Home » Posts tagged 'sustainability' (Page 3)

Tag Archives: sustainability

3 Sustainable Ways To Reduce Your Dependence on the Supply Chain

It’s no secret that the supply chain disruptions have created global impacts on us. Many of us are feeling the burn of soaring food prices and are ready to do what is necessary to continue to feed our families. It’s not about choice, it’s about survival, and now is the time to take the necessary steps to ensure you can make it when the entire food supply system crashes.

One of the easiest ways to reduce your dependence on the supply chain is to start finding ways to phase out food sourcing and make it a priority! That means you will need to be innovative and think of other ways food can be acquired than just going to the grocery store.

23 Things You Can Forage For From April to June

Create more sustainability around your life and you learn to live more simply in the process. You will realize how much you actually have and other ways of putting items to use. As well, as building a more localized food supply. You will also be reducing greenhouse gases due to the gas used to distribute fresh produce. This also boosts local economies and strengthens food security locally, which is where the focus needs to be. Quite honestly, it’s already around you – you just have to know where to find it.

FORAGE: A simple way to start is to learn how to forage for edible plants. These plants live all around us, are abundant, and better yet; are free! Not only that, these edible plants can be medicinal and will have a lot of nutritional value! Here are some food freebies you can find in your own backyard.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis

May 16, 2022

Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis

Abstract

In this paper we afford a quantitative analysis of the sustainability of current world population growth in relation to the parallel deforestation process adopting a statistical point of view. We consider a simplified model based on a stochastic growth process driven by a continuous time random walk, which depicts the technological evolution of human kind, in conjunction with a deterministic generalised logistic model for humans-forest interaction and we evaluate the probability of avoiding the self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.

Introduction

In the last few decades, the debate on climate change has assumed global importance with consequences on national and global policies. Many factors due to human activity are considered as possible responsible of the observed changes: among these water and air contamination (mostly greenhouse effect) and deforestation are the mostly cited. While the extent of human contribution to the greenhouse effect and temperature changes is still a matter of discussion, the deforestation is an undeniable fact. Indeed before the development of human civilisations, our planet was covered by 60 million square kilometres of forest¹. As a result of deforestation, less than 40 million square kilometres currently remain². In this paper, we focus on the consequence of indiscriminate deforestation.

Trees’ services to our planet range from carbon storage, oxygen production to soil conservation and water cycle regulation. They support natural and human food systems and provide homes for countless species, including us, through building materials. Trees and forests are our best atmosphere cleaners and, due to the key role they play in the terrestrial ecosystem, it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on Earth without them…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Dutch have decided: Burning biomass is not sustainable

January 7, 2022

The Dutch have decided: Burning biomass is not sustainable

EU member states are increasingly turning their coal plants into biomass plants in an effort to cut carbon emissions. [Mizzou CAFNR / Flickr]

The Netherlands should phase out the use of biomass for generating electricity as soon as possible, the advisory board of the Dutch government said in a report presented earlier this month.

Biomass is an “indispensable” resource for the circular economy, but burning it is wasteful.

That is the main message of the report issued on 8 July by the Socio-Economic Council (SER), an independent advisory board of the Dutch government consisting of entrepreneurs, employees and independent experts.

In the chemical industry, the building sector and agriculture, biological materials are crucial for the transition to a circular economy, the council writes. But sustainably produced biomass is too scarce to keep using it for the production of heat or electricity, for which other low-carbon and renewable alternatives exist, the report states.

Accordingly, the billions worth of subsidies that were intended for biomass combustion plants should be phased out as well, the advisors say, calling however for measures to preserve “investment security” when designing a phase-out plan.

This means compensation should be handed out to companies who stand to lose out from the abrupt end of bioenergy subsidies.

“In case of a faster phase-out than companies and employees could have reasonably foreseen, compensation for investments, labour consequences and social consequences is appropriate,” the document states.

The ball is now in the court of the Dutch government, which will use the advice to construct a national “sustainability framework” for bio-resources due to be presented after the summer.

