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A comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality. Global Environmental Change, 18, 397-411
Abstract
In 1972, the Club of Rome's infamous report “The Limits to Growth” [Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J., Behrens_III, W. W. (1972). The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe Books, New York] presented some challenging scenarios for global sustainability, based on a system dynamics computer model to simulate the interactions of five global economic subsystems, namely: population, food production, industrial production, pollution, and consumption of non-renewable natural resources. Contrary to popular belief, The Limits to Growth scenarios by the team of analysts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did not predict world collapse by the end of the 20th century. This paper focuses on a comparison of recently collated historical data for 1970–2000 with scenarios presented in the Limits to Growth. The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compare favorably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario called the “standard run” scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st century. The data do not compare well with other scenarios involving comprehensive use of technology or stabilizing behaviour and policies. The results indicate the particular importance of understanding and controlling global pollution.
... The top twenty-first century competences of communication skills and interpersonal skills were excluded from the survey because retrospective rating of these two competences would have been too unreliable. Finally, the competence of environmental sustainability knowledge was added to the rating list because it had been so prevalent in the literature on twenty-first century life (EEA, 2015;Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008;WWF, 2016 Competences were sometimes rated individually but were often split into between two and five sub-competences that were easier for respondents to identify. For example, the competence of collaboration was divided into the sub-competences of idea &/or resource sharing in a student group or student partnership, role/responsibility taking in a student group or student partnership, and co-design &/or co-decision making amongst students. ...
... We recommend that environmental sustainability knowledge be recognised as an important twenty-first century competence in the literature. The twenty-first century life authors refer to it repeatedly (Davidson, 2005;Meadows et al., 1972;Randers, 2012;Turner, 2008) and the majority of participants in this research considered it as a crucial knowledge area. Environmental protection will be crucial across the globe over coming decades (Davidson, 2005;Meadows et al., 1972;Randers, 2012, Turner, 2008 so all twenty-first century students should study it extensively in order to be able to problem solve in this area as they progress into the workforce. ...
... The twenty-first century life authors refer to it repeatedly (Davidson, 2005;Meadows et al., 1972;Randers, 2012;Turner, 2008) and the majority of participants in this research considered it as a crucial knowledge area. Environmental protection will be crucial across the globe over coming decades (Davidson, 2005;Meadows et al., 1972;Randers, 2012, Turner, 2008 so all twenty-first century students should study it extensively in order to be able to problem solve in this area as they progress into the workforce. Environmental sustainability knowledge needs to be listed alongside creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and all the other top twenty-first century competences. ...
Industrial Design education is poorly understood by laypeople but is present in Australian curricula from primary through to tertiary education levels. Designers and design researchers have long recognised the value of the broad-ranging skills, knowledge fields, and personal qualities design education imparts, but this understanding is generally not shared by the wider community who may see design as surface decoration. This research identifies indicators of value and relevance taken from the twenty-first century competences literature, then measures their presence in four different Industrial Design education settings. Two studies were undertaken. First, Industrial Design educators from primary, secondary, and tertiary levels were surveyed. Then diverse Industrial Design education stakeholders from education and non-education settings were interviewed. The studies gathered both quantitative and qualitative data on the value and relevance of current Industrial Design education in Australia. The result is a comprehensive analysis of the twenty-first century competences present in Australian Industrial Design education, which concludes with recommendations for ways Industrial Design education can benefit twenty-first century learners, as well as ways it should evolve to remain relevant.
... This intensification of collapse research because of climate change has led some to propose that a certain level of ecological and societal collapse over the next few decades will occur (Kenkel, 2020), requiring adaptation and/or mitigations to the challenges and threats posed by global environmental change (Richards et al., 2021). It has also prompted discussions about limits to economic and societal growth (e.g., Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens, 1972;Turner, 2008;Herrington, 2021), attempts to identify causes of the potential collapse of contemporary global civilization (e.g., Motesharrei et al., 2014), and discussions about possible solutions (e.g., Odum & Odum, 2001;Gowdy, 2020). More pessimistic views include existential repercussions of a possible future collapse (e.g., Scranton, 2015) and dismal portrayals of a possible future society affected by global warming (e.g., Wallace-Wells, 2019;Figueres & Rivett-Carnac, 2020), emphasizing the need to adapt to this kind of future (Bendel & Read, 2021). ...
... Indeed, Homer-Dixon (2006), for example, was more concerned with a differential population growth, the imbalance in population growth in two neighboring regions or countries, creating stress in terms of risks of conflict and political radicalization as a consequence. Other interesting examples related to the population question are Turner's (2008Turner's ( , 2012 updates of LtG with real-time data and conclusion that "[r]egrettably, the alignment of data trends with the LtG dynamics indicates that the early stages of collapse could occur within a decade, or might even be underway" (Turner, 2014, p. 16). Similar conclusions were drawn by the most recent LtG update as well (Herrington, 2021). ...
... The classification, together with the supplemental bibliometric analysis in Appendix 3, shows a demarcation between past collapses (the first three conversations, mostly) and future climate change and societal collapse (mostly in Conversation 4 and particularly in the associated Conversation 5), with some exceptions (e.g., Costanza et al., 2007). Global collapse should be embraced and humanity should prepare for extinction on one side (Scranton, 2015;Turner, 2008;Bologna and Acquino 2020); global society can sustainably transform on the other side (Hayward et al., 2020;Paterson, 2020) Theme The need to transform global society to meet the challenges of ongoing climate change Presents and discusses difficulties of transforming global society, in terms of institutions, politics, and policies A prosperous way down, planetary boundaries, key challenges of transforming the agricultural system, and phasing out fossil fuels (Odum & Odum, 2001;Rockström et al. 2009;Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2013) Theme Emotional responses to future climate change and possible societal collapse Presents and discusses various emotional responses to the possibility of future climate change and societal collapse Ecopsychology (Baker, 2009;Roszak et al., 1995) Some overlaps between the conversations exists. For example, the tension concerning the perception of a particular past collapse in Conversation 1 may be considered to overlap with the collapse or resilience tension in Conversation 3. Also, how collapse fictions may influence public and social opinion overlaps with the emotional responses to climate change in Conversation 5. ...
Because of concerns that ongoing climate change could lead to a possible collapse of human civilization, the topic of societal (civilization) collapse has emerged as especially relevant, not least for the futures-oriented studies. While this has led to extensive research on societal collapse, there is a lack of consolidation and synthesis of the research. The purpose of this article is thus to systematize the extant research on societal collapse and suggest future research directions. This article offers a systematic multidisciplinary review of the existing literature (361 articles and 73 books) and identifies five scholarly conversations: past collapses, general explanations of collapse, alternatives to collapse, fictional collapses, and future climate change and societal collapse. The review builds the foundation for a critical discussion of each line of inquiry by focusing on theoretical tensions and themes within each scholarly conversation, ending with a discussion of how these conversations inform futures research.
... The authors summarize the debate since the 1970s and relate the topic to modern concepts such as the Planetary Boundaries of Rockström et al. (2009). Turner (2008) found that 30 years of historical data best fit the standard run scenario of the original World3 model. An update of this study in 2012 concluded that even after 40 years of empirical data, the standard run is still the best fitting scenario. ...
... The author found that, in contrast to previous comparisons, the closest matching scenarios were BAU2 and CT. These divergent results may also be due to slightly different comparison parameters and the use of the 1972 version of World3 by Turner (2008) and the updated 2005 version of the model by Herrington (2021). ...
After 50 years, there is still an ongoing debate about the Limits to Growth (LtG) study. This paper recalibrates the 2005 World3‐03 model. The input parameters are changed to better match empirical data on world development. An iterative method is used to compute and optimize different parameter sets. This improved parameter set results in a World3 simulation that shows the same overshoot and collapse mode in the coming decade as the original business as usual scenario of the LtG standard run. The main effect of the recalibration update is to raise the peaks of most variables and move them a few years into the future. The parameters with the largest relative changes are those related to industrial capital lifetime, pollution transmission delay, and urban‐industrial land development time.
... Science 338 (6105), 344-348. − Turner, G. M. (2008). "A comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality". ...
