A provocative discussion by thought leaders and stakeholders on the progress made towards global sustainability since the 1992 Rio Declaration. Continue reading Sustainable Development: Possibility or Pipe Dream?
748: 11 October 2011 – Published by Green Communities Canada. EFFECTIVE INCENTIVES. Article quotes Christine Foley, executive director of Hearthmakers Energy … Continue reading Green Challenge Week on Campus, Virtual tour of new Centre for Sustainable Development – GCNews #748
Call for Papers for a Special Issue on Long-term Sustainable Development Scenarios Deadline for submission: 15 November 2011 Natural Resources Forum, a United Nations Sustainable Development Journal, a quarterly journal issued by the Division for Sustainable Development of the United Nations calls for papers for a special issue on long-term scenarios for sustainable development, to […] Continue reading Call for Papers: Long-term Sustainable Development Scenarios
In his book Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, author Justin Martin sets out to give Olmsted due recognition as a pioneering environmentalist. In lush detail, Martin walks the reader through the chapters of Olmsted’s life: sailor, farmer, journalist, abolitionist, park superintendent, Civil War medical commissionaire and gold mine manager.
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In Recovering a Lost River: Removing Dams, Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities, author Steven Hawley leads readers on a meandering journey up the Snake River – dropping in on the communities it threads through – to its wilderness headwaters in Idaho. The largest tributary of the Columbia River, the Snake was once one of the continent’s most productive salmon-bearing rivers, with salmon returns estimated to number in the tens of millions each year. Today its salmon runs are only a shadow of their former abundance and the species has been extirpated from some tributaries altogether.
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In his engaging and practical book Development Without Destruction: The UN and Global Resource Management, Nico Schrijver shows how the UN developed into a hub for natural resource management by default, not by design. As this comprehensive contribution to the UN Intellectual History Project series recounts, the Charter of the United Nations does not discuss natural resources and does not enshrine environmental conservation. The apparent ‘default’ status of UN resource management efforts has provided critics of the UN with plenty of ammunition over the years. In this makeshift context, co-ordination failures and public relations slip-ups have occasionally undermined the environmental efforts of an alphabet soup of UN specialized agencies and programs.
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Interview with Larry Swatuk, associate professor and director of the Environment Department at the University of Waterloo in Canada, about the Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) program. Continue reading Interview with Larry Swatuk
The Earth’s climate is changing and our civilization is being threatened by rising sea level, drought and disease. With unchecked human population growth we may be on the brink of self-inflicted extinction. We’ve heard the environmental forecasts, but how can we avert disaster? In his book, Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, and Geoengineering are Necessary, long-time environmentalist Stuart Brand explains how these sometimes-controversial ideas might help save humanity and our fragile biosphere as we know it.
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Leonard, a self-described “systems thinker,” aims to debunk the entrenched “growth at all costs” model. She does so by discussing the materials economy and its underlying paradigm of economic growth, but opts to not lay the blame with individuals or inspire feelings of guilt. … Readers, however, should not be misled by her bubbly prose: Leonard gets to the heart of serious subjects and exposes the inter-connectedness of today’s consumption, environmental, social and economic crises.
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The federal government is not keeping its commitments to take the lead in protecting the environment and moving toward sustainable development, says Scott Vaughan, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Continue reading Lack of federal leadership hinders progress on environmental issues
The Bridge at the End of the World
James Gustave Speth.
At the end of his career as a litigator, academic and veritable environmental prophet, Gus Speth has reached a disturbing conclusion: “All we have to do to ruin the planet is to keep doing exactly what we’re doing today.” The environmental movement, he argues, is swimming upstream – limited by our cloistered approach to change and a failure to address the systemic failures of a myopic economic system. Passing the torch to the next generation, he offers a thoughtful analysis of these systemic challenges and outlines the necessary steps for transformative change. The Bridge at the Edge of the World is essential reading for those preparing to make the crossing. Continue reading The Bridge at the End of the World
Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long Term Transformative Change
John Grin, Jan Rotmans, and Johan Schot in collaboration with Frank Geels and Derk Loorbach
Routledge, 2010, 381 pages.
Many citizens and decision makers are able to define goals for sustainability. Achieving these goals in practice, however, is far more difficult.
Individuals are simply one part of a larger societal system composed of knowledge, institutions, norms and behaviours, as well as physical infrastructure. Once established, these larger systems entrench various patterns of unsustainable consumption, such as food choices, mobility patterns and energy consuming lifestyles. These path dependencies constrain communities and individuals from achieving their sustainable development goals.
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