The new framework will “expand on existing criteria” laid down in the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive to design “widely supported and coherent criteria on the sustainable production and use of biomass” in the Netherlands.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

False Beliefs and Denial

December 27, 2021

False Beliefs and Denial

Sam’s Gap at the Tennessee/North Carolina border

I have embarked on quite the journey over the past year. I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to begin writing this blog. I do enjoy discussing energy and resource decline and climate change, because of the stark implications they present. I’m less comfortable talking about extinction due to the uncertainty of a timeline and the controversy surrounding it. Despite my knowledge in this field, I never feel like I know enough; so I’m always digging for more information. The studies, articles, videos, and other media I have discovered are sometimes difficult to digest. I often have to step back to think about what I am writing and how it will be received for those few who are reading it. I am ever mindful of how I felt upon first discovering where we are as a species and precisely how we continue chopping off the limb we are perched upon. It is quite difficult at times, understanding not only where we are but where we are headed; also comprehending the inertia behind us pushing us into new realms and sending us beyond tipping points. Today’s article combines an eclectic mix of both recent events and stories with new material from Tom Murphy, William Rees, Jeff Masters, Alice Friedemann, and many others. Those of you familiar with my posts will be unfazed; new readers may be horrified.

The way some of my articles are received by a few point to anger and denial. I understand this because I was also there for a while, although I quickly progressed beyond those stages of grief. Despite my knowledge regarding human denial of reality and then the accompanying optimism bias which often typically lead to overshoot, I am still surprised by the sheer scale of this denial..

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blueprints for impossible futures

December 24, 2021

Blueprints for impossible futures

“A People’s Green New Deal” demands a different kind of impossible

Over the past two decades, a proliferation of “Green New Deal” literature has promoted various strategies for changing the structure of the global energy system to combat climate change. While the term was first coined by the neoliberal economist Thomas Friedman, it has since been taken up by more progressive voices, from Keynesian social democrats to eco-socialists. Sadly, despite the promise of a new wave of climate-conscious legislation, from the European Green Deal and the UN Climate Agreement to the AOC-Markey legislation of 2019, each seems as unlikely as its predecessors to enact substantive change. At the recent COP 26 Climate Summit, for example, the United States failed to join 30 other nations in pledging to phase out sales of new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 worldwide. With the US federal government dominated by fossil-fuel friendly Democrats and climate-change denying Republicans, the chances of passing ambitious climate legislation appear bleak. In the absence of real political force, GND proposals often serve as blueprints that respond to a largely speculative question: what would we do if we were in a position of power to create meaningful, lasting, and necessary change?

Instead of offering another blueprint for an impossible future, Max Ajl’s A People’s Green New Deal levels a critique at the genre itself, raising significant questions about the way that plans are proffered, and how most green futures implicitly accept the ongoing violence of capitalist imperialism. Ajl’s work engages critically with a wide spectrum of GND proposals, from policy documents like the European Commission and European Environmental Agency’s “European Green Deal” and Senator Ed Markey and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s House Resolution 109…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Putting Post Growth Theory Into Practice

December 24, 2021

Putting Post Growth Theory Into Practice

The Post Growth Entrepreneurship Incubator helps founders break free from traditional business models and implement sustainable non-extractive practices.

Melanie Rieback is the founder of the Post Growth Entrepreneurship
(PGE) Incubator, Nonprofit Ventures, as well as her own successful post
growth business, Radically Open Security (ROS). We sat down with Melanie to find out more about the innovative program helping founders break free from traditional business models and implement sustainable non-extractive practices.

How do you define Post Growth Entrepreneurship?

I would say it’s entrepreneurship and startup incubation that is focused on building non-extractive and not-for-profit businesses. So we’re trying to use entity forms like foundations and Steward Ownership. We promote cross-subsidizing charity with our businesses, and we’re trying to offer an alternative for startup founders who want to bring their activist, artistic, spiritual business ideas to life without selling out in the commercial startup ecosystem. Too much of the startup ecosystem uses the Silicon Valley model of ‘capital, scale, exit.’ Instead we’re promoting: bootstrapping, flat growth, and non-extraction.

A three-minute Post Growth Entrepreneurship primer

What brought you to post growth thinking and approaches?

