“A few months ago a lot of people thought the world was coming to an end. Now they’re dancing in the streets and going out to restaurants.” So a mutual fund strategist told the Times in mid-July 2009, midsummer, mid-crisis. Meanwhile we have a friend who works at a restaurant in Brooklyn—he hasn’t lost his job, but he makes two-thirds of what he did last year, and the restaurant’s owner has taken to gazing distractedly at the empty tables and scooting toward the door when someone reminds him he owes them money. The owner was always an alcoholic, but not like this.
The sense one gets from the news these days is that no one is sure what’s going on. Confusion reigns, the way it never quite did during the Bush era, when the enemies of humanity went out of their way to identify themselves. Partly the confusion results from how poorly, at how many removes, the stock market reflects the actual strength of the economy. And partly it results from the election of Obama (that night there actually was dancing in the streets), and the consequent turn toward policy. Under Bush, a straight neoliberal agenda was shoved at us and we could just say—not that it mattered—No; now we encounter the messy question of how to structure a Keynesian stimulus without bankrupting a nation whose debt is fast approaching its GDP. Under Bush, we had the overt suppression of global warming discourse and total obsequiousness toward the oil majors; now we wonder whether to support the worthy but inadequate Waxman-Markey Act, a plan to cap national CO2 emissions that recently passed the House by the narrowest of margins and is being voted on by the Senate this fall.
During my work as a geneticist and anthropologist I’ve been lucky enough to work with people around the world, ranging from senior politicians and the heads of major corporations to hunter-gatherer tribesmen eking out a precarious existence in remote wilderness locations. What has struck me over and over again is the huge amount of change taking place in the world today, regardless of where one lives. Some of this change is good, such as the overall decrease in poverty during the course of my lifetime, or the drop in the birthrate in developing countries. Other things, though, like 9/11 and the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, have not been so welcome though.
We are now accepting submissions for the 2011 volume of The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability. The next submission deadline is Monday 20th August 2010
Refereeing of submitted papers will commence shortly so start the submission process early by submitting your proposal.
…this time around success will need to be measured not by how much we can control nature but by how well we can live as part of it. Our e orts in the transition to a sustainable future require decisions that not only acknowledge the ecosphere, but embrace the complexity of our societies and the natural systems that support us.
A vital part of this transition is communication. We need to map and communicate as clearly as possible the impacts of our current trajectory and provide a clear and comprehensive system for tracking the world’s progress towards sustainability…
This book provides an introduction to input-output analysis for sustainability practitioners. It is designed for those with knowledge about the sustainability dilemma we face, but who are unsure about the how of measuring our impacts, tracking our progress and informing the decisions for a sustainable future.
Input-output analysis placed in a transdisciplinary setting is a method that captures the complexities and interdependencies of our social, economic and environmental support systems. Examples of the use of input-output analysis in life-cycle assessment, triple bottom line accounting and carbon and ecological footprints are provided along with an introduction to a range of software tools. In academic circles research has been gathering pace on these methods and issues over the last years. This book brings this state of the art to the decision makers and policy shapers of today.
Have you ever thought about whether to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. Most of those who consider that question probably do so because they have some reason to fear that the child’s life would be especially difficult — for example, if they have a family history of a devastating illness, physical or mental, that cannot yet be detected prenatally.
It might sound odd to say this about something people deal with at least three times a day, but food in America has been more or less invisible, politically speaking, until very recently. At least until the early 1970s, when a bout of food price inflation and the appearance of books critical of industrial agriculture (by Wendell Berry, Francis Moore Lappé, and Barry Commoner, among others) threatened to propel the subject to the top of the national agenda, Americans have not had to think very hard about where their food comes from, or what it is doing to the planet, their bodies, and their society.
Most people count this a blessing. Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than any people in history—slightly less than 10 percent—and a smaller amount of their time preparing it: a mere thirty-one minutes a day on average, including clean-up. The supermarkets brim with produce summoned from every corner of the globe, a steady stream of novel food products (17,000 new ones each year) crowds the middle aisles, and in the freezer case you can find “home meal replacements” in every conceivable ethnic stripe, demanding nothing more of the eater than opening the package and waiting for the microwave to chirp. Considered in the long sweep of human history, in which getting food dominated not just daily life but economic and political life as well, having to worry about food as little as we do, or did, seems almost a kind of dream.
