The Money Fix

Orwell vs Huxley

What is life?

Science and the search for meaning

AMAZON

Wes Jackson - new agriculture?

In BriefWe need new strategies for agriculture that emphasize efficient nutrient use in order to lower production costs and minimize negative environmental effects. The trouble is, the best soils on the best landscapes are already being farmed. Much of the future expansion of agriculture will be onto marginal lands where the risk of irreversible degradation under annual grain production is high. As these areas become degraded, expensive chemical, energy, and equipment inputs will become less effective and much less affordable.

The sooner successful alternatives are available, the more land we can save from degradation. Our vision is predicated on the need to end the ecological damage to agricultural land associated with grain production—damage such as soil erosion, poisoning by pesticides, and biodiversity loss. The most cost-effective way to do this and stay fed is to perennialize the landscape.

At The Land Institute, we’ve spent the past 30 years devoted to developing herbaceous perennial grains to be grown in mixed species polycultures. The result is crops with deep root structures that can survive the winter and stay in the soil year after year. This not only reduces the need to crop, turn, and plant seeds each year—the largest energy input in agriculture—it also keeps carbon in the ground, reduces harmful runoff by eliminating tilling, and prevents biodiversity loss by restoring prairie systems.

Our first farmer-ready crops will be available on a limited scale in a decade, but we believe it’s time the government came up with a plan to start our transition toward a sustainable agricultural future. That’s why we advocate using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current five-year plans as mileposts in a 50-Year Farm Bill. We do not seek USDA funding from this bill for The Land Institute or any other particular organization.

The transition of agriculture from an extractive to a renewable economy in the foreseeable future can now be realistically imagined. Our proposal is ambitious, but it is necessary and possible. We have little doubt that we can make the agricultural transition fast enough to stay ahead of the adjustments imposed upon us by climate change and the end of the fossil-fuel era. If we humans can keep ourselves fed without destroying the planet in the process, we’ll have a chance to solve our other problems.

Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an "Underdeveloping Nation"

Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an "Underdeveloping Nation"

Innovation Commons

and other commons



Dr David Martin

The future of Happiness

Webcast

Ruut Veenhoven Greater happiness for a greater number - Is that possible?

Nic Marks The Happy Planet

Derek Bok


Presentations
download as *.pdf

Tim Mulgan Utilitarianism for a broken future

Ruut Veenhoven Greater happiness for a greater number - Is that possible?

Nic Marks The Happy Planet


Prof. Dr. Mathias Binswanger Is There a Growth Imperative in Modern Economies?



Bruno S. Frey lecture Ifo


“Mankind”, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.” Yet, famously enshrined in the US constitution, the pursuit of happiness has conquered the world as a constant obligation: be happy now!

The ancient Greek sought “eudaimonia”, happiness, as the highest desirable good and the object of virtue. Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher and reformer, later turned utility, or “Greatest Happiness", into the basis or definition of virtue and made it useful as an organizing principle for society.

Advances in neuroscience, the empirical investigation of subjective well-being and quality-of-life studies have brought an evidence based understanding on what makes us happy. Once we have escaped from abject poverty, more wealth does not make us feel happier, yet the relative status it provides adds to our individual satisfaction. The reproductive advantage endowed by ambition and status ensures we always want twice as much as we have. This keeps our economy turning and suggests that we are destined to consume whatever there is without ever getting any happier.

No future for happiness, then? Some believe that happiness cannot only be measured but also taught, and that societies and economies, even a future, can be built on the idea that the opportunity to feel happy is truly valuable.

- What makes us happy? (Human nature, the individual perspective)
- What contributes to our common happiness? (The effect of society)
- How can there be most happiness? (The future of happiness)

Ruut Veenhoven, Emeritus-professor of 'social conditions for human happiness', Erasmus University Rotterdam
Greater happiness for a greater number
Is that possible?

