Island Press began with a simple idea: knowledge is power—the power to imagine a better future and find ways for getting us there. Founded in 1984, Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems.
Showing 41-60 of 322 items.
White Pine
The Natural and Human History of a Foundational American Tree
By John Pastor
Island Press
America was built on white pine. From the 1600s through the Civil War and beyond, it was used to build the nation’s ships and houses, barns, and bridges. It became a symbol of independence, adorning the Americans’ flag at Bunker Hill, and an economic engine, generating three times more wealth than the California gold rush. Yet this popularity came at a cost: by the end of the 19th century, clear-cutting had decimated much of America’s white pine forests. In White Pine: The Natural and Human History of a Foundational American Tree, ecologist and writer John Pastor takes readers on walk through history, connecting the white pine forests that remain today to a legacy of destruction and renewal. Weaving together cultural and natural history with a keen naturalist’s eye, Pastor celebrates the way humans are connected to the forest—and to the larger natural world.
Roadways for People
Rethinking Transportation Planning and Engineering
Island Press
The car-only approach in transportation planning and engineering has led to the construction of roadways that have torn apart and devalued communities, especially Black and Brown communities. Forging a new path and working to repair this damage requires a community solutions-based approach to planning, designing, and building our roadways. In Roadways for People, Lynn Peterson draws from her personal experience and conversations with leaders in the field to showcase new possibilities within transportation engineering and planning. The community solutions-based approach moves away from the narrow standards of traditional transportation projects and focuses instead on a process that involves consistent feedback, learning loops, and meaningful and regular community engagement.
Roadways for People is written to empower professionals and policymakers to create transportation solutions that serve people rather than cars.
Roadways for People is written to empower professionals and policymakers to create transportation solutions that serve people rather than cars.
The Progress Illusion
Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics
Island Press
We live under the illusion of progress: as long as GDP is going up and prices stay low, we accept poverty and pollution as unfortunate but inevitable byproducts of a successful economy. How did we all get duped into believing the fairytale of economics?
In The Progress Illusion, Jon Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. Drawing on his experience as a young economist inoculated in the go-go 1980’s era of "greed is good," Erickson shows how flawed economic thinking shaped our politics and determined the course of American public policy.
While the history of economics is dismal indeed, Erickson is part of a vigorous reform effort grounded in the realities of life on a finite planet. Crafting a new economic story, he shows, is the first step toward turning away from endless growth and towards enduring prosperity.
In The Progress Illusion, Jon Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. Drawing on his experience as a young economist inoculated in the go-go 1980’s era of "greed is good," Erickson shows how flawed economic thinking shaped our politics and determined the course of American public policy.
While the history of economics is dismal indeed, Erickson is part of a vigorous reform effort grounded in the realities of life on a finite planet. Crafting a new economic story, he shows, is the first step toward turning away from endless growth and towards enduring prosperity.
A Poison Like No Other
How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies
By Matt Simon
Island Press
“Informed, utterly blindsiding account.” - Booklist, starred review
It’s falling from the sky and is in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming.
A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis. Matt Simon follows the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity linked to diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer.
There is no easy fix, Simon warns. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.
It’s falling from the sky and is in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming.
A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis. Matt Simon follows the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity linked to diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer.
There is no easy fix, Simon warns. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.
Understanding Disaster Insurance
New Tools for a More Resilient Future
Island Press
The frequency and intensity of natural disasters is on the rise. Insurance, an often confusing and unpopular tool, will be critical to successfully emerging from the effects of these crises. Understanding Disaster Insurance provides an accessible introduction to the complexities—and exciting possibilities—of risk transfer markets in the U.S. and around the world. Carolyn Kousky, a leading researcher on disaster risk and insurance, explains how traditional insurance markets came to be structured and why they fall short in meeting the needs of a world coping with climate change. She then offers realistic, yet hopeful, examples of new approaches.
Understanding Disaster Insurance is a useful guidebook for policymakers, innovators, students, and other decision makers working to secure a resilient future—and anyone affected by wind, fire, rain, or flood.
Understanding Disaster Insurance is a useful guidebook for policymakers, innovators, students, and other decision makers working to secure a resilient future—and anyone affected by wind, fire, rain, or flood.
