Books by Alexander Lautensach
Survival How? Education, Crisis, Diachronicity and the Transition to a Sustainable Future
Schoeningh Verlag, Paderborn, Germany, 2020
This impassioned call for reforming education at all levels takes into account the inevitable tra... more This impassioned call for reforming education at all levels takes into account the inevitable transition to a sustainable future of some sort. If that future includes humans, diverse composite scenarios are possible for us and the biosphere. With the help of appropriately reformed education, the coming generations can sway their fate towards the more secure scenarios. This will require Deep Adaptation, ecocentric ethics and a new view on ‘progress’, as well as ‘cultural learning’ at the collective level.
A summary is given here: Lautensach, A.K. 2020. Educating Teachers as if Sustainability Mattered. International Portal of Teacher Education. The MOFET Institute. http://education.eng.macam.ac.il/article/5031
Human Security in World Affairs: Problems and Opportunities, 2nd edition. Prince George, Canada: UNBC; Victoria, Canada: BCcampus. https://opentextbc.ca/humansecurity/
Human security has been endorsed by the UN since 1994 as a comprehensive goal for development at ... more Human security has been endorsed by the UN since 1994 as a comprehensive goal for development at all levels. It rests on the four pillars of socio-political security, health security, economic security and environmental security.
What distinguishes this open-access university textbook on human security?
• This is still the only textbook of human security of its kind, to our knowledge. Its themes are relevant for a wide range of academic areas.
• Its 22 chapter authors include academics and activists from all over the world.
• It is accessible entirely online, free of charge, including free downloading, at a time when online course delivery is being prioritized and students are less able than ever to afford costly hardcopy texts. Nevertheless, hardcopies can be ordered from the website.
• It addresses diverse aspects of human security, especially health security, that are at the forefront of current world affairs in the COVID context and the Anthropocene predicament.
Environmental Ethics for the Future: Rethinking Education to Achieve Sustainability. Saarbruecken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8383-6124-6.
One decade in to the 21st century, most of humanity is coming to the realisation that there is so... more One decade in to the 21st century, most of humanity is coming to the realisation that there is something fundamentally wrong and dangerous about the way we are making our existence on this planet. The well-documented manifestations of the current global environmental crisis include increasing rates of resource depletion, continuing out-of-control growth of the global human population, and continuing pollution with its consequences on climate, habitat quality and public health. Unprecedented rates of species extinctions are caused by the worldwide modification of ecosystems through habitat depletion, modification of landscapes and climate, and through species displacement. Since the crisis in its terrifying extent is caused largely by human activities, any serious effort to address it must take into account the causes for human behaviour at the collective and individual levels. Educationists tend to believe that a good deal of human behaviour is influenced by formal education but in this case abundant evidence shows that education not only fails in its obligation to make a difference, it often actually contributes to the problem. If this is to be changed, and the potential benefits make the effort seem thoroughly worthwhile, curriculum and educational practice need to be fundamentally re-thought and revised.
This book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Otago, New Zealand in 2003. It consists of three roughly equal parts on environmental science, environmental ethics, and education. It bridges two significant gaps in the literature that were wide open around the turn of the millennium but that have not been filled sufficiently even today. The first gap is the one between descriptive accounts of the global environmental crisis and prescriptive suggestions what humanity could or should do about it. Both areas have seen abundant recent publications, which have narrowed the gap but not eliminated it.
The second gap exists between those prescriptive suggestions, including numerous works about ethics, policy, and life styles, and pedagogical strategies that might allow educators to enlist the considerable potential of formal education in our efforts to address the global environmental crisis. A number of published works over the past few years have addressed the area of education for sustainability but few are based on a solid assessment of the crisis in all its manifestations or a satisfactory discussion of alternative ethical frameworks that might inform such pedagogies.
The potential readership for this book will be anyone interested in the current predicament that humanity finds itself in; educators who are searching for ways to address the problems in their daily practice; people who feel an affiliation and kinship with the natural world; and those of us who raise children with a concern about their future well-being and that of the generations to come.
Papers by Alexander Lautensach
About BCcampus Open Education
Empowering International Human Security Regimes
Irreconcilable Differences? The Tension Between Human Security and Human Rights
Recalling the Significance of Local Governance to Human Security in Illiberal Sub-Saharan African Contexts
How to Read, Access, and Use This Textbook
Environmental security
Routledge Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, 2013
Learning Outcomes for the Great Transition
Brill | Schöningh eBooks, Oct 13, 2020
Educating as if Sustainability Mattered
Brill | Schöningh eBooks, Oct 13, 2020
Localization and globalization of core adaptive knowledge
Knowledge For The Anthropocene, 2021
Educating for Sustainability: Curriculum Reform in the Age of Environmental Crisis
Proceedings of The 1st World Sustainability Forum, 2011
Abstract: In the the present global environmental crisis people who contribute most to its causes... more Abstract: In the the present global environmental crisis people who contribute most to its causes are not the people who reap most of the resulting harms. The former tend to be well educated and hold positions of power or at least high levels of personal consumption. This ...
