In the Design Professional’s Guide to Zero Net Energy Buildings, Charles Eley draws from over 40 years of his own experience, and interviews with other industry experts, to lay out the principles for achieving zero net energy (ZNE) buildings, which produce as much energy as they use over the course of a year. Eley emphasizes the importance of building energy use in achieving a sustainable future; describes how building energy use can be minimized through smart design and energy efficiency technologies; and presents practical information on how to incorporate renewable energy technologies to meet the lowered energy needs. The book shows the reader through examples and explanations that these solutions are viable and cost effective.

Holistic management is a systems-thinking approach for managing resources developed by former wildlife biologist and farmer Allan Savory decades ago, after observing the devastation of desertification in his native Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Properly managed livestock are key to restoring the world’s grassland soils and the natural world we rely upon.

In this third edition of Holistic Management, Savory and coauthor Jody Butterfield update and streamline guidelines to reverse desertification, halt climate change, retain biodiversity, and eliminate causes of global human impoverishment. Reorganized chapters streamline concepts and new color photographs showcase examples of land restored by properly managed livestock.

Holistic Management is written for new generations of ranchers, farmers, pastoralists, eco- and social entrepreneurs, and government agencies, NGOs, and development professionals working to address global environmental and social degradation.
 

The practice of ecological restoration provides governments, organizations, and landowners a means to halt degradation and restore function to stressed ecosystems. Foundational theory is a critical component of the underlying science, providing valuable insights into restoring ecological systems and understanding why some efforts can fail.

Foundations of Restoration Ecology, Second Edition, has been dramatically updated to reflect new research in restoration ecology, including new sections on specific ecosystem processes, including hydrology, nutrient dynamics, and carbon.  Case studies describe real-life restoration scenarios in North and South America, Europe, and Australia. Lists at the end of each chapter summarize new theory and practical applications.

Written by acclaimed researchers in the field, this book provides practitioners as well as graduate and undergraduate students with a solid grounding in the newest advances in ecological science and theory.

The Global Street Design Guide is a timely resource that sets a global baseline for designing streets and public spaces and redefines the role of streets in a rapidly urbanizing world. The guide will broaden how to measure the success of urban streets to include: access, safety, mobility for all users, environmental quality, economic benefit, public health, and overall quality of life. The first-ever worldwide standards for designing city streets and prioritizing safety, pedestrians, transit, and sustainable mobility are presented in the guide. Participating experts from global cities have helped to develop the principles that organize the guide. 
 
This innovative guide will inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and empower communities to realize the potential in their public space networks. It will help cities unlock the potential of streets as safe, accessible, and economically sustainable places.

The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery catch data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts. Edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project, the Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. Each national report describes the current state of the country’s fishery; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. 

The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery catch data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts. Edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project, the Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. Each national report describes the current state of the country’s fishery; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. 

In The Past and Future City, Stephanie Meeks, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, describes in detail, and with unique empirical research, the many ways that saving and restoring historic fabric can help a city create thriving neighborhoods, good jobs, and a vibrant economy. She explains the critical importance of preservation for all our communities, the ways the field of historic preservation has evolved to embrace the challenges of the twenty-first century, and the innovative work being done in the preservation space now.
 
This book is for anyone who cares about cities, places, and saving America’s diverse stories in a way that will bring us together and help us better understand our past, present, and future. 

One of Planetizen's Top Planning Books for 2017 • San Francisco Chronicle's 2016 Holiday Books Gift Guide Pick

What makes a great city? City planner and architect Alexander Garvin set out to answer this question by observing cities, largely in North America and Europe, with special attention to Paris, London, New York, and Vienna.

For Garvin, greatness is about what people who shape cities can do to make a city great. A great city is a dynamic, constantly changing place that residents and their leaders can reshape to satisfy their demands. Most importantly, it is about the interplay between people and public realm, and how they have interacted throughout history to create great cities.

What Makes a Great City will help readers understand that any city can be changed for the better and inspire entrepreneurs, public officials, and city residents to do it themselves.

