Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– Fred Magdoff: Harmony and Ecological Civilization
– Commencement Address: You’re Not Special
– Population and Biodiversity: The Parable of Isle Royale
– Ehrlich et al: Securing natural capital and expanding equity to rescale civilization
Jeff Rubin is currently touring his new book, The End Of Growth. As the former Chief Economist for CIBC World Markets he brings an intimate knowledge of financial markets and how they work to the peak oil/end of growth community populated by other venerable thinkers such as Richard Heinberg, Chris Martenson and John Michael Greer.
– Don’t call me an environmentalist
– James Gustave Speth: America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part II
– Limits to growth, food security issues and the rapid growth in Australia’s population – Philip Adams interview
In virtually every institution in human society, we humans concern ourselves with the continuation of the species. We have children, we raise them in some sort of family, we educate them for the world of work and citizenship, and then we see them couple and start the cycle all over again. All the while we seek to defend ourselves from disease, violence, economic deprivation, in fact, anything that might cut short our lives or those of our children. It ought to be self-evident that human beings do care about the future. What I want to examine is whether they should and if so, how much.
This online tool allows you to estimate the number of people a certain area in Australia may be able to support at a national, state and bio-regional scale. Our aim is to raise awareness of the importance of carrying capacity assessment as a forward planning tool – to help establish a sustainable balance between people and their localised environment. Given the dependence of societal systems on biophysical health, it is vital that land-use planning initiatives have the ability to more clearly define potential future demands on the environment. Carrying capacity assessment offers a way to assess our resource needs and also determine how best to meet these needs.
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.
– Your grandchildren have no value: investor Jeremy Grantham’s longest quarterly letter ever
– Paul Gilding: The Earth is full (TED talk)
– Before the Food Arrives on Your Plate, So Much Goes on Behind the Scenes
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.
Because childbearing decisions are often built on economic necessities, the less certain you are your children will live to adulthood, the more likely you are to have more of them. A longer term stability depends on keeping child, infant and maternal mortality low, even as we struggle with health care costs and the creation of a lower-energy infrastructure.
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.
– Monbiot: Why is it so easy to save the banks – but so hard to save the biosphere?
– Will the right turn green?
– Economists Push for a Broader Range of Viewpoints in Their Field
– Book review: “Debt” by David Graeber of OWS
– Barely Half of U.S. Adults Are Married – A Record Low
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?
