Sustainability
Growing healthier communities based on sustainable energy use, agricultural production, building design, economic development and more.
Selected Books at the UMass Libraries
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Beyond the Limits by Donella H. Meadows; Dennis L. Meadows; Jorgen Randers; Jan Tinbergen (Illustrator)
Call Number: HD75.6 .M43 1992ISBN: 0930031555Publication Date: 1992-04-01"Beyond the Limits Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future is the path-breaking sequel to The Limits to Growth, the international best-seller which sold 9 million copies in 29 languages when it was published 20 years ago. At that time the authors concluded that if the present trends of growth continued unchanged, the limits to physical growth on the planet would be reached in the next 100 years. Now, in Beyond the Limits, the authors show that the world has already overshot some of its limits, and if present trends remain unchanged, we face the virtually certain prospect of a global economic collapse in the next century." -
Civil Rights and the Environment in African-American Literature, 1895-1941 by John Claborn
Call Number: PS153.N5 C485 2018ISBN: 9781350009424Publication Date: 2017-11-02The beginning of the 20th century marked a new phase of the battle for civil rights in America. But many of the era's most important African-American writers were also acutely aware of the importance of environmental justice to the struggle. Civil Rights and the Environment in African-American Literature is the first book to explore the centrality of environmental problems to writing from the civil rights movement in the early decades of the century. Bringing ecocritical perspectives to bear on the work of such important writers as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance and Depression-era African-American writing, the book brings to light a vital new perspective on ecocriticism and modern American literary history. -
Coping with the Climate Crisis by Rabah Arezki (Editor); Patrick Bolton (Editor); Karim El Aynaoui (Editor); Maurice Obstfeld (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book QC903 .C675 2018ISBN: 9780231547352Publication Date: 2018-09-24Reducing carbon emissions is the most complex political and economic problem humanity has ever confronted. Coping with the Climate Crisis brings together leading experts from academia and policy circles to explore issues related to the implementation of the COP21 Paris Agreement and the challenges of accelerating the transition toward sustainable development. The book synthesizes the key insights that emerge from the latest research in climate-change economics in an accessible and useful guide for policy makers and researchers. Contributors consider a wide range of issues, including the economic implications and realities of shifting away from fossil fuels, the role of financial markets in incentivizing development and construction of sustainable infrastructure, the challenges of evaluating the well-being of future generations, the risk associated with uncertainty surrounding the pace of climate change, and how to make climate agreements enforceable. They demonstrate the need for a carbon tax, considering the issues of efficiently pricing carbon as well as the role of supply-side policies on fossil fuels. Through a range of perspectives from academic economists and practitioners in the public and private sectors who work either at the country level or under the auspices of multilateral organizations, Coping with the Climate Crisis outlines what it will take to achieve a viable, global climate-stabilization path. -
Eco-Tech by Robert S. De Ropp
Call Number: S501.2 .D47ISBN: 0440022339Publication Date: 1975-08-01Eco-tech : the whole-earther's guide to the alternate society / by Robert S. de Ropp ; drawings by Glenda Guss. -
The End of Man by Joanna. Zylinska
Call Number: GF86 .Z95 2018ISBN: 1517905591Publication Date: 2018-03-20Where the Anthropocene has become linked to an apocalyptic narrative, and where this narrative carries a widespread escapist belief that salvation will come from a supernatural elsewhere, Joanna Zylinska has a different take. The End of Man rethinks the prophecy of the end of humans, interrogating the rise in populism around the world and offering an ethical vision of a "feminist counterapocalypse," which challenges many of the masculinist and technicist solutions to our planetary crises. The book is accompanied by a short photo-film, Exit Man, which ultimately asks: If unbridled progress is no longer an option, what kinds of coexistences and collaborations do we create in its aftermath? -
Energy by Richard Rhodes
Call Number: TJ163.2 .R498 2018ISBN: 1501105353Publication Date: 2018-05-29Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over time--wood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond. People have lived and died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Ultimately, the history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself. Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford. In Energy, Rhodes highlights the successes and failures that led to each breakthrough in energy production; from animal and waterpower to the steam engine, from internal-combustion to the electric motor. -
