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Books

Lead for the Planet: Five Practices for Confronting Climate Change

Excerpt: Welcome to Team Humanity

 

We hear a lot these days about the what and the why of climate change. Yes, it is happening, and humans are causing it by burning fossil fuels. Yes, it's melting the Arctic and causing disruptions across the globe. And, yes, it's accelerating.

 

We hear a lot less about the who and the how of solving the problem. Until recently, discussion about how humanity will organize to deal with disruptive climate change has taken a backseat to the essential project of convincing people that the change is real. Now most of the world accepts that reality, and people are beginning to focus on how we, the members of Team Humanity, are going to get this thing done. Concerned citizens from all walks of life want to know how they themselves can contribute: What does it take to be a leader for the planet?

 

Our main concerns, and the subject of this book, are the twin issues of climate change and energy evolution. The burning of fossil fuels escalated with the introduction of powered machines in the late 19th nineteenth century. Intensified by improving living standards and a growing world population, it is accelerating worldwide. It is warming the planet, with serious consequences. To address these facts, and also because the Earth's store of fossil fuels is finite, the world's transition from fossil fuels to less polluting sources of energy is assuredly, if fitfully, underway. Across the planet, responsible people are gearing up to unleash the creativity and innovation that must fuel this transition.

 

Leading for the planet means protecting people and the natural systems we all depend on by sensibly managing these environmental challenges. To date, our leaders have prioritized natural science over social science, and reasonably so. Yet, to take the next step forward, humanity must now look inward. Leadership for the planet requires knowledge of both natural science and human nature.

 

To lead well now is to study humanity's ways of organizing and to translate that knowledge into sound decision- making and action. To help leaders understand key human factors that affect collective, systems-wide solutions, this book draws on the social sciences, from psychology to anthropology to economics. It takes a strong rather than a weak approach to sustainability; that is, it focuses on leadership for the planet rather than on leadership for individual companies alone. It assumes that the core value of "environmental sustainability" is the obligation to conduct ourselves so that we leave to future generations the option and the capacity to be as well off as we are today.

 

We will focus here on climate change and energy evolution, leaving for others the simultaneously critical issues of population growth and agricultural development. We address here all climate leaders, (and, also, their followers) – not only those who are currently practicing but also those who are emerging, whatever your age, training, organizational position, or resources.

 

The fundamental question we will consider together is: Will Team Humanity step up to save the planet?


 

Take Back the Sky: Protecting Communities in the Path of Aviation Expansion

Sierra Club Books, 2004; iUniverse 2009. 


Examines the laws, community impacts, and political realities surrounding airport expansions in the United States.

 

"Rae Andre is one of the first to address this issue and she does it well." --Michael S. Dukakis, Vice-Chairman of the Board, Amtrak; former Governor of Massachusetts.

 

"Makes a compelling case." Phaedra Pezzullo, ORGANIZATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Positive Solitude: A Practical Program for Mastering Loneliness and Achieving Self-Fulfillment

"At once bold, realistic and sensitive—the most inspiring reflection on the singular strength of the human spirit I have encountered to date." ...a reader.

 

Originally published by HarperCollins. An Authors Guild BACKINPRINT.COM edition, iUniverse, 2000.

Organizational Behavior: An Introduction to Your Life in Organizations

PrenticeHall, 2008; With an Instructors' Manual written by the Author.

The 59-Second Employee: How to Stay One Second Ahead of Your One-Minute Manager

Co-authored with Peter D. Ward. An Authors Guild BACKINPRINT.COM edition, iUniverse, 2000.

 

"A cheeky but serious rebuttal...gives employees advice on how to advance by skillfully managing their bosses."
--TIME MAGAZINE.

 

Originally published by Houghton Mifflin, THE 59-SECOND EMPLOYEE has sold more than 100,000 copies and has been reprinted in numerous foreign editions. It was a Publishers Weekly annual best-selling trade paperback.

Researchers Hooked on Teaching: Noted Scholars Discuss the Synergies of Teaching and Research in University Life.

Co-edited with Peter J. Frost. Sage Publications, 1997.

 

"Strongly recommended to anyone involved in the academic process." --Cynthia Lengnick-Hall, ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW

Students and scholars in fields related to psychology, sociology, and business--particularly those who are pursuing a career in college teaching--will find these personal essays thought-provoking. With candor and warmth, our contributors discuss the hard choices they have made between their commitment to teaching and their interest in research.

Cards: The Best and Only Novel about Baseball Card Collectors

Writers Club Press, 2002.

This is a short book I wrote for comic relief from all of the other stuff I write. It is an adventure story populated with some of the great characters in the Hobby. Filled with baseball trivia, it will challenge and maybe even amuse you. BE THE FIRST IN YOUR STATE TO BUY ONE!

Homemakers, the Forgotten Workers

The University of Chicago Press, 1980. Out of Print.

 

"An extremely important book." --Elaine Tyler May, MINNEAPOLIS TRIBUNE. 


"One of the strengths of Andre's book is her observation about the ways in which traditional assumptions about women as homemakers influence the fate of the growing numbers of young women who combine homemaking with part-time jobs, or who hold paying jobs for much of their lives but drop out of the labor force when their family responsibilities are heaviest...Good ideas...raises the right questions." --Susan Jacoby, THE NEW REPUBLIC.

"Useful...based on admirable values [and] practical familiarity with the situation of homemakers."
--Elinor G. Barber, POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

"An ambitious attempt, perhaps the first by an academician, to respond to Betty Friedan's dictum that 'the second feminist agenda, the agenda of the '80s, must call for the restructuring of the institutions of home and work."
--Laurie Shields, NEW DIRECTIONS FOR WOMEN