Teaching for a Positive Future

Suggested Readings

Some books are linked directly to their supporting web pages, and we have also provided some links to publishers who have many more books directly related to sustainability to choose from. 

• The Earth Charter
  The Earth Charter stands as an inspiration and historic monument to the power of bridging cultural and geographic distances through organized dialogue, in order to work peacefully toward a single common purpose. We must decide as institutions and individuals to endorse this document in our teaching and learning. The Earth Charter gives us a singular opportunity to respond in an organized fashion to our personal and collective resolve to work for a more just, and sustainable future.
• Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad
  Author: Frances Moore Lappé
  Publisher: Richard R. Rowe, 2007
  Lappé connects readers' personal passions with actions they can take to help create the world the want.  Flouting tired Right-versus-Left thinking, she affirms readers' basic sanity-their intuition that it is possible to stop grasping at straws and grasp the real roots of out local-to-global crises.
• Good News for a Change; How Everyday People Are Helping the Planet
  Authors: Dr. David Suzuki, and Holly Dressel
  Publisher: Greystone Books, 2003
  Inspiring stories about the people who are making positive environmental and social contributions to our world, illustrating the hundreds of working solutions that can help all of us to achieve a better future.
  Click here to find more information on the Suzuki Foundation website.
• The Geography of Consumption
  Author: Juliana Mansvelt
  Publisher: Sage Publications Inc, 2005
  “Buying, using and disposing of commodities connect us to other people and other places in ways which may be beyond our imaginings.”-author
• The Environmental Justice Reader; Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy
  Authors: Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, Rachel Stein
  Publisher: The University of Arizona Press, 2002
  From the First National People of Color Congress on Environmental Leadership to WTO street protests of the new millennium, environmental justice activists have challenged the mainstream movement by linking social inequalities to the uneven distribution of environmental dangers.
• The Key to Sustainable Cities: Meeting Human Needs, Transforming Community Systems
  Author: Gwendolyn Hallsmith
  Publisher: New Society Publishers, 2003
  The Key to Sustainable Cities uses the principles of system dynamics to demonstrate how today's problems were yesterday's solutions. The book points to a new approach to city planning that builds on assets as a starting point for cities to develop healthy social, governance, economic, and environmental systems.
• The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
  by David C. Korten
  Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006
  Drawing from a multiplicity of disciplines, The Great Turning identifies the consequences of empire and outlines a course for future corrective action. Korten leverages the work of numerous progressive thinkers and activists pulling their individual contributions together to guide the reader to his main thesis: a call for Earth Community. Reviewer: Katie Quinn
  related website: http://thegreatturning.net/
• Urban Place: Reconnecting with the Natural World
  Authors: Barlett, Peggy F. Nash, Roderick Frazier
  Publisher: The MIT Press , 2005
  Amidst city concrete and suburban sprawl, Americans are discovering new ways to reconnect with the natural world. From community gardens in New York's Lower East Side to homeless shelters in California, the search for a more sustainable future has led grassroots groups to a profound reconnection to place and to the natural world.
• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
  by William McDonough, Michael Braungart
  Publisher: North Point Press; 1st edition, 2002
  Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better--say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete.
• Toward Sustainable Communities: Resources for Citizens and Their Governments
  by Mark Roseland
  Publisher: New Society Publishers; rev. ed 1998
  Mark Roseland is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. A past editor of Local Environment and RAIN magazine, he lectures internationally and advises communities and governments.
• Neighbor Power: Building Community The Seattle Way
  Author: Jim Diers
  Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2004
  Building on the lessons of early labor leaders, civil rights volunteers, and political activists, Jim Diers has developed his own models and successful strategies for community development. Neighbor Power chronicles his involvement with Seattle’s communities. This book not only gives hope that participatory democracy is possible, but it offers practical applications and invaluable lessons for ordinary, caring citizens who want to make a difference. It also provides government officials with inspiring stories and proven programs to help them embrace citizen activists as true partners.
• Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing (Education for Sustainability Series)
  by Doug McKenzie-Mohr, William Smith
  Publisher: New Society Publishers, 1999
  Our consumption patterns are threatening to outstrip Earth's ability to support humanity and other species. A sustainable future will require sweeping changes in public behavior. While conventional marketing can help create public awareness, social marketing identifies and overcomes barriers to long-lasting behavior change. This ground-breaking book is the primary resource for the emerging new field of community-based social marketing, and an invaluable guide for anyone involved in designing public education programs with the goal of promoting sustainable behavior, from recycling and energy efficiency, to alternative transportation.

 

Fostering Community Relationships and a Culture of Learning that Advances Knowledge, Embraces Diversity, and Promotes Social Justice