The problem with debates, and the art of dialogues
What if we abandoned the kind of arguing we've been used to for long, and try to have a dialogue with our peers, instead?
International Youth Day 2009
SUSTAINABILITY: OUR CHALLENGE, OUR FUTURE Sustainability does not only refer to maintaining environmental balance and renewal. Sustainability encapsulates three facets of life: the environment, society and the economy. We live our lives in the overlaps and intersections of these facets, and our actions and attitudes help shape them. Their changing shapes in turn affect the...
A Checklist for Sustainability
David Carlson / David Report put together this interesting and inspiring report: A checklist for sustainability. Open publication People who looked at this item also looked at… The essentials in Copenhagen 350: 24 October is the day Number games: 2 degrees Celsius, 2050 and the G8. But does it all add up? Top 5 inspiration...
Actuality / Climate & Energy / Developing Countries / Earth & Environment / Globalization & Global Culture / Human Rights / Photography & journalism / Politics & International Relations / Society / Sustainable Development / World
HOME: It’s Too Late To Be A Pessimist
‘If we can improve the images of the world, perhaps we can improve the world’ Wim Wenders Wim Wenders’ words have perhaps never been more relevant to a movie than in the case of Home. Following directly on from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Home is, of course, a film with a message that sets...
Green growth is essential to any stimulus
By Ban Ki-moon and Al Gore Economic stimulus is the order of the day. This is as it must be, as governments around the world struggle to jump-start the global economy. But even as leaders address the immediate need to stimulate the economy, so too must they act jointly to ensure that the new de...
The crisis can be an opportunity to rethink the global economy
Interview with Jacques Weber by Meriem Bouamrane With the financial and economic crisis tightening its grip around the world, many researchers, organizations and institutions are being galvanized into action. Terms like Green Deal or Global New Green Deal are circulating and, with natural resources becoming scarcer, there is talk of creating a tax system based...
Earth Hour
Tomorrow, from 8.30 PM onwards for one hour, the world will cast a first truly global vote: between the planet or global warming. Last year, 2.2 million people and several companies in Sydney switched off their lights for one hour, resulting in an equivalent of 48.000 cars being taken off the road and saving 10,2%...
A green economy is a healthy one
MPs highlight need for UK to work towards creating an ambitious climate change, and a modern and sustainable economy Sir, In 2009 we face two key challenges: economic recovery and climate change. We can and must tackle both together. The UK must move to a low-carbon economy: not just to secure an ambitious climate change...
Brief aan Balkenende
(published in NRC: 14/3/2009) – in Dutch Geachte minister-president Balkenende, De kredietcrisis leidt tot een noodzaak aan nieuwe investeringen, die een in het slop rakende economie van de ondergang moeten redden – daar bestaat momenteel veel consensus over. Echter, over waarin wij als samenleving moeten investeren is veel debat. Als vertegenwoordigers van de jongere generatie –...
Why Economists Are So Often Wrong
They simply don’t understand we have instincts that go beyond money. Things like coffee shops and conviviality. What is called “economics” is really psychology on steroids. It starts with a model of human nature and extrapolates an entire scenario for how the world works from that. The model is homo economicus,the myopic protoganist of the...
Climate & Energy / Developing Countries / Economic Development / Society / Sustainable Development / World
Tackling Climate Change, Reducing Poverty
It a time of rising unemployment and economic insecurity, some argue that protecting the environment is a ‘luxury’; but a new report, Tackling Climate Change, Reducing Poverty shows that tackling climate change actually offers a huge opportunity to boost the economy and tackle UK poverty at the same time. For example, government investment in home...
How our economy is killing the Earth
The graphs climbing across these pages (see graph in detail, or explore the data) are a stark reminder of the crisis facing our planet. Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale. Most of us accept the need for a more...
