There are an infinite number of resources available with regards to recycling, waste reduction, reuse, and sustainability, from local to national to international levels. I have included the following links to different organizations that are working on these issues, and most of them are always looking for volunteers or people to get involved. I have divided them into categories to make it a bit easier to navigate. If you would like to add a link, please email me at recycle@providence.edu
On Campus:
For Students:
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National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Program
For more than a decade, NWF's Campus Ecology program has been helping transform the nation's college campuses into living models of an ecologically sustainable society, and training a new generation of environmental leaders.
Recycling,Waste Reduction and so much More:
Following are recommendations from staff members, faculty and students from Providence College , as well as other schools. There is a variety of books, essays, poems and websites that may spark interest, no matter where your passions lie. Ranging from economic development strategies to personal reflections and philosophies on nature, it is our hope that there is something for everyone contained in this list. We hope you choose to read at least one to help develop a deeper understanding of our time and place here on Earth.
Fiction/ Poetry/ Nature Writing
Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey
Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems, 1927-1979
A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson
Krik? Krak!, by Edwidge Danticat
For the Time Being, by Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, ed. Cheryll Glotfelty, Harold Fromm
The Country of Pointed Firs, by Sarah Orne Jewett
Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold
Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman
Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
Recycling, Reuse and Waste Reduction
Why Do We Recycle?: Markets, Values, and Public Policy, by Frank Ackerman
The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists, by M. and Leon Browner
Recycling and the Politics of Urban Waste, by Matthew Gandy
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough
Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage, by William Rathje, Cullen Murphy
Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, by Susan Strasser
Professional
Greening the Ivory Tower, Sarah Hammond Creighton
Ecodemia: Campus Environmental Stewardship at the Turn of the 21st Century: Lessons in Smart Management from Administrators, Staff, and Students, by Julian Keniry
Harvard Business Review on Business and the Environment, by Amory Lovins, et al.
Buying for the Future: Contact Management for the Environmental Challenge, by Kevin J. Lyons
Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community Based Social Marketing, by Doug McKenzie-Mohr and William Smith
Natural Resources/ Natural History/ History/ Pollution
Human Ecology: The Story of Our Place in Nature from Prehistory to the Present, by Bernard Grant Campbell
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Coal: A Human History, by Barbara Freese
Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, by John T. Houghton
Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kuntsler
Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on Finite Earth, by Jim Merkel
Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner
The Tapir's Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest and the Scientists Who Are Trying to Solve Them, by Elizabeth Royte
Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, by Vandana Shiva
The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins
The Diversity of Life, by Edward Osborne Wilson
Essays/ Philosophy
Off the Beaten Path: Stories of Place, edited by Joseph Barbato and Lisa Weinerman Horak
The Culture of Agriculture, by Wendell Berry
Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, by Lester R. Brown
When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution, by Devra Less Davis
The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming, by Masanobu Fukuoka
Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, by Jay Griffiths
Dancing with Mosquitoes: To Liberate the Mind from Humanism- A Way to Green the Mind, by Theo Grutter
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking up to Personal and Global Transformation, by Thom Hartmann
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawkens, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins
Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth, by Bill McKibben
Encounters with the Archdruid, by John McPhee
The Control of Nature,by John McPhee
The Mountains of California, by John Muir
Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, by David W. Orr
Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, by William E. Rees, Phil Testemale and Mathis Wackernagel
Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World’s Coasts and Beneath the Seas, by Carl Safina
Earth Medicine: Ancestors’ Ways of Harmony for Many Moons, by Jamie Sams
Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of our Own Backyards, by Sara Bonnett Stein
Consumerism
Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things, by John C. Ryan and Alan Thein Durning
Biography
The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert
For great books on sustainable living, please visit Chelsea Green Books, at:
www.chelseagreen.com
Environmentally Focused Classes offered at Providence College
ECN 342 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
1 semester, 3 credits
A study of the economic principles related to renewable and non-renewable natural resource use. Attention will be given to issues concerning pollution abatement policies, common property resources, recycling, global pollutants, and the adequacy of natural resources to meet future demands. The roles of legal and institutional structures which contribute to efficient resource use over time will be emphasized. Prerequisite: ECN 101
SOC 333 ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY
1 semester, 3 credits
This class looks at ongoing environmental problems faced by contemporary societies and attempts to under-stand them as the outcomes of human behaviors that are influenced by the values, attitudes, and beliefs embedded in our social institutions. By examining the roles of individual consumption, cultural norms, science and tech-nology, capitalism, and governments, the course provides an overview of the complexity of the social factors in-fluencing human uses of the environment. The course includes diverse readings, videos, and a research project that combine to provide students with new ways of see-ing the environment and human uses of it.
