The rapid industrialization of societies has resulted in radical changes to the Earth’s biosphere and its local ecosystems. Climate scientists have recorded and forecasted worrying global temperature rises going back to the early twentieth century, while biologists and palaeontologists have suggested that the next mass extinction is on its way if the current rate of species loss continues. To avert further ecological damage, excessive natural resource use and environmental deterioration are challenges that humanity must deal with now. The human species has had such a significant impact on the natural environment that the present geological epoch can be referred to as the ‘Anthropocene’, the age of humans. The blame and responsibility for the prevailing unsustainability, however, cannot be assigned equally to all humans. To analyse the root problems and consequences of unsustainable development, as well as to outline rigorous solutions for the contemporary age, this transdisciplinary book brings together natural and social sciences under the rubric of the Anthropocene. The book identifies the central preconditions for social organization and governance to enable the peaceful coexistence of humans and the non-human world. The contributors investigate the burning questions of sustainability from a number of different perspectives including geosciences, economics, law, organizational studies, political theory and philosophy. The book is a state-of-the-art review of the Anthropocene debate and provides crucial signposts for how human activities can, and should, be changed.

This book discusses the geological time that will follow the human-dominated epoch and ways to move there. In addition to an editorial, a total of five articles are published in this volume. The articles engage with a variety of social science disciplines-ranging from economics and sociology to philosophy and political science-and connect to natural science's insights into the Anthropocene. The volume calls for going beyond anthropocentrism in sustainability theory and practice in order to exit the Anthropocene with applications and insights in the contexts of politics, energy, tourism, food and management. We hope that you will find this book interesting and helpful in contributing to sustainable change.

This book explores the complex relationship between human rights and environmental protection. It analyzes the concept of environmental procedural rights from a comparative perspective in the European Union, India, and China. Arguing the need to apply a holistic approach which acknowledges the interlinkages between democracy, environmental protection, and climate change, it examines both theoretical and practical dimensions of the topic, with case studies drawn from empirical research. The work highlights the important role of environmental procedural rights at the intersection of environmental law and human rights, emphasizing the need for effective channels of communication between citizens and public authorities. The study calls for the taking into account of non-binding recommendations, such as the Maastricht Recommendations on Promoting Effective Public Participation in Environmental Matters, for developing public participation procedures in a manner that allows authorities to tailor these to the needs and situations of marginalized people. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of environmental law, international human rights law and transnational law and governance.

"Current debates on sustainability are largely building on a problematic assumption that increasing technology use and advancement are a desired phenomenon, creating positive change in human organizations. This kind of techno-optimism prevails particularly in the discourses of ecological modernization and green growth, as well as in the attempts to design sustainable modes of production and consumption within growth-driven capitalism. This transdisciplinary book investigates the philosophical underpinnings of technology, presents a culturally sensitive critique of technology, and outlines feasible alternatives for sustainability beyond technology. By examining the conflicts and contradictions between technology and sustainability in human organizations, the book develops a novel way to conceptualize, confront and change technology in modern society. The book draws on a variety of scholarly disciplines, including humanities (philosophy and environmental history), social sciences (ecological economics, political economy, and ecology) and natural sciences (geology and thermodynamics) to contribute to sustainability theory and policy"--Publisher's description.

Featuring an international, multidisciplinary set of contributors, this thought-provoking book reimagines established narratives of the Anthropocene to allow differences in regions and contexts to be taken seriously, emphasising the importance of localised and situated knowledge. It offers critical engagement with the debates around the Anthropocene by challenging the dominant techno-rational agenda that often prevails in socio-political and academic discussions.

There is a growing interest in the character and the challenge of the Anthropocene. Although efforts to pin down beginning dates of this epoch have been debated, there is a broad consensus that humanity is facing an unprecedented challenge to surviving on Earth, a challenge which humans have created ourselves. Undeniably, we have had and continue to have impacts on the planet as a whole. These include ravaging bushfires and unprecedented flooding caused by climate change, spiking levels of carbon dioxide levels, and widespread loss of biodiversity. The challenge has been expressed in various ways: the larger challenges of climate change or ocean garbage toxicity, the subtler challenges that would support such large efforts by cultivating a new aesthetic. The present book asks of us to reach for the deeper grounding of all such efforts. Perhaps that asking is best hinted at by pluralizing the word character in a paradoxical non-question: “What is to be the 'character' of the characters transforming the Anthropocene from its present negativity to a positive period of human flourishing.” What is missing, what we are in the dark about, is the apparently simple turn that would have us asking, “What’s what?” The focus must be concrete: so we are to think of miners and farmers and reformers and economists and educators, but primarily of ourselves as whats. Might we begin the positive Anthropocene’s success by beginning to sow what comprehendingly?

In this book 60 authors from many disciplines and from 18 countries on five continents examine in ten parts: Moving towards Sustainability Transition; Aiming at Sustainable Peace; Meeting Challenges of the 21st Century: Demographic Imbalances, Temperature Rise and the Climate–Conflict Nexus; Initiating Research on Global Environmental Change, Limits to Growth, Decoupling of Growth and Resource Needs; Developing Theoretical Approaches on Sustainability and Transitions; Analysing National Debates on Sustainability in North America; Preparing Transitions towards a Sustainable Economy and Society, Production and Consumption and Urbanization; Examining Sustainability Transitions in the Water, Food and Health Sectors from Latin American and European Perspectives; Preparing Sustainability Transitions in the Energy Sector; and Relying on Transnational, International, Regional and National Governance for Strategies and Policies Towards Sustainability Transition. This book is based on workshops held in Mexico (2012) and in the US (2013), on a winter school at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (2013), and on commissioned chapters. The workshop in Mexico and the publication were supported by two grants by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF). All texts in this book were peer-reviewed by scholars from all parts of the world.

Activating Critical Thinking to Advance the Sustainable Development Goals in Tourism Systems focuses on the role of critical thinking and inquiry in the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in tourism systems. The impetus for the development of this book emerged from the declaration by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly of 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. This declaration purposely positions tourism as a tool to advance the universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 SDGs, thus mutually serving as an opportunity and responsibility to appraise from a critical lens what the SDGs signify and how they can be understood from multiple perspectives. The chapters in the book foster the next phase of sustainable tourism scholarship that actively considers the interconnections of the UN’s SDGs to tourism theory and praxis, and activates critical thinking to analyze and advance sustainability in tourism systems. It articulates the need for the academy to be more intrinsically involved in ongoing iterations of multilateral accords and decrees, to ensure they embody more critical and inclusive transitions toward sustainability, as opposed to market-driven, neoliberal directives. The contributions in this book encourage various worldviews challenging, shaping, and more critically reflecting the realities of global communities as related to, and impacted by, sustainable tourism development. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

As can beseen from this volume, the Australian Lonergan Workshop aims to encourage a diversity of contributions from across many disciplines and fields, from emerging young voices and those who continually value Lonergan's work to inform, to bring to birth insights stirred by what Frederick Crowe, sj, called 'a profundity we have dimly glimpsed in Lonergan's work; we have a sense of an enormous potential to develop.' The result is a collection ranging from the eclectic, stirring and practical, to the richly theological, and scholarly. Nonetheless, each contribution adds to the valuable ongoing exploration of ideas necessary for conversation and progress. To this end, the Australian Lonergan Workshop while a modest publication, remains an invaluable vehicle for developing Lonergan scholarship in Oceania.

The Supply Chain: A System in Crisis highlights the multifaceted challenges facing modern supply chains. It examines the concept of a globalized economy, juxtaposing the promise of prosperity with the acute reality of worker exploitation and environmental harm.