Rotterdam and Paris architects Ooze have collaborated with artist Marjetica Potrc to create a community garden and water treatment plant on an island in Essen, Germany.
[1] The term has become so widely used that it is in danger of meaning nothing. It has been applied to all manner of activities in an effort to give those activities the gloss of moral imperative, the cachet of environmental enlightenment. “Sustainable” has been used variously to mean “politically feasible,” “economically feasible,” “not part of a pyramid or bubble,” “socially enlightened,” “consistent with neoconservative small-government dogma,” “consistent with liberal principles of justice and fairness,” “morally desirable,” and, at its most diffuse, “sensibly far-sighted.”
[2] Nature will decide what is sustainable; it always has and always will. The reflexive invocation of the term as cover for all manner of human acts and wants shows that sustainability has gained wide acceptance as a longed-for, if imperfectly understood, state of being.
What we eat is what we talk about. Red meat v. non-red, all meat v. no meat at all, GM v. organic, long haul v. local, dirty v. ‘environmental’ and so on; how we prepare a dish, how Heston Blumenthal does it. What makes these conversations possible is the abundance we’re now accustomed to: plenty is the medium in which our anxieties, our pleasures and even our ‘ethics’ thrive. So it comes as a bigger shock than the salmonella scare (Edwina Currie, 1988) or the BSE scare (John Selwyn Gummer, 1990) to hear the latest strand in the table talk: that the era of endless food is winding down.
Coral reefs, like those in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, are deteriorating rapidly, according to a UN report. (Great Barrier Reef National Park Authority/Reuters)
Far too many of the world’s plants and animals — and the wild places that support them — are at risk of collapse, despite a global goal set in 2002 for major improvement by this year, the UN reports.
Frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of extinction, coral reefs are the species deteriorating most rapidly and the survival of nearly a quarter of all plant species is threatened, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity said Monday in a report issued every four years.
The outlook on the planet’s ecological diversity and health is produced under a 1993 treaty, since joined by most of the world’s nations. It says the planet is falling short of its goal to achieve “a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels.”
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today announced grants totaling $5.6 million to ten universities in eight countries to establish new Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) programs. The programs combine training in the natural sciences, social sciences, health sciences, and management to help practitioners address global challenges such as sustainable development, climate change, and extreme poverty. The universities were selected through a competitive process that included reviews by experts outside the Foundation.
MDP programs are designed to offer graduate students training beyond the typical focus on classroom study of economics and management found in most development studies programs. The degree will provide students with substantive knowledge required to analyze and diagnose multi-dimensional problems such as malnutrition, extreme poverty, climate change, and infectious disease control by integrating the core disciplines of health sciences, natural sciences, social sciences and management. At the same time, the programs help develop practical skills through extended periods of field training to provide hands on, problem solving experience for students in a developing country.
Today the International Conference on Sustainability Newsletter will be relaunched - marking the start of a new approach to connecting with and reaching out to our Sustainability Community. The Sustainability Newsletter will be sent out on a monthly basis and will contain important community news, conference updates, and publication information.
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People have been worrying about the world’s pending overpopulation for more than two centuries. Robert Thomas Malthus sounded the alarm in 1797 with “An Essay on the Principles of the Population,” which predicted mass starvation and went on to influence the likes of Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” forecast a similar fate; if the population kept rising unchecked, Earth’s resources would buckle. Many of today’s environmental thinkers, such as broadcaster (and “Planet Earth” narrator) David Attenborough, have called for drastic measures to limit the planet’s population before it’s too late.
But according to the veteran environmental writer Fred Pearce, they’re all wrong. In his latest book, “The Coming Population Crash: And Our Planet’s Surprising Future,” Pearce argues that the world’s population is peaking. In the next century, we’re heading not for exponential growth, but a slow, steady decline. This, he claims, has the potential to massively change both our society and our planet: Children will become a rare sight, patriarchal thinking will fall by the wayside, and middle-aged culture will replace our predominant youth culture. Furthermore, Pearce explains, the population bust could be the end of our environmental woes. Fewer people making better choices about consumption could lead to a greener, healthier planet.
