Book Description

This book proposes a new approach to helping communities worldwide create healthier and cleaner living environments.

Just and Lasting Change presents how to transform communities rapidly and in locally appropriate ways. Daniel Taylor-Ide and Carl Taylor have been present at key events and worked with key thinkers in dealing with the large forces of inequity, environmental change, and globalization. The approach they have synthesized builds on what has worked over the last century—and can now be implemented rapidly and cost-effectively in many parts of the world. It relies on a three-way partnership of "bottom-up" initiatives from the community level, "top-down" support from government agencies, and "outside-in" ingenuity and objectivity from experts.Based on both a diverse range of case studies—from the earliest attempts to promote social development in India a century ago to current efforts in Tibet, the Peruvian Andes, China, and the American Southwest—and engaging personal experiences, this book describes, step-by-step, how SEED-SCALE can be effectively implemented.

With contributions from leading international experts in community-based development and public health, Just and Lasting Change offers a hopeful description of how people have made a difference in diverse communities around the world and a practical, accessible handbook for those trying to improve the quality of life in underdeveloped communities everywhere. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

new Reformation
As we watch news reports of the world in chaos and trouble this Book offers not just salve to ease the pain of some of these small communties but also real solution as they being to restore their dignity with justice for all involved.
The Model SEED/Scale is one that I believe should be studied and applied in some of the rural areas, small towns in this part of Southwest Oklahoma. This method is about a reformation of attitude, self-awareness , and possibilites for growth and change bringing the best healthiest new life possible.
I think that Churches could apply the model as well as a way to restoring justice and change withn themselves and within the communities they serve. Revitalization is something that churches in rural arears everywhere talk about I believe this model could be applied with success.
This book should have a broad readership. It could help change the world.
Rev. Bobbie G. McGarey, Southwest Oklahoma Presbyerian Parish Pastor, Frederick, Temple, Walters, Chattanooga, and Grandfield. Oklahoma.

A methodology for durable social change in poor communities
The poor communities of the world are, unfortunately, a laboratory for many thousands of mostly failed experiments in how to improve their situation. This important and valuable book builds on decades of practical experience by the authors in the successful, durable transformation of poor communities. The authors' key insights are (1) the necessity for change to be driven by the collaboration of the community, outside experts, and local government; (this may seem obvious, but many projects fail because they treat one of these three groups as an enemy or obstacle rather than a vital element), (2) to have measurable results, (3) to use the power of the community to modify behavior that is an obstacle to success. This book should be read by donors as well as those directly involved in development activities such as community leaders, government officials, and NGO workers. ... Read more

Book Description

The average cost of a worker fall is $12,470, increasing to over $26,000 when lost production and other costs are factored in.At a profit margin of 10%, more than $250,000 of revenue needs to be generated to cover a single slip/fall loss.Costsare higher for falls sustained by the public.Slip and Fall Prevention: A Practical Handbook responds by providing safety engineers and claims professionals with a one-stop guide to preventing and responding to slip and falls. This overview provides specific guidelines for facility design, effective management control programs, and test methods for pedestrian safety and slip resistance. In addition to exposure analysis of high-risk businesses, situations, and locations, the handbook also describes procedures for reporting, investigating, and mitigating incidents. Equipped with the information in this reference, businesses will be prepared to identify and manage factors contributing to slip and falls, reducing exposure to these frequent and costly losses ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Excellent reference
Di Pilla's book is an excellent reference for anyone truly interested in addressing slip/fall concerns. This book presents a scientific description of slip resistance measurement, methods for ensuring accurate and repeatable quantification of slip resistance, and recommendations for maintaining slip-resistant workplaces. I highly recommend this text for anyone serious about controlling slip/fall hazards. The illustrations and photos are excellent and the text is clear and direct. If your work requires the investigation, correction, or litigation of slip/fall accidents, this book belongs on your reference shelf.

Comprehensive, trustworthy information, an important book!
Di Pilla covers the full spectrum of slip and fall prevention, including theory, standards, testing, and design considerations. This book, along with Turnbow's "Slip and fall practice", represent the most comprehensive and honest treatment of the topic. Beware some other books on this topic that are put forth by those with hidden agendas. The area of slip resistance measurement in particular is fraught with controversy, and relying on a simple web search will return as much inaccurate and misleading information it does anything of any use. If your work or study involves the prevention of slips and falls, this book is an absloute necessity.

"THE" Definitive Text
A superior reference. Written clearly and concisely, it provides practical guidance in all aspects of slip and fall prevention, investigation, and mitigation. Well organized and structured. Thorough discussions of physical and operational controls to minimize the likelihood of a fall for workers and the public.

Slip and Fall Prevention
An excellent on-stop guide to slip and fall prevention. Excellent text supported by very well done photographs. Snapshots of hazards and controls makes for a well rounded reference. ... Read more

Book Description

This book covers the public health, technical, socioeconomic, sociocultural and institutional aspects of sanitation in towns and cities of developing countries. The text features excreta-related diseases and the use of sanitation to reduce their transmission. The sanitation technologies covered in detail are VIP latrines, pour-flush toilets, septic tanks, settled sewerage and simplified sewerage, with additional chapters on sullage disposal, pit emptying, and sewage treatment and reuse. Sociocultural constraints on sanitation systems and their socioeconomic costing are described, together with hygiene education, which is essential in order to achieve maximum benefits to health. The text also explains how to choose the most appropriate sanitation option for a given low-income community. Finally, institutional aspects are reviewed, including effective sanitation programme planning, monitoring and evaluation. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Taking the shock out of the future
From Enron to the September 11, 2001 disasters, it is apparent things are changing in our world, much as we would like to keep things as they were.

In "The Prosperous Way Down" H.T. Odum does not give us feel-good babble.

Instead, he delivers to us a coherent and timely way to do the hard work of knowing how our world works, the changes that are already upon us, and some of the things we may do to increase our opportunity for security and satisfaction in a world that may be very different from what we know today.

There is a lot of contention about Odum and his eMergy methodology. This is to be expected. Odum brings things together, where others are content to be expert with parts.

