Faith, Hope, and Sustainability explores the experiences of fifteen faith communities striving to care for the earth and live more sustainably. A church in Maine partners with fishermen to create the first community-supported fishery so they can make a living without overfishing. A Jewish congregation in Illinois raises extra funds to construct a green synagogue that expresses their religious mission to heal the world. Benedictine sisters in Wisconsin adopt caring for the earth as part of their mission and begin restoring one hundred acres of prairie, reviving their community in the process. Presbyterians in Virginia, dismayed by air pollution in Shenandoah National Park, take courage from their conviction that "God does not call us to do little things" and advocate for improved national air pollution policies. Stories such as these highlight the variety of environmental actions that people of faith are enacting through congregational venues. Beyond simply narrating inspiring stories, however, this book compares these case studies to explore in detail the processes through which the communities took action. In addition to examining why faith communities engage in earth care, Cybelle T. Shattuck explores how they put intention into action and how the congregational context affects what they do. She introduces an analytical framework focusing on four domains of activity—champions, faith leaders, congregations, and organizations—to explicate the full range of factors that influence how initiatives develop and whether sustainability becomes embedded in these religious organizations. Both the framework and the information on process presented in this book will be highly useful to scholars and to people of faith interested in implementing an earth-care ethic through sustainability programs.

Global food security is dependent on ecologically viable production systems, but current agricultural practices are often at odds with environmental sustainability. Resolving this disparity is a huge task, but there is much that can be learned from traditional food production systems that persisted for thousands of years. Ecoagriculture for a Sustainable Food Future describes the ecological history of food production systems in Australia, showing how Aboriginal food systems collapsed when European farming methods were imposed on bushlands. The industrialised agricultural systems that are now prevalent across the world require constant input of finite resources, and continue to cause destructive environmental change. This book explores the damage that has arisen from farming systems unsuited to their environment, and presents compelling evidence that producing food is an ecological process that needs to be rethought in order to ensure resilient food production into the future. Cultural sensitivity Readers are warned that there may be words, descriptions and terms used in this book that are culturally sensitive, and which might not normally be used in certain public or community contexts. While this information may not reflect current understanding, it is provided by the author in a historical context.

Considering both the theoretical and practical possibilities of the sustainability of higher education research in a world in which research budgets are often hard to secure, this book shares results from international research to demonstrate the innovation occurring to secure sustainable research funding. Rooted in diverse research experiences and reflections of academics and higher education institutional leaders, this book explores ways to promote and sustain pedagogical innovation in the higher education context. Beginning with an analysis of theoretical views from political, institutional and research practice spheres about the relevance of sustainability of educational research in higher education, it considers the need to promote educational research focused on pedagogical innovations in higher education. The second part of the book addresses practical experiences of funded educational research and offers guidance to assure the future of sustainable pedagogical interventions. This book is ideal reading for anyone interested in the role of sustainable funding in ensuring the future of higher education research, including researchers and postgraduate or undergraduate students who are researching or interested in the topic. It will also be of interest to senior institutional leaders and managers responsible for educational development in higher education.

This book is an introduction to the long history of human learning, the environment and sustainable development – about our struggles with the natural world: first for survival, then for dominance, currently for self-preservation, and in future perhaps, even for long-term, mutually beneficial co-existence. It charts the long arc of human–environment relationships through the specific lens of human learning, putting on record many of the people, ideas and events that have contributed, often unwittingly, to the global movement for sustainable development. Human learning has always had a focus on the environment. It’s something we’ve been engaged in ever since we began interacting with our surroundings and thinking about the impacts, outcomes and consequences of our actions and interactions. This unique story told by the authors is episodic rather than a connected, linear account; it probes, questions and re-examines familiar issues from novel perspectives, and looks ahead. The book is of particular interest to those studying (and teaching) courses with a focus on socio-economic and environmental sustainability, and non-governmental organisations whose work brings them face-to-face with the general public and social enterprises.

This study provides theological reasons and biblical references for Christian missionary involvement, with particular focus on contemporary Africa. It explores a wide range of aspects of the Christian mission and offers suggestions on how best to conduct the process of evangelization.

The Spirit of Sustainability helps readers navigate the moral worlds and ethical concepts, and social and religious practices related to sustainability. In collaboration with the Forum on Religion and Ecology, an established network of leading scholars, it explores a wide range of topics and perspectives, from the promise and problems of approaching sustainability through global and indigenous religions, to major theories in philosophy and environmental ethics, and professional practices and social movements. This volume presents the various goals of sustainability - ecological integrity, economic health, human dignity, fairness to the future, and social justice - and provides a framework for reasoning through many interrelated environmental challenges for both current and future generations.

Deep-heart cosmic communication radiates truths of relationships in-common and the fact that "common ground" is wave/ particle pulsation sustaining and transforming all at the same time. The "light of the world" is wave/ particle, electromagnetic photon. We are the shining self-understanding of the cosmos, the scintillating light of Divine Instance in nature. Shine on. Shine on, Oh Cosmic Christ. The common anointing of universal priesthood is the Christic consciousness of universal transformation. "Green" religion is the essential consciousness of existence-in-common and the human distinction of self-aware purpose in transformation and in the fleeting reality of individual existence. The beauty, the glory, this ictus in time is to be savored in the moment, for all individual realization is in the moment. The past is non-reality, the future is non-reality; reality is in the moment; accomplishments and failures of the past project into the future. The ascendant consciousness of self-reflection is the conscionable responsibility of living mindfully, in the moment, grateful for the beauty and the glory of being a crowning achievement of the past as well as the hope for the future. The "cultural spectrum" is nothing other than the grand evolution of the electromagnetic spectrum-the ground-being and becoming of life. The greening of religion is about the florescence of all life, always in process of self-justification. Conscionable living is justified living.

Story and Sustainability explores the role of story in planning theory and practice, with the goal of creating U.S. cities able to balance competing claims for economic growth, environmental health, and social justice. In the book, urban practitioners and scholars from fields as diverse as American studies, English, geography, history, planning, and criminal justice reflect critically on the traditional exclusionary power of storytelling and on its potential to facilitate the transformations of imagination, theory, and practice necessary to create sustainable, democratic American cities. The book begins with an editors' introduction identifying story, sustainable U.S. cities, and democracy as the three key themes. Part I advances and refines these concepts, connects them to contemporary U.S. urban planning, and provides tools that can be used when reading and interpreting the texts in part II. Part II exemplifies, amplifies, and modifies the key themes and arguments through the presentation of eight texts: theoretical and experiential, academic and nonacademic, expository and narrative, and familiar and unfamiliar. The combined focus on story and urban sustainability makes this book a unique contribution to planning literature.