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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 181-210 of 322 items.

Trains, Buses, People

An Opinionated Atlas of US Transit

Island Press

 
In Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US Transit, transportation expert Christof Spieler shows how cities can build successful transit.

He profiles the 47 metropolitan areas in the US that have rail transit or BRT, using data, photos, and maps for easy comparison. The best and worst systems are ranked and Spieler offers analysis of how geography, politics, and history complicate transit planning. In this fun and accessible guide, he shows how the unique circumstances of every city have resulted in very different transit systems. In the end, Trains, Buses, People shows that it is possible with the right tools to build good transit.

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Designing Climate Solutions

A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy

Island Press

Cutting global carbon emissions is a daunting challenge, but the technologies and strategies to meet it exist today. A small set of energy policies, designed and implemented well, can put us on the right path. Energy systems are large and complex, so energy policy must be focused and cost-effective. One-size-fits-all approaches simply won’t get the job done. Written by Hal Harvey, CEO of the environmental policy firm Energy Innovation, with Robbie Orvis and Jeffrey Rissman of Energy Innovation, Designing Climate Solutions is a comprehensive guide to energy policies that will have the largest impact on carbon emissions, and how to design these policies well. In this unique resource, Harvey identifies the largest sources of global emissions, the best policies to target these sectors, and key design principles for each approach. Designing Climate Solutions gives professionals the tools they need to select, design, and implement a portfolio of policies that can put us on the path to a livable climate future.

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The Great Lakes Water Wars

Island Press

For over a century the Great Lakes have been the target of controversial diversion schemes to sell, send, or ship water to thirsty communities, sometimes far from the source. In 2008, eight US states signed the historic Great Lakes Compact designed to protect the region’s precious freshwater resources. Now water diversion controversies of a different kind are pitting communities and states against one another. Will the water wars ever be settled?

With three new chapters and significant revisions that bring the story up to date over the past decade, this is the definitive behind-the-scenes account of the people and stories behind hard-fought battles to protect this precious resource that makes the region so special for the millions who call it home.
 

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Ecology and Recovery of Eastern Old-Growth Forests

Island Press

North American landscapes have been shaped by humans for millennia through fire, agriculture, and hunting. But the arrival of Europeans several centuries ago ushered in an era of rapid conversion of eastern forests to cities, farms, transportation networks, and second‑growth woodlands. Recently, numerous remnants of old growth have been discovered, and scientists are developing strategies for their restoration that will foster biological diversity and reduce impacts of climate change. Forest ecologists William Keeton and Andrew Barton bring together an edited volume that breaks new ground in our understanding of eastern old‑growth forest ecosystems and their importance for resilience in an age of rapid environmental change. Leading experts examine topics of contemporary forest ecology across a broad geographic canvas in the eastern United States.
 

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The Food Sharing Revolution

How Start-Ups, Pop-Ups, and Co-Ops are Changing the Way We Eat

Island Press

In The Food Sharing Revolution, Michael Carolan tells the stories of entrepreneurs who are bucking the corporate food system. They are farmers like Josh, a co-op dairyman who doesn’t own his cows, but has a good income and a sense of autonomy. They are business owners like Dorothy, who opened her bakery with the help of a no-interest crowd-sourced loan. They are chefs like Camilla, who introduces diners to her native Colombian cuisine through peer-to-peer meal sharing. Each is making the most of the sharing economy, while avoiding the pitfalls of Uber and Airbnb. Their success is not only good for aspiring producers, but for everyone who wants a healthier, more sustainable, and more ethical way to eat.  
 

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Adapting Cities to Sea Level Rise

Green and Gray Strategies

By Stefan Al; Foreword by Edgar Westerhof
Island Press

As cities build more flood-management infrastructure to adapt to the effects of a changing climate, they must go beyond short-term flood protection and consider the long-term effects on the community, its environment, economy, and relationship with the water.
 
Adapting Cities to Sea Level Rise, by infrastructure expert Stefan Al, introduces design responses to sea-level rise, drawing from examples around the globe. Going against standard engineering solutions, Al argues for approaches that are integrated with the public realm, nature-based, and sensitive to local conditions and the community. He features design responses to building resilience that creates new civic assets for cities.