The bottom line is that with the intellectual tools Odum lets us discover, we can learn to manage far more complexity than any would normally think possible. He lets us first recognize the problems we have with the signals our society sends out through economic and other circumstances of social behavior. And then the tools he provides let us clean up those signals, so we may make better use of the energy and other resources, the environment, and all the benefits (and problems) inherent in our diverse cultures.

The difficulty in all this is indicated by the fact that there is no Nobel prize for looking at the whole of our world. Those fabulous awards go to those who are very good at knowing parts, with very little idea of how the parts come together.

Instead, there is the very quiet Crafoord Prize for those who try to let us know more about the systems of our world--which of course H.T. Odum and his brother Eugene won back in the early 1980s. ... Read more

Book Description

A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. In both cases, it is friction that produces movement, action, effect. Challenging the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a "clash" of cultures, anthropologist Anna Tsing here develops friction in its place as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world.

She focuses on one particular "zone of awkward engagement"--the rainforests of Indonesia--where in the 1980s and the 1990s capitalist interests increasingly reshaped the landscape not so much through corporate design as through awkward chains of legal and illegal entrepreneurs that wrested the land from previous claimants, creating resources for distant markets. In response, environmental movements arose to defend the rainforests and the communities of people who live in them. Not confined to a village, a province, or a nation, the social drama of the Indonesian rainforest includes local and national environmentalists, international science, North American investors, advocates for Brazilian rubber tappers, UN funding agencies, mountaineers, village elders, and urban students, among others--all combining in unpredictable, messy misunderstandings, but misunderstandings that sometimes work out.

Providing a portfolio of methods to study global interconnections, Tsing shows how curious and creative cultural differences are in the grip of worldly encounter, and how much is overlooked in contemporary theories of the global.

... Read more

Book Description

A wide-ranging, but thoroughly accessible, critiqueof the dominant political ideology and cultural sensibilities of the capitalist West.Its analysis centres on an unpicking of two foundational principles of capitalism: the need for economic growth and, secondarily, the importance of progress. Successive chapters explore and criticise key aspects of western society: consumerism, attitudes to work, government (especially ‘third way’ social democracy) and our treatment of the environment. In the final chapter, the author gives a sketch of an alternative post-growth society.

Growth Fetish is a powerful and highly readable synthesis of critiques of Western society under capitalism from a variety of angles - economic, cultural, environmental, philosophical - and its range is impressive. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Must read - must act
Extraordinarily insightful - significant and urgent.As a 'civilised' society we must dampen the motivation of self interest and greed at the expense of all else (relationships, environment and happiness).This book describes in detail the roots of our unhappiness 'the prisoners of plenty' and seeks to describe a way forward.It will capture your imagination and stir you to reassess your definition of success.

Easily the most signifcant book I have read and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Enjoy and hopefully our 'advanced' human race can evolve to a society that promotes and supports the full realisation of human potential for all.

Growth Fetish
Trained in economics and politics, Dr Clive Hamilton is Executive Director of The Australia Institute, an independent Australian public interest think tank. For the first time his book clearly analyses the current world-wide fetish for mistakenly equating economic growth with improvement in wellbeing and outlines his illuminating view of the "post-growth society". For instance, he states:- "The transition to a post-growth society will be just as far-reaching as the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism or from industrial capitalism to consumer capitalism. It will fundamentally transform power relationships, social institutions, our relationships with others, our ethical rules, our attitudes to the natural environment and, ultimately, our consciousness."

This book demonstrates integrative thinking of a high order and is a welcome change from the plethora of writing that is full of critical thinking about world affairs but does little to suggest a way forward for the growing number of people who feel there is more to life than increased consumption.

I believe it is a "must read" for thinkers in all fields everywhere. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

McGoverns analyses poor - some historical data interesting
McGoverns analyses seem to dwell more on justifying his actions in EPAthan in providing the positions of the protaganists.He sets himself up asthe great neutral party but he clearly thought it was his role to determineif the Campos had proven themselves "worthy" of treatment as agovernment.This was a clear violation of the policy of "governmentto government" that the federal government had directed Mr. McGovernto follow. Some of the factual accounts and history were interesting. The California Indian history was especially interesting, but what was therelevance?It seemed that he was making the implication that the Indianswere trying to put ina dump in revenge for past slights yet he puts nomeat on the implication. This seems to demonstrate a prejudice he neverquite overcame. ... Read more

Book Description

The transformation from a carbon-based world economy to one based on high efficiency and renewables is a necessary step if human society is to achieve sustainability. But while scientists and researchers have made significant advances in energy efficiency and renewable technologies in recent years, consumers have yet to see dramatic changes in the marketplace?due in large part to government policies and programs that favor the use of fossil fuels.

Energy Revolution examines the policy options for mitigating or removing the entrenched advantages held by fossil fuels and speeding the transition to a more sustainable energy future, one based on improved efficiency and a shift to renewable sources such as solar, wind, and bioenergy. The book:

• examines today's energy patterns and trends and their consequences
• describes the barriers to a more sustainable energy future and how those barriers can be overcome
• provides ten case studies of integrated strategies that have been effective in different parts of the world
• examines international policies and institutions and recommends ways they could be improved
• reviews global trends that suggest that the transition to renewables and increased efficiency is underway and is achievable

Reviews (2)

a pragmatic approach to renewable energy in the U.S.
"Energy Revolution" presents a sensible strategy for promoting the necessary transition to renewable energy in the U.S. I would say the title is misleading (revolution?), but even sensible reforms seem like revolutionary changes in the face of the entrenched power of the oil companies, auto industry, nuclear power lobby, and the rest of the empire of the fossil fuel status quo.

Howard Geller is an old hand and an expert in the field -- he headed the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy for two decades in Washington D.C. He has stepped out of the Beltway, and is now Director of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project based in Boulder. With that background, you can bet he knows what we're up against.