Thicker Than Water
The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis
By Erica Cirino
Island Press
Much of what you’ve heard about plastic pollution may be wrong. Instead of a great island of trash, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of manmade debris spread over hundreds of miles of sea—more like a soup than a floating garbage dump. Less than nine percent of the plastic we create is reused, and microplastic fragments are found almost everywhere, even in our bodies. In Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hopping journey to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis. New technologies and awareness bring some hope, but Cirino shows that we can only fix the problem if we begin to repair our throwaway culture. Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste.
Rural Renaissance
Revitalizing America’s Hometowns through Clean Power
Island Press
For decades, we’ve heard that local, renewable power is on the horizon, and that cheaper technologies will revolutionize our energy system. Michelle Moore has spent her career proving that this opportunity is already here—and that any community, no matter how small, can build their own clean energy future. In Rural Renaissance, Moore describes five pathways to clean power in rural America and strategies for building it, including energy efficiency, renewable power, resilience (including microgrids and battery storage), the electrification of transportation, and finally, broadband internet. This accessible guide offers a vision of thriving rural communities where clean power is the spark that leads to greater investment, vitality, and equity.
Place and Prosperity
How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate
Island Press
In Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate, urban planning expert William Fulton takes an engaging look at the importance of connecting to place, how cities are engines of prosperity, and how these two ideas – place and prosperity – lie at the heart of what a city is and, by extension, what our society is all about.
Fulton has been writing about cities over his forty-year career as a journalist, professor, mayor, planning director, and the director of an urban think tank in one of America’s great cities. Place and Prosperity is a curated collection of his writings with new and updated selections and framing material.
Fulton shows that at their best, cities not only inspire and uplift us, but they make our daily life more convenient, more fulfilling, and more prosperous.
Fulton has been writing about cities over his forty-year career as a journalist, professor, mayor, planning director, and the director of an urban think tank in one of America’s great cities. Place and Prosperity is a curated collection of his writings with new and updated selections and framing material.
Fulton shows that at their best, cities not only inspire and uplift us, but they make our daily life more convenient, more fulfilling, and more prosperous.
Managing the Climate Crisis
Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought, and Wildfire
By Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw
Island Press
Natural disasters from heat waves to coastal and river flooding will inevitably become worse because of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Managing them is possible, but planners, designers, and policymakers need to advance adaptation and preventative measures now.
Managing the Climate Crisis: Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought and Wildfire by design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw is a practical guide to addressing this urgent national security problem. Barnett and Bouw draw from the latest scientific findings and include many recent, real-world examples to illustrate how to manage seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages.
Managing the Climate Crisis: Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought and Wildfire by design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw is a practical guide to addressing this urgent national security problem. Barnett and Bouw draw from the latest scientific findings and include many recent, real-world examples to illustrate how to manage seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages.
Making Healthy Places, Second Edition
Designing and Building for Well-Being, Equity, and Sustainability
Island Press
Making Healthy Places surveys the many intersections between health and the built environment, from the scale of buildings to the scale of metro areas, and across a range of outcomes, from cardiovascular health and infectious disease to social connectedness and happiness. This new edition is significantly updated, with a special emphasis on equity and sustainability, and takes a global perspective. It provides current evidence not only on how poorly designed places may threaten well-being, but also on solutions that have been found to be effective.
Making Healthy Places is a must-read for students, academics, and professionals in health, architecture, urban planning, civil engineering, parks and recreation, and related fields.
Making Healthy Places is a must-read for students, academics, and professionals in health, architecture, urban planning, civil engineering, parks and recreation, and related fields.
City Forward
How Innovation Districts Can Embrace Risk and Strengthen Community
By Matt Enstice and Mike Gluck
Island Press
Innovation districts and anchor institutions—like hospitals and universities—drive economic growth. But the benefits often fail to reach the very neighborhoods they are built in. As CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC), Matt Enstice fosters a different, collaborative approach. City Forward explains how BNMC promotes a shared goal of equity among companies and institutions with diverse motivations. Offering a candid look at BNMC’s setbacks and successes, along with efforts from other institutions nationwide, Enstice shares twelve strategies that innovation districts can harness to weave equity into their core work.
