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Transforming California
In Transforming California, Stephanie Pincetl argues that the transformation of nature in order to enhance economic development lies at the heart of much of the state's recent history. She sees late-twentieth-century California on a path of continued environmental degradation, gripped by cynicism about government. Transforming California describes the evolution of the state's institutions of government as they apply to land use and development, and it shows how land-use decisions affect people's quality of life and their daily interactions with each other and with their environment. Pincetl offers an alternative vision for the renewal of the democratic spirit and process in California and for a reconciliation with nature.
Energy Use in Cities
In an era of big data and smart cities, this book is an innovative and creative contribution to our understanding of urban energy use. Societies have basic data needs to develop an understanding of energy flows for planning energy sustainability. However, this data is often either not utilized or not available. Using California as an example, the book provides a roadmap for using data to reduce urban greenhouse gas emissions by targeting programs and initiatives that will successfully and parsimoniously improve building performance while taking into account issues of energy affordability. This first of its kind methodology maps high-detail building energy use to understand patterns of consum...
Bird versus Bulldozer
An examination of the struggle to conserve biodiversity in urban regions, told through the story of the threatened coastal California gnatcatcher The story of the rare coastal California gnatcatcher is a parable for understanding the larger ongoing struggle to conserve biodiversity in regions confronted with intensifying urban development. Because this gnatcatcher depends on vanishing coastal sage scrub in Southern California, it has been regarded as a flagship species for biodiversity protection since the early 1990s. But the uncertainty of the gnatcatcher’s taxonomic classification—and whether it can be counted as a “listable unit” under the Endangered Species Act—has provoked contentious debate among activists, scientists, urban developers, and policy makers. Synthesizing insights from ecology, environmental history, public policy analysis, and urban planning as she tracks these debates over the course of the past twenty-five years, Audrey L. Mayer presents an ultimately optimistic take on the importance of much-neglected regional conservation planning strategies to create sustainable urban landscapes that benefit humans and wildlife alike.
Retrofitting Cities
Developing an up-to-date critical framework for analysing urban retrofit, this is the first book to examine urban re-engineering for sustainability in a socio-technical context. Retrofitting Cities examines why retrofit is emerging as an important strategic issue for urban authorities and untangles the mix of economic, competitive, ecological and social drivers that influence any transition towards a more sustainable urban environment. Retrofitting Cities comparatively explores how urban scale retrofitting can be conceptualised as a socio-technical transition; to critically compare and contrast different national styles of response in cities of the north and global south; and, to develop new...
Ecosystems of California
This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for CaliforniaÕs remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem typeÑits distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Each chapter evaluates natural processes for a specific ecosystem, describes drivers of change, and discusses how that ecosystem may be altered in the future. This book also explores the drivers of CaliforniaÕs ecological patte...
A Public Empire
"Property rights" and "Russia" do not usually belong in the same sentence. Rather, our general image of the nation is of insecurity of private ownership and defenselessness in the face of the state. Many scholars have attributed Russia's long-term development problems to a failure to advance property rights for the modern age and blamed Russian intellectuals for their indifference to the issues of ownership. A Public Empire refutes this widely shared conventional wisdom and analyzes the emergence of Russian property regimes from the time of Catherine the Great through World War I and the revolutions of 1917. Most importantly, A Public Empire shows the emergence of the new practices of owning...
The Sustainable Development Paradox
Sustainability--with its promise of economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental integrity--is hardly a controversial goal. Yet scholars have generally overlooked the ways that policies aimed at promoting "sustainability" at local, national, and global scales have been shaped and constrained by capitalist social relations. This thought-provoking book reexamines sustainability conceptually and as it actually exists on the ground, with a particular focus on Western European and North American urban contexts. Topics include critical theoretical engagements with the concept of sustainability; how sustainability projects map onto contemporary urban politics and social justice movements; the spatial politics of conservation planning and resource use; and what progressive sustainability practices in the context of neoliberalism might look like.
Public Lands in the Western US
This edited collection explores the many ways in which diverse individuals and groups—such as state and federal managers, First Peoples, ranchers, miners, oil and gas extraction industries, sports enthusiasts, environmentalists, local residents, and tourists—actively negotiate, contest, and collaborate on issues regarding public lands in the American West. Tracing these ever-morphing alliances and antagonisms, this volume highlights the recurring patterns within this diverse array of social actors.
Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World
To comprehensively address the complexities of current socio-ecological problems involved in global environmental change, it is indispiseble to achieve an integration of ecological understanding and ethical values. Contemporary science proposes an inclusive ecosystem concept that recognizes humans as components. Contemporary environmental ethics includes eco-social justice and the realization that as important as biodiversity is cultural diversity, inter-cultural, inter-institutional, and international collaboration requiring a novel approach known as biocultural conservation. Right action in confronting the challenges of the 21st century requires science and ethics to be seamlessly integrated. This book resulted from the 14th Cary Conference that brought together leading scholars and practitioners in ecology and environmental philosophy to discuss core terminologies, methods, questions, and practical frameworks for long-term socio-ecological research, education, and decision making.
