Sustainable Consumption And The Good Life

The book examines the relationship between sustainability and the good life, and how we can live better lives while preserving the environment. It discusses how to achieve sustainability through different methods, and how to create a good life that is environmentally friendly. The book also focuses on food, and how we can create a sustainable food system that is also good for the environment.

What does it mean to live a good life in a time when the planet is overheating, the human population continues to steadily reach new peaks, oceans are turning more acidic, and fertile soils the world over are eroding at unprecedented rates? These and other simultaneous harms and threats demand creative responses at several levels of consideration and action. Written by an international team of contributors, this book examines in-depth the relationship between sustainability and the good life. Drawing on wealth of theories, from social practice theory to architecture and design theory, and disciplines, such as anthropology and environmental philosophy, this volume promotes participatory action-research based approaches to encourage sustainability and wellbeing at local levels. It covers topical issues such the politics of prosperity, globalization, and indigenous notions of the good life and happiness . Finally it places a strong emphasis on food at the heart of the sustainability and good life debate, for instance binding the global south to the north through import and exports, or linking everyday lives to ideals within the dream of the good life, with cookbooks and shows. This interdisciplinary book provides invaluable insights for researchers and postgraduate students interested in the contribution of the environmental humanities to the sustainability debate. Review: Unlimited growth has not only damaged the biosphere, but also disrupted solidarity and cohesion within and between human groups. Sustainability Consumption and the Good Life presents and questions various adaptations to the environmental crises. The book is timely as it challenges and reframes issues of consumption and well-being to meet the demands of an overheating planet. -Peder Anker, New York University, USA Living well is an aspiration freighted with environmental, economic and ethical import. It pulses through contemporary society, just as it did the ancient world. In this book, affirmative responses are found to critical questions about new designs for life, always mindful of twenty-first century challenges. It gives us insights into how consumptive habits can become more just and wise, as well as answerable to needs and relations scaled from the personal to the planetary. In these pages, our own reckoning is identified as the means for a powerful reawakening. -Hayden Lorimer, University of Glasgow, UK