Environmental Sustainability in a Time of Change

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Connections in Environmental Sustainability: Living in a Time of Rapid Environmental Change

   • Robert Brinkmann

   Pages 1-8

3. Part I

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-10

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   2. Historical Considerations in Sustainability

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 11-31

   3. Systems and Sustainability

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 33-54

   4. Wicked Problems and Disasters

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 55-82

   5. Data and Mapping for Environmental Sustainability

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 83-101

   6. Managing Environmental Sustainability

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 103-148

4. Part II

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 149-150

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   2. Surfing Sustainability: Understanding Sustainability in Safety

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 151-171

   3. Suffering Sustainability: Understanding Environmental Sustainability Within the Context of Poverty and Existential Threats

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 173-194

   4. Interconnections in Environmental Sustainability: Water and Energy

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 195-216

   5. Interconnections: Greenhouse Gas Pollution, Climate Change, and Land Use Change

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 217-235

   6. Interconnections: Pollution, Waste Management, and Energy

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 237-256

   7. Interconnections in Environmental Sustainability: Food, Transportation, Energy, and Ecosystems

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 257-277

   8. Megaconnections in Environmental Sustainability Through the Twenty-First Century

      • Robert Brinkmann

      Pages 279-287

5. Back Matter

   Pages 289-325

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Environmental Sustainability in a Time of Change is the first book in a new Palgrave series on Environmental Sustainability. It takes a fresh look at the dynamic field of environmental sustainability by exploring the interconnections between climate change, water, energy, waste, land use, ecosystems, food, and transportation. It also provides an extensive summary on sustainability management, data analysis, mapping, and data sources. Brinkmann highlights how environmental sustainability challenges are distinctly different in the developed world, where sustainability is largely a choice, versus the developing world, where many struggle with basic existence due to war, migration, and water or food scarcity. He takes a broad systems and historic approach to contextualize environmental sustainability prior to the 1987 Brundtland Report and utilizes many contemporary examples throughout the text, analyzing numerous case studies from many areas of the world including China, Yemen, Malaysia, Egypt, and Florida. 


This book questions traditional approaches to sustainability that highlight the need for an equal balance of economic development, environmental protection, and social equality to achieve sustainability. This book focuses on a new line of thinking that places environmental sustainability as the key foundation in how to manage sustainability in a time of change. Our planet is quickly becoming environmentally unsustainable due to global consumption and unsustainable economic development and it is high time for a fresh approach. This book will be of great value to academics, practitioners, and students interested in environmental sustainability from a myriad of fields including geology, geography, biology, ecology, economics, business, sociology, anthropology, and other areas that intersect the interdisciplinary field of sustainability.

• sustainability
• environmental sustainability
• environmental management
• natural resource management
• water
• energy
• sustainable environmental management
• What Is Systems Science
• The Gaia Hypothesis
• Big Data
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Wicked Problems
• Natural Disaster studies
• Poverty and Sustainability
• Sustainable Water and Energy
• Waste Management
• Sustainable Food
• Environmental Geography

• Hofstra University, Hempstead, USA

  Robert Brinkmann

Robert Brinkmann is Professor of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability at Hofstra University, USA. He is the series editor of a Palgrave book series on Environmental Sustainability and one of the Editors of The Palgrave Handbook of Sustainability.

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