Public-health problems and environmental degradation caused by recycling of old computer equipment could skyrocket in the next two decades, as increasingly wealthy consumers in countries such as India and China ditch their obsolete hardware.
Within six to eight years, developing countries will be disposing of more old computers than the developed world, suggests a study published today in Environmental Science & Technology1. And by 2030, these nations will be disposing of two to three times as many computers as the developed world, perhaps resulting in up to 1 billion computers being dumped worldwide every year — up from a global total of around 180 million units per year now.
By a depressingly lopsided margin, countries meeting in Doha at the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species rejected a proposal by Monaco and the United States to ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is spiraling toward extinction. The convention had earlier rejected, also by a wide margin, a softer motion by the Europeans that would have placed the tuna high on the international list of endangered species but delayed a trading ban for one year.
The vote split partly along developed/developing nation lines. But make no mistake: It was largely the result of relentless lobbying by Japan, whose citizens consume four-fifths of the world’s bluefin tuna, thus providing a steady market for poorer countries with big fishing industries like Tunisia.
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Learning Nature presents exciting scholarship on the exploration of the concept of nature and its implications for education. The author—Ruyu Hung—argues that “nature” is a rich and fundamental source of meaning to enable one to learn to live a meaningful life and yet that what is taught about nature in many conventional curricula is severely limited, resulting in an impoverishment of meaning. The central aim of this book is to provide different approaches to the understanding of nature in order to show the fecund meanings that have rich educational significance and the implications for pedagogy.
Interrogating the educationally meaningful conceptions of nature, this book identifies five themes to anchor our multifarious understandings of nature. Each theme with its implying polarities illuminates the significance of the human conceptualisation of nature as an on-going dynamic and dialectic process. The investigations invite the readers to envisage and reconfigure education so as to accommodate heterogeneous and plural views of nature and reveal the abundance of meaning to be had in different ways of experiencing nature in the context of one’s unique life.
Many of today’s most-respected thinkers, from Stephen Hawking to David Attenborough, argue that our efforts to fight climate change and other environmental perils will all fail unless we “do something” about population growth. In the Universe in a Nutshell, Hawking declares that, “in the last 200 years, population growth has become exponential… The world population doubles every forty years.”
But this is nonsense. For a start, there is no exponential growth. In fact, population growth is slowing. For more than three decades now, the average number of babies being born to women in most of the world has been in decline. Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. They are doing it for their own good, the good of their families, and, if it helps the planet too, then so much the better.
Here are the numbers. Forty years ago, the average woman had between five and six kids. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the replacement level which, allowing for girls who don’t make it to adulthood, is around 2.3. As I show in my new book, Peoplequake, half the world already has a fertility rate below the long-term replacement level. That includes all of Europe, much of the Caribbean and the far east from Japan to Vietnam and Thailand, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Tunisia.
From Kevin Bullis in MIT’s Technology Review blog:
Because of its generous incentives program, Germany, a country that gets about as much sun as the darkest parts of the United States, has become the largest market for solar power in the world. That in turn has helped create a thriving solar manufacturing industry in the country. Because of its success, the German system has been imitated around the world in places such as Spain and China. At renewable energy conferences, industry experts plead for a similar system in the United States.
But even as it’s hailed as an example, Germany’s federal government has started to cut back on the program, and plans to cut it even more by April. If that happens, it could devastate the German solar industry, and send shockwaves through the industry around the world. It could also reveal what could be the inherent weaknesses of the approach–it doesn’t address the fact that it’s cheaper to manufacture solar panels in China.
…
One thing seems clear, fostering a solar market in the U.S. or Germany is not enough in itself to create and maintain solar manufacturing jobs in these countries. To compete, companies in these countries will need to find ways to make cheaper solar panels. And they’ll probably need strong government incentives to build factories in their home countries.
