introduction to sustainability book
I looked at some of the textbook online, then downloaded it as a PDF. The book is written in a clear manner that is engaging and easy to read. Our world and research is continually changing. However, the brevity of these sections does lead to a lack of students being able to practice using concepts as illustrated in multiple examples. The text terminology and framework is fairly consistent. Other topics that change rapidly -- such as alternative energy -- are described here so briefly, and in such general terms with few specifics, that they will need updating less than once a year as well.
,This textbooks seems to cover the same information and depth as other texts on the same subject. Introduction to Sustainability is the first major textbook to review major themes in the cutting-edge field of sustainability. However, the modular nature of this text lends itself to integrating more international or global case studies and examples. The history chapter seems out of place to me and could be placed earlier in the text. Overall this is an excellent book and a useful resource. No text is free from bias. Written by an international team of authors from leading sustainability institutions, the textbook covers key perspectives and topics of the scientific discourse on sustainable development. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. I would certainly, however, find that this resource is comprehensive enough to be used as the primary resource for a course – as it would be easy to cover certain topics in greater depth during lecture or with ancillary reading materials. If I were teaching a course related to sustainability, I would be very tempted to assign readings from this book to my students. As a foundational resource on the field of sustainability, I find this book to be reasonably comprehensive. Unfortunately it seems the authors did not get the joke. This text is nothing if not comprehensive. The author uses vague nouns (it, this, there) often, so sometimes clarity is lost and overuses concluding terms, such as hence, therefore, and thus. The book also provides an effective table of contents, index and glossary. The text and examples given are US centric but are not culturally insensitive or offensive. But this variability is in fact ideal for a sustainability perspective, for students will find that addressing sustainability problems requires remaining open to different framings of research and policy solutions. This text is more geared towards policy, and... Journalism, Media Studies & Communications, 3 Introduction to Sustainability: Humanity and the Environment, 4 The Evolution of Environmental Policy in the United States, 7 Physical Resources: Water, Pollution, and Minerals, 11 Problem-Solving, Metrics, and Tools for Sustainability, 12 Sustainability: Ethics, Culture, and History. The use of jargon is moderate and in most cases, jargon is defined in the text. For instance the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from renewables is quickly changing and the data matter to the debate. The PDF has no internal links, so the index entries and table of contents provide page numbers that can not be clicked on and do not correspond to the PDF number, so they are practically useless. The emergence of enviro-hatred as a mode of power, especially in the US, means that hope for any future requires champions, well-informed, critically thoughtful, and emotionally prepared. The issue is that ignores their actual communication. I have no problem at all sending students this way, to get accurate updated information on the topics covered in this book.
,Very well done. The text notes that "this process is underway at the present time" (267), but it will soon be complete. The majority of the chapters reflect issues of environmental science in a way that occurs to me as reductionist, rather than holistic. From my point of view, the text seems to place a priority on environmentalism, with the social dimensions of sustainability residing at the margins. However, one common fact that links them all is the generation of waste. The textbook is comprehensive in a sense that for each of the 11 chapters, the authors have presented the main objectives to be accomplished upon completion of each chapter, and at times, these are also included in the sub-chapters of the book. The glossary is user-friendly, both in terms of embedded links, but also for its simplicity of definitions. From an internal consistency perspective, this seemed odd. The textbook has little inclination to the local politics and therefore, I see little or no evidence at all of confinement or boundaries for not being able to use this textbook in other cultures. The book's grammar is consistent and easy to understand. This text is nothing if not comprehensive. Neither of these verbs imply that students will do something with the knowledge gained in the chapter. At times the text displays a tendency to preach, but this presents the opportunity for further discussion. However, the book is written in such a way that it should be relatively straightforward to update the facts and figures. No problems. "For more information about this, click here" [326]), some tables not rendered correctly in Chapter 11 on "Sustainable Infrastructure," and dashes are rendered so thinly that they appear almost invisible in the PDF version. In 2010, the Academic Advisory Committee for the Office of Sustainability The book is highly modular. I found very few issues. An Introduction to Sustainability provides students with a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and ideas which are encompassed within the growing field of sustainability.. This course introduces the academic approach of Sustainability and explores how today’s human societies can endure in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation and resource limitations. This text can reach a wide audience due to the clarity and conciseness of the language. Although the book treats sustainability on a global scale, there is a greater focus on the US market/approach. However, I don't think I will be able to use it. This is where I believe the text shines. Although the presentation, structure and the flow are clear, too much emphasis has been placed on giving too many examples, either in the form of figures or sub-sections that its “taste of sustainability” all of a sudden disappears as one navigates through the textbook. For examples: (there is a preamble in a form of the objectives to be met once a chapter is completed, followed questions for review). I didn’t find it to be super obvious – and it probably won’t be a distraction to students. Issues related to the BP oil spill – resulting from our quest for energy sources in the Gulf of Mexico area also have shown in some parts of the textbook (pp497-498) This book is very consistent; the framework from chapter to chapter remains the same, as does the terminology. The book is suitable for introductory interdisciplinary courses on sustainability, as well as those in the fields of geography, geology, sociology, planning, political science, and anthropology. read more,
Perhaps this is the nature of the field or a reflection of the authors, but the book is indeed very US-centric in how it describes the background and application of sustainability as a scientific discipline. With the amount of various authors, it is very hard to have it be the same through this lengthy book. This is an outstanding book on Sustainability. The book is quite straightforward in terms of presenting the technical matter and overall writing/presentation style is very good. Alternatively, I could assign a series of essay questions, asking students to use the open textbook as their main resource. There is also some inconsistency with the reference use, but all in all, it is sufficient as a interface.