... Dalla pubblicazione del famoso rapporto sui limiti dello sviluppo (Meadows, 1972), la situazione planetaria non è migliorata, tutt'altro. Se da una parte gli scenari del rapporto Meadows sono stati parzialmente confermati da misure effettuate posteriormente (Turner, 2008;Herrington, 2021), dall'altra si deve purtroppo constatare che alle crisi energetiche degli anni ´70 e primi ´80, si sono sommate negli ultimi decenni altre crisi, relative al clima, alla disponibilità di acqua dolce e di alimenti, al rapido diffondersi di agenti patogeni pericolosi per la nostra specie attraverso processi di spillover da altri mammiferi. Tutto ciò, alimentato da una serie di trasformazioni economiche della società umana, che ci hanno fatto entrare nel XXI secolo con una generale tendenza alla concentrazione della ricchezza in poche mani, all'aumento delle rendite dei capitali finanziari rispetto a quelle del lavoro, e a una progressiva diminuzione di quello status di benessere diffuso che si era affermato, non senza difficoltà, durante il primo dopoguerra (Picketty, 2013). ...
Technological imagination and innovation processes have always been at the basis of economic growth and the expansion of human domination over other species. Nevertheless, something seems to have got stuck. Can the leaps in technological development that make it possible to "reset" the clock to start growing again in a sustained form really be infinite? Or are we facing something different, a limit in the structural stability of the ecosystem itself? The worsening of the polycrisis-certainly also energetic-will require drastic solutions but should also allow, finally, the (re)emergence of radical ideas of renewal and transformation, as well as concrete proposals for spatial organization associated with the new lifestyles that they prefigure.
... Although Malthus's views are widely seen as having been discredited by actual developments, notably the expansion of food supply by modern farming techniques, the idea that the growing demand for resources, from population growth and increased standards of living, will outstrip the capacity of the earth to provide for humans, has not disappeared. It made a strong come-back with the publication, in 1972, of the Limits to Growth report by the Club of Rome (Meadows, 1972), which, although criticised for flaws in the models and underlying assumptions on which they were based, has stood up remarkably well to the test of time (Meadows, et al., 2005;Turner, 2008). That resources are getting scarcer, because of the unmitigated growth in demand and the decline or erosion of the environmental basis on which their production depends, is an idea that has gained wide support in scientific and political circles, not just from doomsayers (Brown, 2006;Cohen, 2007;Gordon, et al., 2006;Kerr, 2007;Menzie, et al., 2005;Simpson, et al., 2005). ...
In recent years, conflicts about resources (water, minerals/mining, land, among other) appear to have gained in prominence in New Zealand. However, New Zealand is the not only country affected by resource conflicts, and there is a growing literature that signals a rise of conflicts about resources around the world, and between and within countries, in large part due to increased scarcity. In parallel, governments are said to have become more concerned about resource security. However, whether the conflicts around resources in New Zealand can be (best) explained on the basis of the ideas or theories of this increasingly influential school of thought is open to debate. There are at least two other, more traditional, bodies of thinking-pluralism and political-economy-that offer alternative interpretations and explanations of conflict. The aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which these three theoretical perspectives, on their own or in combination, offer plausible explanations for the more recent resource conflicts in New Zealand.
... As the stated or implied purpose of scenario analysis is to influence decisions with an 'if-then…' type of analysis, a match between actual real-world outcomes and simulation results may indicate a lack of influence rather than a sign of the validity of the model used. For example, Randers [13] and Turner [14], in their reviews of evidence on the seminal 'limits to growth' studies thirty years after they were made, noted both model shortcomings and aspects where actual decisions were apparently influenced to change direction. The new research agenda for plausible and desirable human futures in the Anthropocene requires prospecting tools that reflect human decisions in their full and challenging complexity of interacting intuitive and deliberative aspects [15,16] ( Figure 1). ...
Assertion of the validity of the way agents' decision-making remains one of the central epistemological problems in empirical agent-based model (ABM) simulations. Reliable and robust models of individual and group-level decision-making are needed if scenarios are to be relevant for policies with implications in natural resource management. Serious games (in the form of role-playing games) have emerged as stakeholder-centric ways of parameterizing human behavior and decision-making and validating ABM results. Iterations between games and ABMs may offer attractive options for quality control in salient, credible, and legitimate ABM use. However, a revisit to a validated case study after six years suggested that models and games generate 'prospects' rather than 'predictions' as events not foreseen in model development added to recognized parameter uncertainty.
... Another facet of sustainability involves the ability to perpetuate the Earth's natural cycles and productivity for future generations (Chapin et al., 1996). Regrettably, many scientists expressed concerns that the world's resources have reached a critical depletion point (Turner, 2008). From this perspective, achieving sustainability necessitates utilizing natural resources at a pace that allows for their spontaneous regeneration. ...
... A study conducted some 30 years later ran the model again with updated data, finding that it fitted trends over the last three decades remarkably well. 72 The Limits to Growth thesis has been a source of heated debate. Proponents of the 'degrowth' approach argue that, to date, no country has decoupled material consumption from economic growth, 73 that limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C will require contractions in energy demand (and likely economic activity) which are incredibly challenging to achieve alongside continued economic growth, that infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet, 74 and that growth brings neither happiness nor human flourishing. ...
This innovative and comprehensive collection of essays explores the biggest threats facing humanity in the 21st century; threats that cannot be contained or controlled and that have the potential to bring about human extinction and civilization collapse. Bringing together experts from many disciplines, it provides an accessible survey of what we know about these threats, how we can understand them better, and most importantly what can be done to manage them effectively.
These essays pair insights from decades of research and activism around global risk with the latest academic findings from the emerging field of Existential Risk Studies. Voicing the work of world leading experts and tackling a variety of vital issues, they weigh up the demands of natural systems with political pressures and technological advances to build an empowering vision of how we can safeguard humanity’s long-term future.
The book covers both a comprehensive survey of how to study and manage global risks with in-depth discussion of core risk drivers: including environmental breakdown, novel technologies, global scale natural disasters, and nuclear threats. The Era of Global Risk offers a thorough analysis of the most serious dangers to humanity.
Inspiring, accessible, and essential reading for both students of global risk and those committed to its mitigation, this book poses one critical question: how can we make sense of this era of global risk and move beyond it to an era of global safety?
... The LTG study brought an engineering perspective to inter-connections between socio-ecological systems and provided a technological system's tool, aptly called System Dynamics Methodology (SDM). Further, after 30 years of its publication, some of the predicted results from LTG study, were corroborated by G.M.Turner [28]. ...
SUPPORTING INFORMATION Assessing environmental-economic costs for rainfed, irrigated and rainwater-harvested systems: A system dynamic modeling application for the Free State, South Africa
... To introduce the historical context, it is essential to point out that concern for the environment began to emerge at the end of the Second World War [9], which is the period when concerns about the significant problems of that period became evident. At this stage, we should highlight the First Report of the Club of Rome, dated 1972, called "the limits of growth" [10], which concluded that the planet would reach the limits of its growth over the next one hundred years. It was in 1987 that the concept of sustainable development came into existence [11], which had international repercussions thanks to the Brundtland Report presented by the World Commission on Environment and Development [12]. ...
Sustainable development and its significant challenges motivate various international organisations in a way that has never been seen before. With Europe at the forefront, countries such as the United States want to be included in the progress and what a clear and determined commitment to sustainability means for future generations. Our study aimed to go deeper into the follow-up and monitoring of the development of reliable indicators that make the continuous improvement process in sustainability robust. To this end, and using the fuzzy logic methodology, we applied it to one of the indices that have been developed to date, the “Sustainable Development Report” (in its 2022 edition), working on the specific application of SDG 11. Our results show favourable positions for countries such as Brunei Darussalam, Tonga, Tuvalu, Andorra, and the Netherlands and provide robustness when there is a lack of data quality and improvements in the implementation of the process when experts intervene.
... In "The Limits to Growth" [14], this idea of the necessity for a balance between nature and the economy was taken up again, with a team of interdisciplinary MIT specialists predicting overshoot and collapse of economy, environment, and population before 2070 if no actions were taken against continued growth and increasing use of resources. The writers, at times harshly criticized -New York Times journalists calling it "little more than polemical fiction" [15] and others wanting to assign it to the "dustbin of history" [16] -have since been largely vindicated by more recent climate research and obvious global environmental degradation (e.g., [17]). Another notable milestone in the history of sustainability is the publication of the "Our Common Future" 1 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, in which Sustainable Development is being defined as development "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [18]. ...
The report was presented at the 16th UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Poland. You can download the full report and watch the presentation here: https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/policy-network-on-environment-pne
... Critics had claimed that this well-known work from the 1970s had been shown to be wrong, and tried to discredit the Australian work by connection. Fiowever, a detailed examination of the LtG shows clearly that the critics were outright lying or regurgitating a myth (Turner, 2012;Turner, 2008). The LtG is worth briefly revisiting in the following section before delving into some key findings from the detailed Aus¬ tralian modelling. ...