Utilitarian philosophy holds that public policy should aim at greater happiness for a greater number of people. This moral tenet meets many objections, on pragmatic grounds it is denounced as unfeasible and on ideological grounds as undesirable. As a result the principle is marginal in policy making. These classic philosophical qualms are considered in the light of recent empirical research on life-satisfaction. The data show first of all that the principle is feasible; happiness of a great number is possible in contemporary conditions and it is also possible to create more of it. The data also show that the promotion of happiness fits well with other ideals; happiness requires conditions that we value, such as freedom, and happiness fosters matters that we value, such as good health and civil behavior. Though happiness can conflict with these values in theory, it appears to match them in practice.

Nic Marks, NEF Fellow, Founder, Centre for Well-being
The Happy Planet

Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduced the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.

Tim Mulgan, Professor of Moral & Political Philosophy, Princeton / St.Andrews (in absence presented by Michael)
Utilitarianism for a broken future.

Philosophers often ignore future people - confident that, if we pursue our own interests, they will be much better-off than ourselves. Climate change undermines this optimism. Utilitarianism tells us that the interests of future people are as important as our own, and that our obligations to them are the most important part of morality. But many puzzles surround those obligations, as the identity, number, and existence of future people depend upon what we now decide to do. I outline these puzzles, and attempt to steer a path through them.

Beyond Banks

Britain to establish National Happiness Index

Britain to establish National Happiness Index
Monday 25 October 2010

Britain could soon become one of the first countries to measure the level of its population's wellbeing. David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister wants to make the results central to his policy making agenda.

Similar plans are also being investigated by France and Canada.

Cameron has long been pre-occupied with the issue of happiness. In 2006 he described the need to measure people's well being as "one of the central political issues of our time".

The British government is asking statistician Jil Matheson to come up with questions which can be asked on a regular basis, giving a measure of prosperity that isn't based in pure economics. Two Nobel Prize winning economists, Joesph Stiglitz and Amyartya Sen wrote a report in 2009 suggesting that countries move away from the purely economic concept of GDP, which just measures economic activity, to measures of well being and sustainability which also takes into account the intrinsic value and importance of a country's natural environment.

Britain is currently facing large cuts in public spending, but the potential effects of these have apparently not deterred Cameron from his goal to measure happiness. An advisor said that "even in tough times it's just as relevant an agenda".

Making Australia Happy

Tech change

Happiness Research in Economics

VIDEO

Hermann Scheer

Where Good Ideas Come From

Geldordnung & overdose?

geldordnung&finanzkrise I. II.

What makes you happy?

Positive Psychology

Happiness
Optimism
Wellbeing
Resilience
Motivation
Confidence


Why bother to improve happiness?

Over the last 40 years or so, every wealthy country on the face of the planet has seen a remarkable increase in depression
– a condition that is now up to 10 times more pervasive than it was in the 1960s, depending on whose research you look at. And it is affecting people at younger and younger ages. Clinically depressed teenagers are no longer a rarity.An epidemic of depression is blighting the lives of our young people at a time when, in theory at least, they never had it so good in terms of money in their pockets, easier access to education right though to university, a glittering array of gadgets and entertainment devices – iPods, PCs, DVDs, X-boxes etc. Depression is also debilitating many middle-aged people, preventing them from doing their job properly – or even from holding down a job at all.

It turns out that our forefathers were right – money and material possessions are not as important to happiness as we often think. Yet policy-makers tend to focus on increasing our spending power, on the assumption that with more in our pockets and a wider range of choice to spend it on, we’ll feel happy and prosperous. Prosperity is important to us, but once we have enough money to cater for our basic needs, money isn’t on its own enough to create a sense of well-being in individuals or societies.

If we want to reduce the high levels of ill-health, crime and poverty that plague many of our communities; if we want to see our children blossom and develop into fully-rounded adults; then spreading a little more happiness is a surprisingly effective – and inexpensive – way of achieving our goal.