,The chapters that I have the most expertise in (climate science and physical resources) are accurately written and well documented. Jargon is inherent to the topic, but definitions and interrelated descriptions are well managed and coordinated. To be fair, no single book could ever be completely comprehensive, as hte subject is simply too large. The content is written by experts in the field and is accurate. This text covers many, although not all, aspects of environmental science and sustainability. However, I have one over-riding suggestion that I think would greatly increase the impact of this text on college students. “There are two primary mechanisms for sequestering carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere: it can be captured by the respiration of plants, or dissolved in the ocean.” The underlined phrase should read “captured by the photosynthesis of plants”. It would have been more appropriate cite these examples, or to use them as case studies for students to work and solve them. SKU: 9780415335591 Category: Sociology However, the editors realize this and acknowledge it in the introduction. One student could not really consume this much in one semester. Any text using the term "comprehensive" is suspect, but as an introductory text that balances social, economic and environmental underpinnings this one does a good job. Section 4.5 on Public Health and Sustainability focuses mostly on the impacts of global warming, but it never explains the causal connection of burning fuels to global warming. This will add to the discussion and broaden the readers understanding of their individual role within the framework of civic responsibility. However, this textbook is aimed at students pursuing undergraduate degrees, in particular those who are in their first and second year of their degree program. The content is fairly recent, but in a rapidly changing field such as energy, references from 2010 (specifically talking about chapter 10 might become a bit more irrelevant. That probably is not the authors' intent either; it is intended to be incorporated chapter by chapter, section by section. When reading on a desktop computer through the eBook application, I found the format to be more streamlined and easy to follow. Reviewed by John Duke, Professor of Damage Science and Mechanics, Virginia Tech on 6/10/15, For an evolve subject matter area the book covers most of the important areas which ought to be considered, an area omitted is that related to the traditional engineering design paradigm which was a response to a compact with the owner/manager to... A few noted exceptions however: the unnecessary blank page on page two and other interruptions such as random blank pages found throughout the textbook. It is interesting to see that the authors have incorporated a section that compares the carbon footprint (pp446-447) and the water footprint (pp447-448) of various countries. Add to cart. As a professor of landscape architecture, there are many more topics, lessons, sustainable systems, both rural and urban that we discuss that go beyond this book. As the book description indicates, "the modular design allows individual chapters and sections to be easily appropriated--without the purchase of a whole new text. However, I have one over-riding suggestion that I think would greatly increase the impact of this text on college students. For example, instead of assigning the chapter titled “Sustainability: Ethics, Culture, and History” to be read as chapter 10, it may make more sense to assign it to a chapter at the beginning. At that time it was the Air Pollution Act, and was renamed the CAA in 1963. I would give this book a great rating on accuracy -- the authors did a fabulous job with their research, and did great summaries of the topics that they covered. The fully updated second edition, including new figures and images, teases out the diverse but intersecting domains of sustainability and emphasises strategies for action. Edward Snowden might beg to differ.
,Overall, most chapters are written very clearly – although the style in prose does vary a bit from chapter to chapter (to be expected with so many authors). It may be one of the downfalls of the many author design of the text that each chapter will read slightly different but the consistent format helps to alleviate most of it.
,The book will likely need to be updated regularly for new developments in energy policy as well as new data on climate change, as well as new case studies. Overall, this seems like a good, comprehensive, introductory-level book. The chapter-and-section organization of the text lends itself very easily to using selected modules for instruction. Section 5.4 - Modern Climate Change - contains an error in this sentence. And yet the book retains the hopeful element that made the original edition such a worthy addition to the sustainability literature. As Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenage leader of the global climate change strikes, says, "Our house is on fire." Reviewed by Sean Bryan, Instructor, Colorado State University on 1/7/16, This book has "comprehensive" in the title, and it delivers on that promise. This compact implicitly suggests that a system or structure will be removed from service after the design service life has expired. Yet, even here, the authors carefully walk the reader through a step-by-step development of understanding. The long standing and various criticisms of the Tragedy thesis are that it assumes actors who do not communicate with each other, and that in real world examples of common pool resources they typically do. This subject requires a genuine world view but most of the chapters are written with a North American bias. Such diversity of thought characterizes many of the fields of inquiry represented in the book; by including it, we invite users to engage in the sort of critical thinking a serious study of sustainability requires. Some page numbers can be found in the upper left corner while others are found centered on the bottom of the page. Only minor small typos: for example line7, Foreword section, pp#1 (know # known). The content is mostly up-to-date, with limited exceptions, such as the reference to the EPA being given the authority "to regulate greenhouse gases through a series of findings, hearings, rulings, and regulations in accord with terms set out in the Clean Air Act" (267). Reviewed by Lee Fithian, Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma on 1/12/15, The text is billed as an introduction to the essential elements of sustainability suitable for first or second year college students. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Each chapter has an effective glossary. Here, for example, cautious claims about climate change stand beside sweeping pronouncements predicting future social upheaval engendered by a warming world. An Introduction To Community Development In Local Government An Introduction To Community Development In Local Government by . The content is intended to be useful for both a broad-based introductory class on sustainability and as a useful supplement to specialist courses which wish to review the sustainability dimensions of their areas of study. a section on air pollution or energy efficiency e.g. The book covers a full range of topics relating to the multi-disciplinary nature of sustainability. The only exception is that I think Wikipedia is referenced a bit too much – I most cases I think better sources could be identified. However, the structure may be getting carried away with the many, many numbered sublevels (for example, 9.3.2.1.4). introduction to basic principles, illustrative examples, "Sustainable Solutions", and case studies). In Figure 3.39, I cannot read the x- or y-axes without zooming in many times over.
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