Anger and hopelessness can overwhelm communities. So what can everyday people do to actually grow some good in their own hometown?Growing Good: A Beginner's Guide to Cultivating Caring Communities shows how ordinary people have transformed themselves into volunteers and activists. Centered mostly in the Midwest, this collection of essays brings together the stories of normal people who have rolled up their sleeves to make their community a better place by ...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.“A powerful read that fills one with, dare I say . . . hope?”—The New York Times**NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINEThere is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically femi...

Bill McKibben meets Bill Bryson in this seriously engaging look at one man's decision to put his money where his mouth is and go off the grid for one year—while still living in New York City—to see if it's possible to make no net impact on the environment.In No Impact Man, a guilty liberal finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, and generally becomes a tree-hugging lunatic who tries to save the polar bear...

Studies of animal behavior have often been invoked to help explain and even guide human behavior. Think of Pavlov and his dogs or Goodall and her chimps. But, as these examples indicate, the tendency has been to focus on "higher," more cognitively developed, and thus, it is thought, more intelligent creatures than mindless, robotic insects. Not so! Learn here how honeybees work together to form a collective intelligence and even how they make decisions democratically. The wizzzzdom of crow...

John Thackara has spent a lifetime roving the globe in search of design that serves human needs in a sustainable way. He believes that in our eagerness to find technological solutions to the big challenges faced by the human race, we have all too often ignored the astonishing creativity generated when people work together and in harmony with the world around them.Drawing on an inspiring range of examples, from a temple-led water management system in Bali that dates back hundreds of...

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.While viewing the impending threat of climate change, Allan Savory invites the audience to take a global view of the current situation of the world. Pointing out that more than twenty civilizations have failed in different regions of the world because of their agriculture practices over the centuries, he suggests a two-level solution t...

An agricultural revolution is sweeping the land. Appreciation for high-quality food, often locally grown, an awareness of the fragility of our farmlands, and a new generation of young people interested in farming, animals, and respect for the earth have come together to create a new agrarian community. To this group of farmers, chefs, activists, and visionaries, Letters to a Young Farmer is addressed. Three dozen esteemed leaders of the changes that made this revolution possible s...

A history of coffee from the sixth century to Starbucks that's "good to the last sentence" ( Las Cruces Sun News).One of Library Journal's "Best Business Books"This updated edition of The Coffee Book is jammed full of facts, figures, cartoons, and commentary covering coffee from its first use in Ethiopia in the sixth century to the rise of Starbucks and the emergence of Fair Trade coffee in the twenty-first. The book explores the ...

The next revolution in business will provide for a sustainable future, from founder, CEO and circular economy expert Ron GonenOur take-make-waste economy has cost consumers and taxpayers billions while cheating us out of a habitable planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Waste-Free World makes a persuasive, forward-looking case for a circular economic model, a “closed-loop” system that wastes no natural resources. Entrepreneur, CEO and sustainabil...

An impassioned and rigorous appeal for reconnection to the land and human feeling by one of America’s most heartfelt and humble writersWhen he accepted the invitation to deliver The Jefferson Lecture—our nation’s highest honor for distinguished intellectual achievement—Wendell Berry decided to take on the obligation of thinking again about the problems that have engaged him throughout his long career. He wanted a fresh start, not only in looking at the groundwork o...

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.According to Jane Jacobs the healthiest economic regions are those which have strong and innovative import-replacing cities of their own. The economies of such city-regions are shaped and reshaped by complex, economically enlivening, interrelating forces originating within their own regions. Such regions, she says, become capable of pr...

Reclaiming Our Food tells the stories of people across the United States who are finding new ways to grow, process, and distribute food for their own communities. Discover how abandoned urban lots have been turned into productive organic farms, how a family-run sustainable fish farm can stay local and be profitable, and how engaged communities are bringing fresh produce into school cafeterias. Through photographic essays and interviews with innovative food leaders, you’ll be inspi...