Institutional leadership, business owners, and professionals will find experienced direction here. City Forward is a refreshing look at the brighter futures that we can create through thoughtful collaboration—moving forward, together.
Institutional leadership, business owners, and professionals will find experienced direction here. City Forward is a refreshing look at the brighter futures that we can create through thoughtful collaboration—moving forward, together.
Arbitrary Lines
How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
Island Press
It’s time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary—if not sufficient—condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities.
Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.
Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life—where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up.
Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.
Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life—where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up.
Build Beyond Zero
New Ideas for Carbon-Smart Architecture
By Bruce King and Chris Magwood
Island Press
In Build Beyond Zero, carbon pioneers Bruce King and Chris Magwood re-envision buildings as one of our most practical and affordable climate solutions instead of a leading driver of climate change. They make a case for a “carbon smart” built environment that absorbs more greenhouse gases than it emits. While the industry pursues net zero emissions focused on improving the energy efficiency of buildings, a carbon-smart approach also considers what we make all those buildings with, and the supply chains that deliver all those products and materials.
Build Beyond Zero offers an exciting vision of climate-friendly architecture, along with practical advice for professionals working to address the carbon footprint of our built environment.
Build Beyond Zero offers an exciting vision of climate-friendly architecture, along with practical advice for professionals working to address the carbon footprint of our built environment.
The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change, Revised Edition
By Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein
Island Press
When The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change was first published in 2014, it offered something entirely new: a fun, illustrated guide to a planetary crisis. If that sounds like an oxymoron, you’ve never seen the carbon cycle demonstrated through yoga poses or a polar bear explaining evolution to her cubs.
That creativity comes from the minds of Yoram Bauman, the world’s first and only “stand-up economist,” and award-winning illustrator Grady Klein. After seeing their book used in classrooms and the halls of Congress alike, the pair has teamed up again to fully update the guide with the latest scientific data.
Sociologists have argued that we don’t address climate change because it’s too big and frightening to get our heads around. The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change takes the intimidation and gloom out of one of the most important challenges of our time.
That creativity comes from the minds of Yoram Bauman, the world’s first and only “stand-up economist,” and award-winning illustrator Grady Klein. After seeing their book used in classrooms and the halls of Congress alike, the pair has teamed up again to fully update the guide with the latest scientific data.
Sociologists have argued that we don’t address climate change because it’s too big and frightening to get our heads around. The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change takes the intimidation and gloom out of one of the most important challenges of our time.
A Road Running Southward
Following John Muir's Journey through an Endangered Land
By Dan Chapman
Island Press
"Engaging hybrid - part lyrical travelogue, part investigative journalism and part jeremiad, all shot through with droll humor." --The Atlanta Journal Constitution
In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, from Kentucky to Florida. One hundred and fifty years later, veteran Atlanta reporter Dan Chapman recreated Muir’s journey to see for himself how nature has fared since Muir’s time. He uses humor, keen observation, and a deep love of place to celebrate the South’s natural riches. But he laments the long-simmering struggles over misused resources and seeks to discover how Southerners might balance surging population growth with protecting the natural beauty Muir found so special.
A Road Running Southward is part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur—a passionate appeal to save one of the loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world by understanding what we have to lose if we do nothing.
30 Animals That Made Us Smarter
Stories of the Natural World That Inspired Human Ingenuity
Island Press
Did you know that mosquitoes’ mouthparts are helping to develop pain-free surgical needles? Who'd have thought that the humble mussel could inspire so many useful things, from plywood production to a “glue” that can cement the crowns on teeth? Or that the design of polar bear fur may one day help keep humans warm in space? In everything from fashion to architecture, medicine to transportation, it may surprise you how many extraordinary inventions have been inspired by the natural world. In 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter, join wildlife biologist, TV host, and BBC podcaster Patrick Aryee as he tells stories of biomimicry, or innovations inspired by the natural world, that enrich our lives every day—and in some cases, save them.
