Rating: 
Summary: Essential reading for understanding "sustainability"
Review: I believe this important book is the first to supply a method for individuals and societies to get a quantitative understanding of what "sustainable" really means. Footprinting allows families, cities, and countries to analyze their "ecological budget", and to learn to live within their fair share of available natural resources. The wonderful cartoons convey key concepts brilliantly, and make a potentially heavy text more fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reading for understanding "sustainability"
Review: I believe this important book is the first to supply a method for individuals and societies to get a quantitative understanding of what "sustainable" really means. Footprinting allows families, cities, and countries to analyze their "ecological budget", and to learn to live within their fair share of available natural resources. The wonderful cartoons convey key concepts brilliantly, and make a potentially heavy text more fun to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Science News gave good review of "ecological footprint"
Review: I came upon this book in Science News, a weekly that covers breaking science news across the world. SN reviwers, hard to impress after seeing so much science every week, gave the concept of "ecological footprint" a good discussion.
Rating:
Summary: A book that can change your life.
Review: I have not only read this book but I have had the honour of hearing author William Rees explain the world's current environmental predicament. His analysis -- as stated in the book and by other readers-- is so simple yet profound. I believe the ecological footprint analysis tool offers one of the best ways to explain to people why they must change their lifestyles. I believe so much in the concept, I have started a business to help the corporate sector implement sustainable practices and policies. Our society probably has a better chance of survival if we can change the way influential companies do business, rather than changing one individual at a time. This book provides the basis for understanding why we must change. Then read Natural Capitalism by Hawken and Lovins and you'll understand how much progress has already been made and how much more is achievable.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, jolts one from the rat race...
Review: I stumbled upon this book in the journal D&G, at a time I was thinking hard about the direction of the civilization. So I ordered one.
It was an unassuming book, neatly printed and illustrated with black and white caricatures. At first I thought it was a mistake to order such a book. But as I read on, the insights of the authors emerged, so profound, yet so simply explained. Really, after swallowing all the contents for five consecutive nights, one will ask, "How come I did not think of this??".
The concept is vivid : it tried to explain what the ecological footprint means : how much of land is required to support yourself. And it turned out that there is already not enough for the world. Further proliferation of current lifestyles is suicidal.
The authors devoted a whole long chapter on proposals of alternative lifestyles. These are nowhere hardcore technical, rest assured. They are blindingly simple, and yet hard to swallow. Just ask any Tom, Dick and Harry whether he or she wants such a life, you will get an awkward stare : are you in your right mind? The authors may be right, but when we have gone so far astray, we have forgotten the road from which we come.
This book cannot score 10 points, though. The examples on how an economy can develop without growth are not solid enough. While the writers are not economists, to force the reader to think twice about current lifestyles, they must fork out a marvellous thesis, which has yet to be clearly stated.
This is a good book at the introductory level. Although it sometimes touch on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the reader is not expected to have an a priori understanding. It's explanation is vivid and simple. While it may insult Professors and those high brow academics, it is a book easy to follow.
Worth a try
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, jolts one from the rat race...
Review: I stumbled upon this book in the journal D&G, at a time I was thinking hard about the direction of the civilization. So I ordered one.
It was an unassuming book, neatly printed and illustrated with black and white caricatures. At first I thought it was a mistake to order such a book. But as I read on, the insights of the authors emerged, so profound, yet so simply explained. Really, after swallowing all the contents for five consecutive nights, one will ask, "How come I did not think of this??".
The concept is vivid : it tried to explain what the ecological footprint means : how much of land is required to support yourself. And it turned out that there is already not enough for the world. Further proliferation of current lifestyles is suicidal.
The authors devoted a whole long chapter on proposals of alternative lifestyles. These are nowhere hardcore technical, rest assured. They are blindingly simple, and yet hard to swallow. Just ask any Tom, Dick and Harry whether he or she wants such a life, you will get an awkward stare : are you in your right mind? The authors may be right, but when we have gone so far astray, we have forgotten the road from which we come.
This book cannot score 10 points, though. The examples on how an economy can develop without growth are not solid enough. While the writers are not economists, to force the reader to think twice about current lifestyles, they must fork out a marvellous thesis, which has yet to be clearly stated.