... In the years that followed, the trend in the consumption of fossil sources confirmed what was predicted in the "Meadows Report" rather well [17]. ...
A significant portion of postwar buildings, typically concentrated in suburban areas, are now difficult assets to manage due to their poor sustainability and limited replacement feasibilities. This paper focuses on strategies to improve their metabolism using energy-saving measures based on optimizing energy needs and integrating internal and external energy sources: a new organizational model for energy management should focus first on saving energy, and then on the possibility of integration into a local energy network. This positively affects the anthropogenic impact and becomes a role model for aggregating buildings not only into a district system, but also into a wider, large-scale energy network. The paper shows a significant case study of actual retrofitting intervention that is examined in order to confirm the theoretical guidelines proposed in the first part of the paper. Moreover, another significant case study, taken from common practice, is illustrated, in which different levels of retrofitting are tested. While taking into account the complexity and fragmentation of private property both in a single building and in the city, some strategies are finally described with the aim of reducing the anthropic impact of the postwar building stock.
... Critics, however, suggested that the model was faulty and made the future look too bleak. Yet, recent research including a "30 year update" largely confirms the predictions of the 1972 model (Meadows et al. 2009;Randers 2012;Turner 2008. ...
The Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Governance provides a state-of-the-art review of core debates and contributions that offer a more normative, critical, and transformatively aspirational view on global sustainability governance.
In this landmark text, an international group of acclaimed scholars provides an overview of key analytical and normative perspectives, material and ideational structural barriers to sustainability transformation, and transformative strategies. Drawing on pivotal new and contemporary research, the volume highlights aspects to be considered and blind spots to be avoided when trying to understand and implement global sustainability governance. In this context, the authors of this book debunk many myths about all-too optimistic accounts of progress towards a sustainability transition. Simultaneously, they suggest approaches that have the potential for real sustainability transformation and systemic change, while acknowledging existing hurdles.
... They gave one of their first performances was the commissioning of a report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) called "The Limits to Growth", published in 1972. It examined five fundamental factors and their interactions that determine growth on this planet -population, agricultural production, non-renewable resource depletion, industrial output and pollution (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008;Purvis et al., 2019). Many authors, including Fukuda-Parr and Muchhala (2020), place this moment as the origin of the term "sustainable development". ...
This descriptive study aims to identify the most published SDGs by @GlobalGoalsUN, the United Nations' official account for sustainable development goals, and elaborate the segmentation profiles of these messages that promote a more significant impact from the perspective of social marketing and happiness. With more than 345 million active users in 2022, Twitter is a relevant social media tool for researching and knowing public reactions. In order to identify the most relevant SDGs, we have downloaded tweets from January 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022. The segmentation profiles have been elaborated with the classification tree using the division method called CHAID (Chi-square automatic interaction detector), which allows the automatic detection of interactions through Chi-square. This technique has made it possible to identify four homogeneous sub-samples corresponding to the segmentation profiles of messages based on impact, social marketing and happiness. The results of these profiles show the categories of the variables that best distinguish the messages. In addition, it has been verified that the most published SDGs do not coincide with those that have achieved the greatest impact. The climate has been the most published SDG (SDG 13 Climate action), but the one that has obtained the most significant reaction from the public has been the SDG related to well-being (SDG 3 Health and well-being). The most popular format has been video, the most recurrent emotional tone has been neutral, and, about social marketing, a category of action messages stands out, unlike behavioural ones, which do not specify the indications to carry out a specific initiative.
... Looking back at the original Limits to Growth study (Meadows et al., 1972), it is obvious how realistic it has been-most of the current trends follow rather closely the 'Double Resources' scenario (Turner, 2008). This scenario assumed significant resource discoveries, but unlike the 'Stabilised World' scenario combining technological progress with an end to economic and population growth, it still ended up in collapse. ...
The perfect storm of converging political, security, environmental and social crises enforces an epochal turn. Necessarily increasing defensive expenditures for health and climate damage compensation combine with climate adaptation and increased security spending to drive already sluggish economic growth rates into negative territory. The result will by accelerating degrowth, an end to just‐in‐time production concepts, higher resource cost, new dependencies on metal exporters (some of them as nasty as Putin's Russia), and decreasing median incomes. Without significant U‐turns on tax and distribution policies, funds will be lacking to address the challenges. Rather than promising easy ways out of the crises, stopping the drivers, focussing on well‐being instead of growth, and exploring ways to a dignified life within the crises need to be political priorities.
... The high-coal conclusion can be traced back to scenario modelling through the 1970s, which assumed coal-to-liquids as a backstop liquid energy supply [107]. Other 'resource pessimists' argue that there is greater uncertainty and significantly lower economically-recoverable resources than often assumed in IAM scenarios [108][109][110][111][112][113]. ...
The following article conducts an analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), specifically in relation to Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). We focus on the key drivers of economic growth, how these are derived and whether IAMs properly reflect the underlying biophysical systems. Since baseline IAM scenarios project a three- to eight-fold increase in gross domestic product (GDP)-per-capita by 2100, but with consumption losses of only between 3–11%, strong mitigation seems compatible with economic growth. However, since long-term productivity and economic growth are uncertain, they are included as exogenous parameters in IAM scenarios. The biophysical economics perspective is that GDP and productivity growth are in fact emergent parameters from the economic-biophysical system. If future energy systems were to possess worse biophysical performance characteristics, we would expect lower productivity and economic growth, and therefore, the price of reaching emission targets may be significantly costlier than projected. Here, we show that IAMs insufficiently describe the energy-economy nexus and propose that those key parameters are integrated as feedbacks with the use of environmentally-extended input-output analysis (EEIOA). Further work is required to build a framework that can supplement and support IAM analysis to improve biophysical rigour.
... Currently, with over 50% of the global population living in cities [21], a number that is expected to rise to 70% in 2050 [22], these impacts deserve attention from urban professionals. Additionally, future problems, such as climate impacts [23,24]; social unrest [25,26] and migration [27][28][29]; increased inequality [30][31][32]; and the limitations of natural resources [33][34][35], i.e., the limits to growth [36][37][38], potentially accelerate the need for urban responses. Thus far, the urban professional, being an urban planner or designer or an urbanist, is confronted with an enormity of subjects, complexities and uncertainties, which makes it a next to impossible task. ...
The context of urbanism is changing rapidly. The context for working in the field of urban design and planning is influenced by the pace of change; uncertainty; and massive transitions. The urban professional, however, is still used to planning for small changes and repeating traditional approaches. In this paper, we have investigated major future tasks and problems that require rethinking the skills required from people working in the urban arena. By conducting in-depth conversation with leading thinkers in the field, the tension between idealism and the urgency to act versus realism and the trust in current systems dominated by economic laws is present. This results in the conclusion that a different skillset is required in order to face future complexities and to be able to connect design creativity with process sensitivity in short- and long-term periods and at small and large scales.
... Indeed, there has been an escalation in challenges of overconsumption of resources prompted by rapidly growing urban populations. Also, there has been more realization that human activities, such as increased energy production from non-renewable sources, were negatively impacting the environment, hence calling for the need to acknowledge limits to growth and shift to alternative development pathways (Kennedy et al., 2007;Rees & Wackernagel, 2008;Turner, 2008). Three key distinct areas of environmental planning can be distinguished from Fig. 5. ...
The global population has rapidly urbanized over the past century, and the urbanization rate is projected to reach about 70% by 2050. In line with these trends and the increasing recognition of the significance of cities in addressing local and global challenges, a lot of research has been published on urban studies and planning since the middle of the twentieth century. While the number of publications has been rapidly increasing over the past decades, there is still a lack of studies analyzing the field's knowledge structure and its evolution. To fill this gap, this study analyzes data related to more than 100,000 articles indexed under the “Urban Studies” and “Regional & Urban Planning” subject categories of the Web of Science. We conduct various analyses such as term co-occurrence, co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and citation analysis to identify the key defining thematic areas of the field and examine how they have evolved. We also identify key authors, journals, references, and organizations that have contributed more to the field's development. The analysis is conducted over five periods: 1956–1975 (the genesis period), 1976–1995 (economic growth and environmentalism), 1996–2015 (sustainable development and technological innovation), 2016–2019 (climate change and SDGs), and 2020 onwards (post-COVID urbanism). Four major thematic areas are identified: 1) socio-economic issues and inequalities, 2) economic growth and innovation, 3) urban ecology and land use planning, and 4) urban policy and governance and sustainability. The first two are recurring themes over different periods, while the latter two have gained currency over the past 2–3 decades following global events and policy frameworks related to global challenges like sustainability and climate change. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, issues related to smart cities, big data analytics, urban resilience, and governance have received particular attention. We found disproportionate contributions to the field from the Global North. Some countries from the Global South with rapid urbanization rates are underrepresented, which may have implications for the future of urbanization. We conclude the study by highlighting thematic gaps and other critical issues that need to be addressed by urban scholars to accelerate the transition toward sustainable and resilient cities.