Applied Panarchy
Applications and Diffusion across Disciplines
Island Press
Although humans desire stability in our lives to help us understand the world and survive, nothing in nature is permanently stable. How can society anticipate and adjust to the changes we see around us? Scientists use panarchy theory to understand how systems—whether forests, electrical grids, agriculture, coastal surges, public health, or human economies and governance—interact together in unpredictable ways. Applied Panarchy, the much-anticipated successor to Lance Gunderson and C.S. Holling’s seminal 2002 volume Panarchy, documents the extraordinary advances in interdisciplinary panarchy scholarship and applications over the past two decades.
Intended as a text for graduate courses in environmental sciences and related fields, Applied Panarchy picks up where Panarchy left off, inspiring new generations of scholars, researchers, and professionals to put its ideas to work in practical ways.
Intended as a text for graduate courses in environmental sciences and related fields, Applied Panarchy picks up where Panarchy left off, inspiring new generations of scholars, researchers, and professionals to put its ideas to work in practical ways.
The Blue Revolution
Hunting, Harvesting, and Farming Seafood in the Information Age
Island Press
For the world’s oceans, overfishing is a worrisome problem. Many global fish stocks are at a dangerous tipping point, some spiraling toward extinction. But there is a new way to think about fish, food, and oceans. The Blue Revolution tells the story of the recent transformation of commercial fishing, where entrepreneurs are applying newer, smarter technologies to modernize fisheries in unprecedented ways that relieve overstressed oceans.
Nicholas P. Sullivan presents this new way of thinking by profiling the people and policies transforming an aging industry into one fueled by “sea-foodies” and locavores interested in sustainable, traceable, quality seafood. The Blue Revolution brings encouraging news for conservationists and seafood lovers about the transformation of an industry historically averse to change, and it presents fresh inspiration for entrepreneurs and investors eager for new opportunities in a blue-green economy.
Nicholas P. Sullivan presents this new way of thinking by profiling the people and policies transforming an aging industry into one fueled by “sea-foodies” and locavores interested in sustainable, traceable, quality seafood. The Blue Revolution brings encouraging news for conservationists and seafood lovers about the transformation of an industry historically averse to change, and it presents fresh inspiration for entrepreneurs and investors eager for new opportunities in a blue-green economy.
No Farms, No Food
Uniting Farmers and Environmentalists to Transform American Agriculture
By Don Stuart
Island Press
Since 1980, American Farmland Trust (AFT) has been bringing farmers and environmentalists together to work for healthy land and a healthy food system. No Farms, No Food traces the development of this powerful coalition, responsible for landmark achievements in farmland preservation and conservation practices.
With leadership from AFT, that constituency drove through Congress the first “Conservation Title” in the history of the U.S. Farm Bill; oversaw the development of agriculture conservation easement programs throughout the country; and continues to develop innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture.
No Farms, No Food is both an inspiring history of agricultural conservation and a practical guide to creating an effective advocacy organization. This is an essential read for everyone who cares about the future of our food, farms, and environment.
With leadership from AFT, that constituency drove through Congress the first “Conservation Title” in the history of the U.S. Farm Bill; oversaw the development of agriculture conservation easement programs throughout the country; and continues to develop innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture.
No Farms, No Food is both an inspiring history of agricultural conservation and a practical guide to creating an effective advocacy organization. This is an essential read for everyone who cares about the future of our food, farms, and environment.
Effective Conservation
Parks, Rewilding, and Local Development
Island Press
“Full Nature” is a new approach to conservation that connects the well-being of the natural world with the human communities in its midst. Pioneered by conservationist Ignacio Jiménez, it offers a pragmatic approach that puts the focus on working with people—neighbors, governments, politicians, businesses, media—to ensure communities have a stake in the long-term protection and restoration of their local parks and wildlife.
Effective Conservation is based on Jiménez’s experience managing conservation projects on three continents over thirty years. It guides readers through the practical considerations of designing, analyzing, and managing effective conservation programs. This highly readable manual, newly translated into English after successful Spanish and Portuguese editions, provides a practical, time-proven formula for successful conservation.
Effective Conservation is based on Jiménez’s experience managing conservation projects on three continents over thirty years. It guides readers through the practical considerations of designing, analyzing, and managing effective conservation programs. This highly readable manual, newly translated into English after successful Spanish and Portuguese editions, provides a practical, time-proven formula for successful conservation.
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