The core of Geller's book are his presentations of Clean Energy scenarios for the U.S. and Brazil, where he studied. His U.S. scenario has 10 policies:

1) increase passenger vehicle fuel economy standards,

2) establish a national system benefits trust fund (a utility surcharge used to promote energy efficiency),

3) adopt voluntary agreements to reduce industrial energy use,

4) establish a renewable energy portfolio standard for power generators,

5) adopt new appliance efficiency standards and stronger building codes,

6) provide tax incentives for innovative renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies,

7) expand federal R&D and deployment programs,

8) remove barriers to combined heat and power systems,

9) establish reneawable or carbon content standards for vehicle fuel, and

10) strengthen emissions standards on coal-fired plants.

Geller calculates that the impact of these policies would be a $600 billion cost and a $1200 billion savings, for a net savings of $600 billion compared to a baseline scenario of continued promotion of fossil fuels. He knows that this economic analysis is critical, given that the fossil fuel lobby will try to portray renewable energy as more costly. Notice that Geller avoids proposing any sort of energy or CO2 emissions tax -- such "green taxes" are already being used to great effect in Europe, but Geller is experienced and pragmatic enough to know that the U.S., the land of cheap gas, long distances and gas-guzzling SUVs, requires a different approach.

Much more could be said about this excellent book. But given the political campaign now going on, let me add a word about Democratic political strategy and vision. The current debate is over who will do a better job of keeping gas prices low. Kerry is certainly realistic in this, and I hope he wins in November -- with Bush/Cheney and the oil industry in the saddle, renewable energy is going nowhere. But keeping gas cheap is doing nothing to encourage renewable energy -- it's sending the wrong price signal. Kerry needs to go on the offensive, making the case that we've got to rapidly wean ourselves from oil for the sake of national security as well as ecological survival. His policy team should take a look at the bold program of the Apollo Project, which includes major labor unions -- a proposed all-out push for renewable energy comparable to the 1960s race to the moon. This would create jobs and revitalize the economy while making the environment cleaner and making the U.S. self-sufficient in energy. Put Bush on the defensive! Renewable energy needs to become the focus of a mass movement, starting now.

For a truly revolutionary strategy for renewable energy, see "The Solar Economy" by Herman Scheer, a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, and a Social Democrat (SPD) -- see my review.

Energy Revolution - an inspiring, practical vision
I would recommend "Energy Revolution" to anyone interested in energy policy. Howard Geller provides an inspired, yet extremely practical and down to earth vision of a path towards sustainable energy use. It is an understatement to say that most people in the energy industry assume that energy demand will continue to grow, and that the increasing supply needs should be met mainly through a mix of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. To successfully debate with the tremendous inertia of this business as usual view, it will be extremely valuable and essential to have available the depth of research and documentation that Geller provides in this book.

Of course all discussions of future energy use scenarios are debatable, but Geller provides numerous examples of policies to promote efficiency and renewables that are currently in use in various countries, as well as the successes and results they have achieved. The bottom line is that an intelligent and rational energy policy in the U.S. or any country would consider the least-cost options to meeting energy needs (including social and environmental costs as much as possible). Analyzed in this way, policies to encourage energy efficiency and renewable sources are clear winners, more often than not. As Geller clearly illustrates, the main obstacles to more sustainable energy use are not technical, but a variety of other obstacles that can be overcome through different types of policy instruments. However, there are also serious political obstacles to smarter energy policies. For example, U.S. oil and automotive companies continue to oppose and successfully block any new standards for increasing the fuel-efficiency of cars and trucks, in order to increase their own short-term profits and despite the negative impacts of wasteful U.S. oil consumption.

Even many people with only a moderate interest in energy policy would enjoy the reading at least the first and last chapters of Geller's book. Hopefully, "Energy Revolution" will become an important part of rational discussions of energy policy issues by policy- makers, researchers, progressive business leaders, students, and informed citizens for at least the next several years. ... Read more

Book Description

The mineral economies are an important group of developing countries which have suffered a "resource curse" over the past 20 years--showing a poorer performance than resource-deficient neighbors. This book draws upon case-studies and analysis of nine countries to demonstrate the difficulties currently faced and the policies which will be required in the future in order to take advantage of finite mineral resources to maintain the economic and social conditions for sustaining growth. ... Read more

Book Description

The road to global security," writes Jeremy Rifkin, "lies in lessening our dependence on Middle East oil and making sure that all people on Earth have access to the energy they need to sustain life. Weaning the world off oil and turning it toward hydrogen is a promissory note for a safer world."Rifkin's international bestseller The Hydrogen Economy presents the clearest, most comprehensive case for moving ourselves away from the destructive and waning years of the oil era toward a new kind of energy regime. Hydrogen-one of the most abundant substances in the universe-holds the key, Rifkin argues, to a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable world. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

Too little discussion about hydrogen production
This book does a great job of defining the energy dilemma especially the upcoming "Peak Oil" issues. It also does a great job of providing a historical context of our energy usage patterns, showing how energy use is intimately tied to material progress.

The uses of hydrogen as a fuel and its effectiveness is defined well.

So what is wrong?

Well, most people who have even taken high school chemistry have a passing acquaintance wiht hydrogen, its cleanliness and its simplicity. So, this is not a great strength in my opinion.

The real problem is Rifkin does not define how hydrogen can be produced or distributed efficiently, and without that, there is no real hydrogen vision at all. He uses a scant 8 pages to define alternatives for generation of hydrogen for instance. Yet, this is the essential mystery, and he does not resolve it! If hydrogen just becomes an energy transfer medium, like electricity, then it does nothing to resolve the scarcity or environmental problems of fossil fuels. I also found Rifkin's uses of some units of measurement showed him to be an amateur. Several times he mixed up units of work with power, a common enough error, but a dead giveaway against someone who purports to be an energy expert.

The Hydrogen Economy
I bought this book thinking that it would be somewhat different from what it actually is. This is more of an oil-history book until the last two chapters. The first seven chapters slowly build up to doomsday-esque scenarios. While they may never come true, it is certainly instructive to think about them because if we do nothing then they will come true. We need some scaring so that we can kick the H2 research into overdrive before it really is too late.