With the right solution, Al shows, sea-level rise can become an opportunity to improve our urban areas and landscapes, rather than a threat to our communities. 

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Life After Carbon

The Next Global Transformation of Cities

Island Press

In Life After Carbon urban sustainability consultants Pete Plastrik and John Cleveland present a global pattern of reinvention from the stories of 25 "innovation lab" cities—from Copenhagen to Melbourne. Plastrik and Cleveland show that four transformational ideas are driving urban climate innovation around the world: carbon-free advantage, efficient abundance, nature's benefits, and adaptive futures.

Life After Carbon presents the new ideas that are replacing the pillars of the modern-city model, converting climate disaster into urban opportunity, and shaping the next transformation of cities worldwide. It will inspire anyone who cares about the future of our cities, and help them to map a sustainable path forward.
 

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The Farm Bill

A Citizen's Guide

Island Press

The farm bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation the American president signs. Negotiated every five to seven years, it has tremendous implications for food production, nutrition assistance, habitat conservation, international trade, and much more. Yet at nearly 1,000 pages, it is difficult to understand for policymakers, let alone citizens. In this primer, Dan Imhoff and Christina Badaracco translate all the “legalese" and political jargon into an accessible, graphics-rich 200 pages. Readers will learn the basic elements of the bill, its origins and history, and perhaps most importantly, the battles that will determine the direction of food policy in the coming years.

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Urbanism Without Effort

Reconnecting with First Principles of the City

Island Press

How do you create inviting and authentic urban spaces where people feel at home? In Urbanism Without Effort, Chuck Wolfe argues that “unplanned” places can often teach us more about great placemaking than planned ones. He highlights “first principles” of what makes humans feel happy and safe, drawing lessons from an impromptu movie nights in a Seattle alley to the adapted reuse of Diocletian’s Palace in Split, Croatia.

A whirlwind global tour, Urbanism Without Effort offers readers inspiration, historical context, and a better understanding of how an inviting urban environment is created.
 

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Grain by Grain

A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food

Island Press

"A compelling agricultural story skillfully told; environmentalists will eat it up." - Kirkus Reviews

When Bob Quinn was a kid, a stranger at a county fair gave him a few kernels of an unusual grain. Years later, it would become the centerpiece of his multimillion dollar heirloom grain company, Kamut International. How Bob went from being a true believer in better farming through chemistry to a leading proponent of organics is the unlikely story of Grain by Grain. Along the way, readers will learn how ancient wheat can lower inflammation, how regenerative agriculture can bring back rural jobs, and how combining time-tested farming practices with modern science can point the way for the future of food.

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Naturalist 25th Anniversary Edition

Island Press

Edward O. Wilson—winner of two Pulitzer prizes, champion of biodiversity, and Faculty Emeritus at Harvard—is arguably one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. A modern classic of science memoir, Naturalist is a wise and personal account of Wilson’s growth as a researcher and the evolution of the fields he helped define. Wilson traces the trajectory of his life—from a childhood spent exploring the Gulf Coast of Alabama and Florida to a career as a tenured professor at Harvard—detailing how his youthful fascination with nature blossomed into a lifelong calling. As the narrative of Wilson's life unfolds, the reader is treated to an inside look at the origin and development of ideas that guide today's biological research.

At once practical and lyric, Naturalist provides fascinating insights into the making of a scientist, and a valuable look at some of the most thought-provoking ideas of our time. As relevant today as when it was first published twenty-five years ago, Naturalist is a poignant reminder of the human side of science and an inspiring call to celebrate the little things of the world.

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Water is for Fighting Over

and Other Myths about Water in the West

Island Press

"Illuminating." —New York Times

WIRED's Required Science Reading 2016

When we think of water in the West, we think of conflict and crisis. Yet despite decades of headlines warning of mega-droughts, the death of agriculture, and the collapse of cities, the Colorado River basin has thrived in the face of water scarcity. John Fleck shows how western communities, whether farmers and city-dwellers or U.S. environmentalists and Mexican water managers, actually have a promising record of conservation and cooperation. Rather than perpetuate the myth “Whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin' over," Fleck urges readers to embrace a new, more optimistic narrative—a future where the Colorado continues to flow.

