I’ve just finished reading Supply Shock by Brian Czech and I’m going to give you a summary of what I’ve learned. Basically after reading Enough is Enough by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill (see this post) I was desperate to get my hands on another book that would flesh out the steady state concept even more. … Continue reading
Last Friday I took an exam and finished my first year of university. Most students probably want to move on as quickly as possible after the stress of revision, but this exam was on something I study in my free time: environmental issues and management. An interesting part of the module I had to revise … Continue reading
If everyone in the world consumed the same amount of resources and produced as much waste as the average person in Western Europe, we’d need three planets. If we all lived like the North Americans, we’d need five. On the global scale, we’re using just over one and a half Earths worth of resources and … Continue reading
Enough Is Enough (2013) is an astounding book by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill, subtitled “Building a sustainable economy in a world of finite resources”. I read it in three days, tossing my novel away with my exam revision. It’s possibly the best book I’ve ever read in my life; it’s only real competition is … Continue reading
Hello everybody! This evening as I was browsing Facebook after a huge portion of pasta, I came across some astounding news. Sustainable Man posted this article which says that Bhutan is set to go 100% organic! I must confess I didn’t even know what Bhutan was until now, but a quick research session informs me … Continue reading
To supplement my student loan, I have a part-time job working in the cafe and shop at my university campus. This is all hunky dory generally, but today I had a very dismaying interaction with one of my bosses, the chef in the cafe. Basically I casually queried why we always use paper cups for tea and coffee … Continue reading
I’m so so busy with my university assignments but I had to just quickly sidetrack from that to post these two links here. I’m so happy to see these countries getting down to business and cutting their carbon emissions at such a pace! I’m so used to ‘government’ being all slow and slippery about this … Continue reading
I wonder whether you read my post about the Earth Charter? If you have, then thanks, and if you haven’t, well it’s basically a set of principles suggested for a peaceful, just and ultimately sustainable global society. It was published in 2000 after a very lengthy and diverse collaboration that was sparked by Rio 1992. It’s an … Continue reading
I’m loving this picture from Occupy Wall Street’s facebook page – it shows there really is no space too small for some green-fingered biological miracles. When I move to Brighton (so unbelievably excited) the flat I’m renting doesn’t have a garden but it does have a large outside-ey windowsill and I’m planning to grow kitchen herbs … Continue reading
Hey. Good morning! Today I came across this brilliant article by Permaculture magazine… Take a look: http://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/meet-inventor-electricity-free-fridge-powered-dirty-water It’s about this young sustainable designer called Emily Cummins (link to her website) who has come up with the design for a fridge that doesn’t require electricity but instead runs off of the evaporation of dirty water. (See … Continue reading
Good morning. The other day I came across Journey of the Universe. This 60 minute feature film is the brain child of an evolutionary philosopher and a historian of religions. Doesn’t that already sound eclectic and delicious? From what I can gather it’s pretty much a story starting with the big bang and cosmological shinanagans like … Continue reading
As I’ve been reading about the Sustainable Development Conference outlined in my last post, I’ve been thinking that it seems almost too good to be true. I’ve read the Zero Draft document, and a report entitled Green Economies to Green Societies, plus information provided on the official website. They talk of creating green, equitable and … Continue reading
This June, there will be a United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil. Also going by the names of “Rio+20” and “Earth Summit 2012”, this will undoubtedly be a great milestone, an example of history unfolding around us as we speak. We can only hope it will have a more impressive outcome than the 2009 Copenhagen … Continue reading
Today I watched this video of a guy called Nic Marks, from the New Economics Foundation giving a talk about what he terms the “Happy Planet Index”. It’s a way of measuring a nation’s progress, as an alternative to GDP. I think it’s a brilliant idea because GDP doesn’t necessarily reflect a nation’s level of happiness… Of … Continue reading
Conventional environmentalism relies on persuading people not to do things, or to do things so other things don’t happen. People don’t seem to be responding to this “we need to do this quickly to avoid disaster” approach, at least not with the scale and speed required. Of course it’s ridiculous, and we really should, but we’re … Continue reading
Earth Baby 