The Future of Energy
Jeremy Rifkin's book _The Hydrogen Economy_ explains the current fossil-fuel economy and how it got to where it is today and how it's going to be replaced. One interesting aspect of our modern system Rifkin points out is that with the advent of fossil-fuels current farmers put in more energy into producing their crops then they get out of them. This fact points to a larger point that Rifkin makes in the book. The energy balance of a civilization must be maintained for that civilization to survive as such. When a civilization can no longer take in enough energy the civilization will collapse. Rifkin also argues that the more energy a civilization can get and use the more powerful the civilization will be. I'm don't think that energy alone is what makes a civilization more powerful but it is an integral part of power. With fossil fuels our civilization uses more energy faster then any civilization in history. Rifkin also points out that as civilizations mature more and more energy is needed to maintain a civilization and that civilizations have much more difficult energy problems growing and developing more infrastructure.
The book points out several problems with the current system. One problem or potential problem is the threat from Islamic Fundamentalists. This threat could come in the form of sabotage of oil and other fossil fuel infrastructure. The threat could also come from the outright revolt and overthrow of regimes friendly to the US and are major producers of oil. If an Islamic Fundamentalist regime took control of Saudi Arabia for example they could cut the world off from the oil there or raise the price enough to hurt the world economy significantly. Another problem with the current energy system pointed out in the book is the dwindling of oil in the world. This seems to be the biggest problem. As oil becomes scarcer the price will rise. This will create major problems for our society and the world.
The solution to these and other energy problems including global warming is hydrogen. Rifkin explains how hydrogen can be used to store energy generated by non-polluting renewable systems. The ability to store energy generated from renewable sources is essential if these systems are going to replace fossil fuel energy regimes. Hydrogen according to Rifkin will also give people control over their own energy. Hydrogen will allow people to become less or non-reliant on the current centralized energy system.
This book is easy to read and can be understood by everybody even if you have a minimal background in the sciences. The book doesn't get very technical and doesn't try to explain the technical aspects of a switch to hydrogen, which is a good thing for people like me who don't have much of a background in the sciences. Rifkin spends much of the book explaining how fossil fuels changed society and how the switch to hydrogen will change society again.

Rifkin's got the right basic idea
Jeremy Rifkin's latest effort at popularization tackles the energy problem, which never went away, but is back on everyone's mind after 9/11. He has the right idea, which is a shift to renewable energy, using solar and other sources to create clean hydrogen fuel as a replacement for oil. He goes further, proposing that the creation of a decentralized "energy web" based on local inputs from fuel-cells and PVCs will make giant energy companies obsolete. As others have noted, all this is only sketched in the last two chapters -- the first seven chapters focus on the problem of non-renewable fossil fuels. This first part of the book is fine -- incredibly important -- but it means that the title is quite misleading. And the fact that oil is running out is dealt with much more thoroughly in Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over" (see my review).

The Bush Administration recently announced funding for hydrogen auto research. This is good, but only symbolic, while the priority is still on oil and nuclear power. What is needed is more than symbolism -- we've got to shift gears to make renewable energy the absolute top priority. We have only a short window to use the remaining fossil fuels to build the renewable energy infrastructure. We're going to make an energy transition of one sort or another, but the one we're headed for is not the one we would choose if we were paying attention (ie, post-oil collapse).

The Hydrogen Economy - Hard facts
Jeremiah Rifkin's book "The Hydrogen Economy" does not give what its title promises.
Most of the book is devoted to historical, political, social considerations, most of which I find well written and even convincing, but which have nothing to do with hydrogen.
However, to me as an engineer, his recourse to thermodynamics to explain the fall of past civilizations appears ludicrous and unnecessary - there is no need to appeal to thermodynamics to make us understand that our world will collapse if it will run short of reasonably cheap energy.
Whether the production of liquid fuels and natural gas will peak within the time frames advocated by Rifkin, or at some other time, there is no doubt in my mind that it will peak, and that well before that time the world must start to convert to renewable energies (assuming that energy from nuclear fusion is still far away from being harnessed).
However Rifkin sees everything easy and cheap. In his chapter on Reglobalization from the Bottom up he advocates the installation of fuel cells in every household or neighbourhood or community, but he seems to forget that "upstream" of each fuel cell there must be a power generator (wind turbine or photo-voltaic cell), electrolytic cells to produce hydrogen and a hydrogen storage facility. Scale economies will certainly reduce the cost of these commodities, but in my mind it is difficult to think that with their combined cost, and the energy losses that will be incurred at each step (electricity to hydrogen gas, hydrogen gas to stored hydrogen, hydrogen to electricity) electricity generation will be cheaper than present day cost from fuel or gas fired power plants.
Also the numbers are staggering. Rifkin writes "Providing these 100 million (per year) new users with an average per capita consumption of electricity equivalent to what US consumers enjoyed in 195 would require the creation of 10 million megawatts of new electricity capacity globally by 2005". Should this capacity have to be provided entirely by renewable sources, as a rough order of magnitude this would require the installation of either:
- From 300 to 500 million 300 KW capacity wind turbines, or
- from 1 to 1.5 million square kilometres of photovoltaic cells
All the above seems to me quite sobering. Particularly the shift to renewable energy sources does not give many hopes to be a way "to lift billions of people out of poverty". Therefore I cannot be as optimistic as Rifkin does - however I share with him the conviction that the shift to these sources is inevitable, and that the world must brace itself to meet the challenges and sacrifices that it will entail. The sooner, the better. ... Read more

Book Description

Environmental Economics distinguishes itself from other books by presupposing that readers already have an understanding of intermediate microeconomics. Thus, this book concentrates only on environmental economics--problems of pollution of earth, air, and water--with an emphasis on regulation and private-sector anti-pollution incentives. Coverage also includes international examples. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great introduction to Environmental Economics .
Actual rating - 4.5 stars .

I read this book as a must-read for the Environmental Economics course I had taken in the beginning of the last semester . I think this book is a great choice for students that are interested in this topic . Myself , I didn't know what to expect in the beginning of the course , but it turned up to be a surprisingly interesting and important issue - with the good help of this book .

