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The Boundaries and Future of Solution Space – Part 1
The Boundaries and Future of Solution Space – Part 1 Intro A great deal of intelligence is invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. Saul Bellow, 1976 More and more people (although not nearly enough) are coming to recognise that humanity cannot continue on its current trajectory, as the limits we face […]
Paul Ehrlich: The Population Bomb
Paul Ehrlich: The Population Bomb The master predicament that remains unaddressed In 1968, Paul Ehrlich released his ground-breaking book The Population Bomb, which awoke the national consciousness to the collision-course world population growth is on with our planet’s finite resources. His work was reinforced several years later by the Limits To Growth report issued by the Club of […]
Sustainability Metrics, Growth Limits, and Philanthropy
Sustainability Metrics, Growth Limits, and Philanthropy As the metrics of sustainability become ever more robust and sophisticated, it is ever more apparent to many of us who study those metrics that industrial civilization, as currently configured, is unsustainable. Ecological footprint analysis tells us that we are presently using 1.5 Earths’ worth of resources annually. We […]
Living Within a Limit is OK: Talking Resilience with Doria Robinson
Living Within a Limit is OK: Talking Resilience with Doria Robinson Doria Robinson is the Executive Director of Urban Tilth, based in Richmond, CA. Urban Titlh works to build a more sustainable, healthy, and just food system, by hiring and training residents to work with schools, community-based organizations, government agencies, businesses, and individuals to develop the capacity […]
BP Data Suggests We Are Reaching Peak Energy Demand
BP Data Suggests We Are Reaching Peak Energy Demand Some people talk about peak energy (or oil) supply. They expect high prices and more demand than supply. Other people talk about energy demand hitting a peak many years from now, perhaps when most of us have electric cars. Neither of these views is correct. The real situation […]
No Climate Protection without Climate Justice; No Climate Justice without Degrowth
No Climate Protection without Climate Justice; No Climate Justice without Degrowth Shortly before the most crucial UN climate change conference after the failure of Copenhagen, it seems that the international climate-movement is finally getting its act together: resistance against fossil fuel extraction is gaining ground and a rising global movement is putting pressure on institutions to divest their […]
A Thirst for Economic Change?
A Thirst for Economic Change? I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. –John Stuart Mill, On the Stationary State In the face of global resource shortages and the alarming rate at which we are losing species, many of us share […]
Why We Have an Oversupply of Almost Everything (Oil, labor, capital, etc.)
Why We Have an Oversupply of Almost Everything (Oil, labor, capital, etc.) The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article called, Glut of Capital and Labor Challenge Policy Makers: Global oversupply extends beyond commodities, elevating deflation risk. To me, this is a very serious issue, quite likely signaling that we are reaching what has been called Limits to […]
Planetary Boundaries and Human Prosperity
Planetary Boundaries and Human Prosperity The future of humanity will depend on mastering a balancing act. The challenge will be to provide for the needs of more than ten billion people while safeguarding our planetary life-support systems. Recent scientific insights have made us better equipped than ever to strike that balance. Doing so will be […]
Quote Of The Year. And The Next. And The One After
Quote Of The Year. And The Next. And The One After I very rarely read back any of the essays I write. But maybe that’s not always a good thing. Especially when they deal with larger underlying issues beneath the problems we find ourselves in, why these problems exist in the first place, and what […]
Overview of Our Energy Modeling Problem
Overview of Our Energy Modeling Problem We live in a world with limits, yet our economy needs growth. How can we expect this scenario to play out? My view is that this problem will play out as a fairly near-term financial problem, with low oil prices leading to a fall in oil production. But not everyone […]
Putting the Real Story of Energy and the Economy Together
Putting the Real Story of Energy and the Economy Together What is the real story of energy and the economy? We hear two predominant energy stories. One is the story economists tell: The economy can grow forever; energy shortages will have no impact on the economy. We can simply substitute other forms of energy, or do […]
Review of Collision Course (Endless Growth on a Finite Planet)
Review of Collision Course (Endless Growth on a Finite Planet) Kerryn Higgs, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014 This informative book is about the rise of economic growth to the status of the number one goal of nations; the short-lived challenge to that dogma from the book The Limits to Growth (1972); the solidity of the Limits position as confirmed by […]
What we can still learn from “Star Trek”: a saga of harmony in diversity.
What we can still learn from “Star Trek”: a saga of harmony in diversity. The death of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who impersonated Mr. Spock in the original TV series “Star Trek” has ended an age. Star Trek was a true 20th century saga, a way of seeing the world. To some of us, it may look […]