HAPPY, The documentary WSJ


Happiness is worth bothering about because:

Happy people are healthier people

A nine-year Dutch study into the elderly found that those who were happy, optimistic or generally satisfied with life had around 50% less risk of dying over the period of the study than those who were unhappy or pessimistic. Other research has found that people who are happy and contented seem to be at less risk from conditions like hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, colds and upper respiratory infections. When they receive a flu vaccine, people who are rated as very happy by psychologists develop around 50% more antibodies than the average. The other side of the coin is that depression can exacerbate the impact of a wide range of illnesses.

Happy people cope better with illness

A positive outlook seems to reduce the perception of pain among people who are ill. Laura Kubzansky of Harvard University tracked the health of 1300 men for a decade and discovered that those who believed themselves to be optimistic had 50% less heart disease than those who didn’t. Note that they didn’t actually have to be optimistic, they only had to believe themselves to be optimistic to gain the benefits.

Research by Robert Emmons of the University of California found that people who write down every day all the things for which they were grateful, are not only happier than others, but are also more likely to take exercise, get regular health checks and are more energetic, enthusiastic, and alert.

Happy people live longer

A study of 180 nuns demonstrated that those who started out in their vocation with an optimistic outlook generally lived longer than their more pessimistic sisters. A large-scale research project which tracked the lives of more than 2000 Mexicans, aged over 65 and living and working in the USA, found that those who had a positive outlook on life were half as likely to die and half as likely to become disabled.

Happy workers are productive workers

Since 1998 the pollsters at Gallup have surveyed the happiness levels of the US workforce. In September 2004 only 29% of staff said that they felt engaged with their work, while a whopping 55% were not engaged. The remaining 16% considered themselves to be ‘actively disengaged.’ In analysing their research, Gallup argues that many employers fail to understand that while pay and benefits are important to their staff, they are not the clinching factors in whether people are happy at work.

What people want is a supportive boss and strong friendships among their colleagues. If an employee can answer ‘yes’ to the statement ‘I have a best friend at work’ then they are likely to be engaged with their job, have a strong sense of belonging and be more productive.

Thomas Wright, professor of organisational behaviour at the University of Nevada, reckons that employee happiness accounts for as much as 10% to 15% of the variance in performance between different workers. In a 40-hour week, that could mean up to three-quarters of an hour’s lost productivity per day. Managers who don’t attend to the happiness of their staff are unlikely to be getting the best out of them.

Happy people are much more positive

A positive frame of mind makes us much more creative, generous, and constructive. We seek what is right in a topic, not what is wrong. Thinking ‘out of the box’ is much easier when we’re positive, because we see more opportunities and potential. When we feel negative we search for problems, reasons for not doing things, for not hiring a particular individual, for not pursuing up a new opportunity.

Happy people are more persistent in attempting to solve problems

They give in less often, they work away at complicated tasks for longer than people who are unhappy.

Happy people are more altruistic than unhappy people

They have more empathy with those in need and are more generous when it comes to donating time and money to charities. Happy people are less focused on themselves, they are keen to share their good fortune with others.

Happy children outperform unhappy children on almost every measure

They have more persistence, they are better at problem-solving and exploration, they are more independent than their peers, they approach life with more enthusiasm. Happy children find it easier to build relationships and friendships, they have more casual friends and more close friends than their less happy peers.



Readings and Videos on Positive Psychology

and positive psichology&ecology

David Korten: Let Wall Street Fail+Green Jobs

David Korten

Veterans are turning to environmental work

Operation Green
........

YOUNG: Members of the Veteran's Conservation Corps in Washington. Other Veterans are coming home with strong views about the energy we use, and the wars we wage.

YOUNG: It's a far cry from Dan Leary's last job- he was an army captain stationed in Kuwait. Leary said what he saw in the desert left him determined to start a clean-energy company back home.

LEARY: I was. I was. And I think it's important for our generation to get on top of this because I think anything that we can do to bring better security to our nation is less tasks that, frankly, our children, our grandchildren are going to have to deal with. Energy and water, and a whole number of things that lead ultimately back to...we just have to have much more sustainable practices as a society.

