Industrial cultures have proved unable to confront the issues underlying the climate problem, such as overconsumption, overpopulation, inequity, and dysfunctional political systems. Political and social obstacles have prevented the adoption of improved technologies, and these would provide only a partial solution in any case. Climate Change and Social Ecologytakes a new approach to the climate crisis, arguing that climate change is a challenge of rapid social evolution. In order to address this impending catastrophe and bring about more sustainable development, this book argues that we must focus on improving social ecologies—our values, mind-sets, and organizations. The text presents a compelling vision of how to help social ecologies evolve toward sustainability and explores the social transformations needed to deal with the climate crisis in the long term. It reviews the climate change strategies considered to date, presents a detailed vision of a future sustainable society, and analyzes how this vision might be realized through more conscious public nurturing of our social ecologies. This interdisciplinary volume provides a compelling rethink of the climate crisis. Authoritative and accessible, it will be of great interest to anyone concerned about climate change and sustainability challenges and is essential reading for students, professionals, and general readers alike.

Social Ecology in the Digital Age: Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World provides a comprehensive overview of social ecological theory, research, and practice. Written by renowned expert Daniel Stokols, the book distills key principles from diverse strands of ecological science, offering a robust framework for transdisciplinary research and societal problem-solving. The existential challenges of the 21st Century - global climate change and climate-change denial, environmental pollution, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, disease pandemics, inter-ethnic violence and the threat of nuclear war, cybercrime, the Digital Divide, and extreme poverty and income inequality confronting billions each day - cannot be understood and managed adequately from narrow disciplinary or political perspectives. Social Ecology in the Digital Age is grounded in scientific research but written in a personal and informal style from the vantage point of a former student, current teacher and scholar who has contributed over four decades to the field of social ecology. The book will be of interest to scholars, students, educators, government leaders and community practitioners working in several fields including social and human ecology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, education, biology, medicine, public health, earth system and sustainability science, geography, environmental design, urban planning, informatics, public policy and global governance. Winner of the 2018 Gerald L. Young Book Award from The Society for Human Ecology"Exemplifying the highest standards of scholarly work in the field of human ecology." https://societyforhumanecology.org/human-ecology-homepage/awards/gerald-l-young-book-award-in-human-ecology/ - The book traces historical origins and conceptual foundations of biological, human, and social ecology - Offers a new conceptual framework that brings together earlier approaches to social ecology and extends them in novel directions - Highlights the interrelations between four distinct but closely intertwined spheres of human environments: our natural, built, sociocultural, and virtual (cyber-based) surroundings - Spans local to global scales and individual, organizational, community, regional, and global levels of analysis - Applies core principles of social ecology to identify multi-level strategies for promoting personal and public health, resolving complex social problems, managing global environmental change, and creating resilient and sustainable communities - Underscores social ecology's vital importance for understanding and managing the environmental and political upheavals of the 21st Century - Highlights descriptive, analytic, and transformative (or moral) concerns of social ecology - Presents strategies for educating the next generation of social ecologists emphasizing transdisciplinary, team-based, translational, and transcultural approaches

Environmental law envisions ecological systems as existing in an equilibrium state, reinforcing a rigid legal framework unable to absorb rapid environmental changes and innovations in sustainability. For the past four decades, "resilience theory," which embraces uncertainty and nonlinear dynamics in complex adaptive systems, has provided a robust, invaluable foundation for sound environmental management. Reforming American law to incorporate this knowledge is the key to sustainability. This volume features top legal and resilience scholars speaking on resilience theory and its legal applications to climate change, biodiversity, national parks, and water law.

This volume represents a timely sociolinguistic response in its provision of fresh insight into the evolution of climate change communication. Through the case study method, it investigates the representation of social-ecological resilience to climate change in the emerging discursive practice mediated online by grassroots activists. The fertile ground of resilience discourse is explored by showing its more positive outlook compared to the varieties of discourses competing in the ongoing climate debate. Significant varieties are examined to highlight their background role in the discourse formation of social-ecological resilience. The discursive-frame approach proposed here offers more than one methodological lens, allowing to capture the interrelated discursive, cognitive and social dimensions of resilience. It thereby underlines the importance of integrating different strands of critical discourse analysis with frame analysis to attend to the sociocognitive dimension of discourse which is still largely overlooked. The book is suitable for a wide readership, including scholars and neophyte readers with an interest in discourse, media and cultural studies, ecolinguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics and pragmatics. It will also appeal to social scientists with a keen interest in environmental movement studies dealing with the issue of climate change and its evolving communication.

An urgent and timely story of the contentious politics of incorporating environmental justice into global climate change policy Although the science of climate change is clear, policy decisions about how to respond to its effects remain contentious. Even when such decisions claim to be guided by objective knowledge, they are made and implemented through political institutions and relationships—and all the competing interests and power struggles that this implies. Michael Méndez tells a timely story of people, place, and power in the context of climate change and inequality. He explores the perspectives and influence low†‘income people of color bring to their advocacy work on climate change. In California, activist groups have galvanized behind issues such as air pollution, poverty alleviation, and green jobs to advance equitable climate solutions at the local, state, and global levels. Arguing that environmental protection and improving public health are inextricably linked, Mendez contends that we must incorporate local knowledge, culture, and history into policymaking to fully address the global complexities of climate change and the real threats facing our local communities.

Although strategies to prevent global warming – such as by conserving energy, relying on solar and wind power, and reducing motor vehicle use – are well-known, societies have proved unable to implement these measures with the necessary speed. They have also been unwilling to confront underlying issues such as overconsumption, overpopulation, inequity, and dysfunctional political systems. Political and social obstacles have prevented the adoption of improved technologies, which would provide only a partial solution in any case if the fundamental causes of greenhouse gas emissions aren’t addressed. Climate Change and Social Ecology takes a new approach to the climate crisis, portraying global warming as a challenge of rapid social evolution. This book argues that, in order to address this impending catastrophe and bring about more sustainable development, we must focus on improving social ecology – our values, mind-sets, and social organization. Steps to do this include institutional reforms to improve democracy, educational strategies to encourage public understanding of complex issues, and measures to prevent corporations and the wealthy from shaping societies in other directions instead. This book presents a captivating vision of how to help social systems evolve toward sustainability and explores the social transformations needed for dealing with the climate crisis in the long term. It reviews the climate change strategies considered to date, presents a detailed description of a future sustainable society, and analyzes how this vision might be realized through more conscious public nurturing of our social systems. This interdisciplinary volume provides a compelling rethink of the climate crisis. Authoritative and accessible, it will be of great interest to anyone concerned about climate change and sustainability challenges and is essential reading for students, professionals, and general readers alike.

This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.