... Sustainability is basically perceived as ecology and the ability of ecological systems to maintain their functions, processes and productivity in the future (Chapin et al., 1996). There is now a general consensus that the world's resources and the environment are moving towards the limit of depletion as a result of human activities (Turner, 2008). From this point of view, sustainability can only be achieved by using the resources offered by nature at a speed that allows them to be regenerated spontaneously. ...
Using natural resources without depleting the environment and leaving a livable world to future generations are among the basic principles of sustainability. Building materials are environmentally friendly in their production, use and recycling, if they do not cause irreparable harm to the environment. Environmentally friendly building materials are expected to be durable, reusable and renewable. For this reason, it has gained importance that the elements used in the building can be "disassembled", "reused", and "disposal" without harming the environment when necessary, in order to reduce waste. The "detachability" of buildings is becoming more and more important. The transport factor plays a major role in ensuring the reuse of the missing elements and additions or reductions that must be made in the buildings over time. "Lightness" and "easy transportation" gain importance due to the restrictions to be made in energy use. Elements whose raw material is wood can be reused at the end of their life, destroyed by biological means, and used as energy or raw material. The production of wooden structures is fast, the light parts can be easily stored and transported. The quality of laminated wood produced by applying lamination technique is far superior to solid wood material. Its carrier properties and mechanical resistance also differ depending on the tree species. It is possible to produce wooden boards in a wide variety of lengths and sections in lamination. Structural wooden elements in many different forms such as columns, trusses, arches can be produced by special lamination method upon request. As a result; The developments in laminated wood technology allow the design of unique spaces. All geometric structures such as geodesic domes, pyramids, vaults, etc. can be built in large and single-span structures such as concert halls, educational buildings and product display/sales buildings.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
Contemporary philanthropy relies on a gift/counter-gift process: a person making a donation receives benefits for it, mostly financial (tax deductions) or symbolic (recognition). Donor recognition is an important part of philanthropy and comes in many forms. One of them is donor plaques—on walls, signs, or objects/buildings—associated with naming, i.e., the material traces of recognition that have the name of the donor on them. The analysis of donor plaques deepens our understanding of the way the act of giving leaves traces. What are these traces of philanthropy? How long do donor plaques stay on the walls of institutions? How are they negotiated? How do they change the urban landscape at a bigger scale? This chapter aims at understanding the specificity and the symbolic role of donor plaques as traces left voluntarily by philanthropic donors. Focusing on an understudied topic (philanthropic traces) and based on two qualitative research conducted in philanthropic settings, it questions the relationship elite donors have with time and space through the analysis of a concrete object (the plaque). It also examines the meaning of these traces (and the values they convey), as well as the power relations (and resistances) they create.
... The authors agreed with the critics and after 30 years they applied an improved method, yet obtained similar results (Meadows, Randers, and Meadows 2004) . However, the new publication did not raise a similar controversy or discussion, similar to other comments on that subject (Turner 2008) . Once the Report is mentioned, it is worth noting the "zero growth" concept as a reply to the ominous exhaustion of natural deposits claimed by Mishan (1977), a British citizen . ...
The issue of the exhaustibility and limited of natural resources has been noticed, among others, as a result of intensive economic development and civilization progress. In the second half of the 20th the emission of industrial and municipal pollutants, mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels, also became a serious problem. The article presents the essence and manifestations of the economy in a closed circuit and its impact on shaping sustainable socio-economic development, as well as the analysis of the possibilities of implementing these principles in business practice and in everyday life. According to the authors, managing in a closed circulation appears to be the highest stage of civilization development. Closing the so-called the loop and the economic cycle is becoming real in many areas as a result of extending the life cycle of products, the use of an ever-wider range of waste as secondary raw materials — instead of primary raw materials, the use of renewable energy sources, rationalization of water and forest management, etc.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
The growing masses of digital traces generated by the datafication process make the algorithms that manage them increasingly central to contemporary society.
There is widespread agreement in considering traces and algorithms as complex objects that intertwine social and material practices with their own cultural, historical, and institutional nature (Halford et al., 2010).
Accordingly, given this strong intertwining between the social world and the digital world that is formed by material and technological objects, it becomes possible to consider the algorithms and traces as socio-digital objects. For this reason, this article aims to identify the features that allow us to frame them as socio-digital objects starting from concepts borrowed from the actor-network theory (Latour and Woolgar 1879). In particular, we will first discuss opacity, authority and autonomy concepts and then see how those features emerge in digital geographical traces.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
Visits to museums in the twenty-first century do not merely involve coming in contact with art but also living an interactive and relational experience that has changed the organization of museums, not only the exhibition rooms but also other museum spaces: boutiques, cafés, restaurants, and public areas. This new type of visit implies the role of an original agent: the frontalier visitor who, by inhabiting spaces adjacent to exhibition rooms, expands and reinforces the museum’s boundaries and the museum experience itself. This work is focused on visitors’ footprints as material and virtual marks and aims at showing the results of a field analysis carried out from 2017 to 2019 addressing the architecture of modern art museums. Fourteen museums have been analyzed, and four of them have been selected as the main objects of analysis: Malba, Moma, Tate Modern, and Centre Pompidou. We have studied their façades, esplanades, and entrance halls as spaces advancing what the public will experience inside the buildings. This analysis considers these adjacent spaces essential for the pass-through from the material experience to the virtual experience and from material footprints to virtual ones.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
In this chapter, I reflect on the relationship between shame and digital traces in cases of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) (I am thankful to Giovanni Zampieri, Dario Lucchesi and Massimo Cerulo for their invaluable help in writing and revising this chapter.). I will introduce the concept of shameful trace to describe records of diverse nature that can be used by a group of people participating in an effort to stigmatise an appearance, a conduct, an attitude or any other cause of social disapproval. Such a record is an object of shame only in a latent form. For it to become a shameful trace, it is necessary that it be shared and focussed on particular situations of moral condemnation.
This is neither a purely theoretical nor a purely empirical article. Rather, I first consider a case study of moral violence against a young Italian woman, Tiziana Cantone, who committed suicide in 2016 after the widespread non-consensual dissemination of intimate images. Further, I propose a theoretical understanding of the diffusion of shameful traces as a process of concerted social action including five elements: first, the ontology of the trace; second, the actors involved in its production and diffusion; third, the temporal and spatial coordinates of the shame diffusion and the technical or social means employed in it; and finally (fourth and fifth), the cultural and normative frameworks. Finally, I investigate how social bonds and sociotechnical and normative regulations favour the diffusion of shame in cases of IBSA.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
This chapter explores the traces that we voluntarily leave behind on social media platforms, dictated by the selection of what we want to show and what we want to hide and how this affects the perception of ourselves.
Nowadays, digital platforms have a huge impact on our lives, in re-shaping both our habits and our personal attitudes. Particularly on social media, both tangible and intangible aspects of our lives can be datafied , which in turn affect and shape our feelings and experiences.
In order to explore this dynamic, I interviewed a selected target group of young media professionals who are used to promoting themselves and their work on social media, through the so-called practice of self-branding .
From the qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews, this chapter investigates traces derived from implicit self-branding practices , which can take the form of controlling what is not to be shared, measuring the online reactions, and hiding relevant information. All these non-activities are also strategic in building and managing the users’ online branded personas.
Thus, through the management of the visible and invisible traces on social media profiles, users convey a branded and polished version of themselves.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
Why do users generally pay little attention to the serious threats to their privacy inherent in new communication technologies? In attempting to answer this question, I consider two different and complementary approaches to the issue of surveillance: the now classic view of Bauman and the more recent, but already well-known, view of Zuboff. I show how Bauman focuses mainly on subjective factors, represented by the psychic motivations of the user, and assigns little importance to technology, whereas technology as an objective factor plays a fundamental role in Zuboff’s analysis of surveillance capitalism.
