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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $19.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

The term "guerrilla" may bring to mind a small band of armed soldiers, moving in the dead of night on a stealth mission. In the case of guerrilla gardening, the soldiers are planters, the weapons are shovels, and the mission is to transform an abandoned lot into a thing of beauty. Once an environmentalist's nonviolent direct action for inner-city renewal, this approach to urban beautification is spreading to all types of people in cities around the world.

These modern-day Johnny Appleseeds perform random acts of gardening, often without the property owner's prior knowledge or permission. Typical targets are vacant lots, railway land, underused public squares and back alleys. The concept is simple, whimsical and has the cheeky appeal of being a not-quite-legal call to action. Dig in some soil, plant a few seeds, or mend a sagging fence ... one good deed inspiring another, with win-win results all around.

Guerrilla Gardening outlines the power-to-the-people campaign for greening our cities. Tips for effective involvement cover:

• finding plants and seeds cheap (or free)
• handling city officials
• getting the dirt on soil
• planting to bring back the birds
• knowing when to ask permission and when to seek forgiveness.

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More than a dozen years ago, Ted Bernard travelled to nine communities across the United States to meet residents who were working collaboratively to solve natural resource conflicts. While there may have been different perspectives over process, their common goal was to achieve higher levels of sustainability as vibrant communities. He visited places as diverse as tiny one-square-mile Monhegan Island in Maine and cities as large as Chicago and Chattanooga, and with Jora Young, wrote about their findings in 1997 in The Ecology of Hope.

Now Bernard has caught up with these communities again to discover their progress, and see what a difference their collaborative conservation has made. Hope and Hard Times chronicles that journey; the successes, the speed bumps, and the remarkable tenacity and persistence of the partnerships and initiatives driving change during exceedingly hard times. Overall, community-based sustainability initiatives have proved resilient, despite the down-spiraling of the global economy and the looming problems of global climate change. Their quest points to the need for new perceptions of nature and of humankind, more guidance from nature, and less consumption and materialism. They offer advice on how to live on pieces of land without spoiling them.

Offering hopeful roadmaps for other communities working toward a sustainable future, this book will appeal to community activists, natural resource professionals, educators, and environmentalists.

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In recent years, unchecked growth has brought us to the brink of economic and environmental collapse. Life, Money and Illusion was inspired by the dilemma of having an economic structure that has to grow to remain healthy, while facing the finite limits of our planet. This revised and updated edition launches a review of economic expansion. It examines how growth came to be a goal and how that goal, though once beneficial, is now the propellant for catastrophe. Then, by showing how the economy can be restructured to remain within planetary limits, it points the way to a sustainable future.

Life, Money and Illusion advocates change by shifting the dominant economic paradigm from growth to sustainability. Techniques include:

• Measuring progress with social and environmental indicators, along with economic ones
• Encouraging investment in community
• Practical changes such as full cost accounting, tax shifting and monetary reform
• Honoring the Golden Rule instead of the Rule of Gold
• Focusing more on living than on stuff.

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Social issues are, and need to be, a central part of environmental and economic sustainability efforts. Using stories of extraordinary communities across North America, Living Green showcases the social side of living green.

The book features communities that explicitly integrate social and human factors into their design and planning, and examines the impact living in these communities has on personal health, well-being and the capacity for pursuing sustainability. It includes interviews with developers, architects and residents, highlighting personal ideals and efforts to pursue a sustainable lifestyle.

The book's three parts explore:

• How community is central to sustainable living in everything from co-housing to communes.
• Communities that specifically integrate green building design components with social justice politics such as racism, poverty and urban alienation.
• Housing options geared toward mainstream living that offer individual choices to those who wish to live green.

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Bigger has turned out not to be better. Servicing the global economy has exacted a heavy toll in the erosion of our communities and the destruction of our environment. Increasingly, we are coming to realize that the way forward looks a lot like the way back — back to strong local economies, back to resilient, tight-knit communities, back to the land and work that is real.

As we chart our course through these uncertain times, we are hungry for inspiration. Robert Swann was a self-taught economist, a tireless champion of decentralism, and the father of the relocalization movement. A conscientious war resistor imprisoned for his beliefs, Swann engaged in lifelong nonviolent direct action against war, racism and economic inequity. His legacy is a vision of a life-affirming, alternative economy of peace founded on innovations in land and monetary reform.

Swann's story is also the untold history of decentralism in the United States. He associated with a constellation of vital, intelligent independent authors and activists, and ultimately co-founded the Schumacher Society based on the philosophies of Small Is Beautiful author E. F. Schumacher.

