living green means reversing climate change, but it also means protecting your kids and pets, improving your own health, and saving money. And it doesn’t necessarily demand a radical overhaul of your life–just some simple adjustments, such as switching to healthier cleaning products and driving fewer miles each week. Written by the visionaries at Treehugger.com, the most heavily trafficked site of its kind, Ready, Set, Green is the definitive (and recyclable) guide to modern green living. It offers solutions to make your home, office, car, and vacation more eco-friendly. For example: • Using a dishwasher instead of hand washing will save you 5,000 gallons of water annually.• Eating less beef will save you 250 pounds of CO2 per year.• Washing your clothes in cold water instead of hot will save 200 pounds of CO2 annually.• Replacing three of your home’s most frequently used lightbulbs with compact fluorescent ...

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