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The Grand Food Bargain

and the Mindless Drive for More

Island Press

When it comes to food, Americans seem to have a pretty great deal. Our grocery stores are overflowing with countless varieties of convenient products. But like most bargains that are too good to be true, the modern food system relies on an illusion. It depends on endless abundance, but the planet has its limits.

Through beautifully-told stories from around the world, Kevin Walker reveals the unintended consequences of our myopic focus on quantity over quality. By the end of the journey, we not only understand how the drive to produce ever more food became hardwired into the American psyche, but why shifting our mindset is essential.
 

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Holistic Management Handbook, Third Edition

Regenerating Your Land and Growing Your Profits

Island Press

Holistic management is a systems-thinking approach developed by biologist Allan Savory to restore the world’s grassland soils and minimize the damaging effects of climate change and desertification on humans and the natural world. This third edition of Holistic Management Handbook: Regenerating Your Land and Growing Your Profits is the long-awaited companion volume to Holistic Management, Savory’s classic textbook. It is the key to helping you restore health to your land and ensure a stable, sustainable livelihood from its bounty.

This new edition, thoroughly revised, updated, and streamlined offers step-by-step instructions for running a ranch or farm using a holistic management approach. Ranchers, farmers, and anyone working to address global environmental degradation will find this comprehensive handbook an indispensable guide to putting the holistic management concept into action with tangible results.
 

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Protecting Pollinators

How to Save the Creatures that Feed Our World

Island Press

We should thank a pollinator at every meal. These diminutive creatures fertilize a third of the crops we eat. Yet half of the 200,000 species of pollinators are threatened. Birds, bats, insects, and many other pollinators are disappearing, putting our entire food supply in jeopardy.

Protecting Pollinators breaks down the latest science on environmental threats and takes readers inside the most promising conservation efforts. Efforts range from cities creating butterfly highways to citizen scientists monitoring migration.  

Along with inspiring stories of revival and lessons from failed projects, readers will find practical tips to get involved. And they will be reminded of the magic of pollinators—the iconic monarchs, dainty hummingbirds, and homely bats alike who bring food to our tables.
 

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Corridor Ecology, Second Edition

Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Adaptation

Island Press

Wildlife species across the globe face a dire predicament as their traditional migratory routes are cut off by human encroachment and they are forced into smaller and smaller patches of habitat. As key species populations dwindle, ecosystems lose resilience and face collapse, and along with them, the ecosystem services we depend on. Healthy ecosystems need healthy wildlife populations. One possible answer? Wildlife corridors that connect fragmented landscapes.

This second edition of Corridor Ecology: Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Adaptation captures advances in the field over the past ten years. It features a new chapter on marine corridors and the effects of climate change on habitat, as well as a discussion of corridors in the air for migrating flying species. Practitioners, land managers, and scholars of ecology will find it an indispensable resource.

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Vacant to Vibrant

Creating Successful Green Infrastructure Networks

Island Press

Vacant lots, so often seen as neighborhood blight, have the potential to be a key element of community revitalization. Sandra Albro offers practical insights through her experience leading the five-year Vacant to Vibrant project, which piloted the creation of green infrastructure networks in Gary, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York. Vacant to Vibrant provides a point of comparison among the three cities as they adapt old systems to new, green technology. Albro offers insights from every step of the Vacant to Vibrant project, including planning, design, community engagement, implementation, and maintenance successes and challenges of creating a green infrastructure network from vacant lots in neighborhoods.

Landscape architects and other professionals whose work involves urban greening will learn new approaches for creating infrastructure networks and facilitating more equitable access to green space.
 

