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The housing bomb : why our addiction to houses is destroying the environment and threatening our society

Title: The housing bomb : why our addiction to houses is destroying the environment and threatening our society / M. Nils Peterson, Tarla Rai Peterson, Jianguo Liu.
Author: Peterson, M. Nils, 1976-
Publication: Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JBE 16-173	Schwarzman Building - General Research Room 315

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Description

viii, 212 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

Have we built our way to ruin? Is your desire for that beach house or cabin in the woods part of the environmental crisis? Do you really need a bigger home? Why don't multiple generations still live under one roof? In The Housing Bomb, leading environmental researchers M. Nils Peterson, Tarla Rai Peterson, and Jianguo Liu sound the alarm, explaining how and why our growing addiction to houses has taken the humble American dream and twisted it into an environmental and societal nightmare. Without realizing how much a contemporary home already contributes to environmental destruction, most of us want bigger and bigger houses and dream of the day when we own not just one dwelling but at least the two our neighbor does. We push our children to "get out on their own" long before they need to, creating a second household where previously one existed. We pave and build, demolishing habitat needed by threatened and endangered species, adding to the mounting burden of global climate change, and sucking away resources much better applied to pressing societal needs. "Reduce, reuse, recycle" is seldom evoked in the housing world, where economists predict financial disasters when "new housing starts" decline and the idea of renovating inner city residences is regarded as merely a good cause. Presenting irrefutable evidence, this book cries out for America and the world to intervene by making simple changes in our household energy and water usage and by supporting municipal, state, national, and international policies to counter this devastation and overuse of resources. It offers a way out of the mess we are creating and envisions a future where we all live comfortable, nondestructive lives. The "housing bomb" is ticking, and our choice is clear--change our approach or feel the blast.

Subjects

Genre/Form

Detective and mystery fiction.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 178-205) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Household dynamics and their contribution to the housing bomb -- How homeownership both emancipates and enslaves us -- Housaholism in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem -- Household dynamics and giant panda conservation -- Defusing the housing bomb with your house -- Individual and local strategies for defusing the housing bomb -- Macro-scale strategies for defusing the housing bomb -- Conclusion.

Call Number

JBE 16-173

ISBN

9781421410654
1421410656
9781421410661 (canceled/invalid)
1421410664 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2012051093

OCLC

823860715

Author

Peterson, M. Nils, 1976-

Title

The housing bomb : why our addiction to houses is destroying the environment and threatening our society / M. Nils Peterson, Tarla Rai Peterson, Jianguo Liu.

Publisher

Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 178-205) and index.

Added Author

Peterson, Tarla Rai.

Liu, Jianguo, 1963-

Research Call Number

JBE 16-173

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