When I started my cybersecurity business I knew I wanted it to be a social enterprise. I have philosophical differences with market leaders in the space: they work with intelligence agencies, they hack activists, they build surveillance black boxes that get sold to developing countries; so I wanted to find a way to separate out the profit motive from the actual operational vehicle of a business.

I stumbled on a model from the Dutch church, called a Fiscal
Fundraising Institution (FFI), where money is raised via a commercial
spin-off and then donated back into the church with tax benefits. So we decided to create an IT security company, and our so-called “church” is the NLnet Foundation, a charity that supports digital rights and open source initiatives…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“The dream of a smooth energy transition is little more than a comforting shared illusion” – Pt. 1 of 2

December 22, 2021

“The dream of a smooth energy transition is little more than a comforting shared illusion” – Pt. 1 of 2

Moreover, says Dr. William Rees, even if it were possible, it would not solve climate change and would exacerbate the real existential threat facing society, namely overshoot. —

William Rees

“Climate-change and other environmental organizations urge governments to act decisively/rapidly to decarbonize the economy and halt further development of fossil fuel reserves. These demands arguably expose:

- ignorance of the role of energy in the modern economy;
- ill-justified confidence in society’s ability to transition to 100% green renewable energy;
- no appreciation of the ecological consequences of attempting to do so;
- and little understanding of the social implications.

Without questioning the need to abandon fossil fuels,

- I will argue that the dream of a smooth energy transition is little more than a comforting shared illusion.
- Moreover, even if it were possible, it would not solve climate change and would exacerbate the real existential threat facing society, namely overshoot.
- I then explore
  - some of the consequences and implications of (the necessary) abandonment of fossil fuels in the absence of adequate substitutes, and
  - how governments and MTI [Modern Techno-Industrial] society should be responding to these unspoken biophysical realities.”

— Dr. William Rees, CACOR ZOOM Webinar 2021

Dr. William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus, and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His academic research focuses on the biophysical prerequisites for sustainability.

About CACOR — The Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR) was founded in 1970 as one of the first of now more than thirty national associations affiliated with the International Club of Rome. CACOR is autonomous, independent, and nonpartisan. Its main objective is to further the sustainability of the global ecosystem including the survival of humanity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

7 Ways To Make Your Home Sustainable And Eco-Friendly

December 20, 2021

Image by David Blaikie (Flickr) under CC BY 2.0

7 Ways To Make Your Home Sustainable And Eco-Friendly

Introduction

As a homeowner, you might think that there is not enough that you can do to contribute to environmental sustainability. You are wrong! By implementing small everyday steps, every individual or homeowner can make a large contribution towards reversing the dangers of Climate Change and Global Warming.

Being sustainable and adopting an eco-friendly lifestyle can help you in multiple ways-

● Firstly, it allows you to contribute to the care of the environment in a positive fashion.

● Secondly, you can save money by opting for energy-efficient systems in your home.

● Thirdly, being eco-friendly helps you create healthier living conditions for your family.

In this resource article, we are going to look at seven credible ways that homeowners can make their homes sustainable and eco-friendly. If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about making your home eco-friendlier, this article should help you.

List of 7 Ways to Make Your Home Sustainable and Eco-Friendly

1. Invest in energy-efficient devices

The past few years have seen several advancements in energy saving technologies. In this regard, homeowners should look to invest in an energy storage system, smart meters, efficient lighting solutions, and more. At no point are you compromising on the utility of your energy requirements. What you are doing is accessing the same in a more smart, efficient, and responsible manner.

2. Opt for solar panel installations on your rooftop

Thermal sources of energy are dependent on fossil fuels like coal. This damages the environment, as well as leads to high energy bills. By shifting to renewable sources of energy like the sun, you can reduce your bills, generate electricity for your home, and contribute to the environment responsibly. This is an easy process that can be carried out over the weekend.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

B.C.’s oil and gas royalty review must take climate action seriously

December 14, 2021

British Columbia’s recently updated climate plan, Roadmap to 2030, promises to integrate emissions goals into the oil and gas royalty system. But the province’s current royalty system review doesn’t include a design with environmental or climate outcomes in mind.

