Provides a comprehensive insight into the way social scientists contemplate environmental problems, both in terms of perceived causes and solutions

Societal Dimensions of Environmental Science: Global Case Studies of Collaboration and Transformation, brings together several key examples of the successes and the challenges that exist for environmental stakeholders trying to strike a balance between science and the societal implications of the issues involved. This book provides important methods and approaches necessary for informed decision making and a better understanding of the common threads of learning, collaboration, negotiation, and compromise. It also explains that concepts and skills needed to better understand how specific project goals can be best achieved in the rapidly changing field of environmental management, by providing practical situations and solutions, across a global landscape. This book provides anyone who works in a community setting with the necessary tools and strategies for solving environmental problems and achieving the goals of an environmental project of any type and specifically addresses the topic of how to synthesize community engagement and the environmental science. It describes current environmental issues and lessons learned of what works and what doesn’t work in real situations, and why. It also highlights key examples, which can be used by both management practitioners and research scientists in their specific circumstances. Showcasing a unique compilation of the diverse and specific examples from societies in Asia, Oceania, North America, and the Middle East, with an equally diverse array of authorship, this book serves all policy makers, scientists, organizers, and community members that desire to build better group dynamics for addressing environmental issues.

This publication is extracted from a much larger report, Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, which addresses the full range of the scientific issues concerning global environmental change and offers guidance to the scientific effort on these issues in the United States. This volume consists of Chapter 7 of that report, "Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change," which was written for the report by the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Research Council (NRC). It provides findings and conclusions on the key scientific questions in human dimensions research, the lessons that have been learned over the past decade, and the research imperatives for global change research funded from the United States.

This book builds an essential bridge between climate change and social policy. Combining ethics and human need theory with political economy and climate science, it offers a long-term, interdisciplinary analysis of the prospects for sustainable development and social justice. Beyond ‘green growth’ (which assumes an unprecedented rise in the emissions efficiency of production) it envisages two further policy stages vital for rich countries: a progressive ‘recomposition’ of consumption, and a post-growth ceiling on demand. An essential resource for scholars and policymakers.

Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation demonstrates how sociological theory and research are critical for understanding the social drivers of global environmental destruction and the conditions for transformative change. Written by two professors of sociology who are deeply involved in the international community of environmental sociology, Magnus Boström and Rolf Lidskog argue that we need to better understand society as well as the fundamentally social nature of environmental problems and how they can be addressed. The authors provide answers to why so many unsustainable practices are maintained and supported by institutions and actors despite widespread knowledge of their negative consequences. Employing a pluralistic sociological approach to the study of social transformations, the book is divided into five key themes: Causes, Distributions, Understandings, Barriers, and Transformation. Overall, the book offers an integrative and comprehensive understanding of the social dimension of (un)sustainability, societal inertia, and conditions for transformative change. It provides the reader with references from classic and contemporary sociology and uses pedagogical features including boxes and questions for discussion to help embed learning. Arguing that a broad and deep social transformation is needed to avoid a global civilization crisis, Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation will be a great resource for students and scholars who are exploring current environmental challenges and the societal conditions for meeting them.

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Global environmental change often seems to be the most carefully examined issue of our time. Yet understanding the human sideâ€"human causes of and responses to environmental changeâ€"has not yet received sustained attention. Global Environmental Change offers a strategy for combining the efforts of natural and social scientists to better understand how our actions influence global change and how global change influences us. The volume is accessible to the nonscientist and provides a wide range of examples and case studies. It explores how the attitudes and actions of individuals, governments, and organizations intertwine to leave their mark on the health of the planet. The book focuses on establishing a framework for this new field of study, identifying problems that must be overcome if we are to deepen our understanding of the human dimensions of global change, presenting conclusions and recommendations.