Extreme Conservation by Joel Berger
Call Number: GF75 .B474 2018ISBN: 9780226366265Publication Date: 2018-08-02On the Tibetan Plateau, there are wild yaks with blood cells thinner than those of horses' by half, enabling the endangered yaks to survive at 40 below zero and in the lowest oxygen levels of the mountaintops. But climate change is causing the snow patterns here to shift, and with the snows, the entire ecosystem. Food and water are vaporizing in this warming environment, and these beasts of ice and thin air are extraordinarily ill-equipped for the change. A journey into some of the most forbidding landscapes on earth, Joel Berger's Extreme Conservation is an eye-opening, steely look at what it takes for animals like these to live at the edges of existence. But more than this, it is a revealing exploration of how climate change and people are affecting even the most far-flung niches of our planet. Berger's quest to understand these creatures' struggles takes him to some of the most remote corners and peaks of the globe: across Arctic tundra and the frozen Chukchi Sea to study muskoxen, into the Bhutanese Himalayas to follow the rarely sighted takin, and through the Gobi Desert to track the proboscis-swinging saiga. Known as much for his rigorous, scientific methods of developing solutions to conservation challenges as for his penchant for donning moose and polar bear costumes to understand the mindsets of his subjects more closely, Berger is a guide par excellence. -
Farming with Native Beneficial Insects by The Xerces Society
Call Number: SB976.I56 F37 2014ISBN: 9781612122830Publication Date: 2014-07-29Harness the power of beneficial insects to deter pests and reduce crop damage. This comprehensive guide to farming with insects will have you building beetle banks and native plant field borders as you reap a bountiful and pesticide-free harvest. With strategies for identifying the insects you're trying to attract paired with step-by-step instructions for a variety of habitat-building projects, you'll soon learn how to employ your own biocontrol conservation tactics. Lay out the brush piles and plant the hedgerows because the insects are going to love it here! -
Growing Greener Cities by Eugenie L. Birch (Editor); Susan M. Wachter (Editor)
Call Number: HT241 .G76 2008ISBN: 0812220374Publication Date: 2008-09-10Nineteenth-century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted described his most famous project, the design of New York's Central Park, as "a democratic development of highest significance." Over the years, the significance of green in civic life has grown. In twenty-first-century America, not only open space but also other issues of sustainability--such as potable water and carbon footprints--have become crucial elements in the quality of life in the city and surrounding environment. Confronted by a U.S. population that is more than 70 percent urban, growing concern about global warming, rising energy prices, and unabated globalization, today's decision makers must find ways to bring urban life into balance with the Earth in order to sustain the natural, economic, and political environment of the modern city. -
The Humane Metropolis by Rutherford H. Platt
Call Number: HT243 .U6 H86 2006ISBN: 1558495541Publication Date: 2006-09-28Four-fifths of Americans now live in the nation's sprawling metropolitan areas, and half of the world's population is now classified as "urban." As cities become the dominant living evironment for humans, there is growing concern about how to make such places more habitable, more healthy and safe, more ecological, and more equitable?in short, more "humane." This book explores the prospects for a more humane metropolis through a series of essays and case studies that consider why and how urban places can be made greener and more amenable. Its point of departure is the legacy of William H. Whyte (1917-1999), one of America's most admired urban thinkers. From his eyrie high above Manhattan in the offices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Whyte laid the foundation for today's "smart growth" and "new urbanist" movements with books such as The Last Landscape (1968). His passion for improving the habitability of cities and suburbs is reflected in the diverse grassroots urban design and regreening strategies discussed in this volume. Topics examined in this book include urban and regional greenspaces, urban ecological restoration, social equity, and green design. Some of the contributors are recognized academic experts, while others offer direct practical knowledge of particular problems and initiatives. The editor's introduction and epilogue set the individual chapters in a broader context and suggest how the strategies described, if widely replicated, may help create more humane urban environments. -