The policies proposed in the natural gas royalty discussion paper and the expert panel’s report follow an outdated policy approach that’s out of step with B.C.’s climate goals. The review is supposed to align royalties with the province’s revenue, sustainability and climate goals, but the five design objectives arbitrarily exclude the environment. As well, not one of the proposed royalty reforms addresses environmental objectives.

The public consultation phase of the natural gas royalty review process ends Dec. 10 and the outcome of the review is to be released in February.

As an economist studying royalties and emissions from the oil and gas industry in the U.S., I couldn’t help comparing the approaches across the two countries. The U.S. House of Representatives just took a step forward by passing a bill raising oil and gas royalties on public lands from the current 12.5 per cent to 18.75 per cent, which is closer to market rates.

B.C. has stronger climate policies than most American states, so one would expect the province to have a reasonable return for publicly owned oil and gas reserves. I thought 12.5 per cent was a low rate – private U.S. landowners typically get nearly 20 to 25 per cent – but B.C.’s rate was just 2.4 per cent last year, as determined by the recent independent assessment of the natural gas royalty program…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Investing in Degrowth

December 13, 2021

Investing in Degrowth

Released 13 December 2021, Investing in Degrowth is a first-of-its-kind white paper drawing attention to the emerging degrowth economy, setting out the rationale for investing in degrowth-compatible enterprises and laying down the groundwork for deciding the core characteristics of degrowth investing.

Co-authors Jennifer Wilkins, founder of Heliocene, and Bill Murphy, Executive Director of Purpose Capital, call for New Zealand’s sustainable investing and finance communities to consider the feasibility of funding the transition to a new economy that no longer supports economic activities that fall outside safe ecological and fair social boundaries.

David Woods, a leader in impact investing and sustainable finance in New Zealand, writes in the foreword:

“We’re on an exciting journey as capitalism rediscovers itself, and it goes far beyond just greening the economy. Degrowth (including, for instance, circularity) is a significant part of this journey, and this thought-provoking white paper is a welcome addition to the canon of ideas for our country and our world.”

Download Investing in Degrowth:

White Paper_Investing in Degrowth_Dec 2021 Download

Seeing the Big Picture: Nate Hagens

December 12, 2021

Seeing the Big Picture: Nate Hagens

Why is Civilization Unsustainable?

December 12, 2021

Why is Civilization Unsustainable?

Top picture: Civilization; Pikeville, Kentucky
Bottom picture: Nature; Birch Knob, Virginia

So, what is it about civilization being unsustainable that people do not understand? I often wonder why this is and have come up with the idea that it is mostly cultural programming and indoctrination by industry that technology is good and more of it is better. Perhaps a lack of critical thought by most of society as to what is required for technology to exist and what is required in order for technology to continue to be used is to blame for the reasons as to why people simply most often do not realize that civilization is unsustainable. Another distinct possibility is the power of the denial of reality that humans frequently use when faced with uncomfortable truths which don’t fit into a person’s worldview.

Before I continue, I want to make mention that I was rather surprised by some of the comments on my last article which I published on Wednesday. My first recommendation is to visit the very first article I posted here a year ago and read this part, quote:

“We often see people bring out certain ideas that they claim are some sort of “solution” or that “they work” and I want to try to explain why (once again) these ideas are nothing more than ideas and not “solutions” of any sort. One of the things I most would like to get others to see is the bigger picture. Many people focus on reductionist ideas such as non-renewable “renewable” energy, or alternative energy ideas such as hydrogen, or technological ideas; but fail to see how those ideas don’t really change anything and only allow for continued environmental destruction (and consolidate capital in the hands of the elite) instead.“

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Let’s Talk About Agriculture

December 8, 2021

Let’s Talk About Agriculture

An agricultural barn of the 1800’s located at Falls Mill, Belvidere, Tennessee

Agriculture is a technology (like fire and the wheel) and a system of extracting minerals and nutrients from the soil through photosynthesis. The industrial method of agriculture adds the use of fossil fuels through the Haber-Bosch process for fertilizer, many different chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and other toxic chemical treatments (including GMO seeds), and of course diesel-powered equipment such as tractors and all the equipment to plow, plant, spray, water, harvest, and transport crops today. The technology of agriculture is what allowed for today’s cities to exist, and it became possible only with the stable climate of the Holocene, which is now disappearing rather quickly. The recent events over the past 6 months in British Columbia, Canada (first the wildfires [especially around Lytton] and now the floods), should be more than enough to convince anyone of this; although plenty of events throughout the rest of the world are also proof.

