Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Spread Reckoning: U.S. Suburbs Face Twin Perils of Climate Change and Peak Oil
-Sprawling cities pressure environment, planning
-Climate Change Threatens the Poor in Cities
-Rampant water “pillage” is sucking Yemen dry
-Air pollution ‘will become bigger global killer than dirty water’
-U.S. intelligence sees global water conflict risks rising
-Reflections on a Thirsty Planet for World Water Day
-Las Vegas plans to pump water across 300 miles of desert approved
-China plans to curb capital’s water usage
-The Colorado River delta blues
As a contribution to this ongoing refinement of the concept, I recently formulated five axioms (self-evident truths) of sustainability. My goal was simply to distill ideas that had been proposed previously and put them into a concise, easy-to-understand form.
The Post Carbon Institute animation 300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Minutes with Russian subtitles.
The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists publishing a paper this week in the journal Science. “What we’re doing today really stands out in the geologic record,” says lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
“We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out–new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about–coral reefs, oysters, salmon.”
Strong as empires seem, every empire that’s ever existed has collapsed, except the one currently owned by the United States–and the odds on that one’s survival aren’t looking good just at the moment. Behind the rhythm of rise and fall that shapes the lives of empires lies a familiar relationship between the pressures toward limitless growth and the inevitable limits of a finite world.
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.