YOUNG: Do you get the sense that your fellow Veterans have had kind of an awakening about energy issues?

LEARY: I think that we all have. I think that the Veterans have been able to see it first hand-what is sustainable and what's not sustainable. As soon as you've seen a massive desalinization plant running on oil that has to be pumped from thousands of feet below the ground to sustain large populations, you understand just how fragile the whole system is. And I think that's what Veterans certainly understand first-hand. And the more that we can generate on site, it does things, more than just national security, it's really just the right thing to do.

YOUNG: Leary's not alone in that thinking. A recent poll of Iraq and Afghanistan Vets found an overwhelming majority see our energy policy undermining national security. And just over 70% support policy changes to promote clean energy and address climate change. The poll was sponsored by the group Vote Vets, which is also part of a rolling public outreach program called Operation Free........

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis

Necessity of Science

Re-designing our Future = C2C

Braungart in NZ:

Short 45 min review of Forum

not MBA

how-to-fix-business-schools-scrap-the-mba-or-no?



An MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree confers a status
to the holder that makes them desirable as business managers and
leaders. They have learned to analyze transactions and interactions
that help pinpoint cost reduction for labor and raw materials, maximize
cash flow, increase market share, and fine-tune supply chain management.
Unfortunately these experts, who are today’s dominant business leaders,
seem on the verge of disconnection from the habitats and inhabitants of
our planet. Worse, their narrow focus on one core business blinds them
from recognizing viable opportunities outside their sphere of interest or
knowledge. Our production and consumption schemes are outdated,
incapable of responding to the basic needs of all. They must either evolve
or be replaced by ones that thrive by functioning harmoniously with all life,
promoting diversity, and fairly ensuring food, shelter, health, and livelihood
for everyone. It is with this conclusion that we turn our admiration and
attention to nature’s MBA – Mastery of Brilliant Adaptations.

Ecosystems offer tremendous inspiration for devising economic models
capable of responding to the needs of all. Natural systems always change,
always evolve. That is their power and their beauty. When we attend to
nature’s MBA, we can begin to understand how to integrate innovations
into multifaceted models cascading nutrients and energy, supplying energy
from integrated and renewable sources, designing structures that capture
and utilize what is minute and transform it into what is grand, into networks
that become so efficient that nothing is wasted and we have a net energy gain.Industry is resistant to continuous change. Predictability is the name of
the game. The model of core business and core competence pursues
productivity in a manner that actually inhibits the natural path of evolution
and change. This is in fact the logic by which industry arrives at solutions
based on genetic manipulation. Once you know how to alter genes, you
believe you know how to predict their outcomes. Where industry leaders
prefer a predictable production system that uses harsh chemistry to
stabilize molecules forever, and genetic modifications that stifle natural
evolutionary tendencies, natural systems offer a different solution. Water is
the solvent; molecular bonds are temporary to permit high biodegradability,
so that molecules can be combined over and over again. Genetic
modifications naturally occur in the realm of bacteria as this is part of their
evolutionary pathway.

TOXIC

Challenges

Transition and Resilience

10 Fragen an Martin Jänicke

Prof. Dr. Martin Jänicke ist einer der profundesten Kenner der deutschen und internationalen Umweltpolitik. Seit 1974 ist er auch als Politikberater tätig

Interview: Martin Orth

1. Herr Professor Jänicke, Sie reisen derzeit durchs Ausland, um die wirtschaftliche Erfolgsgeschichte der deutschen Klimapolitik zu erklären. Welchen Anteil hat denn die Politik an dem Erfolg?

Im Umweltschutz, aber auch im Klimaschutz hat Marktversagen immer eine große Rolle gespielt. Die Politik hat dem entgegenwirken müssen. Im Klimaschutz dramatisiert sich dies nun noch. Es geht dort nicht nur um einen gewaltigen Innovationsprozess hin zu klimafreundlichen Technologien. Es geht zusätzlich darum, diesen technischen Wandel zu beschleunigen. Und es geht um globale Wirkungen dieses Wandels. Das können Märkte allein nicht leisten. Hier sind der Staat und die Staatengemeinschaft gefordert. Deutschland hat in dieser Hinsicht nach 1990 und vor allem nach 1998 eine Pionierrolle eingenommen. Hier wurde frühzeitig und parteiübergreifend eine auf technische ­Innovation angelegte Klimapolitik betrieben. Das zahlt sich heute aus.