Hence, I propose to broaden the theoretical framework in order to better capture the intertwining of subjective and objective factors, particularly by taking into account studies on the new philanthropy. On closer inspection, the fact that the new economy tycoons are also often committed to ostentatiously doing good for the less fortunate could explain users’ overconfidence. Since ordinary people see the alleged generosity of the owners of Microsoft, Amazon, or Facebook widely publicized, it is reasonable for them to assume that these “modern-day heroes” are offering their services free of charge to all and sundry for the common good.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
In the United States, gentrification typically involves whites displacing African American, working-class communities. This work uses a political economy framework to better understand the clues displacement leaves behind. Specifically, this research investigates what happened to a former community in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, known as Silver Hill, which was an enclave of mostly African American residents founded in the late nineteenth century just west of the city. Through archival research and investigation of the remaining traces of the neighborhood, we develop a theory of spatial erasure that highlights how wealthy white communities that grew up around Silver Hill subsumed and eradicated it. Specifically, racial capitalism played a major role in the abuse and neglect of Silver Hill. The neighborhood became surrounded by wealthy white developments which cut off road access to their homes. Today, a cemetery, two houses, and a litany of historical records offer clues about what was once a thriving African American community. Additionally, descendants of the neighborhood’s residents provide key information about its life and death. We discuss the implications of examining this history, especially as it pertains to the collective remembrance of Silver Hill.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
This chapter deals with the analysis of Julian Assange as a public figure through the use of three perspective angles. In the first part, Assange’ history is briefly outlined, tracing it back to the systems of thought of authors such as Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu, with the aim of highlighting how the Australian journalist’s biography helps to illuminate his (and our) historical time and, vice versa, how historical time helps to depict his biography and his courageous journalistic campaigns more precisely. The second part shows how the apparently subversive aspects of Assange’s activity in fact need to be analysed within the web of social control and the subsequent fight between rulers and outsiders. The criminalisation of Julian Assange is, by this token, a consequence of the reaction enacted by power against militant practice aimed at claiming an alternative use of the web. The third paragraph examines three basic principles of Enlightenment which are apparent in the WikiLeaks approach and explicitly recalled by Assange: the connection between the duty to improve knowledge and the right to communicate, publicity as a test to reveal injustice and the understanding of freedom of the press as an antitotalitarian device.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
Understanding social practices as they co-evolve between researcher-community is fundamental in “design and social innovation” where local knowledge, resources, and agency meet to solve wicked problems (Rittel and Webber, Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169, 1973). In this chapter, we seek to explore the traces that researchers and community members leave behind as indexical forms of representation. Contemporary perspectives urge a critical examination of the interplay between design and broader structural and cultural issues (Björgvinsson et al., CoDesign, 8(2–3), 127–144, 2012). Design methods, however, are often chosen arbitrarily reflecting a “toolbox” mentality that potentially misses culturally embedded nuances (Dourish, Implications for design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 541–550), 2006). Cultural probes as part of this “toolbox” are often associated with ethnographic methods, yet were never intended to generate data, whereas ethnography goes beyond data gathering to analyze socio-cultural meaning and practices (Boehner et al., How HCI interprets the probes. In CHI Proceedings Designing for Specific Cultures, 2007). We present two case studies to discuss the use of cultural probes in participatory design as enablers of dialogue in open-ended conversations with communities. We draw on reflexive practices and Manzini’s concept of “diffuse design” and “expert design.” Working in communities can thus become a form of “public ethnography,” an effort to understand and analyze social practices from multiple knowledge perspectives as an ongoing process.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
The concept of trace is useful for a semiotic reflection upon what is left behind. Similar to the concepts of index and footprint, traces are traditionally described as already signs, or more precisely as something recognized as a sign (Violi, Riv Ital Filos Linguaggio, 2016, http://www.rifl.unical.it/index.php/rifl/article/view/365 ; Mazzucchelli, Riv Ital Filos Linguaggio, 2015, http://www.rifl.unical.it/index.php/rifl/article/view/312 ). This act of recognition is fundamentally dependent on a community’s work of interpretation, in order to actualize a potential narration lying in the trace, but what if the promised sense is not grasped? Adopting the notion of intentionality (Greimas and Courtés, Sémiotique: dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage. Hachette, Paris, 1979) to include partially unconscious traces within the sphere of semiotic investigation, the article considers the possibility to conceive traces as paradoxical signs standing for nothing, i.e., signs of insignificance (Leone, On insignificance. The loss of meaning in the post-material age. Routledge, 2020). Through the analysis of digital traces and trolling, (in)significance is disputed on the basis of a proposed paradigm, within which even such seemingly accidental traces may possess profound significance within a digital network constructed of distributed subjectivity. One conclusion drawn from the example is that strong normative claims about what may qualify as significant often conceal an ideologically charged agenda. For this reason in particular, a detailed account of digital traces should be the highest priority of semiotics today.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
Physical daily contexts are replete with traces of the past. A statue in a park, the name of a street, or an old advertisement can all remind people of specific historical moments or periods. Often, they recall glorious episodes, but traces of less glorious pasts also persist. Among them, the most self-censored ones refer to past immoral actions that tarnish the overly idealized moral standard attributed to the group. As a case in point, material traces of the colonial past became the focus of controversies within formerly colonizing countries during the last decade. European anti-racist movements questioned the colonial heritage of European societies in an unprecedented manner and active social minorities also brought to the fore some traces still in the background of physical environments. Part of public opinion reacted by denouncing the “cancel culture” or the danger of “erasing” history. This chapter outlines a social psychological approach about contemporary perceptions and interpretations of still self-censored material traces of Italian colonialism. Results of a qualitative survey on Italian participants’ representations and attitudes toward a candy with a colonial wrapping will illustrate how Italian participants of different generations question this ephemeral trace and take on the challenge of a cumbersome past.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
This introduction chapter provides context and background to the concept of trace in social sciences, also presenting an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this volume. Information that was not meant to be informative and evidence that did not expect to possess evidential character, traces are construed as evidence only from the vantage point of the observer, inadvertently left behind by those who produced the trace in the first place (indeed, awareness might change footprints and make them fade out). Conceived as clues rather than statements, traces prove to be useful for studying current social facts and individuals who have not yet vanished. This holds to be true especially in our contemporary platform society, due to its datafication processes and the ensuing quantification of features never quantified before; digital footprints determine the selection of the most relevant content or services to offer, creating accordingly personalized feedback. Thus, individual and collective online behavior leading to traces production is shaped by digital environments’ affordances and constraints; at the same time, such socio-technically situated traces retroact over digital systems (by fueling algorithms and predictive models), thus reinforcing, or questioning, the power relations at stake. Conclusively, a brief remark is made on future research possibilities associated with the sociology of traces.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
Individuals and groups leave evidence of their lives when they are engaged in their activities. In this way, they create a rich amount of material that tells us about their behaviours, opinions and values. This material is not created for research purposes and is different from that solicited by researchers. In recent decades, the spread of new communication technologies has amplified the possibility of creating and disseminating this kind of data outside the research context.
In this chapter, what people leave behind (WPLB) online is studied from a strictly methodological point of view. What kind of evidence are researchers dealing with? Is it possible to reconnect it with the traditional methodological framework? We suggest that data left behind by people and groups on the Internet should be divided into three different categories: online found data ( digital traces ), online retrieved data ( web-mediated documents ) and online captured data ( online behaviours ). The phase of contextualization proves essential in understanding the very nature of (online) data.
This work leads to rediscovering the potential of classical methodological tools such as simple observation, documentary analysis and trace analysis. These practices provide methodological value to research projects that analyse WPLB in physical and web-mediated environments.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
From the study of semiotic paradigms in relation to the face, we focus on the traces, understanding how some flourish from the tangible but ignored signs left by humans daily, while others are totally imbricated in the face from/in which they transpire.
We typologize them in three varieties, from their multidimensional configuration, offering case studies of emanation, imbrication, and cancellation. First, between art and forensic tendencies, Dewey-Hagborg uses hair, cigarettes, and chewing gum off the streets to program and build 3D faces through the DNA found in them. Secondly, we examine the artistic work of Jorit who engraves on his face the sign that symbolizes belonging to a tribe he is working with. Name-face isomorphism emerges in the third case: Janez Janša carries out a performative sociopolitical program to test, destabilize, and reorganize cultural complexity.
All offer a syncretic situation analyzable by means of the semiotic approach and bioanthropological resources. The divergent weights of similar elements make us reflect on the relationship between the innermost meanings of our faces and their tracks in a sort of anticlockwise movement but also on the convergence between macro-cultural and techno-political orientations with intimate and located magnitude.
... The shift away from a previous model of development, the modern one, can be recognised by the elements described so far, relating to the increasingly intrinsic limitation of human actions and their changed spatial, temporal and relational conditions (Meadows et al., 1972;Turner, 2008). To have clear evidence of this, it is sufficient to refer to the definition of development coined as early as 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations and chaired by the Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland, which stressed that "development is sustainable when it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). ...
