This key text offers a coherent conceptual framework for human ecology - a clear approach for understanding the many systems we are part of and for how we frame and understand the problems we face. Essential reading for students and scholars of human ecology, environmental ethics, and sustainability studies.

Robert Dyball convenes the 50-year-old Human Ecology Program at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University (ANU), Australia. He is Editor of Human Ecology Review, the journal of the Society for Human Ecology (SHE), Past President of SHE, and the Past Chair of the Human Ecology Section of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), USA.

Barry Newell is a physicist with a focus on the development of practical methods for integrative research and policymaking in complex social-ecological systems. His work blends operations research, cognitive science, system dynamics, and complexity theory. He is Honorary Associate Professor in the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, and a member of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions.

Prologue: six impossible things before breakfast PART I: The challenge 1. Human ecology: an evolving perspective 2. Dynamics of conflict and change in the Snowy Mountains PART II: Building shared understanding 3. Thinking together 4. System dynamics I: stocks and flows 5. System dynamics II: feedback 6. Systems and sustainability 7. Toward a shared theoretical framework PART III: Living in the Anthropocene 8. Paradigms: ideas that change the world 9. Living well in the Anthropocene 10. Consumers and global food systems 11. Stewards of a full Earth Epilogue: six possible things before dinner