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The Heart of the City

Creating Vibrant Downtowns for a New Century

Island Press

In The Heart of the City, distinguished urban planner Alexander Garvin shares lessons on how to plan for a mix of housing, businesses, and attractions; enhance the public realm; improve mobility; and successfully manage downtown services. Garvin opens the book with diagnoses of downtowns across the United States, including the people, businesses, institutions, and public agencies implementing changes. In a review of prescriptions and treatments for any downtown, Garvin shares brief accounts—of both successes and failures—of what individuals with very different objectives have done to change their downtowns. The final chapters look at what is possible for downtowns in the future, closing with suggested national, state, and local legislation to create standard downtown business improvement districts to better manage downtowns.

This book will help public officials, civic organizations, downtown business property owners, and people who care about cities learn from successful recent actions in downtowns across the country, and expand opportunities facing their downtown. Garvin provides recommendations for continuing actions to help any downtown thrive, ensuring a prosperous and thrilling future for the 21st-century American city.

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True Roots

What Quitting Hair Dye Taught Me about Health and Beauty

Island Press

Like 75% of American women, Ronnie Citron-Fink colored her hair. Yet as an environmental journalist, she knew all those unpronounceable chemical names on the back of the hair dye box were far from safe.

So Ronnie decided to ditch the dye and go in search of answers. What are the risks of hair dye? Are there safer alternatives? Will I still feel like me when I have gray hair?

True Roots follows her journey from dark dyes to a silver crown of glory, from fear of aging to embracing natural beauty. Along the way, women of all ages can learn to protect themselves from dangerous products and discover a new hair story—one built on individuality, health, and truth.
 

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Climate Action Planning

A Guide to Creating Low-Carbon, Resilient Communities

Island Press

Climate Action Planning is designed to help professionals working at local levels to develop and implement plans to mitigate a community's greenhouse gas emissions and increase the resilience of communities against climate change impacts. This fully revised and expanded edition goes well beyond climate action plans to examine the mix of policy and planning instruments available to every community.
 
Climate Action Planning is the most comprehensive book on the state of the art, science, and practice of local climate action planning. It should be a first stop for any local government interested in addressing climate change.
 

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My Kind of City

Collected Essays of Hank Dittmar

Island Press

In My Kind of City, Dittmar has organized his selected writings into ten sections with original introductions. His observations range on scale from local (“My Favorite Street: Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London”) to national (“Post Truth Architecture in the Age of Trump”) and global (“Architects are Critical to Adapting our Cities to Climate Change”). Andrés Duany writes of Hank in the book foreword, “He has continued to search for ways to engage place, community and history in order to avoid the tempting formalism of plans.”
 
The range of topics covered in My Kind of City reflects the breadth of Dittmar’s experience in working for better cities for people. Common themes emerge in the engaging prose including Dittmar’s belief that improving our cities should not be left to the “experts”; his appreciation for the beautiful and the messy; and his rare combination of deep expertise and modesty. As Lynn Richards, CEO of Congress for the New Urbanism expresses in the preface, “Hank’s writing is smart without being elitist, witty and poetic, succinct and often surprising.”
 
My Kind of City captures a visionary planner’s spirit, eye for beauty, and love for the places where we live.
 

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Soft City

Building Density for Everyday Life

By David Sim; Foreword by Jan Gehl
Island Press

In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how cities with well-designed density can result in a higher quality of life. He presents ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions.
 
Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance in a highly visual package, for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.
 

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Green Growth That Works

Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms Around the World

Island Press

Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being, but comes at a significant cost to the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, and farmland that support all life on earth. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One solution is inclusive green growth—the efficient use of natural resources. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it.

Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.
 

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Rainforest

Dispatches from Earth's Most Vital Frontlines

Island Press

Rainforests have long been recognized as hotspots of biodiversity—but they are crucial for our planet in other surprising ways. Not only do these fascinating ecosystems thrive in rainy regions, they create rain themselves, and this moisture is spread around the globe. Rainforests across the world have a powerful and concrete impact, reaching as far as America’s Great Plains and central Europe. In Rainforest: Dispatches from Earth’s Most Vital Frontlines, a prominent  conservationist provides a comprehensive view of the crucial roles rainforests serve, the state of the world’s rainforests today, and the inspirational efforts underway to save them.

