185 results for "Ecology"

Reinventing Los Angeles: nature and community in the global city

Gottlieb, Robert
Los Angeles--the place without a sense of place, famous for sprawl and overdevelopment and defined by its car-clogged freeways--might seem inhospitable to ideas about connecting with nature and community. But in Reinventing Los Angeles, educator and activist Robert Gottlieb describes how imaginative and innovative social movements have coalesced around the issues of water development, cars and freeways, and land use, to create a more livable and sustainable city. Gottlieb traces the emergence of Los Angeles as a global city in the twentieth century and describes its continuing evolution today. He examines the powerful influences of immigration and economic globalization as they intersect with changes in the politics of water, transportation, and land use, and illustrates each of these core concerns with an account of grass roots and activist responses: efforts to reenvision the concrete-bound, fenced-off Los Angeles River as a natural resource; "Arroyofest," the closing of the Pasadena Freeway for a Sunday of walking and bike riding; and immigrants' initiatives to create urban gardens and connect with their countries of origin. Reinventing Los Angeles is a unique blend of personal narrative (Gottlieb himself participated in several of the grass roots actions described in the book) and historical and theoretical discussion. It provides a road map for a new environmentalism of everyday life, demonstrating the opportunities for renewal in a global city.Robert Gottlieb is Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He is the author of Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change (MIT Press), Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement, and other books.
MIT Press 2007 430 pages

The next Jerusalem: sharing the divided city

Michael Sorkin
This important collection brings together noted Israeli, Palestinian, and American architects and urbanists to consider the physical future of Jerusalem and to offer specific proposals for making the city functional, beautiful, and physically generous to its inhabitants' needs. The essays focus on issues of ecology, preservation, neighborhood development, and open space. While the authors take a variety of approaches, all agree on the necessity of sharing the city amicably. Contributors are Ghiora Aharoni, Moustafa Bayoumi, and Jerrilyn D. Dodds; Ariella Azoulay; Rasem Badran; Stella Betts, David Leven, and David Snyder; M. Christine Boyer; Joan Copjec; Keller Easterling; Samira Haj; Rassem Khamaisi; Romi Khosla; Thom Mayne, Rose Mendez, and Caroline Barat; Deborah Natsios and John Young; Moshe Safdie; Mack Scogin; Michael Sorkin and Andrei Vovk; Achva Benzinberg Stein; Amir Sumaka'i Fink; Jafar Tukan; Dag Tvilde and Ali Ziadah; Eyal Weizman; James Wines; Lebbeus Woods; Oren Yiftachel and Haim Yacobi; and Omar Youssef.
Monacelli Press 2002 431 pages

The persistence of faith: religion, morality & society in a secular age

Sacks, Jonathan
In this expanded version of the 1990 BBC Reith Lectures, Sacks argues that religious identities maintain a striking persistence in the modern world. Their influence has been underestimated, partly because of an oversimplified view of secularisation, partly because of a failure of social thought to move beyond the individual and the state. Communities of faith form an essential part of the moral ecology of liberal sciences --Book jacket.
Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1991 118 pages

The language revolution

Crystal, David
We are living through the consequences of a linguistic revolution. Dramatic linguistic change has left us at the beginning of a new era in the evolution of human language, with repercussions for many individual languages. In this book, David Crystal, one of the world's authorities on language, brings together for the first time the three major trends which he argues have fundamentally altered the world's linguistic ecology: first, the emergence of English as the world's first truly global language; second, the crisis facing huge numbers of languages which are currently endangered or dying; and, third, the radical effect on language of the arrival of Internet technology. Examining the interrelationships between these topics, Crystal encounters a vision of a linguistic future which is radically different from what has existed in the past, and which will make us revise many cherished concepts relating to the way we think about and work with languages. Everyone is affected by this linguistic revolution. The Language Revolution will be essential reading for anyone interested in language and communication in the twenty-first century.
Polity Press 2004-03-12 142 pages

