ISBN:
9781849713825
Language:
English
Pages:
Online-Ressource (235 p)
Parallel Title:
Print version Understanding Human Ecology : A systems approach to sustainability
DDC:
304.2
Keywords:
Electronic books
Abstract:
We are facing hugely complex challenges - from climate change to world poverty, our problems are part of an inter-related web of social and natural systems. Human Ecology provides an approach to address these complex challenges, a way to understand them holistically and to start to manage them more effectively. This textbook, which has been road-tested and refined through over a decade of teaching and workshops, offers a coherent conceptual framework for Human Ecology - a clear approach for understanding the many systems we are part of and how we frame and understand the problems we face. By g
Description / Table of Contents:
Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; List of figures; List of tables; List of boxes; Foreword; Preface; Prologue: Six impossible things before breakfast; Part I The challenge; 1 Human ecology: an evolving discipline; 1.1 Introduction; 1.2 Human ecology: an evolving discipline; 1.3 The challenge of human ecology; 1.4 Conclusion: a systems approach to sustainability; 2 Water conflicts in the Snowy Mountains; 2.1 Introduction; 2.2 The Australian Snowy Mountains; 2.3 Aboriginal people: at home in the High Country; 2.4 New arrivals: stockmen and graziers
Description / Table of Contents:
2.5 Inland irrigators2.6 Changing flows: the Snowy Hydro scheme; 2.7 New expectations - new pressures; 2.8 Conclusion; Part II Building shared understanding; 3 Thinking together; 3.1 Introduction; 3.2 Mental models and prediction; 3.3 Conceptual metaphor, understanding, and reasoning; 3.4 Categories - classical and fuzzy; 3.5 The CONDUIT metaphor and communication; 3.6 Powerful ideas; 3.7 Conclusion; 4 System dynamics I: stocks and flows; 4.1 Introduction; 4.2 Accumulation and the WATER TANK metaphor; 4.3 Stocks control flows, flows change stocks; 4.4 Causal diagrams; 4.5 Stocks and states
Description / Table of Contents:
4.6 Conclusion5 System dynamics II: feedback; 5.1 Introduction; 5.2 Feedback and endogenous behaviour; 5.3 Basic feedback dynamics; 5.4 System archetypes; 5.5 Cross-sector feedback - an invisible force; 5.6 Conclusion; 6 Systems and sustainability; 6.1 Introduction; 6.2 Sustainable processes; 6.3 Limits to growth; 6.4 Delays, oscillation, overshoot, and collapse; 6.5 Extending the Ehrlich-Holdren relation; 6.6 Conclusion; 7 Towards a shared theoretical framework; 7.1 Introduction; 7.2 System dynamics and human ecology; 7.3 Feedback-guided analysis - unravelling complexity
Description / Table of Contents:
7.4 Boyden's transition framework7.5 A cultural adaptation template; 7.6 An example - technology choice and population health; 7.7 Conclusion; Part III Living in the Anthropocene; 8 Paradigms: ideas that change the world; 8.1 Introduction; 8.2 The original human condition: hunting and gathering; 8.3 The evolution of agriculture; 8.4 Urbanism and the rise of the city; 9 Living well in the Anthropocene; 9.1 Introduction; 9.2 The Paradigm of 'Limitless Growth'; 9.3 Anthropocene communities; 9.4 Ecosystem health in the Anthropocene; 9.5 Human health and wellbeing in the Anthropocene
Description / Table of Contents:
9.6 System dynamics of 'Limitless Growth'9.7 Conclusion; 10 Consumers and global food systems; 10.1 Introduction; 10.2 Food system paradigms; 10.3 Urban food system vulnerability; 10.4 Australia: net food importer; 10.5 Denmark: food transformer; 10.6 Japan: food importer; 10.7 Shifting paradigms; 10.8 Conclusion; 11 Stewards of a full Earth; 11.1 Introduction; 11.2 From 'Limitless Growth' to sufficiency: the need for a paradigm shift; 11.3 Social learning for biosensitivity; 11.4 Self-interested motivations for modifying paradigms; 11.5 Ethical motivations for modifying paradigms
Description / Table of Contents:
11.6 Conclusion: celebrating the Anthropocene
Note:
Description based upon print version of record