I have to say that I've learned a lot from reading this book , and it has been a pleasant experience too . Professor Kolstad has really accomplished a commendable achievement in writing a fluent , methodical , thorough and interesting book about Environmental Economics , nearly everyone who wishes to , can read and understand .

I say it as a student who hasn't read other works on the subject , but nevertheless , feels this book has many pluses as an introduction to this subject :

- The author , in spite of announcing it is a book for persons that have taken an Intermediate Microeconomics courses , makes far-reaching efforts to explain nearly every statement he proclaimed . This is a good feature students can use for reviewing forgotten material , deleting the need to use more fundamental books for understanding .

- Significant number of chapters includes a small use of mathematic tools . This fact is of considerable help for the layman , who is interested in expending horizons and lacks the necessary mathematical skills .

I believe the following points characterize many tutorials , but it's important to note them anyway;

- Every figure the author uses is accompanied with detailed explanations that enhance the reader's ability to understand the sketch and the whole subject while at it .

- Every chapter includes an introduction and a summery . The first connects the chapter to the previous one , and assists in grasping the place it takes in the big picture of things , while the second one summarize the major issues dealt with . This functions organize the material and construct an understandable structure of knowledge .

- One last thing , that consists an advantage constructed with disadvantage is the appearance of questions and problems in the end of each chapter , in the obvious order to help you check out your understanding , but with the irritating absence of answers and solutions (!) . What's the point in composing personal examinations without any achievable , certified solutions ? How can I know I am right ? I recommend authors to annex a booklet/extra pages with the correct answers , along with a full description of the way to the solution plus explanations - if you include such a tutorial tool in your book - do it right .

Excluding the last disadvantage , I'm most pleased with this book , and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in environment and its protection problems

complete and comprenhensive
This book is more than a simple overview of the wide environmental economics world, since it embraces the subject in a clear, comprenhensive but in-depth enough to get a very good picture of it. ... Read more

Book Description

A wide-ranging exploration of the issues shaping development in rural North America for the years ahead

This unique volume presents guidelines for dealing with the problems of development in rural areas, with coverage that encompasses theory, strategic planning and policy implementation, and practical experience. It contains an in-depth examination of the problems faced by rural American towns, communities, and families, and it explores a range of innovative solutions based on the concepts of sustainable use of indigenous talents and resources.

Contributions by leading experts and seasoned practitioners represent a broad spectrum of experience and ideological outlook, making Rural Sustainable Development in America must reading for anyone involved in community development; rural geography, planning, and economic development; public administration; agricultural economics; and public policy. The book covers:

• Historical, philosophical, and ecological foundations of sustainable development in the rural context.
• Principles of a rural sustainable future in which development policies embrace holistic and interactive views of ethics, ecology, economics, and sociopolitical systems.
• Different approaches to policy and planning strategy at the regional and local level.
• The role of citizen involvement and empowerment in choosing and effecting change in community life.
• Real-world experiences with alternative rural-urban symbioses in agriculture, waste management, greenways, and trails.
• Analysis of specific community-based efforts at regional revitalization in Indiana, Central Appalachia, and Eastern Canada.

The development of an energy and technology intensive, global agricultural production system over the last few decades has had a devastating impact on traditional rural communities—from the decline of family farms to the virtual depopulation of small towns on a wide scale. But across this bleak landscape, many communities are planning and taking action to assure their development in sustainable ways.

What are the visions, assumptions, and practical considerations guiding these efforts? How can communities address the obstacles they face in designing and implementing policies that will foster and support regeneration?

Providing invaluable insight into these questions, Rural Sustainable Development in America offers a multidimensional look at theory, strategic planning, and real-world experience that provides planners and others with important tools to use in cultivating a sustainable future for rural America.

Contributions by leading experts from a range of disciplines first explore the philosophical and ecological underpinnings of sustainable development within a global and local context. The second part of the book examines regional and local planning and policy issues, and the final section assesses the success or failure of alternative rural-urban symbioses in agriculture, waste management, greenways and trails, and regional revitalization.

Encompassing several shades of "greenness," this thought-provoking volume truly reflects the diversity of views and approaches that are driving the theory and practice of rural development into the twenty-first century. It is a vital addition to the literature that will inform readers of every ideological orientation and professional perspective—in such areas as rural geography, planning, policy, and economic development; agricultural economics; landscape architecture; and public administration. ... Read more

Book Description

Named Best Book in Public and Nonprofit Management, 1999-2000
Academy of Management

Named Best Book in Environmental Management, 1999
American Society for Public Administration

Leaking landfills, oil contamination, illegal waste disposal, and pervasive air pollution . . . Today's managers and policy makers face a multitude of environmental challenges, choices, and opportunities. Some work in the public or private sectors. Some are regulators or regulated. Whether they are environmental specialists or not, managers must understand scientifically complex environmental mandates and shifting ambiguities in order to address them proactively. They must not only cultivate organizational awareness of environmental values, but also remain committed to engaging in these values.

The authors of Managing for the Environment draw from their extensive managing, consulting, and research experiences to give managers, elected officials, students, and concerned citizens the tools they need to address environmental issues effectively.

Authoritative, insightful, and the first of its kind to take a strategic management view, this book:

• Describes current issues and trends in environmental affairs, including sustainable development, risk-based priority setting, managing for results, market incentives, and environmental justice
• Explains what readers should know about environmental laws and their implementation
• Shows how managers can incorporate environmental management concepts into their organizations' thinking by linking strategies, structures, and informational systems
• Offers strategies for overcoming the political, economic, and organizational obstacles to doing so
• Provides methods for understanding, defining, and communicating environmental risks and responses to employees, the media, and communities
• Presents constructive conflict resolution strategies for handling difficult environmental disputes

Book Description

Environmental concerns can greatly affect business success, regardless of whether a business person or corporation shares those concerns. Today's corporate managers must understand the power of environmental issues, and shift their mindset from one focused on environmental "management" to one focused on strategy.