2. Experten sprechen von einer „dritten industriellen Revolution“. Wie tiefgreifend ist der Wandel?

Der Begriff ist der Dramatik des anstehenden Wandels durchaus angemessen. Wir stehen heute am Ende des wirtschaftlichen Erfolgsmodells des 20. Jahrhunderts. Die industrielle Massenproduktion auf der Basis billiger Rohstoffe ist in der Krise. Dieses Modell eines ressourcenintensiven Industrialismus hat unser Leben in fast jeder Hinsicht bestimmt, vom Energiesystem über die Verkehrsstrukturen bis hin zur Weltarbeitsteilung. Auch die ständige Ersetzung von Arbeit durch billige Energie gehörte zu diesem Modell. Das alles steht vor dem Umbruch hin zu einer wissensintensiven Produktionsweise, die den Ressourcenverbrauch – Material, Energie, Wasser, Boden – einer Effizienzrevolution unterwirft.

3. Welche Schlüsseltechnologien stehen dahinter?

Der dramatischste Wandel vollzieht sich sicher im Bereich der erneuerbaren Energien und der Energieeffizienz. Die höchsten Wachstumsraten hatte bis zum letzten Jahr die Photovoltaik, die meiner Meinung nach auch die wichtigste unter den erneuerbaren Energien ist. Technologien, die mit Energien effizienter umgehen, wachsen nicht ganz so schnell, haben aber ein breites Spektrum und ganz sicher eine wachsende Bedeutung. Die Möglichkeiten reichen vom sparsamen Elektromotor über Plusenergiehäuser bis zur Bio-Kata­lyse in der Chemie. Eine unterschätzte, aber ungemein wichtige Form der Energieeinsparung bieten Technologien, die die Materialnutzung reduzieren. Das betrifft die erfolgreichen deutschen Technologien zur Abfalltrennung ebenso wie etwa Verfahren zur Wiederverwertung von Baustoffen.

4. Bei großen Vorhaben wie dem Projekt „Desertec“ sind Unternehmen beteiligt, die man in diesem Kreis nicht erwartet hätte. Entstehen im Zuge des Wandels ganz andere Unternehmen?

Das Projekt wird seit den siebziger Jahren diskutiert. Erst der Klimawandel und die Entwicklung der Energiepreise haben ihm zum Durchbruch verholfen. Es ist ein Symptom einer Energiewende, um die es geht. Dass hartnäckige Gegner dieser Energiewende nunmehr dabei sind, kennzeichnet den Wandel ebenso wie das Auftauchen von ganz neuen Akteuren wie der Münchener Rück.

5. Die Meinungen zu „Desertec“ gehen auseinander. Erfordern große Herausforderungen ungewöhnliche Maßnahmen?

Ich bin kein besonderer Freund zentralisierter Großprojekte. Es kann aber kein Zweifel bestehen, dass die produktive Nutzung der Wüsten dieser Welt Win-win-­Potenziale hat, die weit über die Energiegewinnung hinausgehen. Die Beteiligung der örtlichen Bevölkerungen wird hierbei eine kritische Größe sein.

6. Wie ist Deutschland bei grünen Technologien international positioniert? Wo liegen die Stärken im Vergleich zu anderen Industrienationen?

Deutschland hat in diesem Bereich ziemlich eindeutig eine Führungsposition inne. Das gilt für den Anteil am Weltmarkt der Umwelttechnik. Das gilt für entsprechende Patente. Das gilt nicht zuletzt für die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung, die die Umweltindustrie im Lande hat. Wie immer man diesen heterogenen Sektor definiert, er ist in Deutschland größer als in anderen EU-Ländern und in der EU wichtiger als in anderen Weltregionen, wobei China und die USA stark aufholen. Roland Berger hat der Umweltindustrie für 2007 einen Anteil von 8 Prozent am deutschen BIP bescheinigt und für 2020 14 Prozent prognostiziert.

