Sustainability

George Monbiot’s Out of the Wreckage; A friendly critique

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Few have made a more commendable contribution to saving the planet than George Monbiot. His recent book, Out of the Wreckage, continues the effort and puts forward many important ideas…but I believe there are problems with his diagnosis and his remedy. … the main goal is not a town containing nice things like community orchards, nor indeed one with robust community, but a town we run on principles of frugal, cooperative, needs-focused, local self-sufficiency.

Beyond Sustainability? — We are Living in the Century of Regeneration

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The term regenerative development, on the other hand, carries within it a clear aim of regenerating the health and vitality of the nested, scale-linking systems we participate in. At a basic level regeneration also communicates not to use resources that cannot be regenerated, nor to use any resources faster than they can be regenerated.

Can we create a durable future?

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Our contemporary world is designed for impermanence — which also makes it resource- and energy-intensive as we invent, disseminate and discard a sea of gadgets, tear down and build an endless array of buildings, and junk and manufacture vehicles in an ever-repeating cycle. If we want to build a durable culture, we will have to slow down and rescale our lives and the life of our societies. But what would the outlines of such a culture look like?

3 Things We Learned About the Sustainability Movement at Future Earth

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Future Earth is an open, international network of academic research projects focused on transition to a sustainable world. It’s an umbrella organization formed in 2015 to support these projects, foster collaboration between them, and serve as a bridge between the research community and the outside world for 10 years.

Sustainability Metrics, Growth Limits, and Philanthropy

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Humanity is approaching a time when philanthropy will be more needed than ever, to address proliferating environmental and humanitarian crises. Yet our existing philanthropic model depends upon growth, via returns on financial investments.