Learning Native Wisdom by Gary Holthaus
Call Number: GE42 .H65 2008ISBN: 0813124875Publication Date: 2008-05-30Scientific evidence has made it abundantly clear that the world's population can no longer continue its present rate of consuming and despoiling the planet's limited natural resources. Scholars, activists, politicians, and citizens worldwide are promoting the idea of sustainability, or systems and practices of living that allow a community to maintain itself indefinitely. Despite increased interest in sustainability, its popularity alone is insufficient to shift our culture and society toward more stable practices. Gary Holthaus argues that sustainability is achievable but is less a set of practices than the result of a healthy worldview. Learning Native Wisdom: Reflections on Subsistence, Sustainability, and Spirituality examines several facets of societies--cultural, economic, agricultural, and political--seeking insights into the ability of some societies to remain vibrant for thousands of years, even in extremely adverse conditions and climates. Holthaus looks to Eskimo and other Native American peoples of Alaska for the practical wisdom behind this way of living. Learning Native Wisdom explains why achieving a sustainable culture is more important than any other challenge we face today. -
Localist Movements in a Global Economy by David J. Hess; Robert Gottlieb
Call Number: HC110.E5 H47 2009ISBN: 9780262012645Publication Date: 2009-02-27An overview of the localist movement in the United States, from "buy local" campaigns to urban agriculture, and its potential for addressing global problems of sustainability and justice. The internationalization of economies and other changes that accompany globalization have brought about a paradoxical reemergence of the local. A significant but largely unstudied aspect of new local-global relationships is the growth of "localist movements," efforts to reclaim economic and political sovereignty for metropolitan and other subnational regions. In Localist Movements in a Global Economy, David Hess offers an overview of localism in the United States and assesses its potential to address pressing global problems of social justice and environmental sustainability. Since the 1990s, more than 100 local business organizations have formed in the United States, and there are growing efforts to build local ownership in the retail, food, energy, transportation, and media industries. In this first social science study of localism, Hess adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines theoretical reflection, empirical research, and policy analysis. His perspective is not that of the uncritical localist advocate; he draws on his new empirical research to assess the extent to which localist policies can address sustainability and justice issues. -
Participatory Action Research and the Environment by Fadia Hasan
Call Number: GE25 .H37 2019ISBN: 9781138234734Publication Date: 2018-08-08Seeking innovative answers to global sustainability challenges has become an urgent need with the onslaught of environmental and ecological degradation that surrounds us today. More than ever, there is a need to carve new ways for citizens and different industries and institutions to unite ¿ to cooperate, communicate and collaborate to address growing global sustainability concerns. This book examines one such global collaboration called The BGreen Project (BGreen): a transnational participatory action research project that spans the United States and Bangladesh with the aim of addressing environmental issues via academic and community engagement. -
Planning for Climate Change by Elisabeth M. Hamin Infield (Editor); Yaser Abunnasr (Editor); Robert L. Ryan (Editor)
Call Number: E-bookISBN: 9780815391678Publication Date: 2018-09-26This book provides an overview of the large and interdisciplinary literature on the substance and process of urban climate change planning and design, using the most important articles from the last 15 years to engage readers in understanding problems and finding solutions to this increasingly critical issue. The Reader's particular focus is how the impacts of climate change can be addressed in urban and suburban environments--what actions can be taken, as well as the need for and the process of climate planning. Both reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as adapting to future climate are explored. Many of the emerging best practices in this field involve improving the green infrastructure of the city and region--providing better on-site stormwater management, more urban greening to address excess heat, zoning for regional patterns of open space and public transportation corridors, and similar actions. These actions may also improve current public health and livability in cities, bringing benefits now and into the future. This Reader is innovative in bringing climate adaptation and green infrastructure together, encouraging a more hopeful perspective on the great challenge of climate change by exploring both the problems of climate change and local solutions. -
