Tag: social mobilization

Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail

January 15, 2025

What will it take to cause “shock and awe” over increasingly frequent and devastating catastrophic climate events? Consider this context: “The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows.” (see story in  The Guardian, 1/10/2025.) Climate science predicts the devastating consequences clearly. Even so, LA burning becomes … More Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail

To Do or To UN-do: Is That the Question?

November 8, 2023

My thoughts here were stimulated by a ‘Letter from the Director’ by Beth Sawin, Director of the Multisolving Institute, which I read last month. In that letter, she rightfully struggled over the ‘bad news’ that six of the nine key planetary boundaries between Earth System health and systemic danger had by then been breached. That, … More To Do or To UN-do: Is That the Question?

The Sustainability Trap: Shifting Targets, No Goal

April 19, 2022

Sustainability is a complicated matter. It is also a very popular idea among those who want to contribute to a stable future for humanity. The first question that always comes to my mind is, “Sustain what?” People toss the term around as if everyone knows what it means. Well, for most it means to make … More The Sustainability Trap: Shifting Targets, No Goal

COP25 Madrid: Another Failure for the UN and the World

December 16, 2019

Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, said in a tweet as COP25 closed, “I am disappointed with the results of #COP25. The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis. But we must not give up, and I will not give up.” That … More COP25 Madrid: Another Failure for the UN and the World

Individual Climate Ethics and Global Change

September 10, 2018

Can we do it ourselves? If we recycle everything and take shorter showers, install some solar panels, buy low-emissions products, etc., etc., can we avoid climate catastrophe? Sorry. Absolutely not. The problem runs much deeper than that – it involves the entire Earth System. The climate crisis is endemic to industrial civilization itself. That means, … More Individual Climate Ethics and Global Change

Individual Climate Ethics and Social Action

February 24, 2016

Climate action: can we do it ourselves? If we recycle everything we can, take shorter showers, and install some solar panels, will that prevent the looming climate chaos? We could buy an electric car and low-emissions consumer products, maybe even go “off the grid.” But would that be enough to avoid climate catastrophe? Sorry. Absolutely … More Individual Climate Ethics and Social Action

The Dilemma of Transformation: From Petro-Economy to Eco-Society

September 19, 2014

What will it will take to reduce world carbon emissions enough in the short time necessary to fend off the worst of the effects of climate disruption? So much of the economy and energy technology is involved that it is hard to even imagine the magnitude of resulting social disruption. Yet here we are, faced … More The Dilemma of Transformation: From Petro-Economy to Eco-Society

Moving Toward an Ecological Infrastructure. Part III: Ecological Transformation

July 18, 2014

An ecological society will require some basic changes in the way we live. Most analyses of climate change are about disruptions leading to untenable future conditions. Specific reductions in carbon emissions will require transformation of economic infrastructure, which is rarely discussed. To stabilize global temperature, return to 350 parts per million of CO2 in the … More Moving Toward an Ecological Infrastructure. Part III: Ecological Transformation