Mobilising Curriculum Towards Human Security: The Importance Of Biology
ABSTRACT
Cloning of malic acid assimilating activity from Leuconostoc oenos in E. coli
Microbios, 1984
High molecular weight DNA was extracted from a malo-lactic fermenting strain of Leuconostoc oenos... more High molecular weight DNA was extracted from a malo-lactic fermenting strain of Leuconostoc oenos by a specifically designed lysis procedure, restricted, and ligated into Escherichia coli cloning vector pTR 262, which allows for positive selection for inserts. Malic acid assimilating activity was directly selected for using a host blocked in malic acid utilization. Transformants grew on malate minimal medium but were genetically unstable and contained plasmid DNA that was altered through recA independent events. Analogous results were obtained from a test system using prototrophic transformants of a proline auxotrophic host.
Genetic Heterogeneity in Lactobacilli and Leuconostocs of Enological Significance
Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology Journal, 1983
ABSTRACT
Development, Ethical Sustainability and
Green Ethics and Philosophy: An A-to-Z Guide
The Values of Ecologists
Environmental Values, 2005
The popular stereotype of ecologists appears somewhat at odds with the ideal of the objective, de... more The popular stereotype of ecologists appears somewhat at odds with the ideal of the objective, detached, morally disinterested researcher. Ecologists tend to subscribe to this ideal, as do most natural scientists. This puts the stereotype into question. To what extent and in what respects can ecologists be regarded as motivated by environmentalist values? What other values might contribute to their motivations? The answers to those questions have bearing on how policy makers perceive the input they receive from ecologists and it has long-term implications for the funding of ecological research. To obtain some answers I analysed over fifty randomly selected publications of ecologists for explicit and implicit value statements. The analysis revealed an abundance of value statements. However, no bias was evident towards a conservationist or ecocentric environmental ethic such as suggested by the stereotype. I will suggest some explanations and ramifications of these results that take i...
An L-lactic acid dehydrogenase based method for detecting microbial colonies performing a malo-lactic fermentation
Canadian Journal of Microbiology, 1982
Microbial colonies capable of fermenting L-malic acid to L-lactic acid were identified by means o... more Microbial colonies capable of fermenting L-malic acid to L-lactic acid were identified by means of a dark blue halo which formed after the colonies had been grown on medium containing malic acid and then covered with a soft agar overlay containing L-lactic acid dehydrogenase, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, phenazine methosulfate, and nitro blue tetrazolium. The system is stereospecific and discriminates between the production of D-lactic and L-lactic acid. Chromatographic analysis of the medium adjacent to the colony distinguishes between those colonies producing L-lactate from L-malate and those producing DL-lactate from glucose. The system may be used to identify wine microbes capable of performing a malo-lactic fermentation, comparing two bacterial strains for their ability to perform a malo-lactic fermentation, and for the identification of clones of an organism carrying a recombinant DNA vector with the genetic material necessary for malo-lactic fermentation.
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Books by Alexander Lautensach
A summary is given here: Lautensach, A.K. 2020. Educating Teachers as if Sustainability Mattered. International Portal of Teacher Education. The MOFET Institute. http://education.eng.macam.ac.il/article/5031
What distinguishes this open-access university textbook on human security?
• This is still the only textbook of human security of its kind, to our knowledge. Its themes are relevant for a wide range of academic areas.
• Its 22 chapter authors include academics and activists from all over the world.
• It is accessible entirely online, free of charge, including free downloading, at a time when online course delivery is being prioritized and students are less able than ever to afford costly hardcopy texts. Nevertheless, hardcopies can be ordered from the website.
• It addresses diverse aspects of human security, especially health security, that are at the forefront of current world affairs in the COVID context and the Anthropocene predicament.
This book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Otago, New Zealand in 2003. It consists of three roughly equal parts on environmental science, environmental ethics, and education. It bridges two significant gaps in the literature that were wide open around the turn of the millennium but that have not been filled sufficiently even today. The first gap is the one between descriptive accounts of the global environmental crisis and prescriptive suggestions what humanity could or should do about it. Both areas have seen abundant recent publications, which have narrowed the gap but not eliminated it.
The second gap exists between those prescriptive suggestions, including numerous works about ethics, policy, and life styles, and pedagogical strategies that might allow educators to enlist the considerable potential of formal education in our efforts to address the global environmental crisis. A number of published works over the past few years have addressed the area of education for sustainability but few are based on a solid assessment of the crisis in all its manifestations or a satisfactory discussion of alternative ethical frameworks that might inform such pedagogies.
The potential readership for this book will be anyone interested in the current predicament that humanity finds itself in; educators who are searching for ways to address the problems in their daily practice; people who feel an affiliation and kinship with the natural world; and those of us who raise children with a concern about their future well-being and that of the generations to come.
Papers by Alexander Lautensach