7. Woher kommt diese Dynamik?

Die heutige Umweltindustrie besteht nicht mehr vorrangig aus Anbietern von Filtern und Reinigungsanlagen. Diese „End of ­pipe“-Technik war teuer und hat letztlich die Produktivität gesenkt. Die moderne Umweltindustrie besteht aus Anbietern ökoeffizienter Verfahren, Produkte und Dienstleistungen, die letztlich die Produktivität erhöhen. Zu dem hohen Wachstum der modernen Umweltindustrie kommt also noch ein volkswirtschaftlicher Nutzen hinzu. Das war die Kernidee der „ökologischen Modernisierung“, die in Deutschland in den 1980er-Jahren entwickelt wurde und heute vor allem in China vertreten wird.

8. Wie sind die Reaktionen auf Ihren Reisen? Färbt der Wandel auf das Deutschland-Bild im Ausland ab?

Vor zehn Jahren erlebte man in Ländern wie USA, Frankreich oder Japan oft Reaktionen vom Typus „Die spinnen, die Deutschen“. Das ist heute völlig anders. Inzwischen ist deutlich geworden, dass Öko-­Effizienz – also die umweltfreundliche Steigerung der Ressourcenproduktivität – erhebliche wirtschaftliche Erfolge hervorbringen kann. Vermutlich ist sie die wichtigste Dimension des internationalen Innovationswettbewerbs geworden. Und auf diesen Wettbewerb stellen sich immer mehr Länder ein, allen voran China und die USA. Deutschland gilt hier als Musterbeispiel. „Lesson drawing“ ist das Ziel vieler Besuchergruppen.

9. Bei allem Erfolg: Sind die ambitionierten Klimaziele wirklich erreichbar?

Die schlechte Nachricht ist: Der Klimawandel ist erheblich gefährlicher, als selbst der Weltklimarat (IPCC) errechnet hat. Eigentlich zweifelt kein Experte mehr daran, dass die Klimaziele weiter verschärft werden müssen. Die gute Nachricht ist, dass die benötigten Technologien und ihre Potenziale zur Problemlösung ebenfalls unterschätzt wurden. Hinzu kommt eine Erfahrung, die vor allem Deutschland nach 1998 gemacht hat: Anspruchsvolle Klimaziele stimulieren technischen Fortschritt und können Erfolge auf neuen Zukunftsmärkten bewirken. Das wissen wir mittlerweile. Das Kyoto-Ziel wurde in Deutschland bereits 2007 überschritten und das Ziel für grünen Strom wurde zwei Mal angehoben. Neu ist das, was man den „Akzelerationseffekt“ einer solchen Politik nennen kann: Die Innovationseffekte einer anspruchsvollen Klimapolitik erweitern den politischen Handlungsspielraum. Wo bisher nur die maßvolle Energieeinsparung in Gebäuden das Thema war, geht es nun um Passivhäuser oder gar um Plusenergiehäuser, die auch das Elektroauto versorgen können. Dies Tempo des technischen Fortschritts rechtfertigt also anspruchsvollere Klimaziele – auch aus ökonomischen Gründen.

10. Das klingt sehr optimistisch, Herr Professor Jänicke . . .

Ich rede nur über das halb volle Glas, also nicht über unsere Kohlekraftwerke oder die Fehler der deutschen Autoindustrie, die uns Zehntausende von Arbeitsplätzen kosten. Das betrifft die andere Hälfte des Glases und die Klimafolgen auch unseres Fehlverhaltens. Ich meine jedoch, dass der deutsche Hang zum Selbstmitleid uns nicht hindern sollte, unsere Erfolgspfade zu erkennen, auf ihnen voranzuschreiten und positive Erfahrungen weiterzugeben.
07.09.09

Eco-efficiency

View from engineer’s insights

"Richard Nixon was a comunist"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
An Energy-Independent Future
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Collapse?