Competitive Environmental Strategy examines the effects of environmentalism on corporate management, explaining how and why environmental forces are driving change and how business managers can think about environmental issues in a strategic way. The author discusses:

• the evolving drivers of corporate environmental strategy, including regulators, shareholders, buyers and suppliers, insurers, investors, and consumers
• how environmentalism alters basic conceptions of competitive strategy and organizational design
• how external institutions create both opportunity and limitations for environmental strategy
• how environmental threats can be incorporated into risk management, capital acquisition, competitive position, and other management concerns

Competitive Environmental Strategy offers a valuable overview of the subject, and provides a wealth of real-world examples that demonstrate the validity and applicability of the concepts for business people, clearly showing how managers are turning an understanding of environmental issues to competitive advantage. ... Read more

Book Description

Can Russia ever become a normal, free-market, democratic society? Why have so many reforms failed since the Soviet Union’s collapse? In this highly-original work, Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy argue that Russia’s geography, history, and monumental mistakes perpetrated by Soviet planners have locked it into a dead-end path to economic ruin.

Shattering a number of myths that have long persisted in the West and in Russia, The Siberian Curse explains why Russia’s greatest assets—its gigantic size and Siberia’s natural resources—are now the source of one of its greatest weaknesses. For seventy years, driven by ideological zeal and the imperative to colonize and industrialize its vast frontiers, communist planners forced people to live in Siberia. They did this in true totalitarian fashion by using the GULAG prison system and slave labor to build huge factories and million-person cities to support them.

Today, tens of millions of people and thousands of large-scale industrial enterprises languish in the cold and distant places communist planners put them—not where market forces or free choice would have placed them. Russian leaders still believe that an industrialized Siberia is the key to Russia’s prosperity. As a result, the country is burdened by the ever-increasing costs of subsidizing economic activity in some of the most forbidding places on the planet. Russia pays a steep price for continuing this folly—it wastes the very resources it needs to recover from the ravages of communism.

Hill and Gaddy contend that Russia’s future prosperity requires that it finally throw off the shackles of its Soviet past by shrinking Siberia’s cities. Only by facilitating the relocation of population to western Russia, closer to Europe and its markets, can Russia achieve sustainable economic growth.

Unfortunately for Russia, there is no historical precedent for shrinking cities on the scale that will be required. Downsizing Siberia will be a costly and wrenching process. But there is no alternative. Russia cannot afford to keep the cities left by communist planners out in the cold. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

It's as though the US tried to re-create Cleveland in Alaska
The authors' main theme is that the Soviets' determination to create cities in Siberia has created an albatross that will hold back Russian economic development forever. Most of the cities of Siberia have no economic justification for existence, and by any standard, should not have been created in the first place. Even where there are large mineral or oil deposits, the cost of maintaining huge cities in the Arctic outweighs any possible profit. Getting these people to move to warmer parts of Russia would be beneficial all round, but is difficult due to housing shortages in the more desirable parts of Russia. The authors argue that Russians need to abandon their notion that settlement of Siberia is the destiny of the Russian people and will make Russia an economic powerhouse.

If there is a flaw here, it is that the authors keep hammering away at their main point, creating a repetitive tone toward the end of the book. Throughout the book there are short articles from various periodicals in gray boxes, which serve to illustrate the authors' theoretical arguments.

Never Trust A Real-Estate Agent
by John Dolan:

Every year or so, another silly theory comes into vogue among Western "Russia hands," that estimable body of scientific prognosticators not one of whom managed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union until three or four years after it had occurred.
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Think of all those nineteenth-century editorial cartoons sneering at Seward for buying Alaska from the Russians. That too was worthless, frozen land, fit only for bears. Anybody want to sell it back at, say, 100 times the price? Didn't think so.
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Their arguments are often the most naive sort of social-science bluff, as when they use something called "Zipf's Law" to demonstrate that Russia's cities are of the wrong sizes and in the wrong place. I'm not familiar with the work of the unluckily-named Zipf, but if anyone out there knows him, please tell him for me that if Hill and Gaddy's paraphrase is an accurate summary of his theory, he's an ass.
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It's somewhat surprising to see an argument so totally illogical praised as "highly original" and "a welcome and important contribution" to Russian studies--until you see who's praising it.
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Sachs is, of course, the paradigm of the incompetent, sleazy Western consultant who did so much to destroy Russia in the 90s. Pipes is a mad reactionary who has been shrilly whitewashing serfdom and vilifying the Soviets for what seems like centuries. And Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's East Bloc specialist, is a Russophobe from way, way back, a man who makes Pavel Felgenhauer look like a Rodina deputy.
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And it's very easy to see why The Siberian Curse serves their ends. By blaming bad Soviet planners for Russia's fall, this book helps get a sleazebag like Sachs get off the hook, confirms Pipes' one endlessly repeated argument that Soviet = evil, and endorses Brzezinski's conviction that the further east you go, the more Russian and evil everything becomes.
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Another blurb-writer, Niall Ferguson of Oxford, states with naive clarity the real reason this book is doing well: "Those still wondering why market reforms have achieved only limited success in Russia since the collapse of Communism cannot afford to overlook this timely and original book."
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In other words: Thank you for your book/ It lets us off the hook. The West cannot be blamed for the "limited success" of the "market reforms" carried out by Sachs and accomplices. Turns out the Soviets did it after all-from beyond the grave, as it were.

For more, exile.ru

The Cost of Cold
Everyone knows that Siberia is a very cold place. This book explains how the coldness of Siberia presents one of the greatest impediments to future development of the Russian economy. Under the best of circumstances, developing strategies for dealing with a large, unbearably cold place like Siberia presents tremendous challenges. The Soviets made the situation much worse by ignoring the cost of the cold. With an ample supply of forced labor provided by the GULAG prison system and a total disregard for the profitability of industrial endeavors, the Soviets put people and resources in places that made no sense economically. It is tempting to think of Siberia as a treasure chest containing vast quantities of natural resources just waiting to be exploited. Certainly the effort required to access these resources now represents an investment that will yield great rewards in the future. Hill and Gaddy expose the fallacy of this point of view using quantitative economic methods to support their detailed arguments. The cost of supporting people and factories in extremely cold places currently outweighs any benefit to the Russian economy. This book is written in a style that is both scholarly and accessible to the average reader. Not only does the book provide insight into why the Soviet economy failed, it provides clear-cut policy recommendations for economically sound ways that Russia can deal with the Siberian challenge now and in the future. According to economic considerations, Siberia is now enormously over populated and the people currently living there should be encouraged to move to warmer places. The treasures of Siberia should be kept in cold storage until technologies are developed to extract these resources profitably, without damaging the Siberian ecology.