In the digital era, there is an increasing number of areas where the footprints we leave behind (voluntarily or not) become relevant for the use (legitimate or not) that can be made of them, creating new broad scenarios of analysis in different fields of interest. These developments have affected a wide range of scientific fields, and social sciences have also been called upon to face major challenges from an epistemological, theoretical and methodological standpoint. In this regard, the use of research tools, such as social network analysis and sentiment analysis , poses many questions to the researcher regarding their robustness, also in comparison to traditional research methods and techniques, i.e. the two-step flow communication model . This paper will propose a theoretical and methodological comparison between the Katz-Lazarsdeldian tradition of the notion of personal influence and the one of influencer logic that is central in digital methods . Starting from this evaluation, the question is whether what is happening in the field of the analysis of the big data provided by the spread of the digital footprint is capable of adding some new element to what has already been highlighted by the “two-step communication theory”, or whether it simply represents its explication.
Environmental problems such as global warming, increasing world population, decreasing natural resources, rapid industrialization, decreasing biological diversity, and air pollution negatively affect the life standards of future generations and threaten sustainable life. Under these circumstances, it is impossible for organizations to be detached from society and remain insensitive to these issues. Corporate and institutional activities should not be allowed to disrupt the ecological balance, they should contribute to maintaining this balance. On the other hand, women's involvement and contribution in business life leads to economic growth and human development. It is a common problem in developed and developing countries that the role of women is secondary in the labor market and in the society despite the economic value of women's labor in the development of world economy. In this study, it is predicted that preventing gender inequality will help organizations reach their sustainability goals; and the effect of gender inequality on corporate sustainability is investigated.
After the Great Financial Crisis, economic theory was fiercely criticized from both outside and inside the discipline for being incapable of explaining a crisis of such magnitude. Slowly but persistently, new strands of economic thought are developing, to replace the old-fashioned neoclassical economic theory, which have a common characteristic: they are better suited to help understand the real-world economy. This book explores the key tenets and applications of these. This book opens with an explanation of the “real world” approach to economics in which theoretical models resemble real-world situations, realistic assumptions are made, and factors such as uncertainty, coordination problems, and bounded rationality are incorporated. Additionally, this book explores the ramifications of considering the economy as both a dynamic system - with a past, present, and future - and a complex one. These theoretical precepts of the real-world economy are then applied to some of the most pressing economic issues facing the world today including ecological sustainability, the rise of corporate power, the growing dominance of the financial world, and rising unemployment, poverty, and inequality. In each case, this book reveals the insights of the shortcomings of the neoclassical approach which fails to illuminate the complexities behind each issue. It is demonstrated that, by contrast, adopting an approach grounded in the real world has the power to produce policy proposals to help tackle these problems. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the economy, including readers from economics and across the social sciences.
The Anthropocene is the present time of human-caused accelerating global change, and new forms of Anthropocene risk are emerging that society has hitherto never experienced. Science and policy are grappling with the temporal and spatial magnitude of these changes, as well as the diminishing margin between science and policy itself. However, there is a gap in the transparency — and perhaps even in the awareness — of the profound role that Anthropocene science plays in shaping the structure and possibility of our future world. In this work, we explore three broad categories of Anthropocene science, including international energy scenarios, climate change projections, and the possibility of social collapse. These cases exemplify three key features of Anthropocene science: worlding capacity, values shaping what is possible, and refusal to consider all options. We discuss how Anthropocene science modulates new risks and systematically, though perhaps inadvertently, entrains certain social-ecological futures. We find that clarity in these three attributes of Anthropocene science could enhance its integrity and build trust, not least in the arena of public policy. We conclude with recommendations for improving the interpretability and scope of Anthropocene science in the context of a growing urgency for accurate information to inform our collective future.
In 2020, Christiaan De Beukelaer spent 150 days covering 14,000 nautical miles aboard the schooner Avontuur, a hundred-year-old sailing vessel that transports cargo across the Atlantic Ocean. Embarking in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, he wanted to understand the realities of a little-known alternative to the shipping industry on which our global economy relies, and which contributes more carbon emissions than aviation. What started as a three-week stint of fieldwork aboard the ship turned into a five-month journey, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced all borders shut while crossing the ocean, preventing the crew from stepping ashore for months on end.
Trade winds engagingly recounts De Beukelaer's life-changing personal odyssey and the complex journey the shipping industry is on to cut its carbon emissions. The Avontuur's mission remains crucial as ever: the shipping industry urgently needs to stop using fossil fuels, starting today. If we can't swiftly decarbonise shipping, we can't solve the climate crisis.
Despite many advances in food sanitation techniques, foodborne diseases remain as one of the
major causes of death worldwide. Traditional antimicrobial methods not only reduce the
microbial population in foods to a varying extent, but damage the beneficial microorganisms
found naturally in foods. Increasing number of foodborne outbreaks due to the pathogens
resistant to antibiotics also require novel strategies. Although novel food processing
technologies (pulsed electric field, high pressure applications, ultrasound, plasma treatment,
and irradiation) are prominent processes in preventing bacterial contamination and bacteria
multiplication in food, they are extremely costly and time consuming processes. Alternatively,
the use of bacteriophages as biocontrol agents in food safety is attracting attention as a cheap
and fast method. Phages are viruses that infect bacterial cells only and harmless to humans,
animals, and plants. Phages are categorized as lytic or lysogenic based on their life cycles.
Lytic phages have various potential applications as biocontrol agents in the food industry.
Phage products developed for the main pathogenic bacteria that cause foodborne diseases
have been used as antimicrobial agents on foods by obtaining GRAS (Generally Recognized
As Safe) status and FDA approval. Phages have also been proposed as an alternative to
antibiotics in animal health. The use of phages as an alternative method in food industry and
health is today a popular topic that is gaining importance. In this report, it is aimed to provide
an overview of the use of phages as biocontrol agents against foodborne pathogens and to
provide up-to-date information on the common use of phages in food safety.
Keywords: Bacteriophage, phage, pathogens, food safety
A Planetary Tragedy addresses the question of why, some 50 years
after the environment became a topic of public concern, efforts to address
environmental problems have by and large failed and the world appears to
be heading for a disastrous future. Although over these years, governments
have adopted a raft of national and international measures to combat
environmental issues, most of these have proven to be inadequate and the
rate of environmental degradation has continued unabated. The book critically surveys and analyses the environmental performance of countries, in particular, some that have been regarded as environmental leaders, and identifies and discusses three broad reasons for this failure. First, the way environmental problems have been predominantly interpreted, which largely ignores the deep and interconnected nature of the environmental challenge; second, the failure to recognise, let alone address, the systemic sources and causes of environmental problems; third, the power structures in the prevailing political-economic systems, which make it virtually impossible to fundamentally change those systems and to
put societies onto a path towards sustainability.
Covering an extensive literature, the book draws on research, theories,
findings, and ideas from the fields of environmental politics and policy,
including comparative, international, and global analyses and perspectives,
environmental sociology and history, economics and the environment,
political and social theory, and environmental management. It puts forward
a framework that can assist in taking a comprehensive and integrated
approach to the environmental challenge, discusses the strengths and
weaknesses of a range of theoretical perspectives, clarifies key concepts and
factors central to better understanding the systemic issues and obstacles
lying at the heart of the environmental challenge, and puts forward ideas on
how to strategically address the enormous imbalance of power that stands
in the way of transformative change. The main suggestion is the creation of
national-level Sovereign People’s Authorities based on the principle of
popular sovereignty that will enable societies to democratically steer
themselves towards a sustainable and desirable future.
To avoid catastrophic climate change, the world is promoting a fast and unprecedented transition from fuels to renewables. However, the infrastructures of renewables, such as wind turbines and solar cells, rely heavily on critical minerals like rare earths, indium, etc. Such interactions between climate targets, energy transitions, and critical minerals were widely overlooked in the present climate scenario analysis. This study aims to fill this gap through an introduction of metal-energy-climate (MEC) nexus framework with its application on global energy transition towards carbon-neutral (or below 1.5 °C) target, in which six state-of-the-art integrated assessment models (IAMs) under different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) were applied. Our analysis revealed that climate mitigation is expected to greatly boost the critical mineral demand by 2.6-267.3 fold, which varies greatly by IAM models. The solar power development may be constrained by Tellurium (Te) and Selenium (Se) shortage, while the wind power will be jeopardized by the limited scalability in rare earth production capacity. Moreover, a more sustainable pathway may come at higher demand for critical minerals along with higher renewable ratios. Consequently, a holistic investigation on the interaction of mineral, energy, and climate systems is highly recommended for future scenario designing.
Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester
carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers
worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted
to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based
ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases
for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns
about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.
Abstract Assessments of global coal, oil, and natural gas occurrences usually focus on conventional hydrocarbon reserves, i.e. those occurrences that can be exploited with current technology and present market conditions. The focus on reserves seriously underestimates long-term global hydrocarbon availability. Greenhouse gas emissions based on these estimates may convey the message that the world is running out of fossil fuels, and as a result, emissions would be reduced automatically. If the vast unconventional hydrocarbon occurrences are included in the resource estimates and historically observed rates of technology change are applied to their mobilization, the potential accessibility of fossil sources increases dramatically with long-term production costs that are not significantly higher than present market prices. Although the geographical hydrocarbon resource distribution varies significantly, a regional breakdown for 11 world regions indicates that neither hydrocarbon resource availability nor costs are likely to become forces that automatically would help wean the global energy system from the use of fossil fuel during the next century.
Sustainable development has been defined by political and corporate leaders as the combination of environmental protection
and economic growth. As a result, the concept of eco-efficiency has been promoted as the primary tool for achieving industrial
sustainability.
However, there are at least four reasons why technological improvements in eco-efficiency alone will be insufficient to bring
about a transition to sustainability. First, considering that the very foundations of western industrial societies are based
on the exploitation of non-renewable minerals and fuels, it will be extremely difficult to switch to an industrial and economic
system based solely on renewable resources. Clearly, the continuing use of non-renewables is inherently unsustainable because
of finite material supplies and the fact that 100% recycling is impossible. Second, given the limited supply of non-renewable
fuels, long-term sustainability can only be guaranteed if all energy is derived directly or indirectly from the sun. However,
if the current U.S. energy demand would have to be supplied solely from solar sources, a wide range of serious and unavoidable
negative environmental impacts are likely to result. Third, even the best of human ingenuity and the greatest technological
optimism are bounded by the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that all industrial and economic activities have
unavoidable negative environmental consequences. Finally, improvements in eco-efficiency alone will not guarantee a reduction
in the total environmental impact if economic growth is allowed to continue. Unless growth in both population and consumption
is restrained, these technological improvements only delay the onset of negative consequences that, as a result, will have
increased in severity, thereby reducing our freedom to choose satisfying solutions.
Integrated global models (IGMs) attempt to build quantitative understanding of the complex, dynamic history and future of human–environment interactions at the global scale. There is now a 30 year history of this approach. Over this period, computer simulation modeling has become a well-accepted technique in scientific analysis, but truly integrated simulation models — those that deal with the dynamics of both the natural and human components of the system and their interactions — are still relatively rare, and those that do this at the global scale are even rarer. This paper is a survey of past experience with IGMs to serve as the basis for discussion about their role in the IHOPE project. We analyze seven IGMs in some detail, comparing and contrasting their characteristics, performance, and limitations. The integrated global data base that IHOPE will create can greatly spur the development, testing and application of IGMs. At the same time, the development of IGMs can greatly facilitate thinking about what data needs to be collected. IGMs therefore will play a central role in the IHOPE project and deserve careful consideration.
Stabilizing the carbon dioxide–induced component of climate change is an energy problem. Establishment of a course toward
such stabilization will require the development within the coming decades of primary energy sources that do not emit carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere, in addition to efforts to reduce end-use energy demand. Mid-century primary power requirements
that are free of carbon dioxide emissions could be several times what we now derive from fossil fuels (∼1013 watts), even with improvements in energy efficiency. Here we survey possible future energy sources, evaluated for their capability
to supply massive amounts of carbon emission–free energy and for their potential for large-scale commercialization. Possible
candidates for primary energy sources include terrestrial solar and wind energy, solar power satellites, biomass, nuclear
fission, nuclear fusion, fission-fusion hybrids, and fossil fuels from which carbon has been sequestered. Non–primary power
technologies that could contribute to climate stabilization include efficiency improvements, hydrogen production, storage
and transport, superconducting global electric grids, and geoengineering. All of these approaches currently have severe deficiencies
that limit their ability to stabilize global climate. We conclude that a broad range of intensive research and development
is urgently needed to produce technological options that can allow both climate stabilization and economic development.
CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating at a global scale, with their growth rate increasing from 1.1% y(-1) for 1990-1999 to >3% y(-1) for 2000-2004. The emissions growth rate since 2000 was greater than for the most fossil-fuel intensive of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenarios developed in the late 1990s. Global emissions growth since 2000 was driven by a cessation or reversal of earlier declining trends in the energy intensity of gross domestic product (GDP) (energy/GDP) and the carbon intensity of energy (emissions/energy), coupled with continuing increases in population and per-capita GDP. Nearly constant or slightly increasing trends in the carbon intensity of energy have been recently observed in both developed and developing regions. No region is decarbonizing its energy supply. The growth rate in emissions is strongest in rapidly developing economies, particularly China. Together, the developing and least-developed economies (forming 80% of the world's population) accounted for 73% of global emissions growth in 2004 but only 41% of global emissions and only 23% of global cumulative emissions since the mid-18th century. The results have implications for global equity.
Sequel to The limits to growth this book presents a renewed and refined version of the 1972 assessment and warnings. Better data, improved modelling and 20 yr of hindsight lead the authors to conclude that many resource and pollution flows are now no longer approaching the limits. Adopting a systems viewpoint and using the World3 model it is shown that mankind has a choice, and must make it soon. The choice is between allowing development to continue as it is and suffer global collapse, or take action to secure a sustainable future. The authors stress a sustainable future is technically and economically feasible, if growth in material consumption and population are eased down and there is a drastic increase in the efficiency of use of materials and energy. Chapters consider: overshoot; exponential growth; the limits (sources and sinks); dynamics of growth in a finite world; back from beyond the limits (the ozone story); technology, markets, and overshoot; transitions to a sustainable system; overshoot but not collapse. -C.J.Barrow
In this paper we discuss verification and validation of simulation models. Four different approaches to deciding model validity are described; two different paradigms that relate verification and validation to the model development process are presented; various validation techniques are defined; conceptual model validity, model verification, operational validity, and data validity are discussed; a way to document results is given; a recommended procedure for model validation is presented; and model accreditation is briefly discussed.
Technology and Global Change describes how technology has shaped society and the environment over the last 200 years. Technology has led us from the farm to the factory to the internet, and its impacts are now global. Technology has eliminated many problems, but has added many others (ranging from urban smog to the ozone hole to global warming). This book is the first to give a comprehensive description of the causes and impacts of technological change and how they relate to global environmental change. Written for specialists and nonspecialists alike, it will be useful for researchers and professors, as a textbook for graduate students, for people engaged in long-term policy planning in industry (strategic planning departments) and government (R & D and technology ministries, environment ministries), for environmental activists (NGOs), and for the wider public interested in history, technology, or environmental issues.
This paper briefly outlines the basic science on climate change, as well as the IPCC assessments on emissions scenarios and climate impacts, to provide a context for the topic of key vulnerabilities to climate change. A conceptual overview of "dangerous" climate change issues and the roles of scientists and policy makers in this complex scientific and policy arena are suggested, based on literature and recent IPCC work in progress. Literature on assessments of "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with the climate system is summarized, with emphasis on recent probabilistic analyses.
Over the last 25 yr, considerable debate has continued about the future supply of fossil fuel. On one side are those who believe we are rapidly depleting resources and that the resulting shortages will have a profound impact on society. On the other side are those who see no impending crisis because long-term trends are for cheaper prices despite rising production. The concepts of resources and reserves have historically created considerable misunderstanding in the minds of many nongeologists. Hubbert-type predictions of energy production assume that there is a finite supply of energy that is measurable; however, estimates of resources and reserves are inventories of the amounts of a fossil fuel perceived to be available over some future period of time. As those resources/reserves are depleted over time, additional amounts of fossil fuels are inventoried. Throughout most of this century, for example, crude oil reserves in the United States have represented a 10-14-yr supply. For the last 50 yr, resource crude oil estimates have represented about a 60-70-yr supply for the United States. Division of reserve or resource estimates by current or projected annual consumption therefore is circular in reasoning and can lead to highly erroneous conclusions. Production histories of fossil fuels are driven more by demand than by the geologic abundance of the resource. Examination of some energy resources with well-documented histories leads to two conceptual models that relate production to price. The closed-market model assumes that there is only one source of energy available. Although the price initially may fall because of economies of scale long term, prices rise as the energy source is depleted and it becomes progressively more expensive to extract. By contrast, the open-market model assumes that there is a variety of available energy sources and that competition among them leads to long-term stable or falling prices. At the moment, the United States and the world approximate the open-market model, but in the long run the supply of fossil fuel is finite, and prices inevitably will rise unless alternate energy sources substitute for fossil energy supplies; however, there appears little reason to suspect that long-term price trends will rise significantly over the next few decades.