This is a good book at the introductory level. Although it sometimes touch on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the reader is not expected to have an a priori understanding. It's explanation is vivid and simple. While it may insult Professors and those high brow academics, it is a book easy to follow.
Worth a try
Rating: 
Summary: this guy is a treehugger
Review: I was assigned to read this book for an nature and human values course. And I must say that this book is by far the worst assigned reading, the level of reading is average, but what bothers me the most is how the author talks down to the other side of the spectrum of the arguement. It is also extremely repetive and I found myself dreading the reading of the next chapter, because I didn't want to read the same thing that was stated in the previous chapter.
Rating:
Summary: INDICADORES TERRITORIALES DE SOSTENIBILIDAD, LA HUELLA ECOLO
Review: NO HA SIDO PUBLICADO, HACE PARTE DE LA PRIMERA FASE DEL TRABAJO DE TESIS DOCTORAL, CONSISTENTE EN LA APLICACION DE LOS INDICADORES PARA EL CASO DEL VALLE DE ABURRA, COLOMBIA. yA SE CUENTA CON AVANCES EN CUANTO A RESULTADOS Y LA INNOVACION CONSISTE EN DISCUTIR A PARTIR DE ALLI, LA SOSTENIBILIDAD AMBIENTAL LOCAL....GLOBAL.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! A must for everyone concerned with our future.
Review: Professors Rees and Wackernagel have developed a new concept to assess individuals and countries impact on the environment, a quantitative measure which acts as a common denomintor for all peoples, at all levels of affluence or poverty. This will become the yardstick of our future, like the invention of money by the Babylonians or Assyrians has become the unit of exchange in the trade of goods and services. Clearly written, the book is needed to be understood by all politicians, bankers, voters, leaders and living humans. Knowing ideas such as these is crucial and essential for our survival in the biosphere.
Rating:
Summary: Running Out of Room: Economists' Viewpoint
Review: This book is about the environmental costs that humans have on our planet, especially those humans living in developed countries. The authors contend that we are using up the resources of the planet at an astounding rate, such that little will be left for generations of the future. In other words, our present lifestyle is unsustainable. The authors argue that a measure of sustainability can be calculated by adding up the resources used by a group of people, and translating this to area on the earth, which yields roughly the total amount of land needed by the group to live sustainably, or their "ecological footprint". They point out that people in developed countries tend to have much larger ecological footprints than those in developing countries, but even amongst developed countries, there are large differences, and that Americans have huge ecological footprints compared to people from most other countries. In fact, in order for everyone on Earth to live as Americans do, it would require several additional planets to provide the resources and disposal space for waste.
The beginning chapters of the book define sustainability and the concept of ecological footprint. They also argue that our present practices are not sustainable. In the third chapter, we find the general idea of how an ecological footprint can be calculated, and the types of resources that need to be accounted for. The authors also run through a few examples of how footprints can be calculated on a nation by nation basis. They don't claim to have developed a conclusive method for calculating ecological footprints, especially on an individual basis, though they invite interested readers to do so on their own (there are numerous suggestions for how to do so on the Web). The last part of the book suggests some possible strategies for creating a more sustainable world. Endnotes citing sources appear following each chapter. There is a glossary, but no index. The book includes a number of black-and-white illustrations and cartoons.
The authors argue that "The strength of the Ecological Footprint analysis is its ability to communicate simply and graphically the general nature and magnitude of the biophysical `connectedness' between humankind and the ecosphere." They go on to comment "Ecological Footprint analysis can estimate the balance of trade in load-bearing capacity as embodied in the energy and material flows associated with trade goods and biogeochemical cycles." These ideas are interesting and hefty- -the text is somewhat theoretical and aimed towards those who are fascinated with macroeconomics. The style of writing is not for everyone, but there are some very valid points to mull over. For example, in a box discussing efficiency gains and sustainability, the authors point out that in the past, efficiency gains have led to more consumption rather than a decrease in resource usage, so we can't rely on efficiency gains as a solution to over-consumption.
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