A review of the literature by H. Charles J. Godfray, John R. Beddington, Ian R. Crute, Lawrence Haddad, David Lawrence, James F. Muir, Jules Pretty, Sherman Robinson, Sandy M. Thomas, Camilla Toulmin in Science for 12 February 2010:
The past half-century has seen marked growth in food production,allowing for a dramatic decrease in the proportion of the world’speople that are hungry, despite a doubling of the total population. Nevertheless, more than one in seven peopletoday still do not have access to sufficient protein and energyfrom their diet, and even more suffer from some form of micronutrientmalnourishment. The world is now facing a new set of intersectingchallenges. The global population will continue to grow,yet it is likely to plateau at some 9 billion people by roughlythe middle of this century. A major correlate of this decelerationin population growth is increased wealth, and with higher purchasingpower comes higher consumption and a greater demand for processedfood, meat, dairy, and fish, all of which add pressure to thefood supply system. At the same time, food producers are experiencinggreater competition for land, water, and energy, and the needto curb the many negative effects of food production on theenvironment is becoming increasingly clear. Overarchingall of these issues is the threat of the effects of substantialclimate change and concerns about how mitigation and adaptationmeasures may affect the food system.
From Jessica Lichtenstein, de zeen design magazine
Designers Victor Massip and Laurent Lebot of Faltazi have designed a conceptual system where water is recycled and waste is broken down by worms inside the kitchen.
Called Ekokook, the project aims to process waste as close as possible to the point where it’s produced.
Desde el martes hasta hoy se desarrolla la Sexta Conferencia Mundial sobre Sostenibilidad Ambiental, Cultural, Económica y Social en el Aula Magna “Mario Jaramillo” de la Universidad de Cuenca.
La cita está coordinada por la Universidad de Illinois, Estados Unidos; el Observatorio Mundial de Asia y el Pacífico para la Diversidad Cultural y el Desarrollo Humano, con sede en Australia; el Comité Ecuatoriano del Consejo Internacional de Museos (ICOM) y la Universidad de Cuenca.
Cerca de 200 participantes del mundo entero se dan cita en este encuentro para compartir reflexiones, propuestas y experiencias.
Una de las preocupaciones fundamentales de la conferencia gira en torno a la conservación de los recursos naturales y el equilibrio del medio ambiente, elementos base para el desarrollo sustentable de los otros elementos y actividades.
La doctora Ann Mitchell, del Grupo de Investigación de Productos Naturales, División de Ciencias Farmacéuticas del Instituto de Farmacia y Ciencias Biomédicas de la Universidad de Strathclyde, Glasgow, Escocia, calificó de “muy grave” a la presión sobre la Selva Amazónica que abarca los países de Colombia, Ecuador, Perú y Brasil.
La investigadora que trabaja al momento con algunas comunidades en la frontera de Colombia, Brasil y Perú expresó que esa presión se centra especialmente en la tala de grandes extensiones de selva virgen por parte de los colonos para la extensión de la frontera agrícola y ganadera, a ello se suman la explotación petrolera, minera y otras actividades.
De esta manera se pierde en forma total la biodiversidad y mucho de los secretos de la naturaleza para las investigaciones médicas y farmacéuticas así como los conocimientos ancestrales y tradicionales de los pueblos indígenas, expresó Ann Mitchell.
De todas formas, el trabajo desplegado tiene resultados importantes, sobre todo en la creación de la conciencia ambiental de las comunidades para presionar ante los gobiernos la protección de la selva amazónica, indicó.
Voz alternativa
De acuerdo a Carolyn Shields, del Departamento de Organización Educativa y Liderazgo de la Facultad de Educación de la Universidad de Illinois, la meta de la conferencia es que los profesionales fortalezcan una posición interdisciplinaria común y como grupo mundial hagan escuchar su voz a los gobiernos que en gran medida no sintonizan con el real sentir de sus poblaciones. (MCM)
Two US public broadcasting news programs, The NewsHour and WorldFocus, have recently aired a report from British ITN television about recent action by China to restrict its export of rare earth minerals essential for the manufacture of green technologies including wind turbines and hybrid automobile engines. Some of these minerals are also essential in the manufacture of mobile digital technology such as cellular telephones. This development turns out not to be so new, however. Reports were published by The Age and The New York Times at the beginning of September on China’s new policy on rare earths. Click the newspaper titles for the respective stories.
When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they will confront a 181-page draft negotiation text, 2,000 bracketed passages still in dispute, and just 11 days in which to come to some sort of consensus. To power them through these discussions, Denmark has promised a smorgasbord of ecologically minded fare: All water will be tap (not bottled), tea and coffee will be fair trade, and the food menu will be no less than 65 percent organic.
Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, this last provision is troubling, but not because anyone really cares about the provenance of Ban Ki-Moon’s turnip greens. Rather, it suggests a willful and dangerous ignorance about the tenuous state of global agriculture, and the prospects for feeding 9 billion people while also addressing biodiversity loss, water shortage, and, yes, climate change. Organic foods are enjoying skyrocketing popularity in the US and Europe, as are their ill-defined sidekicks, “natural,” “whole,” and “real” foods. Yet popular notions that these foods—and the agriculture that begets them—are at once better for people and for the planet turn out to be largely devoid of experimental support. Worse still, “organophilia” tends to go hand-in-hand with technophobic skepticism towards the very sorts of scientific approaches most likely to supercharge an ailing food system while leaving our planet intact.
From Megan R. Schwarzman and Michael P. Wilson in Science for 20 November 2009:
By placing conditions on access to European markets, REACH hasset what may become a de facto global standard. The influx ofchemical information expected under REACH, as well as the potentialfor countries outside Europe to become markets for toxic substancesprohibited in the EU, presents other regions with an opportunity,and imperative, to retool their chemicals policies.
In the fall of 2009, the Obama Administration unveiled principlesfor U.S. chemicals policy reform, proposing that chemical producersbe required to submit sufficient hazard, exposure, and use datafor EPA to determine that chemicals meet a health-based safetystandard (21). The principles further acknowledge the EPA’sneed for authority to act on priority chemicals, reducing risksthey pose to sensitive subpopulations. These principles couldinfluence development of TSCA reform. If implemented, they couldimprove EPA’s ability to protect public health and the environment,while also providing the necessary incentive to move the chemicalsmarket toward green chemistry, with the ultimate goal of placingthe U.S. chemical industry on a more sustainable footing.
Bitu-man. A scarecrow in a "tailings pond" helps keep birds out of toxic mine water. CREDIT: MAGNUM PHOTOS
From Sam Kean in Science for 20 November 2009:
Environmental law says that tar sands companies must restoretailings ponds and pit mines back to “equivalent land capability,”but that phrase is contentious. Ecologists and environmentalistswould prefer that every square meter of disturbed boreal forestor wetland be restored to its original state. In practice, companiescan perform a sort of eco-alchemy: Pit mines can be convertedto either new land, like a forest, or a lake, while tailingsponds can become either a lake or new land. Each transformationhas its own challenges and controversies.
From Ernest J. Yanarella, Richard S. Levine, Robert W. Lancaster, Sustainability: The Journal of Record.
The sustainability movement from the grassroots to the global level has been both enriched and hobbled by the many different versions of sustainability articulated in scholarly and popular writings, town hall forums, and international conferences. The latest expression of this cacophony is evidenced in the emergence of “green-talk” and the growing substitution of varieties of “greenness” for sustainability and sustainable development in everyday and media parlance. This critical essay seeks to accomplish two things: draw out the differences between the green label and sustainability, and situate this debate within a hierarchical sustainability rubric that allows us to meaningfully offer gradations on the sustainability continuum. In so doing, we seek to illuminate the stakes involved in this conceptual debate and provide clarity about what these putative variations on sustainability imply for both theory and practice. In an age of mounting finite resource scarcities, rapid climate change, and continuing global population growth, combined with the growing clamor for Western-style economic development, the sustainability movement is not going to go away. Sadly, the meaning of sustainability and sustainable development remains highly contested and subject to ongoing and fierce dispute. This state of affairs is evidenced by the growing shift away from the language of sustainability and its variants to the increasingly popular, and easier to swallow, term green.
At Yellowstone National Park, the clear soda cups and white utensils are not your typical cafe-counter garbage. Made of plant-based plastics, they dissolve magically when heated for more than a few minutes.
At Ecco, a popular restaurant in Atlanta, waiters no longer scrape food scraps into the trash bin. Uneaten morsels are dumped into five-gallon pails and taken to a compost heap out back.
And at eight of its North American plants, Honda is recycling so diligently that the factories have gotten rid of their trash Dumpsters altogether.
Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as “zero waste” is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.
The movement is simple in concept if not always in execution: Produce less waste. Shun polystyrene foam containers or any other packaging that is not biodegradable. Recycle or compost whatever you can.
Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere.
Seed magazine interviews William Kamkwamba, the young engineer who built a windmill from scrap in his native Malawi, and eventually brought power to his entire village…
From the blustery plains of Texas to the Danish island of Samsø, wind power—and the giant, bladed towers that generate it—is all the rage in a warming world searching for cleaner sources of energy. Fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba had never heard of windmills, or climate change, for that matter, when he stumbled across a photograph one day and it changed his life forever.
Now 22, Kamkwamba has become something of an international DIY celebrity: He’s spoken at the World Economic Forum, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and at TED Global—twice. He’s chatted with Al Gore, Bono, and Larry Page. A documentary about his life is currently in the works. But Kamkwamba’s story isn’t really about stardom: It’s about the grit, resourcefulness, and audacity of a young engineer who built a windmill from scrap in his native Malawi and brought power to his home—and eventually lit up every house in the village. It’s told in brilliant detail in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (out now from William Morrow), co-authored with journalist Bryan Mealer. Seed editor Maywa Montenegro spoke with Kamkwamba while he was in New York City kicking off a US book tour. More…
Abstract: Government policies in Australia rely heavily on local communities developing their social capital networks to solve complex social, economic and environmental problems. This study explored a regional community’s experiences with promoting social, environmental and economic strategies to facilitate community development within the sustainability paradigm. Applying multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks this study contributes a contextual view of a complex adaptive system. It is argued that the power differentials in governance relations and inclusivity of stake-holders in developing community visions is overlooked by decision makers. Furthermore that locational disadvantage and political isolation are also key considerations.
If you have read the paper you may wish to add a review.
Natarajan Ishwaran, UNESCO/The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Natarajan Ishwaran has 30 years of experience in teaching, research, wildlife/protected areas planning and management, multi-lateral environmental and biodiversity treaties, and co-ordination and management of international co-operation in environment and development. He published more than 25 publications in refereed journals is co-author of 2 edited volumes on ecology, biodiversity conservation and protected area management themes. More…
South Korea recently announced plans to construct a sustainable super-city that stands to eclipse the size of Masdar in the UAE. Designed by Foster + Partners together with PHA and Mobility in Chain, the Incheon mixed-use development will be a model of self-sufficent sustainability and will serve as an epicenter for the development of green technologies just north of Seoul.
Upon completion the Incheon eco-city will comprise a community of 320,000 residents centered around a spine of transportation and green industry. The hope for Incheon is that the area will become a high-tech research and development center for sustainable industries that manufacture photovoltaic panels and wind turbines. True to this ideal, the masterplan incorporates cutting-edge green technologies such as biomass energy generation, hydrogen fuel cells, and hydroponic roofs. More…
Cuenca Walking Tour
Starting from downtown Cuenca’s downtown, you will enjoy the most beautiful Ecuadorian city visiting the famous Rouses market, the Cuenca’s New Cathedral, Calderon Park (Central Park), the San Sebastian Plaza which is locally famous for a very interesting colonial architecture and the City Modern Art Museum. If time allows you can also enjoy a very special walk to the neighborhood of la Merced where you will find houses from the Colonial and Republican period. More…
Cuenca City Tour by Bus
Join us on a 2-2-1/2 bus tour as we visit the river side known as El Barranco. Located throughout the river Tomebamba, between the bridge of Vergel and The Ford, in their ends, and among the Calle Large, El Barranco is one of the cultural most beautiful attractions in Cuenca. This tour will enable you to see Cuenca’s colonial town on one side and the new residential homes on the other. More…
Katya Gonzalez Ripoll, Director of Heritage and Vice Minister of Culture for Colombia, Colombia www.SustainabilityConference.com
Katya Gonzalez Ripoll has 25 years of experience of innovation in the field of urban development in the private and social sectors. As an architect and urban planner, she has been responsible for more than 500,000 square meters in projects that range from private housing, commercial and public buildings, restoration, conservation, urbanism, urban renovation and social housing. With this vast experience she has worked in the public sector as Director of Heritage and as Vice Minister of Culture in Colombia developing and implementing the program “Vigias de Patrimonio” a volunteer program for the conservation, protection and recuperation of tangible and intangible heritage. More…
Professor Whiteley has been at the University of California since 1972. His most recent co-authored books from the MIT Press are Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia, and Water, Place and Equity.
