Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We chatted with Herman Daly on a range of topics from ecology to economics, policy to politics, relocalization to religion. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, pioneered work on Steady-State and Ecological Economics, and has received more accolades and written more books than we can mention.
As economies contract, a global popular uprising confronts power elites over access to the essentials of human existence. What are the underlying dynamics of the conflict, and how is it likely to play out?
Has environmentalism lost its way? What does sustainability really have to do with a healthy planet? During Orion’s latest live web event, Paul Kingsnorth discussed his essay “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist” in the January/February 2012 issue of the magazine. According to Kingsnorth, environmentalism has effectively died, its original deep connection to nature lost in the language of science and economics. Kingsnorth is joined by authors Lierre Keith and David Abram.
Nearly 40% of the global population currently lives within 50 km of a coast, and many of these people depend on the productivity of the sea. Inadequate fisheries management and widespread overuse of marine and coastal resources are eroding the traditional basis of life for millions of people. As coastal populations soar, pressure on marine resources has become unsustainable in many places.
Are no-take fishery reserves the answer?
Last December, after more than 40 years teaching at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia, Bill Rees gave his last lecture as a full-time professor. As one of his last students, I found his class captivating, and in following up with many of his former students, realized they felt the same way. His career defined the modern science of sustainability, and touched the lives of many, inspiring individuals to devote their lives towards adapting our species to live responsibly on this planet.
– New documentary: “The Crisis of Civilization” with Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
– Peak Oil, Energy Descent, and the Fate of Consumerism
– Coming to terms with Nature, (Spanish and Italian)
– Boom and doom: Revisiting prophecies of collapse (New Scientist)
There is considerable uncertainty about how tightly ecology constrains planetary growth. Given this uncertainty, prudence dictates a conservative approach that takes limits to growth seriously. In an ecologically constrained world, both the global North and the global South need to consider new obligations and limits. A basic commitment to social justice requires that the claims of the poor, chiefly residing in the South, take precedence over the claims of the rich, chiefly residing in the North. The North may have to accept an actual reduction in conventional measures of standard of living to create ecological space for Southern growth.
The return of interest in “The Limits to Growth” continues. After decades of ridicule and insults, the value of the 1972 study and of its sequels is more and more recognized. The latest item in the series of revisitations is an article published by Debora McKenzie in the latest New Scientist magazine.
The end of our industrial lifestyle paradigm will be dictated by Liebig’s Law, and by humanity’s response to its consequences. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know at this point which increasingly scarce nonrenewable natural resource (NNR) or NNR combination will ultimately prove to be industrialized humanity’s limiting factor.
Consequently, humanity’s global societal collapse may be triggered by scarcity associated with one or more NNRs other than those commonly considered “most critical” to the perpetuation of our industrial lifestyle paradigm—fossil fuels, or oil specifically. After all, the space shuttle Challenger disaster was caused by a faulty o-ring.
The story of the Empress Galla Placidia deals with such things as system dynamics, the fall of empires, resource depletion, controlling complex systems and, yes, also a little about Christmas.
Her story seems like the plot of an adventure movie. She started as a princess, then she was prisoner of the Goths, then she became their Queen, then she was again their prisoner.
In the 5th century, when she came to power, the Roman Empire had been running out of reactants. It had been growing on the profits made from military campaigns but, at some point around the 2nd century, it had reached its limits. With no more easy conquests in sight, the Empire had to live on its own resources and it never really learned how to do that.
During the 5th century, what an emperor (or empress) could have done was to give to the events just a little push in the right direction. Don’t fight the change, ease it. It is the way of pushing the levers in the right direction. Could Placidia have done just that? Incredibly, perhaps she did.
As The Big Engine That Couldn’t has faltered for several years, it is becoming increasingly clear the economy is running off the tracks. Both investors and the public are beginning to realize the long-revered goal of endless economic growth is failing. Anger and fear are widespread, as the livelihoods and hopes of ordinary Americans are being destroyed. Anger runs among the “99%” over economic injustices that favor the “1%”. Fear, however, may run among 100% over this question: How do we live when economic growth fails?
And here’s the bad news in a nutshell: if you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding.