The view from afar

Lévi-Strauss, Claude
This collection touches on a wide range of anthropological issues, including family and marriage, myths, and rites, the environment and its representation, and constraint and freedom. The essays encompass more than forty years of analysis and constrain arguments that are as relevant today as they were thirty years ago. "Hardly a field remains untouched—sociobiology, linguistics, botany, genetics, psychiatry, esthetics, ecology, politics, neuroscience, education, morality, psychology. . . . It's all breathtaking and alarming, some of it wonderful, some of it ridiculous. . . . At times the experience is exhilarating."—Richard A. Shweder, New York Times Book Review
University of Chicago Press 1992-12 311 pages

On the wings of checkerspots: a model system for population biology

Paul R. Ehrlich,Ilkka Hanski
Hanski, a leading thinker in metapopulation ecology, studies checkerspot butterfly populations in Finland. Ehrlich, one of the leading ecologists and conservation biologist, investigates checkerspot butterfly populations in California. This book reports on and synthsizes the major long-term research of both workers' careers on the population biology of checkerspot butterflies.
Oxford University Press 2004-03-18 371 pages

Stark

Elton, Ben
Stark is a secret consortium with more money than God, and the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn. What's more, it knows the Earth is dying. Deep in Western Australia where the Aboriginals used to milk the trees, a planet-sized plot is taking shape. Some green freaks pick up the scent: a pommie poseur; a brain-fried Vietnam vet; Aboriginals who have lost their land not much against a conspiracy that controls society. But EcoAction isnt in society: it just lives in the same place, along with the cockroaches. If you're facing the richest and most disgusting scheme in history, you have to do more than stick up two fingers and say peace.
Black Swan 2006 496 pages

Timber wars

Bari, Judi
A collection of essays and transcripts of interviews and speeches by Earth First!er Judi Bari who survived first a 1990 car-bombing that left her paralyzed, then subsequent implication in her own attack, in spite of clear motives and death-threats from others. These articles and essays provide a history of Earth First!'s work and internal struggles, the involvement of the timber corporations, Richard Held (of COINTELPRO fame) and the FBI in discrediting Earth First!, as well as Bari's own complex relationship with the organization and some of its tactics. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
Common Courage Press 1994 343 pages

Post-scarcity anarchism

Bookchin, Murray
In this series of essays, Murray Bookchin balances his ecological and anarchist vision with the promising opportunities of a "post-scarcity" era. Technological advances during the 20th century have expanded production in the pursuit of corporate profit at the expense of human need and ecological sustainability. New possibilities for human freedom must combine an ecological outlook with the dissolution of hierarchical social relations, capitalism and canonical political orientation. Bookchin's utopian vision, rooted in the realities of contemporary society, remains refreshingly pragmatic. "Book-chin makes a trenchant analysis of modern society and offers a pointed, provocative discussion of the ecological crisis."-- Library Journal Murray Bookchin has been an active voice in the ecology and anarchist movements for more than 40 years. In Oakland, California on March 24, 2015 a fire destroyed the AK Press warehouse along with several other businesses. Please consider visiting the AK Press website to learn more about the fundraiser to help them and their neighbors.
AK Press 2004 199 pages

Life of Mendel

Hugo 1882-1952 Iltis
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2021-09-10 368 pages

Ethics and the beast: a speciesist argument for animal liberation

Zamir, Tzachi
Many people think that animal liberation would require a fundamental transformation of basic beliefs. We would have to give up "speciesism" and start viewing animals as our equals, with rights and moral status. And we would have to apply these beliefs in an all-or-nothing way. But in Ethics and the Beast , Tzachi Zamir makes the radical argument that animal liberation doesn't require such radical arguments--and that liberation could be accomplished in a flexible and pragmatic way. By making a case for liberation that is based primarily on common moral intuitions and beliefs, and that therefore could attract wide understanding and support, Zamir attempts to change the terms of the liberation debate. Without defending it, Ethics and the Beast claims that speciesism is fully compatible with liberation. Even if we believe that we should favor humans when there is a pressing human need at stake, Zamir argues, that does not mean that we should allow marginal human interests to trump the life-or-death interests of animals. As minimalist as it sounds, this position generates a robust liberation program, including commitments not to eat animals, subject them to factory farming, or use them in medical research. Zamir also applies his arguments to some questions that tend to be overlooked in the liberation debate, such as whether using animals can be distinguished from exploiting them, whether liberationists should be moral vegetarians or vegans, and whether using animals for therapeutic purposes is morally blameless.
Princeton University Press 2007-09-16 146 pages