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Examines how Norway has positioned itself as an alternative, environmentally-sound nation in a world filled with tension and instability.
Aelian's Historical Miscellany is a pleasurable example of light reading for Romans of the early third century. Offering engaging anecdotes about historical figures, retellings of legendary events, and descriptive pieces - in sum: amusement, information, and variety - Aelian's collection of nuggets and narratives could be enjoyed by a wide reading public. A rather similar book had been published in Latin in the previous century by Aulus Gellius; Aelian is a late, perhaps the last, representative of what had been a very popular genre. Here then are anecdotes about the famous Greek philosophers, poets, historians, and playwrights; myths instructively retold; moralizing tales about heroes and rulers, athletes and wise men; reports about styles in dress, foods and drink, lovers, gift-giving practices, entertainments, religious beliefs and death customs; and comments on Greek painting. Some of the information is not preserved in any other source. Underlying it all are Aelian's Stoic ideals as well as this Roman's great admiration for the culture of the Greeks (whose language he borrowed for his writings).
Global warming and concerns about sustainability recently have pushed ecological design to the forefront of architectural study and debate. As Peder Anker explains in From Bauhaus to Ecohouse, despite claims of novelty, debates about environmentally sensitive architecture have been ongoing for nearly a century. By exploring key moments of inspiration between designers and ecologists from the Bauhaus projects of the interwar period to the eco-arks of the 1980s, Anker traces the historical intersection of architecture and ecological science and assesses how both remain intertwined philosophically and pragmatically within the still-evolving field of ecological design. The idea that science coul...
This text examines the possibilities for scaling design solutions to global warming. The featured projects showcase leading-edge design innovations at multiple scales.
This volume documents the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the late 1990s. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the sceptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third-world and feminist perspectives.
Bowler traces ideas about progress using evolutionary biology to throw light on parallel changes in the understanding of social development.
First published in 2003. Hewett Cottrell Watson was a pioneer in a new science not yet defined in Victorian times – ecology – and was practically the first naturalist to conduct research on plant evolution, beginning in 1834. The correspondence between Watson and Darwin, analysed for the first time in this book, reveals the extent to which Darwin profited from Watson’s data. Darwin’s subsequent fame, however, is one of the reasons why Watson became almost forgotten. This biography traces both the influences and characteristics that shaped Watson’s outlook and personality, and indeed his science, and the institutional contexts within which he worked. At the same time, it makes evident the extent of his real contributions to the science of the plant ecology and evolution.
Environmentalism has moved into the center of the most influential social movements in late modernity. From preserving pre-industrial landscapes, advocating the intrinsic value of nature, and protecting ecosystems against overexploitation, it has developed into a worldview, ethos, and practice, that is radically shifting the frontiers of politics, economics, and ethics. Saving Nature approaches environmentalism as a belief system. The book explores the impact of environmentalism on faith communities and vice versa, and analyzes how environmental worldviews, values, attitudes, and discourses affect religion. By drawing on sources in the sociology of religion and environmental sociology, it sheds light on the religious dimensions of environmentalism. It locates the quick growth of environmentalism in the history of allegedly secular modernity and interprets environmentalism in the context of modernity's re-sacralization. (Series: Studies in Religion and the Environment/Studien zur Religion und Umwelt - Vol. 4)
Not long ago, Republicans could take pride in their party’s tradition of environmental leadership. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the GOP helped to create the Environmental Protection Agency, extend the Clean Air Act, and protect endangered species. Today, as Republicans denounce climate change as a “hoax” and seek to dismantle the environmental regulatory state they worked to build, we are left to wonder: What happened? In The Republican Reversal, James Morton Turner and Andrew C. Isenberg show that the party’s transformation began in the late 1970s, with the emergence of a new alliance of pro-business, libertarian, and anti-federalist voters. This coalition came about through a...
Design with Life chronicles the breakthroughs and projects of a nonprofit that is defining resolute new directions in socio-ecological design and other deep-seated intersections of synthetic biology, architecture, and urban systems. In the challenging context of accelerating climate dynamics, the core discipline of architectural design is evolving and embracing new forms of action. New York-based nonprofit Terreform ONE has established a distinctive design tactic that investigates projects through the regenerative use of natural materials, science, and the emergent field of socio-ecological design. This kind of design approach uses actual living matter (not abstracted imitations of nature) to create new functional elements and spaces. These future-based actions are not only grounded in social justice, but are also far-reaching in their application of digital manufacturing and maker culture. Terreform ONE tackles urgent environmental and urban social concerns through the integrated use of living materials and organisms.