Swann forged tools to build productive, resilient local and regional economies. Now as global industrial civilization flails in the throes of ecological and economic crisis, Swann's working innovations are at the ready to help neighborhoods, local entrepreneurs, and willing communities to rebuild at appropriate scales.

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The 20th century saw unprecedented growth in population, energy consumption and food production. As the population shifted from rural to urban, human impacts on the environment increased dramatically.

The 21st century ushered in an era of declines, including:

• Oil, natural gas and coal extraction
• Yearly grain harvests
• Climate stability
• Economic growth
• Fresh water
• Minerals and ores, such as copper and platinum

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $19.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Concerns over climate change and energy depletion are increasing exponentially. Mainstream solutions still assume a panacea that will cure our climate ills without requiring any serious modification to our way of life.

Plan C explores the risks inherent in trying to continue our energy-intensive lifestyle. Using dirtier fossil fuels (Plan A) or switching to renewable energy sources (Plan B) allows people to remain complacent in the face of a potential global catastrophe. Dramatic lifestyle change is the only way to begin to create a sustainable, equitable world. The converging crises of Peak Oil, Climate Change and increasing inequity are presented in a clear, concise manner, as are the twin solutions of community (where cooperation replaces competition) and curtailment (deliberately reducing consumption of consumer goods).

Plan C shows how each person's individual choices can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions. It offers specific strategies in the areas of food, transportation and housing. One chapter analyzes the decimation of the Cuban economy when the USSR stopped oil exports in 1990 and provides an inspiring vision for a low energy way of living.

Plan C is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in living a lower-energy, saner and sustainable lifestyle.

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Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you - not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn?

In the face of looming ecological disaster, many people feel the need to change their own lifestyles as a tangible way of transforming our unsustainable culture. Radical Simplicity is the first book that guides the reader to a personal sustainability goal, then offers a process to monitor progress to a lifestyle that is equitable amongst all people, species and generations.

It employs three tools to help readers begin their customized journey to simplicity. It builds on steps from Your Money or Your Life so readers can design their own personal economics to save money, get free of debt and align their work with their values. It uses refined tools from Our Ecological Footprint so readers can measure how much nature is needed to supply all they consume and absorb their waste. And, by advocating time alone in wild nature, it opens readers to another reality with humanity as one species among many on a complex and inter-related planet.

Combining lyrical narrative, compassionate advocacy and absorbing science, Radical Simplicity is a practical, personal answer to 21st century challenges that will appeal as much to Cultural Creatives and students as to spiritual seekers, policy makers and sustainability professionals.

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Water has been described as the 21st century oil. Water shortages, water quality and water rights are hot-button issues at the local, national and international levels. Climate change, population growth and contamination from industry, farms and human settlements have dramatically impacted water supplies and disrupted natural nutrient cycles. Strategic wastewater management will be a critical tool in protecting this valuable but threatened resource.

Reusing the Resource is a comprehensive guide to using plants to stabilize, clean, filter and reuse wastewater, while simultaneously eliminating expensive and polluting sewers and septic systems. The book profiles more than 30 successful ecological wastewater recycling systems that save money, protect public and environmental health, and provide plant-based fuel, fiber, construction materials, habitat and landscapes. It details the pros and cons of various systems, and provides tips for designers, regulators and builders. Case studies include:

• a greenhouse-enclosed wastewater aquaculture system
• a regional wastewater-recycling plant
• a city's wastewater-treatment wetland
• graywater planters.

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No matter how rich life is in youth and middle age, the elder years can bring on increasing isolation and loneliness as social connections lessen, especially if friends and family members move away.

Senior cohousing fills a niche for this demographic -- the healthy, educated and proactive adults who want to live in a social and environmentally vibrant community. These seniors are already wanting to ward off the aging process, so they are unlikely to want to live in assisted housing. Senior cohousing revolves around custom-built neighborhoods organized by the seniors themselves in order to fit in with their real needs, wants, and aspirations for health, longevity and quality of life.

Senior Cohousing is a comprehensive guide to joining or creating a cohousing project, written by the U.S. leader in the field. Author Charles Durrett deals with all the psychological and logistical aspects of senior cohousing, and addresses common concerns, fears and misunderstandings. Durrett emphasizes the many positive benefits of cohousing, including:

• Better physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health
• Friendships and accessible social contact
• Safety and security
• Affordability
• Shared resources.