Natural resource consumption has increased considerably in the past 200 years despite more efficient technology advancements. This correlation between increased natural resource consumption and increased efficiency is known as Jevons’ Paradox. Since all the inputs to economic production come from the environment, increased resource consumption and ecosystem destruction should be of concern. Furthermore, the expenditure of natural resources to provide energy and other consumer goods is an irreversible process, worsening the human condition instead of improving human welfare as neoclassical theory would have one to believe. Therefore, sustainable development policies need to be considered to end the continued excess consumption, beyond sustainable levels, of natural resources and the potential resulting conflicts. To design environmentally sustainable policies, the effect of economic activity, of resource utilization, and increased efficiency must be understood. In this paper, we attempt to illustrate how human consumption of natural resources alters the natural state of the economy and the environment. Further, using energy data from the Energy Information Administration we develop models that provide some empirical support that Jevons’ Paradox may exist on a macro level. Finally, we examine the resulting policy implications and the applications for an ecological economic approach.
This article highlights the strength of the basic system dynamics tools (system structure, unquantified variables, the reference mode, and leverage points) by testing the original World2 (1970) and World3 (1972) analyses against 30 years of history. Critical feedback structures in those models are revisited in the context of the current ‘sustainable development’ agenda. Time cannot yet confirm or reject the “;overshoot and collapse” reference mode of behaviour for the standard world-model run, but the tendencies and pressures that produced it still persist. The article closes with the identification of possible leverage points for attaining sustainable development in the expected fields of education, eco-efficiency, and resource management and energy policies, and speculates on possible others that the new millennium may offer. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The world's production of conventional hydrocarbons will soon decline. Hydrocarbon shortages are inevitable unless radical changes occur in demand, or in the supply of non-conventional hydrocarbons. The details are as follows:Global conventional oil supply is currently at political risk. This is because the sum of conventional oil production from all countries in the world, except the five main Middle-East suppliers, is near the maximum set by physical resource limits. Should Middle-East suppliers decide to substantially curtail supply, the shortfall cannot be replaced by conventional oil from other sources.World conventional oil supply will soon be at physical risk. The Middle-East countries have only little spare operational capacity, and this will be increasingly called upon as oil production declines elsewhere. Large investments in Middle-East production, if they occur, could raise output, but only to a limited extent. (A partial exception is Iraq, but even here, there would be significant delays before prospects are confirmed, and infrastructure is in place.) If demand is maintained, and if large investments in Middle-East capacity are not made, the world will face the prospect of oil shortages in the near term.Even with large investments, resource limits will force Middle-East production to decline fairly soon, and hence also global conventional oil production. The date of this resource-limited global peak depends on the size of Middle-East reserves, which are poorly known, and unreliably reported. Best estimates put the physical peak of global conventional oil production between 5 and 10 years from now.The world contains large quantities of non-conventional oil, and various oil substitutes. But the rapidity of the decline in the production of conventional oil makes it probable that these non-conventional sources cannot come on-stream fast enough to fully compensate. The result will be a sustained global oil shortage.For conventional gas, the world's original endowment is probably about the same, in energy terms, as its endowment of conventional oil. Since less gas has been used so far compared to oil, the world will turn increasingly to gas as oil declines. But the global peak in conventional gas production is already in sight, in perhaps 20 years, and hence the global peak of all hydrocarbons (oil plus gas) is likely to be in about 10 or so years.
This paper argues that perceptual distortions and prevailing economic rationality, far from encouraging investment in natural capital, actually accelerate the depletion of natural capital stocks. Moreover, conventional monetary analyses cannot detect the problem. This paper therefore makes the case for direct biophysical measurement of relevant stocks and flows, and uses for this purpose the ecological footprint concept. To develop the argument, the paper elaborates the natural capital concept and asserts the need of investing in natural capital to compensate for net losses. It shows how the ecological footprint can be used as a biophysical measure for such capital, and applies this concept as an analytical tool for examining the barriers to investing in natural capital. It picks four issues from a rough taxonomy of barriers and discusses them from an ecological footprint perspective: it shows why marginal prices cannot reflect ecological necessities; how interregional risk pooling encourages resource liquidation; how present terms of trade undermine both local and global ecological stability; and how efficiency strategies may actually accelerate resource throughput. Affirming the necessity of biophysical approaches for exploring the sustainability implications of basic ecological and thermodynamic principles, it draws lessons for current development.
This paper challenges the view that improving the efficiency of energy use will lead to a reduction in national energy consumption, and hence is an effective policy for reducing national CO2 emissions. It argues that improving energy efficiency lowers the implicit price of energy and hence make its use more affordable, thus leading to greater use—an effect termed the ‘rebound’ or ‘takeback’ effect. The paper presents the views of economists, as well as green critics of ‘the gospel of efficiency’. The paper argues that a more effective CO2 policy is to concentrate on shifting to non-fossil fuels, like renewables, subsidized through a carbon tax. Ultimately what is needed, to limit energy consumption, is energy sufficiency (or conservation) rather than energy efficiency.
Environmental disasters. Terrorist wars. Energy scarcity. Economic failure. Is this the world's inevitable fate, a downward spiral that ultimately spells the collapse of societies? Perhaps, says acclaimed author Thomas Homer-Dixon - or perhaps these crises can actually lead to renewal for ourselves and planet earth. The Upside of Down takes the reader on a mind-stretching tour of societies' management, or mismanagement, of disasters over time. From the demise of ancient Rome to contemporary climate change, this spellbinding book analyzes what happens when multiple crises compound to cause what the author calls "synchronous failure." But, crisis doesn't have to mean total global calamity. Through catagenesis, or creative, bold reform in the wake of breakdown, it is possible to reinvent our future. Drawing on the worlds of archeology, poetry, politics, science, and economics, The Upside of Down is certain to provoke controversy and stir imaginations across the globe. The author's wide-ranging expertise makes his insights and proposals particularly acute, as people of all nations try to grapple with how we can survive tomorrow's inevitable shocks to our global system. There is no guarantee of success, but there are ways to begin thinking about a better world, and The Upside of Down is the ideal place to start thinking.
Propuestas para el diseño de modelos y la medición de la sustentabilidad, planteadas con base en un estudio de caso nacional desarrollado durante cuatro años en Escocia.
Traditional growth theory emphasizes the incentives for capital accumulation rather than technological progress. Innovation is treated as an exogenous process or a by-product of investment in machinery and equipment. Grossman and Helpman develop a unique approach in which innovation is viewed as a deliberate outgrowth of investments in industrial research by forward-looking, profit-seeking agents.
Rapid global economic growth, centred in Asia but now spread across the world, is driving rapid greenhouse-gas emissions growth, making earlier projections unrealistic. This paper develops new, illustrative business-as-usual projections for carbon dioxide (CO) from fossil fuels and other sources and for non-CO greenhouse gases. Making adjustments to 2007 World Energy Outlook projections to reflect more fully recent trends, we project annual emissions by 2030 to be almost double current volumes, 11 per cent higher than in the most pessimistic scenario developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and at a level reached only in 2050 in the business-as-usual scenario used by the Stern Review. This has major implications for the global approach to climate-change mitigation. The required effort is much larger than implicit in the IPCC data informing the current international climate negotiations. Large cuts in developed country emissions will be required, and significant deviations from baselines will be required in developing countries by 2020. It is hard to see how the required cuts could be achieved without all major developing as well as developed countries adopting economy-wide policies.
At present, the most accurate knowledge about climate sensitivity is based on data from the earth's history, and this evidence reveals that small forces, maintained long enough, can cause large climate change. Human-made forces, especially greenhouse gases, soot and other small particles, now exceed natural forces, and the world has begun to warm at a rate predicted by climate models. The stability of the great ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica and the need to preserve global coastlines set a low limit on the global warming that will constitute "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with climate. Halting global warming requires urgent, unprecedented international cooperation, but the needed actions are feasible and have additional benefits for human health, agriculture and the environment.
Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy
source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas,
or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon
debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast,
biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials
incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.
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Limits of a Modern World: A Study of the Limits to Growth Debate Evaluating past forecasts: reflections on one critique of The Limits to Growth Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth
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