The Power of Sustainable Thinking by Bob Doppelt
Call Number: GF78 .D66 2008ISBN: 1844075958Publication Date: 2008-09-02The future will be powered by sustainable thinking in business, organizations, governments and everyday life.This revolutionary book tackles climate change, sustainability and life success by starting with your mind. It provides proven 'staged-based methods for transforming thinking and behaviour, beginning first with the reader's own cognitive patterns, then moving to how individuals can motivate other people to change, and finally to how teams and organizations can be motivated to change. -
Reinventing an Urban Vernacular by Terry Moor
Call Number: HD7293 .M647 2017ISBN: 9781138682528Publication Date: 2017-03-13With increasing population and its associated demand on our limited resources, we need to rethink our current strategies for construction of multifamily buildings in urban areas. Reinventing an Urban Vernacular addresses these new demands for smaller and more efficient housing units adapted to local climate. In order to find solutions and to promote better urban communities with an overall environmentally responsible lifestyle, this book examines a wide variety of vernacular building precedents, as they relate to the unique characteristics and demands of six distinctly different regions of the United States. Terry Moor addresses the unique landscape, climate, physical, and social development by analyzing vernacular precedents, and proposing new suggestions for modern needs and expectations. Written for students and architects, planners, and urban designers, Reinventing an Urban Vernacular marries the urban vernacular with ongoing sustainability efforts to produce a unique solution to the housing needs of the changing urban environment. -
The Step-By-Step Guide to Sustainability Planning by Darcy E. Hitchcock; Marsha L. Willard
Call Number: HD30.255 .H584 2008ISBN: 1844076164Publication Date: 2008-10-28Sustainability is now the greatest business imperative, yet how do you actually develop and implement a sustainability plan if you aren't an expert?From the authors of the award-winning handbook The Business Guide to Sustainability comes this highly practical guide to designing and implementing a customized sustainability plan in any business, organization or government department of any type and scale.This step-by-step guide explains how to create a sustainability plan and sustainability report. Each chapter has two vital sections. The first contains background reading, tips and case examples to help you be successful. The second presents a set of methods each with step-by-step instructions and a selection matrix to help choose the best methods. The book also contains sample worksheets and exercise materials that can be copied for organization-wide use. -
Sustainable Thinking by Rebekkah Smith Aldrich
Call Number: Z716.4 .A445 2018ISBN: 0838916880Publication Date: 2018-01-29How we talk about what we do is just as important as what we do, and in communicating the value of libraries to our society what our profession needs is confidence, determination, and the will to succeed. In this inspiring and pragmatic new book, Aldrich shows that the first step towards a sustainable library is sustainable thinking: a determined yet realistic attitude that will help your library spot opportunities for institutional advancement, advocate for and safeguard operating funds, and generate intense loyalty from the communities you serve. -
Two Billion Cars by Daniel Sperling; Deborah Gordon; Arnold Schwarzenegger (Foreword by)
Call Number: HE5611 .S67 2009ISBN: 0195376641Publication Date: 2009-01-13At present, there are roughly a billion cars in the world. Yet within twenty years, the number will double to 2 billion, largely a consequence of China's and India's explosive growth. Given that greenhouse gases are already creating havoc with our climate and that violent conflict in unstable oil-rich nations is on the rise, does this mean that matters will only get worse, or are there hopeful signs that effective, realistic solutions can be found?In Two Billion Cars, through a concise history of America's love affair with cars and an overview of the global auto industry, leading transportation experts Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon explain how we arrived at this state, and what we can do about it. Sperling and Gordon outline the problem in full and assign blame squarely where it belongs - on the auto-industry, short-sighted government policies, and consumers. They consider the issue from all angles and take up such topics as getting beyond the gas-guzzler monoculture, breaking Detroit's hold on energy and climate policy, the search for low-carbon fuels, California's pioneering role, and more. But they are not Cassandras. Promising advances in both transportation technology and fuel efficiency together with shifts in traveler behavior, they suggest, offer us a way out of our predicament.Ultimately, the authors contend that the two places that have the most troublesome emissions problems--California and China--are the most likely to become world leaders on these issues. -
