Note: Cover -- Sustainability Unpacked Food, Energy and Water for Resilient Environments and Societies -- Copyright -- Contents -- Authors and Contributors -- Preface -- List of Figures and Tables -- Part 1: From the Beginning -- 1. Sustainability - Clues for Positive Societal and Ecosystem Change -- Defining Sustainability -- Why Sustainability Needs to be Unpacked -- Decoding Our Current Perceptions of Sustainability and Is There a Right Model? -- Large Datasets and Moving Beyond Irrational Human Choices -- Using Human Development Ranking to Understand Large Datasets -- 2. Learning From the PAST:Why Societies Collapsed or Survived -- Why People Live Where They Do -- Where is it easier for humans to live within their footprints? -- Where is it difficult for humans to live within their footprints? -- Industrialization Fuelled by Carbon -- A history of how society became dependent on 'artificial' products made from fossil carbon -- Agrarian societies are dependent on renewable carbon -- The 'carbonization' of society and the importance of coal -- Oil made our 'synthetic' world possible -- The Norm:Transboundary Consumption of Someone Else's Resources -- Human History: A Search for Food Security -- Food and social status -- Food preservation for food security -- Restaurants and our perceptions of food security -- A Long Human History of Poor Health -- Accidental Reductions in Human Resource Uses -- Part 2: Scientific Approach to Decoding Sustainability -- 3. TODAY: Decoding Country Resource Stories -- Indices and How they Characterize Sustainable Choices -- Indices rank environmental/ecological metrics well -- Human and resource capital disconnect -- Indices and Advanced-Economy Countries -- Indices and Emerging-Economy Countries -- Indices and Growing-Economy Countries -- Lessons Learnt From Indices -- Part 3: The Real Country Stories. , 4. Fossil Energy Endowments and Externalities -- CO2 Emissions Link to Energy -- CO2 emissions and total fossil fuel consumption -- CO2 emissions and gasoline consumption -- Societies and Fossil Energy Options -- Diverse fossil energy portfolios the norm -- Energy security after becoming a net importer of oil -- Energy Production Is Water Demanding -- 5. Forests - The Backbone and Circulatory System for Human Societies -- Where do you Find Forests Today? -- Energy Choices and Satisfying Human Survival Needs -- Forests and Fossil Energies: Incompatible in a Conservation and Sustainable Development World? -- CO2 Emissions, Land Use Changes and Forest Sequestration of Carbon -- Liquid Fuels from Forests to Mitigate CO2 Emissions -- Environmental challenges to biofuels -- Forest energy and sustainability from distributed energy production -- Forest Uses have Negative Environmental Repercussions Elsewhere -- 6. The Soil and Water Connection to Food: Adapt, Mitigate or Die -- What Constrains Local Food Production? -- Soil chemistry - sets the threshold for food production -- Severely degraded lands and food production -- Water Security and Soils -- Part 4: Climate and Soils: Unavoidable Constraints to Solar Capital -- 7. The FUTURE: Climate Change as a Global Driver Impacting Sustainability -- Why People Migrate: Geography and Climate Influences on Humans -- Past human responses to changing climates: Become a foreigner -- Climate Change and Humans -- Climate change and social dysfunctions -- Climate change and human health -- Water and Resources -- Water supplies and human development -- Droughts and bio-resource securities -- Water and electricity production -- 8. WHERE the PAST and FUTURE Meet: Soils or the Unseen Earth That Nurtures Societies -- Soil Management Essential for Human Development -- Soils Are Not Equally Good for Food Production. , Soils are quite diverse and only some are good for growing crops -- Good soils, good crops and good food security -- Soil Degradation and Food Security -- Soil degradation and global soils -- Linking soil degradation to societal sustainability -- Your Health Is Dictated by Where Your Food Is Grown -- Nutrient deficiencies in food and human health problems -- Human health, agriculture and nutrient deficiencies: the soil connection -- Wildlife and nutrient deficiencies: eating soils -- Forests Buffer Societies Living on Nutrient-Poor Soils -- Forests grow well on poor soils -- Trees are better adapted than humans to the environment and climates -- 9. The Ultimate Constraint to Human Sustainability: Solar Income -- Productive Capacity Potentials and Human Survival -- Solar Income Equates to Sustainable Choices -- Losses From and Unavailable Solar Income: A Forest Lens -- Is Local Food Production Sustainable? The Solar Income Factor -- Part 5: Societies Adapt to a Quagmire of Resource Choices -- 10. Debunking Sustainability Myths -- Temperature and Where You Live Do Matter -- Do High Population Densities Equate to Unsustainable Choices? -- Rural Landscapes: Rich in Resources and Rich People? -- Is it Realistic to Expect a Low Carbon-use World to Reduce CO2 Emissions? -- Economic development and fossil carbon -- The carbon backbone of society -- Food Security Solution: Do We Need Another Green Revolution? -- 11. Portfolio for Managing Natural and Human Capital -- Developing Human Capital -- Communication technologies -- Make the whole society adaptable: Educate females -- Being Adaptive Means Being Global and Importing Bio-resources -- Agriculture and forests: important import products -- A diverse fossil fuel importation imperative for development -- Valuing Labour as a Resource -- 12. Sustainable Ecosystems: Investments in Human and Natural Capital. , Cell Matrix of Resource Endowments and Human Adaptability -- Agricultural land endowment and social resilience -- Oil endowment and social resilience -- Forest and woodland endowment and social resilience -- Water endowment and social resilience -- Climate and soil constraints to natural and social capital -- The Fulcrum of Sustainability -- Climate change mitigation -- Importing resources -- Final Thoughts on Sustainability Unpacked -- Index.