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Sustainability Science

Sustainability Science

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Bert J. M. de Vries
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/17/2012
EAN 9781107005884, ISBN10: 1107005884

Hardcover, 605 pages, 25.9 x 18.3 x 3.3 cm
Language: English

Sustainable development is becoming the guiding principle for the twenty-first century. This textbook - based on the author's course and rigorously class-tested by his students - provides an introduction into patterns of past and present (un)sustainable development and into the emergence of the notion of sustainable development. It systematically surveys the key concepts, models and findings of the various scientific disciplines with respect to the major sustainability issues: energy, nature, agro-food and resource systems, and economic growth. System analysis and modelling is introduced and used as an integrating tool. Stories and worldviews are used to connect the quantitative and the qualitative and to offer the reader an understanding of relevant trends and events in context. Sustainability Science is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in sustainable development and in environmental and resource science and policy.

1. Introduction
2. The systems dynamics perspective
3. In search of sustainability
past civilizations
4. The world in the past 300 years
the Great Acceleration
5. Sustainability
concerns and definitions
6. Quality of life
on values, knowledge and worldviews
7. Energy fundamentals
8. On knowledge and models
9. Ecosystems
10. Human populations and human behaviour
11. Agro-food systems
12. Renewable resources
water, fish and forest
13. Non-renewable resources
the industrial economy
14. Towards a sustainable economy
15. Outlook on the futures.

Advance praise: 'Achieving some sort of sustainability will be THE focus of global societies in the twenty-first century. To be successful, our leaders will need a perspective of centuries, the full breadth of scientific insights, system thinking skills, great cultural sensitivity, and an awareness of spiritual values. All of these are offered in this wonderful, unique text, which will be useful for decades.' Dennis Meadows, co-author of The Limits to Growth