In Breach of Contract
By Tom Murphy, Do the Math
Humans today stand in gross violation of our pact with nature. We are egregiously in breach of contract. Our protections are thereby revoked.
Tag: ecological overshoot
The fat-takers cross the oceans
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
From its beginnings more than five centuries ago, European colonization has been based on an unsustainable exploitation of resources.
Limits to Growth and the COVID-19 epidemic
By Dennis Meadows, Chelsea Green
Slowing growth in population and in consumption of materials and energy will not eliminate the problem. But it would reduce the pressure to increase efficiency and leave more possibility for increasing resilience.
The Earth Is Telling Us We Must Rethink Our Growth Society
By William E. Rees, The Tyee
Surely it is within our collective imagination to socially construct a system of globally networked but self-reliant national economies that better serve the needs of a smaller human family. The ultimate goal of economic planning everywhere must now turn to ensuring that humanity can thrive indefinitely and more equitably within the biophysical means of nature.
Punching Ronnie in the Mouth (Episode 2 of Crazy Town)
By Asher Miller, Rob Dietz, Jason Bradford, Resilience.org
This episode of Crazy Town focuses on the limits to growth, including the growth imperatives built into our economic institutions, and explores how the economy could make a shift toward sustainability. Along the way, Asher, Rob, and Jason take some potshots at Ronnie and his cohort of math-challenged wishful thinkers.
Human Predators, Human Prey: Part 2
By Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org
To the extent that we are today eroding the carrying capacity on which future generations would otherwise depend, our way of life could be characterized as intergenerational “predation”; to put it crudely, the old are “eating” the young.
Today We’ve Consumed More Resources than the Planet can Renew in a Year
By Mathew Lawrence, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Red Pepper
August 1 was Earth Overshoot Day, the date when we have taken more from nature than it can renew in an entire year. Unsustainable extraction is occurring on a planetary scale: we are using natural resources 1.7 times faster in 2018 than the Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate this year.
Time for Politicians to Get Real about the Anthropocene
By Mathew Lawrence, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Red Pepper
It seems that the short lived cycles of electoral politics means that politicians chase short-term goals, rather than tackling problems such as climate change which require long-term, global thinking. The test of a capable politician in 2018 is whether they take a stand against cavalier resource extraction.
Where are We Going?
By Nate Hagens, Resilience.org
Around 11,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended, our ancestors - in no fewer than 5 locations around the world - took advantage of the new conditions and tried an agricultural way of life. Fast forward through two momentous phase shifts in human history (agricultural and industrial revolutions), and here we are: approaching 8 billion, seeking freedom, experiences, and material wealth all derived from physical surplus.
Our Economy is a Degenerative System
By Daniel Christian Wahl, P2P Foundation
Our ecological footprint exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate. A number of useful indicators and frameworks have been developed to measure the ecological impact that humanity and its dominant economic system with its patterns of production, consumption and waste-disposal are having on the planet and its ecosystems.
Resource Limitations
By Chris Nelder, William E. Rees, Energy Transition Show
How do we know at what level our consumption is sustainable, and when we’re in planetary overshoot? How do we quantify what the planet’s capacity is to meet human demands, and how much of that capacity is renewable, and how much of it is just being permanently depleted? And once we had a way to quantify that, what would we do with that information?
Why Climate Change Isn’t Our Biggest Environmental Problem, and Why Technology Won’t Save Us
By Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom. Overshoot is a systemic issue. Until we understand and address this systemic imbalance, symptomatic treatment will constitute an endlessly frustrating round of stopgap measures that are ultimately destined to fail.