Sustainability A Bedford Spotlight Reader

Sustainability explores questions around the central concept of sustainability: What are its foundations and politics? How do crises challenge sustainability? How is sustainability connected to local and transnational environments? How is sustainability connected to tourism and recreation? Readings by a range of ecologists, urban planners, philosophers, geographers, reporters, artists, and ordinary citizens take up these questions and more. Questions and assignments for each selection provide a range of activities for students. The Web site for the Spotlight Series offers comprehensive instructor support with sample syllabi and additional teaching resources.

The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series is an exciting new line of single-theme readers, each featuring Bedford’s trademark care and quality. The readers in the series collect carefully chosen readings sufficient for an entire writing course—about 30 selections—to allow instructors to provide carefully developed, high-quality instruction at an affordable price. Bedford Spotlight Readers are designed to help students make inquiries from multiple perspectives, opening up topics such as money, food, sustainability, and gender to critical analysis. The readers are flexibly arranged in thematic chapters, each focusing in depth on a different facet of the central topic. An Editorial Board of more than a dozen compositionists at schools focusing on specific themes have assisted in the development of the series.

Christian Weisser is an Associate Professor of English at Penn State Berks, where he coordinates both the Professional Writing Program and the Writing Across the Curriculum Program. 　Christian is the Editor of Composition Forum, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal in rhetoric and composition. Much of his research focuses upon the ecology of writing and environmental rhetoric, and he is the author or editor of half a dozen books and numerous articles on this subject, including Moving Beyond Academic Discourse, Natural Discourse (with Sid Dobrin), and The Locations of Composition (with Christopher Keller). Christian enjoys teaching courses in technical writing, environmental rhetoric, and the discourse of sustainability.

Chapter 1: What Are the Foundations of Sustainability?

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"

John Muir, "The American Forests"

Rachel Carson, "The Obligation to Endure"

Aldo Leopold, "Thinking Like a Mountain"

David Suzuki, "The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature"

Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis L. Meadows, "Limits to Growth: Tools for the Transition to Sustainability"

Ethan Goffman, "Defining Sustainability, Defining the Future"

Chapter 2: How Is Sustainability a Political Issue?

World Commission on Environment and Development, "Our Common Future: From One Earth to One World"

Al Gore, "Climate of Denial"

David W. Orr, "Framing Sustainability"

Carolyn Merchant, "Earthcare: Women and the Environment"

Kyle D. Brown, "Justice in the Context of Environmental Sustainability"

Bjorn Lomborg, "Yes, it Looks Bad, But…"

Kate Rogers, "Why People Opt Against Going Green"

Ron Ross, "Now Playing: The Sustainability Con"

Alex Zorach, "Sustainability: Building a Consensus between Liberals and Conservatives"

Chapter 3: How do Crises and Disasters Create Challenges for Sustainability?

Kaid Benfield, "Sustainable New Orleans: How Katrina Made a City Greener"

David Biello, "How Did the BP Oil Spill Affect Gulf Coast Wildlife?"

Julia Whitty, "Animal Extinction: The Greatest Threat to Mankind"

Jared Diamond, "The Last Americans: Environmental Collapse and the End of Civilization"

Mark Kivener, "Study Links Biodiversity and Language Loss"

Chapter 4: How is Sustainability Connected to Local and Urban Environments?

Jeffrey Kaplan, "The Gospel of Consumption"

Amy Westervelt, "Can Recycling Be Bad for the Environment?"

Michael Pollan, "Wendell Berry’s Wisdom"

Fritjof Capra, "Ecology and Community"

Douglas MacMillan, "Switching to Green Collar Jobs"

Brian Handwek, "’Blue Jobs’ Key to Future Fisheries"

Dave Newport, "Campus Sustainability: It’s About People"

Jaymi Heimbuch, "How Cell Phones are Changing the Face of Green Activism"

Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris, "How Green is my iPad?"

Chapter 5: How is Sustainability a Transnational Issue?

Ker Than, "Americans Least Green—And Feel Least Guilt, Survey Suggests"

Caroline Spelman, "Rio +20 Summit Points the way to a Greener Future"

Ong Suan Ee, "After Rio +20: What is ‘The Future we Want’?"

Brendan Smith, "The Coming Green Wave: Ocean Farming to Fight Climate Change"

Stuart Biggs, "Tsunami Cities Fight Nuclear Elites to Create Green Jobs"

Nathan Myhrvold, "After Fukushima: Now, More Than Ever"

Jeneen Interlandi, "A Tree Grows in Haiti: Recovery Efforts May Hinge on Something Green"

Jeremy Rifkin, "The Third Industrial Revolution: Toward a New Economic Paradigm"

Michael Moyer and Carina Storrs, "How Much is Left? The Limits of Earth’s Resources"

Chapter 6: How is Tourism and Recreation Connected to Sustainability?

Heather E. Lindsay, "Ecotourism: The Promise and Perils of Environmentally Oriented Travel"

Bob O’Brien, "Our National Parks and the Search for Sustainability"

Rick Bass, "Why I Hunt"

Yvon Choinard, "Let My People Go Surfing"

John Bowman, "The Debate Over Zoos"

William Conway, "Buying Time for Wild Animals with Zoos"

Auden Schendler, "Climate Revelations"