This book explores the communication processes of the Transition Movement, a community-led global social movement, as it was adapted in a local context. First it analyzes how the movement’s grand narratives of responding to “climate change” and creating greater “resiliency” were communicated into local community-based stories, responses, and actions in the Transition Town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Second, it seeks to understand the multilayered communication processes that facilitate these actions toward sustainable social change. Transition Amherst developed and/or supported projects that addressed reducing dependency on peak-oil, creating community-based-local economies, supporting sustainable food production and consumption, and participating in more efficient transportation, among others. The popularity of the model coincides with an increase in the interest in and use of the term “sustainability” by media, academics and policymakers around the world, and an increase in the global use of digital technology as a resource for information gathering and sharing. Thus this book situates itself at the intersections of a global environmental and economic crisis, the popularization of the term “sustainability,” and an increasingly digitized and networked global society in order to better understand how social change is contextualized and facilitated in a local community via a global network. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the theories of Transition are applied over an extended period of time in practice, on the ground in a Transition town.

Risk communication is crucial to building community resilience and reducing risk from extreme events. True community resilience involves accurate and timely dissemination of risk information to stakeholders. This book examines the policy and science of risk communication in the digital era. Themes include public awareness of risk and public participation in risk communication and resilience building. The first half of the book focuses on conceptual frameworks, components, and the role of citizens in risk communication. The second half examines the role of risk communication in resilience building and provides an overview of some of its challenges in the era of social media. This book looks at the effectiveness of risk communication in socially and culturally diverse communities in the developed and developing world. The interdisciplinary approach bridges academic research and applied policy action. Contributions from Latin America and Asia provide insight into global risk communication at a time when digital technologies have rapidly transformed conventional communication approaches. This book will be of critical interest to policy makers, academicians, and researchers, and will be a valuable reference source for university courses that focus on emergency management, risk communication, and resilience.

This book theorizes the roles of optimism in anthropological thinking, research, writing, and practice. It sets out to explore optimism’s origins and implications, its conceptual and practical value, and its capacity to contribute to contemporary anthropological aims. In an era of extensive ecological disruption and social distress, this volume contemplates how an optimistic anthropology can energize the discipline while also contributing to bettering the lives, communities, and environments of those we study. It brings together scholars diverse in background, career stage, and theoretical approach in a collective attempt to comprehend the myriad intersections of anthropology and optimism. The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have recently underscored the larger, longer-term catastrophes of climate change, ecosystemic collapse, social injustice, and antipathy toward scientific knowledge and those who produce it. In this context, exceedingly few anthropologists feel comfortable observing and documenting passively while their research communities face unrelenting waves of (un)natural disasters. We need to act. But we also need to hope. Discontent with the state of the world and cultural anthropology’s turn to increasingly positive, future-oriented, and engaged work have converged to unleash a courageously optimistic anthropology. This book is a timely springboard for this impactful and emergent approach.

Once again nature‘s fury has taken a toll in pain, suffering, and lives lost. In recognition of the need for a rapid and appropriate response, CRC Press will donate $5 to the American Red Cross for every copy of Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges sold. In the past, societies would learn from di

From one of the world’s leading climate scientists, a heart- and mind-changing book that offers a hopeful and attainable vision for restoring the atmosphere and ending the climate crisis. Climate change is here. From the millions displaced by the floods in Pakistan to Californian and Canadian towns incinerated by wildfires, we are experiencing the anguish that climate change causes. Fossil fuels are making the planet unlivable, and they are deadly. We know that we must cut emissions if we are going to limit the catastrophes, but is that enough? In Into the Clear Blue Sky, climate scientist and chair of the Global Carbon Project Rob Jackson explains that we need to redefine our goals. As he argues here, we shouldn’t only be trying to stabilize the Earth’s temperature at some arbitrary value. Instead, we can restore the atmosphere itself in a lifetime—and this should be our moral duty. Restoring the atmosphere means reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the air to pre-industrial levels—starting with super-potent methane—to heal the harm we have done. Emissions must be cut, first and foremost. But to safeguard a livable planet for future generations, we must repair the damage we have caused. Jackson introduces us to the brilliant leaders and innovators behind some of the boldest and game-changing climate solutions under development. When it comes to greenhouse gas mitigation, our choices matter, because it is easier to stop emissions from happening than to remove greenhouse gases from the air later. But while mitigation is crucial, no number of solar panels, electric cars, and veggie burgers alone will be enough to halt climate change. Decades of inaction have convinced Jackson that we need to remove greenhouse gases from the air using everything from nature to cutting-edge technologies. Into the Clear Blue Sky is a heart- and mind-changing book. Guided by one of the leading scientists in this fight and a deeply gifted storyteller, we learn why we should all feel hopeful. One way or another, we will restore the planet together. The question is how, and how long will it take?

In the face of what seems like a concerted effort to destroy the only planet that can sustain us, critique is an important tool. It is in this vein that most scholars have approached environmental crisis. While there are numerous texts that chronicle contemporary issues in environmental ills, there are relatively few that explore the possibilities and practices which work to avoid collapse and build alternatives. The keyword of this book’s full title, 'Perma/Culture,' alludes to and plays on 'permaculture', an international movement that can provide a framework for navigating the multiple 'other worlds' within a broader environmental ethic. This edited collection brings together essays from an international team of scholars, activists and artists in order to provide a critical introduction to the ethico-political and cultural elements around the concept of ‘Perma/Culture’. These multidisciplinary essays include a varied landscape of sites and practices, from readings from ecotopian literature to an analysis of the intersection of agriculture and art; from an account of the rewards and difficulties of building community in Transition Towns to a description of the ad hoc infrastructure of a fracking protest camp. Offering a number of constructive models in response to current global environmental challenges, this book makes a significant contribution to current eco-literature and will be of great interest to students and researchers in Environmental Humanities, Environmental Studies, Sociology and Communication Studies.