In Rainforest, Tony Juniper draws upon decades of work in rainforest conservation, bringing readers along on his journeys, from Costa Rica to Indonesia. Rainforest provides a detailed and wide-ranging look at the health of these vital ecosystems. Throughout this evocative book, Juniper argues that in saving rainforests, we save ourselves, too.

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Food Town, USA

Seven Unlikely Cities That are Changing the Way We Eat

Island Press

Look at any list of America’s top foodie cities and you probably won’t find Boise, Idaho or Sitka, Alaska. Yet they are the new face of the food movement. Healthy, sustainable fare is changing communities across this country, revitalizing towns that have been ravaged by disappearing industries and decades of inequity.

What sparked this revolution? To find out, Mark Winne traveled to seven cities not usually considered revolutionary. He broke bread with brew masters and city council members, farmers and philanthropists, toured start-up incubators and homeless shelters. What he discovered was remarkable, even inspiring. The cities of Food Town, USA remind us that innovation is ripening all across the country, especially in the most unlikely places.
 

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Firestorm

How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future

Island Press
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Better Buses, Better Cities

How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit

Island Press

"Better Buses, Better Cities is likely the best book ever written on improving bus service in the United States." —  Beyond Chron
"The ultimate roadmap for how to make the bus great again in your city."  — Spacing
"
The definitive volume on how to make [the] bus frequent, fast, reliable, welcoming, and respected..."  —Streetsblog


Imagine a bus system that is fast, frequent, and reliable—what would that change about your city?

Buses can and should be the cornerstone of urban transportation. They offer affordable mobility and can connect citizens with every aspect of their lives. But in the US, they have long been an afterthought in budgeting and planning.

Transit expert Steven Higashide uses real-world stories of reform to show us what a successful bus system looks like. Higashide explains how to marshal the public in support of better buses and argues that better bus systems will create better cities for all citizens.

With a compelling narrative and actionable steps, Better Buses, Better Cities describes how decision-makers, philanthropists, activists, and public agency leaders can work together to make the bus a win in any city.

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Wildlife Law, Second Edition

A Primer

Island Press

Ten years ago, Wildlife Law: A Primer was the first-ever published survey of wildlife law for lay readers. Since its publication, the legal terrain has increased in complexity and the stakes are higher than ever. As humans encroach further into wildlife habitat, unwanted human-wildlife interactions are occurring more frequently, sometimes with alarming and tragic outcomes.

This revised and expanded second edition retains basic legal concepts from the first edition while offering new chapters that cover new controversial topics such as private wildlife reserves, game ranches, and nuisance species. It also includes expanded coverage of the Endangered Species Act. This is a groundbreaking reference for students in wildlife programs, land owners, and wildlife professionals.
 

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The Power of Existing Buildings

Save Money, Improve Health, and Reduce Environmental Impacts

Island Press

In The Power of Existing Buildings, academic sustainability expert Robert Sroufe, and construction and building experts Craig Stevenson and Beth Eckenrode, explain how to realize the potential of existing buildings and make them perform like new. This step-by-step guide will help readers to: understand where to start a project; develop financial models and realize costs savings; assemble an expert team; and align goals with numerous sustainability programs. The Power of Existing Buildings will challenge you to rethink spaces where people work and play, while determining how existing buildings can save the world. 
 
The insights and practical experience of Sroufe, Stevenson, and Eckenrode, along with the project case study examples, provide new insights on investing in existing buildings for building owners, engineers, occupants, architects, and real estate and construction professionals.
 

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A New Coast

Strategies for Responding to Devastating Storms and Rising Seas

Island Press

“This is a timely book… [It] should be mandatory reading..." — Minnesota Star Tribune

More severe storms and rising seas will inexorably push the American coastline inland with profound impact on communities, infrastructure, and natural systems. In A New Coast, Jeffrey Peterson presents the science behind predictions for coastal impacts and explains how current policies fall short of what’s needed to prepare for these changes. He outlines a framework of bold, new national policies and funding to support local and state governments. Peterson calls for engagement of citizens, the private sector, as well as local and national leaders in a “campaign for a new coast.” This is a forward-looking volume offering new insights for policymakers, planners, business leaders preparing for the changes coming to America’s coast.

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