Installing photovoltaic systems (book)

Planning and Installing Photovoltaic Systems: A Guide for Installers, Architects and Engineers, 3rd Edition

New third edition of the bestselling manual from the German Solar Energy Society (DGS), showing you the essential steps to plan and install a solar photovoltaic system. With a global focus, it has been updated to include sections on new technology and concepts, new legislation and the current PV market.

An essential manual for installers, engineers and architects, it details every subject necessary for successful project implementation, from the technical design to the legal and marketing issues of PV installation. This new edition now has a hardback spiro binding and includes a companion website.

Realising farmers' rights to genetic resources (book)

Realising Farmers' Rights to Crop Genetic Resources: Success Stories and Best Practices

Farmers' Rights are essential for maintaining crop genetic diversity, which is the basis of all food and agricultural production in the world. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture recognizes Farmers' Rights and provides for relevant measures. This book shows the necessity of realizing Farmers' Rights for poverty alleviation and food security, the practical possibilities of doing so, and the potential gains for development and society at large. It provides decision-makers and practitioners with a conceptual framework for understanding Farmers’ Rights and success stories showing how each of the elements of Farmers' Rights can be realized in practice.

Climate crisis can bring transformative change (book)

A Changing Environment for Human Security; Transformative Approaches to Research, Policy and Action

 Environmental change presents a new context and new opportunities for transformational change. This timely book will inspire new ways of understanding the relationship between environmental change and human security. The chapters in this book include critical analyses, case studies and reflections on contemporary environmental and social challenges, with a strong emphasis on those related to climate change. Human thoughts and actions have contributed to an environment of insecurity, manifested as multiple interacting threats that now represent a serious challenge to humanity. Yet humans also have the capacity to collectively transform the economic, political, social and cultural systems and structures that perpetuate human insecurities. The contributions show that in a changing environment, human security is not only a possibility, but a choice.

Human attitudes to nature and their consequences (book)

Thinking Through Landscape

Our attitude to nature has changed over time. This book explores the historical, literary and philosophical origins of the changes in our attitude to nature that allowed environmental catastrophes to happen. It presents a philosophical reflection on human societies’ attitude to the environment, informed by the history of the concept of landscape and the role played by the concept of nature in the human imagination and features a wealth of examples from around the world to help understand the contemporary environmental crisis in the context of both the built and natural environment.

 This book gives a critical survey of landscape thought and theory for students, researchers and anyone interested in human societies’ relation to nature in the fields of landscape studies, environmental philosophy, cultural geography and environmental history.

Principles of Ecological Landscape Design (book)

Principles of Ecological Landscape Design

Today, there is a growing demand for designed landscapes—from public parks to backyards—to be not only beautiful and functional, but also sustainable. Sustainability means more than just saving energy and resources. It requires integrating the landscapes we design with ecological systems. With Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, Travis Beck gives professionals and students the first book to translate the science of ecology into design practice. Beck draws on real world cases where professionals have put ecological principles to use in the built landscape.

Is sustainability still possible? (report)

State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?

Every day, we are presented with a range of “sustainable” products and activities—from “green” cleaning supplies to carbon offsets—but with so much labeled as “sustainable,” the term has become essentially sustainababble, at best indicating a practice or product slightly less damaging than the conventional alternative. Is it time to abandon the concept altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure sustainability? If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?

In the latest edition of Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World series, scientists, policy experts, and thought leaders tackle these questions.

How to design good urban spaces (book)

Good Urbanism; Six steps to creating prosperous places

We all have a natural nesting instinct—we know what makes a good place. And a consensus has developed among urban planners and designers about the essential components of healthy, prosperous communities. So why aren’t these ideals being put into practice?

In Good Urbanism, Nan Ellin identifies the obstacles to creating thriving environments, and presents a six-step process to overcome them: prospect, polish, propose, prototype, promote, present. She argues that we need to reach beyond conventional planning to cultivate good ideas and leverage the resources to realize them.