A Challenge For Russia
This thought provoking book proposes a challenge to the Russian people. The curse of Siberia is its severe cold and the vast distances between towns and cities. Although there are large valuable resources, the cost of developing these resources make them almost unavailable. The book is well documented and rings of truth.
While reading I could not help, but hope that somr Russian officials read it and try to sell the Russian government on its thesis. It is a readable book and a must read for those interested in Russian history and how much geography has played a major role in its development. I highly recommend it and commend the authors for their contribution to world understanding. Taylor Neely, Carson City, Nevada ... Read more

Book Description

In an era when corporations are under increasing pressure to be stewards of the environment and society as they pursue profits, business expert Bob Willard provides a practical benefit-by-benefit guide for assessing all three areas as a win/win/win proposition. Written in the pragmatic language of business leaders, this book is the first to present compelling and quantitative bottom-line evidence of the profitability of social and environmental initiatives. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

thought provouking
design for sustainability is defnitly a sourcebook for sustainable designers.it spanes through every aspect of our existance and ofers a new way of living it sustainably. from hemp clothes to earth building and even touches thinking patterns of design, giving the profetional designer not only eco-logical solutions but new perspectives to the process of design.
this book opened my mind to new pathes of thought and action. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (6)

Great passion and conviction -- terribly written
I completely agree with the political agenda of this book. I am glad it was written. Kovel is RIGHT ON TARGET.
But the book was dreadful to plow/bore through. Talk about OBTUSE VERBIAGE. There is still this awful tradition out there that if you wor dsomething so that it "sounds" brilliant -- it must be. I hate that tradition. We need plain language and simple articulation. This book is just the opposite. Here are but a couple of random examples to give you some idea: "Capital's invasion takes place across an ecosystemic manifold encompassing both culture and nature, with points of commodity formation arising everywhere" (p.55) -- got that? or "If 'entropy' is a logarithmic measure of the probabilistic disorder of a given physical system, the Second Law states that for such a system, whether it be the air in a room, a living body, or the earth as a whole, so long as neither energy nor matter is added to said system -- that is, so long as the system is 'closed' -- then its entropy will rise with time" (p.93) -- got that?
Look, there were many times in this book where I wrote "right on!" in the margins. There were also many times whene I wrote "blah blah blah"...I was going to assign this to my students of social theory -- I teach at a small liberal arts college. No way. Very few people can plow through this dense stuff.

Makes a powerful case
Anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist should read this book. Kovel makes the case the environmental destruction is inherent to the capitalist system and for the most part, reforms are little more than band-aids for a system that is, by its very nature, out of control.

Kovel focuses less on the environmental problems we face today (which you can find in any other book); and focuses more of the book lies in describing how the nuts and bolts of the capitalist economy works (which is what sets this book apart from all others).

He makes the case that actions like voluntarism, isolated cooperatives, bioregionalism, and so forth will eventually get rolled over by the immense power that capital has and are not long-term solutions.

My only problem with the book is that, while Kovel accurately describes the underlying environmental problem as having its root in capitalism itself, he doesn't present a coherent solution except an extremely vague "eco-socialism" (that's why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5). You can tell by this last chapter that he is groping for some sort of answer - going off in many directions.

If you want a cutting analysis of the problem human beings face today, get this book! If you want a revolutionary solution, this book is only a start.

Some background to a flawed but brilliant book
For Joel Kovel the revolution is only a matter of time. Marx was right: Capitalism cannot help but prepare the stew in which it will roast. But Old Whiskers got one thing wrong. The crucial antagonist of capital is not labor but nature. If Marx made a fetish of capital's propensity to generate too much wealth to be profitably re-invested, Kovel does the same in regard to planetary ecosystem crackup. Instead of periodic economic downturn catapulting the proletariat into History, it's the shattering of life-essential natural processes that's destined to set off socialist (make that ecosocialist) revolution.

Professor Kovel, who ran to the left of Ralph Nader for the Green Party nod in 2000, wastes no time making the case that capitalism, by its very nature, cannot help but destroy the integrity and well-being of what we call "nature." No need for yet another inventory of disturbances in the environment, our bodies, and our psychic balance (though Kovel does provide a lot of data in this regard). The enemy of nature is not oil or pesticides or factories or bulldozers but capital, "that ubiquitous, all-powerful and greatly misunderstood dynamo that drives our society."

While traditionally the marketplace is a means of exchanging goods for money so as to purchase other goods, under capitalism it becomes a way for those who already have money to accumulate more. Reversing the natural order, the merchant starts off with money and buys the product of someone else's labor, then turns around and sells it at a markup. As long as the laborer is poor and the buyer rich, the trader makes a profit.

What gives a commodity its value is not what we do with it, like using bricks to build houses or shoes to walk home in, but the price it commands in trade. In contrast to "use value"-- a quality that belongs to any given item intrinsically-- "exchange value" is an abstraction that must be expressed quantitatively. When you buy a pair of shoes (or better yet a thousand pairs) only to sell them for profit, their entire value is a number.

As the basis of economics becomes the trade itself and not the tangible thing exchanged, money is transformed into an all-consuming monster. No longer bound up with the limitations of actual land, people, and resources, it springs to life, an abstraction with a will of its own. "Pure quantity," says Kovel, "can swell infinitely without reference to the external world."

There lies the source of our ecological crisis.