Some new forces ?

Already Peak Oil? The best is yet to come..

Hermann Scheer

Victory Gardens

In 1943, 20 million gardens were producing 8 million tons of food.

Victory Gardens, also called "war gardens" or "food gardens for defense", were gardens planted both at private residences and on public land during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil "morale booster" — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. These gardens produced up to 41 percent of all the vegetable produce that was consumed in the nation.
-City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America, Laura Lawson

In 1941, America went to war. At home the war effort touched everyone. Throughout the country, at home in the States, people plowed front yards, lawns, back yards, flower gardens and vacant lots to grow their own vegetables. Even public land was put to use, from the lawn at San Francisco City Hall to the Boston Commons to portions of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. San Francisco's victory program became one of the best in the country. There were over 800 gardens in Golden Gate Park. Every park in the city had gardens and many vacant lots were used for growing vegetables.

Drawing from the rich history of World War II Victory Gardens, Victory Gardens 2007+ puts a new spin on the meaning of “victory”. In this program, “victory” is:
- independence from corporate food systems
- community involvement
- getting people closer to the natural environment.

A Friendly Permaculture Critique of the Obamas’ Vegetable Garden



Holistic Agriculture Library

Ackoff

Does knowing more necessarily make you happier?

WISDOM

.... a little differently: if we want to try and live in a world of truth, we should make an effort to live in a world of possibility. Let's take two cooks, and one cook is living in the world of truth and knows exactly how to cook everything. The other cook is open to possibilities. For example, I wonder how many people in this room when making scrambled eggs have put currants in scrambled eggs, it's very, very good. Trying possibilities, possibilities— we want to live in a world of truth which obviously if you're driving a motor car that's valid, but otherwise open up a bit to have possibilities. People behave in a certain way and you think they are aggressive. You say maybe there's a possibility, maybe they're a little bit insecure, maybe there's something else. But we don't make enough effort to open our universe to possibilities.

We want to say this is true, this is right answer in school, that's what the teacher is going to give you marks for. And possibilities enlarge the world tremendously.

Architectural Firm Uses Fungi to Reimagine Sustainable Neighborhoods

.......Building sustainable neighborhoods using new methodology would give communities new tools with which to green their environment. More flexible systems around resources, like food, water and energy production, could be clustered around the border to encourage adoption outside the ecodistrict. The colonization of empty spaces would give residents a sense of self-organization and autonomy to regulate the needs of their neighborhood. And the nodes of activity outside the ecodistrict would help launch visible, sustainable development out into the community. These ideas, if implemented, would radically transform the traditional way that developers and designers look at cities.

In the end, the biomimicry challenge also transformed the way the team worked, especially the part that removed them from their physical anchor. "It's a different approach when you're talking about solutions in the office," says Rodríguez. "The environment was really leading our discussion. You can refer to different things and point to them--that doesn't happen in the office. It's a creative way of exploring and it was really an exploration." Rovalo saw another transformation occur when the architects stopped looking in design books for inspiration and started looking outside. "For me it was really interesting to see how designers and architects have references of other architects or other designers. Even though they propose and create new things, they're always looking at previous references," he says. "Now having a reference of a mushroom--it's like jumping to another world."

Nature as an inspiration for architects - Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has come up with a design for a floating city based on a giant lillypad, which he says would be a long-term solution to rising sea levels.

FAIRCONOMY-Einsteiger: Geld für alle

Being less bad

Scale

The 40th World Economic Forum is dedicated to eradicating poverty by the simplest, most obvious means possible

more WEF

A looming shortage of phosphor and clean water is a threat to our food security

Planetary Boundaries

Johan Röckstrom recently gave a talk on Planetary Boundaries based on the papers Nature (doi:10.1038/461472a) and Ecology and Society.