THL 324 ECOLOGY, CREATION, REDEMPTION
1 semester, 3 credits
This course investigates the following topics in light of the Catholic tradition: the relation between ecological sciences and theology, non-Christian ecological thought, the doctrine of creation and theology of nature, human responsibility for creation, redemption of the created order, contemporary issues in global population and de-velopment, ecology, and Christian spirituality.
NSC 201 NATURAL SCIENCE I: PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE 20TH CENTURY
1 semester, 3 credits
When the 20th century began, there was a general feeling that there was little new or novel to be discovered. This course begins with a review of the state of knowledge concerning the physical world in 1900. Included are a discussion of principles of terrestrial and celestial mechanics, energy, electricity, magnetism, electromagnetic radiation, and the composition of matter based upon the atomic theory. The second part of the course deals with how a new understanding of nature developed in the 20th century which extended and expanded our knowledge of nature. Included in this part of the course are quantum mechanics, relativity, radioactivity, nuclear processes, elementary particles, cosmology, the origin of the solar system, and the earth. The emphasis in the course is conceptual and the connections between what happened prior to 1900 and what happened in the 20th century are emphasized.
PHL 339 ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
1 semester, 3 credits
In this course students learn to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various philosophical positions on the relationship of human beings to the nonhuman world. Topics may include: mechanism, land rights, animal rights, deep ecology, stewardship, preservation, and con-servation. Emphasis is placed on the interdisciplinary nature of environmental concerns. The course includes practical experience.
PSC 417 THE POLITICS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT
1 semester, 3 credits
The Politics of the Environmental Movement is an advanced course in political ecology, intended primarily for political science majors and students in the Environmental Studies program. Its subjects include the history of the environmental movement; the emergence and growth of Green parties in Europe, the United States, Oceania, Africa, Asia and Latin America; and the political role of the most important environmental philosophies. In what ways have human societies affected the natural environment? How are ecological perspectives related to other political values? What are the most im-portant ecological crises facing the world today? Which approaches have individuals, communities, and governments adopted, in response to critical environmental prob-lems? What are the most likely directions of future change? To answer these questions, students will read widely from diverse sources, engage in weekly class discussions, and prepare research-based final projects. This course involves extensive use of the Internet. Prerequisites: PSC 201 or PHL 339, or instructor’s written permission.
ENG 351 THE ROMANTIC AGE IN ENGLAND
1 semester, 3 credits
This course concentrates on English poetry during the great period of rapid change in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Major authors include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and Keats. Topics for discussion include the role of the imagination, the symbolic power of nature, and the search for a personal orthodoxy.
ENV 101-102 INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
2 semesters, 4 credits each
This laboratory course introduces the student to environmental studies as a cross-disciplinary endeavor. Earth as a closed system of geological, hydrologic, atmospheric chemical and climatic cycles provides the foundation of this perspective. The harmonious functioning of these systems, including the impact of human population and activity, are built of this foundation. Students are introduced to such areas as global change, agriculture, toxicology, biodiversity, economics, and politics.
(Lectures 3 credits, laboratory 4 credits.)
ENV 301 ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY
1 semester, 4 credits
A course concerned principally with the chemical aspects of problems that human beings have created in the natural environment. Although the science underlying environmental problems is often highly complex, the central aspects of it can usually be understood and appreciated with only introductory chemistry as a background. An introduction to the topics of organic and analytical chemistry will be covered as needed. Laboratory sessions will introduce students to analytical and instrumental techniques commonly employed to identify and determine the concentration of environmental contami-nants, including absorption spectroscopy, chromatography, mass spectrometry, and electrochemistry. (Lectures 3 credits, laboratory 4 credits) Prerequisite: CHM 101/102 or CHM 121/122. Same as CHM 301.)
ENV 470 SPECIAL TOPICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
1 semester, 3 credits
Analysis of special topics of contemporary interest in environmental studies. This course permits offering courses on special topics at the discretion of the director of the Environmental Studies Program. Exact content varies.
ENV 490 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES RESEARCH
1 semester, 3 credits
Investigation of special problems in environmental studies. The widest freedom of choice of a problem compatible with the personnel and physical facilities of the program will be allowed the student. With the permission of the program director, ENV 490 may be substituted for with an appropriate field study experience in an established. rogram. Prerequisites: ENV 101-102.
ENV 495 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES SEMINAR
1 semester, 3 credits
This seminar is topical and exposes students to fields of study that are covered only at an introductory manner, if at all, in other courses in environmental studies. Each student presents a seminar and must attend all other pre-sentations during the semester. Prerequisites: ENV 490, PHL 339, and THL 324.