Thirty years ago, urban streams were perceived as little more than flood control devices designed to hurry water through cities and neighborhoods with scant thought for aesthetics or ecological considerations. But stream restoration pioneers like hydrologist Ann Riley argued that by restoring ecological function, and with careful management, streams and rivers could be a net benefit to cities, instead of a net liability. Riley has since spearheaded numerous urban stream restoration projects and put to rest the long-held misconception that degraded urban streams are beyond help.
What has been missing, however, is detailed guidance for restoration practitioners wanting to undertake similar urban stream restoration projects that worked with, rather than against, nature. This book presents the author’s thirty years of practical experience managing long-term stream and river restoration projects in heavily degraded urban environments.  Although the case studies are local, the principles, methods, and tools are universal, and can be applied in almost any city in the world.

Scientists have been warning for years that human activity is heating up the planet and climate change is under way. We are only just beginning to acknowledge the serious effects this will have on all life on Earth. The federal government is crafting broad-scale strategies to protect wildland ecosystems from the worst effects of climate change. One of the greatest challenges is to get the latest science into the hands of resource managers entrusted with vulnerable wildland ecosystems. This book examines climate and land-use changes in montane environments, assesses the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to these changes, and provides resource managers with collaborative management approaches to mitigate expected impacts.

Climate Change in Wildlands proposes a new kind of collaboration between scientists and managers—a science-derived framework and common-sense approaches for keeping parks and protected areas healthy on a rapidly changing planet.

One of GreenBiz's Six Best Sustainability Books of 2016 

The next few decades will see a profound energy transformation throughout the world, as we shift from fossil fuels to rely primarily on renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal power. What might a 100% renewable future look like, and what challenges might we face in the transition? In Our Renewable Future, energy expert Richard Heinberg and scientist David Fridley explore the challenges and opportunities presented by the shift to renewable energy. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of our current system, the authors survey issues of energy supply and demand in key components of society, including electricity generation, transportation, buildings, and manufacturing. The book concludes with a discussion of energy and equity and a summary of key lessons and steps forward at the individual, community, and national level. Our Renewable Future is a clear-eyed and urgent guide to the renewable energy transformation that will be a crucial resource for policymakers and energy activists.

In 2006, Julianne Lutz Warren (née Newton) asked readers to rediscover one of history’s most renowned conservationists. Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey was hailed by The New York Times as a “biography of ideas,” making “us feel the loss of what might have followed A Sand County Almanac by showing us in authoritative detail what led up to it.” Warren’s astute narrative quickly became an essential part of the Leopold canon, introducing new readers to the father of wildlife ecology and offering a fresh perspective to even the most seasoned scholars. A decade later, as our very concept of wilderness is changing, Warren frames Leopold’s work in the context of the Anthropocene. With a new preface and foreword by Bill McKibben, the book underscores the ever-growing importance of Leopold’s ideas in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. 

Cities are the world’s future. Today, more than half of the global population—3.7 billion people—are urban dwellers, and that number is expected to double by 2050. There is no question that cities are growing; the only debate is over how they will grow. Will we invest in the physical and social infrastructure necessary for livable, equitable, and sustainable cities? In the latest edition of State of the World, the flagship publication of the Worldwatch Institute, experts from around the globe examine the core principles of sustainable urbanism and profile cities that are putting them into practice. From Ahmedabad, India to Freiburg, Germany, local people are acting to improve their cities, even when national efforts are stalled. Issues examined range from the nitty-gritty of handling waste and developing public transportation to civic participation and navigating dysfunctional government. The result is a snapshot of cities today and a vision for global urban sustainability tomorrow.     

Modern Poisons bridges the gap between traditional toxicology textbooks and journal articles on cutting-edge science. This accessible book explains basic principles in plain language while illuminating the most important issues in contemporary toxicology. Kolok begins by exploring age-old precepts such as the dose-response relationship and goes on to show exactly how chemicals enter the body and elicit their toxic effect. Kolok then traces toxicology’s development, from studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in toiletries to the emerging science on prions and epigenetics. Whether studying toxicology itself, public health, or environmental science, readers will develop a core understanding of—and curiosity about—this fast-changing field.