Social impact of environmental issues

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Reports on the innovative, transdisciplinary co-production on sustainable urbanisation undertaken by Mistra Urban Futures, a highly influential research centre based in Sweden (2010-19), this book makes a significant contribution to evolving theory about comparative urban research.

Unless we make drastic changes, the climate damage that we are causing by living in cities will result in terminal consumption. Providing a radical new argument that integrates global understandings of making nature and making cities, the authors move beyond current policies of mitigation and adaption towards making cities spaces for activism.

Based on a cross-national and cross-generational project on climate change and consumption with urban residents in China, Uganda and the UK, this book examines how different cultures think about past, present and future responsibility for climate change.

This book examines the dynamics of agency and solidarity in the ways in which community, development and environment interact in the pursuit of environmental justice.

Focusing on house building and conservation politics in England, Spiers uses his considerable experience and extensive research to demonstrate why the current model doesn’t work, and why there needs to be both planning reform and a more active role for the state, including local government.

Makes a significant contribution to the sustainable urbanisation agenda through authoritative interventions contextualising, assessing and explaining the relevance and importance of three central characteristics of sustainable towns and cities everywhere; that they be accessible, green and fair.

Explores the impact of Africa’s rapidly growing urban population on local resources and the environment, acknowledging the clash between Western focus on sustainable development and the lived realities of residents of often poor, informal settlements.

Why we can’t afford the rich exposes the unjust and dysfunctional mechanisms that allow the top 1% to siphon off wealth produced by others. With an updated Afterword, Andrew Sayer shows how the rich worldwide have increased their ability to hide their wealth, create indebtedness and expand their political influence.

Exploring the links between politics, learning and sustainability this book argues that if we are to successfully meet the challenges of climate change and sustainability we need to embed a lifelong commitment to sustainability in all learning.

Why we can’t afford the rich exposes the unjust and dysfunctional mechanisms that allow the top 1% to siphon off wealth produced by others. With an updated Afterword, Andrew Sayer shows how the rich worldwide have increased their ability to hide their wealth, create indebtedness and expand their political influence.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Climate change and poverty offers a timely new perspective on the ‘ecosocial’ understanding of the causes, symptoms and solutions to poverty and applies this to recent developments across a number of areas, including fuel poverty, food poverty, housing, transport and air pollution.

This optimistic and accessible book contributes to our understanding of the factors that shape environmental justice outcomes by assessing the extent of, and reasons for, environmental justice/injustice in seven diverse countries.