Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For the last four years, The SFT has been working on the Global Farm Metric (GFM) – a harmonised measure of sustainability that has the potential to unite food system stakeholders, such as farmers, retailers and banks across the globe and re-situate agriculture as a solution to climate change, biodiversity loss and declining public health.
We have to make profound changes to the way we all live, and that includes work. The problem is getting a toehold on the system whose parts are mutually reinforcing and and locks in destruction with its incessant expansion.
Alan AtKisson has been working professionally in sustainable development since 1988 and has been recognized internationally as a pioneering innovator and thought-leader in the field. Alan addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
Metrics are gamed in order to increase (or decrease) a given number so as to support an argument, boost a political view, trigger a linked payout or justify a proposed policy or course of action.
It’s Earth Day 2021, and I hope the world’s leaders will boldly go where none have gone before. I am optimistic.
There are Black Swans that you can’t do anything about because you don’t know they’re going to happen; but the Grey Swans are predictable – not in their dimensions or timing exactly; but we know there’s going to be another food price crisis, a catastrophic climactic moment of some sort, or energy problems: things like this are going to happen.
Collectively we three authors of this article must have spent more than 80 years thinking about climate change. Why has it taken us so long to speak out about the obvious dangers of the concept of net zero?
In this aptly titled book, University of Texas research scientist Carey W. King argues that the modern-day global economy is a superorganism.
Society has become so complex that all the complexity begets more complexity. And if that’s not complex enough for you, jobs have become so specialized that hardly anyone knows how anything is made or works.
What happened in Texas is an incredibly complex story involving many factors, from a simple lack of weatherization, to flaws in the state’s electricity market structure, to failed governance.
It might be a bit of a hunker down message, but it’s about focusing on people’s needs: security, resilience, and minimising risks.
But we have to recognise our own part in perpetuating the system. If you don’t care for another human being, what is the point of life?