When he spoke before the UN General Assembly this week, Palau’s representative had this to say: “We do not carelessly call climate change a security threat. When we are told by scientists to prepare for a humanitarian crisis, including exodus, in our lifetimes, how can it be different from preparing for a threat like war?”
For some time, people from low-lying atoll nations in the Pacific have expressed the view that climate change is a greater threat to national security than terrorism. In 2007, Pacific representatives at the United Nations submitted a draft resolution to the 62nd Session of the UN General Assembly, requesting that the Security Council consider the security implications of climate change. More…
If you wanted to push yourself to the outermost chalk line of human endurance, you might consider an ultramarathon, or a solo row across the Atlantic Ocean, or being nominated to theUnited States Supreme Court. Or you could try studying the long-beaked echidna, one of the oldest, rarest, shyest, silliest-looking yet potentially most illuminating mammals on earth. More….
Lucía Astudillo Loor was born in Cuenca-Ecuador. She received her Doctorate in History from the University of Azuay. She is the Director of Museum of Metals. Her previous positions include Director of the Museum of Popular Arts and Crafts in Cuenca, and Regional Director at the National Cultural Heritage Institute. More…
Douglas Worts, Freelance Consultant, Culture and Sustainability Specialist, Toronto, Canada.
Douglas Worts is a culture & sustainability specialist. As a recently established freelance consultant, Douglas is bringing greater awareness to the museum sector of the central role that culture plays in fostering a ‘culture of sustainability’.
From 1982 until September of 2007, Douglas worked as an interpretive planner for the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto Canada, where he developed exhibitions, prepared interpretive policies, created experimental public-engagement strategies, facilitated community consultation and carried out audience research projects. More…
In February 2009 The Open University in the UK launched an innovative new distance learning course on international environmental policy. Entitled Earth in Crisis: Environmental Policy in an International Context the course comprises three blocks of original written, audio-visual and online materials. Block 1 focuses entirely on climate change, while Block 2 covers ten environmental issues, including population growth, urbanisation, development, fresh water, sustainable agriculture and biodiversity depletion. Block 3 explores future options, and is structured around the question ‘What can be done for the future, and what should be done?’ For further details of the course go to http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01DU311 or contact Dr David Humphreys of the Earth in Crisis course team on d.r.humphreys@open.ac.uk
“Science and politics are inextricably linked. At a scientific conference on climate change held this week in Copenhagen, four environmental experts announced that sea levels appear to be rising almost twice as rapidly as had been forecast by the United Nations just two years ago. The warning is aimed at politicians who will meet in the same city in December to discuss the same subject and, perhaps, to thrash out an international agreement to counter it” - The Economist
You can read more of this article on The Economist website here.
The final issue for The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability, Volume 4 has now been published. Papers from Volume 4, Number 6 are available in the online bookstore.
We are now working on the first issue for Volume 5. Keep checking for updates on new publications.
University of Technology Mauritius
School of Sustainable Development and Tourism
SOPSPAM Building
La Tour Koenig, Pointe aux Sables (near the Capital City of port-Louis)
Mauritius
Want to get your 2011 publications underway now? 
From Jeremy Harding in the 
sounded the alarm in 1797 with “An Essay on the Principles of the Population,” which predicted mass starvation and went on to influence the likes of Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” forecast a similar fate; if the population kept rising unchecked, Earth’s resources would buckle. Many of today’s environmental thinkers, such as broadcaster (and “Planet Earth” narrator) David Attenborough, have called for drastic measures to limit the planet’s population before it’s too late.
From Kevin Bullis in MIT’s Technology Review blog:
A review of the literature by H. Charles J. Godfray, John R. Beddington, Ian R. Crute, Lawrence Haddad, David Lawrence, James F. Muir, Jules Pretty, Sherman Robinson, Sandy M. Thomas, Camilla Toulmin in Science for 12 February 2010:
From El Mercurio.
