About Canada: Animal Rights

John Sorenson

Adopting Mahatma Gandhi’s idea that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” this book considers the status of animals in Canada. Casting a critical gaze over how dominant ideologies, such as capitalism and patriarchy, have negatively impacted our relationships with the natural world, Sorenson examines the institutional exploitation of animals in agriculture, fashion and entertainment. Addressing the fur trade, seal hunt… (more information)

Bringing the Food Economy Home

Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness

Steven Gorelick, Todd Merrifield, Helena Norberg-Hodge

There has been much discussion about the quality of food being provided by global agribusiness and the serious environmental impact it produces. The benefits of fostering a local food production are often dismissed, but it would address a range of health, social and environmental problems. The authors argue if the trend of large agribusiness were thought about rather than accepted without question, then local food production would be seen as a viable means of supplementing this existing system.… (more information)

Climate Change

Melanie Jarman

This engaging guide outlines key issues in the major challenge facing national governments today—how to deal with climate change. With doom-laden forecasts of our future in the next decade, the issue’s importance cannot be over-estimated. Jarman shows how countries are beginning to adapt and what other countries must do to catch up. Climate change will affect millions of lives, particularly in the poorest countries. Yet many governments are reluctant to commit to tackling the problem… (more information)

Ecofeminism

Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva

Two authors, one an economist, the other a physicist and philosopher, come together in this book on a controversial environmental agenda. Using interview material, they bring together women’s perspectives from North and South on environmental deterioration and develop and new way of approaching this body of knowledge which is at once practical and philosophical. Do women involved in environmental movements see a link between patriarchy and ecological degradation? What are the links between… (more information)

Edible Action

Food Activism and Alternative Economics

Sally Miller

Hunger is up, obesity is up, food-borne illness is up, farms are lost to debt and despair; the food system fails growing numbers of people across the world every day. Yet if we adjust our lens, we see ubiquitous commitments to change: food movements and enterprises dedicated to making the world a better place to eat and to live. Food initiatives—from farmers’ markets to fair trade coffee—offer a pattern of powerful alternatives to conventional food economics, which benefit only… (more information)

Energy Security and Climate Change

A Canadian Primer

Cy Gonick

Peak oil and climate change were mere hypotheses only a few years ago. This book brings together some of Canada’s and the world’s leading authorities to explore the origins of twin crises of our times and to evaluate the various solutions being advanced. What emerges is an engrossing discussion that is critical, sophisticated and plain spoken, challenging and controversial. Energy Security and Climate Change will be of interest to those seeking an introduction to the issues, as well… (more information)

Fair Future

Resources Conflicts, Security and Global Justice

Wolfgang Sachs, Tilman Santarius

This is a book that cuts across the outdated divide of North and South to address the twin global questions of our age: social justice and environmental sustainability. It asks how the material needs of the poor can be met on a planet already exhibiting signs of acute environmental stress. By laying out fundamentals of shared analytical understanding, ethical commitment and practical institutional and policy changes, the authors provide the necessary intellectual and moral platform for progress… (more information)

Global Ecology

A New Arena of Political Conflict

Edited by Wolfgang Sachs

Behind the public’s hope of effective action by governments on environmental issues lie a complex terrain of conceptual confusion, conflicts of interest and philosophical dispute. This is hwy some of the world’s leading environmental thinkers have come together in this volume to probe critically the new languages being developed by the environmental professionals. The examine the contradictions inherent in the fashionable notion of sustainable development. They explore the emerging… (more information)

Planet Dialectics

Explorations in Environment and Development

Wolfgang Sachs

Sachs is one of the most thoughtful and appealing intellectuals to deal with the dual crisis in the Western world’s relations with nature and social justice. In this book readers–be they concerned citizens, environmentalists, development specialists or cultural historians–will find trenchant and elegant explorations of some of the foremost issues the world faces at the beginning of the new century: Efficiency, the mantra of our times; Globalization, a market inevitability and the… (more information)

Protect or Plunder?

Understanding Intellectual Property Rights

Vandana Shiva

Intellectual property rights, TRIPS, patents–they sound technical, even boring. Yet what kinds of ideas, technologies, identification of genes, even manipulations of life forms can be owned and exploited for profit by giant corporations is a vital issue for our times. Vandana Shiva shows how the Western-inspired and unprecedented widening of the concept of intellectual property does not stimulate human creativity and the generation of knowledge. Instead, it is being exploited by transnational… (more information)

The Enemy of Nature (Second Edition)

The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? 2nd Edition

Joel Kovel

We live in and from nature, but the way we have evolved of doing this is about to destroy us. capitalism and its by-products—imperialism, war, neoliberal globalization, racism, poverty and the destruction of community—are all playing a part in the destruction of our ecosystem. only now are we beginning to realize the depth of the crisis and the kind of transformation that will have to occur to ensure our survival. This second, thoroughly updated, edition of The Enemy of Nature speaks… (more information)

The Perils of Progress

The Health and Environment Hazards of Modern Technology, and What You Can Do About Them

John Ashton, Ron Laura

The Perils of Progress calls on the latest scientific research to challenge our society’s largely unquestioned commitment to new technologies. While these have undoubtedly brought many benefits, the authors argue that industrial society’s reliance on every latest technology as a cure-all for our problems is seriously misplaced-in some cases dangerously so. Clearly written, comprehensive in its coverage and meticulously researched, their book introduces the reader to a vast array of health… (more information)

The Water Business

Corporations Versus People

Ann-Christin Sjolander Holland

Privatization of water supplies began in England in 1989 under Margaret Thatcher; in the next 10 years, nearly £10 billion went in profits to the new water companies. Today, two giant corporations, Veolia and Suez, control 80% of the international private water market and have some 300 million customers. Protests have broken out in country after country and the water giants are switching to new markets in China, North America and Europe. Meanwhile well over a billion people still lack access… (more information)

Thinking Ecologically

Environmental Thought, Values and Policy

Bruce Morito

Thinking Ecologically has two aims. The first is to describe the metaphysical, epistemological and valuational directions taken toward the environment in the history of Western thought. The second is to develop an approach to environmental thought based on the idea of attunement. Attunement steers us toward thinking ecologically, in contrast to merely thinking about ecology. Appeal to some Eastern and Aboriginal approaches is made to develop the idea of attunement. As such, it challenges some basic… (more information)

Water Under Threat

Larbi Bouguerra

This richly documented book asks the major questions about the enormously important political and geostrategic issue of water. Does water have a price? Is it a right or a need? Is there a water crisis? Will wars be fought over water? Should we be worried about water pollution? Can available technological solutions keep pollution under control? It also provides some elements of an answer. It shows the ways in which water is used and managed, and raises central issues about our lifestyles, our ethics… (more information)