The one thing which is rarely mentioned about agriculture or the Green Revolution is that it is all entirely unsustainable. Every civilization (which is based upon the bedrock technology of agriculture) which has existed has also collapsed and this current set of living conditions is in the process of collapsing as well, all due to the unsustainable practices upon which civilization is founded. These unsustainable practices eventually lead to overshoot and eventually the landbase surrounding said civilization is unable to support those living upon it. This causes collapse which results in those living there to scatter. Some people may remain in the general vicinity, but a large portion of the population must find new locations for habitat in order to continue to exist.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Prepare developed democracies for long-run economic slowdowns

November 26, 2021

Prepare developed democracies for long-run economic slowdowns

Developed democracies proliferated over the past two centuries during an unprecedented era of economic growth, which may be ending. Macroeconomic forecasts predict slowing growth throughout the twenty-first century for structural reasons such as ageing populations, shifts from goods to services, slowing innovation, and debt. Long-run effects of COVID-19 and climate change could further slow growth. Some sustainability scientists assert that slower growth, stagnation or de-growth is an envi-ronmental imperative, especially in developed countries. Whether slow growth is inevitable or planned, we argue that devel-oped democracies should prepare for additional fiscal and social stress, some of which is already apparent. We call for a ‘guided civic revival’, including government and civic efforts aimed at reducing inequality, socially integrating diverse populations and building shared identities, increasing economic opportunity for youth, improving return on investment in taxation and public spending, strengthening formal democratic institutions and investing to improve non-economic drivers of subjective well-being.

Modern liberal democracies—with broad economic and political freedom and stability—predominate in today’s developed world, but they are a historical anomaly. Before the Industrial Revolutions, there was both little per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth and little democracy (Fig. 1a). Since the Industrial Revolutions, most countries have escaped the ‘Malthusian trap’—where land productivity growth led to growth in population but not affluence1—and global affluence has increased by more than a factor of ten1,2. This unprecedented global growth has temporally coincided with the global proliferation of democracy (Fig. 1a). In the early nineteenth century, less than 1% of the world’s population lived in a democracy, compared with about 55% today3. There is some evidence of bidirectional causality: on average (with some exceptions), open, democratic institutions promote growth4–6, and long-run growth and affluence promote the formation of democratic institutions7,8…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What is The Venus Project and Why Can It Never Be Attained?

November 17, 2021

What is The Venus Project and Why Can It Never Be Attained?

Something which is difficult to get away from when it comes to the predicament of ecological overshoot and all of its offshoots such as climate change is the wide array of different plans for so-called “solutions” for these predicaments. Perhaps, ironically, the most humorous part is that predicaments don’t have solutions, so each one of these ideas can be quickly unpacked and debunked. I’ve made quite the habit of finding these ideas and then researching how effective (or the lack thereof) each one is at tackling the issue it is supposed to solve.

One idea in particular which has come up time and again over the years is The Venus Project. I had thought that this idea had faded into irrelevancy, but noticed that the idea popped up in conversation in a thread a couple weeks ago. The RationalWiki page gives this description, quote:

“The Venus Project is a communist cult that promotes architect Jacque Fresco‘s vision of the future, which involves an economic structure known as a “resource-based economy.” Basically it’s stock-standard central planning, except with computers!“

There are still many people who believe in the Venus Project (TVP), but because of the core beliefs of the actual plans, one can very easily see that the so-called “plan” is unsustainable due to its reliance on civilization (unsustainable) and technology (unsustainable). Even before actually getting into details, the very first paragraph of this section tells the story, quote:

“It is far more efficient to build new cities as self-contained systems from the ground up than to restore and retrofit old ones. New cities can take advantage of the latest technologies and be clean, safe, and desirable places to live. In many instances, a circular arrangement will be utilized.“

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: sustainability

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts