Green Germany

Local Pathways to Global Sustainability
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-1-009-46568-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten

Germany is an environmental pathbreaker among industrial societies, maintaining its export-driven economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and committing to carbon-neutrality by 2045. Yet it was ordinary citizens rather than bureaucrats or industry who generated its most durable policy solutions. Drawing on a range of case studies from the twentieth century to the present, Carol Hager and Thomas M. Lekan show how local residents combined social and ecological agendas and often defied government officials or corporate interests. These citizens promoted renewable energy, accessible public transportation, sustainable housing, biosphere reserves, and urban green spaces. Each chapter advances a three-pronged understanding of Germany's sustainability culture anchored by a deep sense of place; a 'do-it-yourself' mentality; and the generative power of conflict. By showing how a highly industrialized country became ecologically wiser, this study seeks to re-energize conversations about climate action and green transitions in societies across the globe.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hager, Carol

Lekan, Thomas M.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; Introduction: Local Pathways to Global Sustainability; 1. From Anti-Nuclear Protest to 'Solar Region': Local Origins of the German Energiewende; 2. Save the Streetcar! How a 'Technological Fossil' Transformed Frankfurt into a Greener City; 3. Freiburg's Vauban: From Military Barracks to Social-Ecological Model District; 4. East Germany's Last Act: The National Park Program of the GDR; 5. Berlin's Mauerpark: From Ruins to Public Green Spaces; Conclusion: Looking Forward, Looking Back: Green Germany in the Era of Climate Change; Endnotes; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Hager, Carol
Carol Hager is a professor in the Environmental Studies and Political Science Departments at Bryn Mawr College. Previous publications include Technological Democracy: Bureaucracy and Citizenry in the German Energy Debate (1995), NIMBY is Beautiful: Cases of Local Activism and Environmental Innovation Around the World (co-edited, 2015), and Germany's Energy Transition: A Comparative Perspective (co-edited, 2016).

Lekan, Thomas M.
Thomas M. Lekan is a professor in the History Department and the School of Earth, Ocean & Environment at the University of South Carolina. He has authored Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity (2004) and Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti (2020), which received the German Studies Association's DAAD Book Prize for History and the Social Sciences.