Despite its reputation as the very acme of rational economic exchange, capitalism follows its own imperatives, quite apart from the needs of humans and ecosystems. In its compulsion to grow and multiply, capital "constantly tries to violate" whatever limit is set before it. Success means only one thing: surpassing yesterday's mark. No matter how big the beast gets, to cease growing further is to die. Yet the one thing we know for sure is that it can't grow forever. Sooner or later abstraction runs up against reality.

Does that mean capitalism is setting the stage for ecosocialist uprising? "If the argument that capital is incorrigibly ecodestructive and expansive proves to be true, then it is only a question of time before the issues raised here achieve explosive urgency." True enough, but that doesn't mean the Revolution is just over the horizon. What Kovel overlooks is the likelihood that worsening environmental conditions will exacerbate the scarcity that already pits us against each other. While the rich compete to survive as rich people, the poor compete to survive, period. If it's the money-driven struggle of all-against-all that's pushing us, inexorably, to the edge of the cliff, shouldn't we expect rising insecurity and the resulting intensification of this struggle to push us right over the edge? Precisely when, between now and doomsday, do the masses finally revolt?

As Kovel himself points out, capitalists are perfectly willing to perpetuate eco-destabilization as long as they can insulate themselves and perhaps even profit from the meltdown all around them. He cites an article in London's Guardian Weekly purporting to show a shift in elite opinion since the early 70s, when the Club of Rome called for "limits to growth." These days, digging our own grave is simply the ultimate business opportunity.

Taking Kovel to task in the September, 2002 issue of Monthly Review, John Bellamy Foster noted, "We should not underestimate capitalism's capacity to accumulate in the midst of the most blatant ecological destruction, to profit from environmental degradation... and to continue to destroy the earth to the point of no return-- both for human society and for most of the world's living species."

Times are tough? How about a liquidation sale? Like Marx before him, Kovel finds a silver lining where none exists. There's just no pulling the socialist rabbit out of the capitalist hat.

An Ecosocialist Manifesto
Joel Kovel's "The Enemy of Nature" offers a powerful and unflinching eco-Marxist critique of the capitalist system. Concluding that the path of accumulation must inevitably lead to a world wide ecological crisis, the author theorizes about the type of "ecosocialist" system that must supplant capitalism in order to ensure humanity's survival.

Kovel is part of a growing "Red/Green" movement that also includes the outstanding Marxist scholar James O'Connor. Kovel's arguments seem to build upon and indeed are closely aligned with many of the ideas in O'Connor's excellent book "Natural Causes," but I personally find Kovel's writing to be a bit more accessible than O'Connor's. Perhaps this pragmatism can be attributed to Kovel's political sensibilities, as he was a candidate for the Green Party Presidential nomination in 2000.

Kovel believes that various forms of so-called "Green economics" are doomed to failure because they do not address what he sees as the root problem driving the ecological crisis: namely, capital's need to continuously expand. He points out that whatever gains might be realized from the introduction of environmentally-friendly technology will be quickly outweighed by the expansion of the economy. For example, fuel cells might be less harmful than internal combustion engines, but if the technology merely enables the manufacture of hundreds of millions of new automobiles, the planet will ultimately be much worse off.

But Kovel acknowledges that the current Green movement is in fact helping to lay the groundwork for what is yet to come. The Green's emphasis on local democratic control of the means of production will help free labor from its bondage with capital, which is essential for socialism to succeed.

Of course, Kovel devotes a section to readers who may need to be reminded that really existing socialism as practiced in the Soviet Union and elsewhere was NOT what Marx intended. Kovel shows that these countries actually substituted the state for the market, in the end merely proving that markets were superior to centralized planning. The ruined environments left behind by the Communist states were testaments to a failed attempt at accumulation, in much the same way that the West is currently degrading the air, land and sea in its ongoing frenzy of accumulation.

Kovel speculates on how collapse might occur in the capitalist nations. He understands that a breakdown of the financial system could easily lead to fascism, or possibly "ecofascism", as capital seeks to hold on to power. But Kovel thinks it may be plausible that the pockets of production growing outside the bounds of capital may be strong enough to resist the counter-revolution. Indeed, Kovel points out that up to 20 percent of the world economy already exists in the "informal" sector, although most of this is comprised of criminal activity and much less of the positive kind (such as the Bruderhof communities of the U.S.).

This latter part of Kovel's analysis bears similarity to Nick Dyer-Witheford's "Cyber-Marx", although Kovel does not appear to be aware of this book nor is it referenced in his bibliography. In short, Dyer-Witheford theorizes that technophiles will appropriate the means of production in order to empower a society that eventually achieves autonomy by existing outside the bounds of capitalist control. Like Kovel, Dyer-Witheford envisions that the post-capitalist society will choose to apply its surplus value to the cause of freeing labor and restoring its ravaged social, physical and natural environments. In my view, the convergence of these two authors' thoughts -- albeit arrived at from different angles, but perhaps more compelling because of this -- bolsters both of their arguments and suggests that the possibility of radical change may not be as elusive as one might suppose.

I strongly recommend Kovel's book for anyone who may be concerned about the future of our society or for those who may be contemplating how a more humane world might come about.

A penetrating indictment of capitalism
After having read and greatly appreciated Professor Kovel's previous book, "Red Hunting in the Promised Land", I was somewhat surprised to see his entry into the ecological debate with "Enemy of Nature." But scepticism soon gave way to great insight about the fundamentals of our current ecological situation, an impending catastrophe threatening survival itself as Kovel makes clear.
Whereas other writers have examined ecological crises and misdeeds as isolated and independent manifestations of similarly discrete abuses by global and regional players, Kovel shows that the root cause of ecological ills is the capitalistic system itself, in effect the very nature of capital or "money-in-motion." What follows from this accusation is the even more unsettling demonstration that no amount of "corrections" of given abuses nor mere simple changes and "controls" applied to the basic rules of the game will suffice to reverse the dangerous nature- and life-threatening trends now evident world-wide. The Enemy of Nature is the capitalistic system itself, and if readers of such a statement should be tempted to dismiss the claim as mere Marxian d