Who Do We Choose to Be? by Margaret J. Wheatley
Call Number: E-Book HD57.7ISBN: 1523083670Publication Date: 2017This book is born of my desire to summon us to be leaders for this time as things fall apart, to reclaim leadership as a noble profession that creates possibility and humaneness in the midst of increasing fear and turmoil. I know it is possible for leaders to use their power and influence, their insight and compassion, to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings, to create the conditions for our basic human qualities of generosity, contribution, community and love to be evoked no matter what. I know it is possible to experience grace and joy in the midst of tragedy and loss. I know it is possible to create islands of sanity in the midst of wildly disruptive seas. I know it is possible because I have worked with leaders over many years in places that knew chaos and breakdown long before this moment. And I have studied enough history to know that such leaders always arise when they are most needed. Now it's our turn. -
The Willing World by James Bacchus
Call Number: HC79.E5 B327 2018ISBN: 9781108428217Publication Date: 2018-07-19In this time of unwillingness, the right kinds of global solutions are needed now more than ever. Climate change is here and intensifying. Anxieties over economic globalization grip many in the fear of change. While these fearful have turned inward into unwillingness, the world's willing are working harder than ever for international and other cooperative solutions. James Bacchus explains why most of the solutions we need must be found in local and regional partnerships of the willing that can be scaled up and linked up worldwide. This can only be achieved within new and enhanced enabling frameworks of global and other international rules that are upheld through the international rule of law. To succeed, these rules and frameworks must for the first time see and treat economy and environment as one. The Willing World explains how best we can build the right legal structure to attain our global goals - and summon and inspire the willingness needed to do it.
Finding Books at the UMass Libraries
Use the Library Catalog to locate books at the UMass (and Five College) Libraries
Below are examples of Subject Headings that may be used in searching the library catalogs (and many databases as well):
Agricultural Conservation
Architecture and Society
Buildings – Environmental aspects
City Planning – Citizen Participation
Common Good
Dwellings – Energy conservation
Ecological Houses
Garden Cities
Green Products
Greenbelts
Green Roofs (Gardening)
Greenways
House Construction – Environmental aspects
Human Geography
Open Spaces
Personal Space
Public Spaces
Renewable Energy Sources
Sustainable Architecture
Sustainable Buildings
Sustainable Development
Urban Homesteading
Facilitate great discussions with these booklets:
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A World of Health: Connecting People, Place and PlanetCall Number: RA 565 .W67 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2010
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Discussion Course on Discovering a Sense of Place by Northwest Earth InstituteCall Number: HT241 .D57 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2007
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Discussion Course on Global Warming: Changing Co2urse by Meg O'Brien and Deirdre DonahueCall Number: QC981.8.G56 D57 (Science & Engineering Library)Publication Date: 2008
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Discussion Course on Healthy Children - Healthy Planet by Northwest Earth InstituteCall Number: HQ769 .D57 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2006
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Discussion Course on Menu for the Future by Northwest Earth InstituteCall Number: S494.5 .D57 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2011
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Discussion Course on Sustainable Systems at Work by Meg O'BrienCall Number: HD30.255 .D57 2009 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2009
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Discussion Course on Voluntary Simplicity by Lacy Cagle and Meg O'BrienCall Number: BJ1496 .D57 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2011
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Hungry For Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability by Northwest Earth InstituteCall Number: S494.5 .H86 2011 (Du Bois Library)Publication Date: 2011
An e-text book
An open text book.
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Sustainability: A Comprehensive FoundationRecommended for first and second-year college students. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.
- Last Updated: Jun 4, 2025 11:02 AM
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Subjects: Sustainability Studies