In those papers the authors propose propose nine planetary boundaries, beyond which the functioning of the earth system will fundamentally change from the conditions in which human civilization has emerged. They argue that we have crossed the climate, nitrogen and extinction boundaries, and need to change the course of our civilization to move back into conditions which provide a safety for human civilization.

Walmart

AMSTERDAM DECLARATION

More about Blue Economy

Energy risk

and

The Story of Bottled Water

Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet

Contemplative Mind

Transition

In Transition 1.0 from Transition Towns on Vimeo.

Natural Capitalism
You can listen to Amory Lovins speaking about natural capitalism here

How Much Power Do Economists Have, Really?

European Innovation Summit

Blue economy

Blue Economy




"Mere months after the 2008 financial meltdown, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported the loss of 50 million jobs. Developing economies were deeply affected by massive layoffs in the formal sector and the loss of income in the informal sector. It was a social shock that unsettled the world. In essence, the world economy for the past few decades was capitalized on money that simply did not exist. Downsizing and outsourcing were some of the key driving forces of every major industrial group. "Wealth" was generated by making "assets" appear as though by magic through leveraging credit and creating financial instruments that contributed not even remotely to the value of the business. Money was multiplied over and over in special accounts without risk, initiative, or production of real assets. Innovation was limited to investments that could produce multiple short term returns. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, verged on becoming a vanishing breed.

The form of capitalism that has dominated world societies is entirely disconnected from peoples' real needs. Some two billion people struggle to get by on less than two dollars a day, lacking access to food, water, health, and energy, the most basic requirements for survival. Over 25% of the world's youth are unemployed. Yet one billion of us are overnourished and swim in 400 million tons of electronic waste with higher metal concentrations than the ores extracted from the earth. Conservatively, the top 70% of the world's wealth is concentrated in the top 10% of the population.

The business model that requires companies to invest more in order to save the environment will be replaced with a framework that permits less investment and more revenues while building social capital.

Fortunately, times are changing. This book is about that change. As the second decade of the 21st century sets the stage for a new economy, the core question we answer is, "What is the business framework we really need?"

Up to now, the model driving our economies depended on perpetual growth, requiring ever more resources and investments. This model has inherent flaws. It leads to unjust societies, highly skewed and exploitative economies, and devastated ecosystems. The business model that defines corporate environmental responsibility in terms of size of investment, and defines corporate success as increased shareholder value and grandiose executive compensation, must be replaced. The new economy must be more effective and more collaborative. It must become truly sustainable, introducing innovations that permit less investment, generate more revenues, and build the strengths of a community and builds up social capital - not debt. This is the business framework that will drive the new Blue Economy. This is the framework that will seek out and define true sustainability for all living species on Earth.

The prevailing economic model predicates that scarcity is the major limitation. Industry searches for ever higher agricultural yields and manufactory outputs, demanding that the Earth and human labor produce more. We must re-evaluate this notion and begin to more fully utilize what the Earth and labor produce, rather than demanding more materials and more output. It is time to end the insatiable quest for ever lower costs that drives business towards economies of scale through egamergers and acquisitions financed by billion dollar loans. It is time to adopt broad-based innovative strategies that generate multiple revenues and greater cash flows while creating more jobs. It is time for a Blue Economy.

In shifting our focus to economies of scope, the framework of the Blue Economy opens possibilities for a new generation of entrepreneurs who use what is available to sustainably address the needs of the Earth and all its citizens.

The shift from the model of core businesses based on a single core competence and economies of scale to a framework of multiple businesses with aligned economies of scope may sound unrealistic to the executive trained by any leading business school. However, the current global crisis highlights the need for an framework of economic development that is based on fundamental innovation and that will generate desperately needed jobs while sustainably addressing the needs of the earth and all its citizens. This "blue" approach is not only viable, it has already begun to take root. Four years of research has identified a portfolio of 100 innovations including whole systems models that have the potential to generate as many as 100 million jobs worldwide over the next 10 years."

http://p2pfoundation.net/Blue_Economy

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