Infographic | Climate Change & Cities: ’Forget Superheroes: Local Government to the Rescue’
In 2011 CDP Cities collected climate change data from 48 cities around the world. Our first ever infographic celebrates the actions taken by local governments to ensure that cities remain safe places to live and do business despite the effects of climate change.
Give the earth a new year’s gift and make a donation of any size you can! Here are some of the many NRDC victories made possible by public funding.
You Made a World of Difference in 2011 (by NRDCSaveBioGems)
Free Download: ‘Culture and Behavior: The Human Nature of Unsustainability’
Over the last year or so the Post Carbon Institute has been releasing individual chapters of its best-selling Post Carbon Reader as free downloads. I picked up a copy in the spring and have since found it to be a great resource for learning more about the many complex and interconnected dimensions (e.g. food, climate, energy, cities, water, economics) of our global sustainability crisis.
Today, the PCI recently released a new chapter, ‘Culture and Behavior: The Human Nature of Unsustainability’, written by ecological footprint co-inventor William Rees. Here’s an excerpt:
Humans may pride themselves as being the best evidence for intelligent life on Earth, but an alien observer would record that the (un)sustainability conundrum has the global community floundering in a swamp of cognitive dissonance and collective denial… Indeed, our alien friend might go so far as to ask why our reasonably intelligent species seems unable to recognize the crisis for what it is and respond accordingly.
To begin answering this question, we need to look beyond conventional explanations—scientific uncertainty, societal inertia, lack of political will, resistance by vested interests, and so on — to what may well be the root cause of the conundrum: human nature itself.
Finally, for those interested in the relationship between culture and sustainability you may want to check out the following resources:
- ‘Are we trapped in a cultural mythology that undermines sustainable development?’ by Arish Dastur (World Bank blog)
- ‘Finding cultural values that can transform the climate change debate’ by Tom Crompton (Solutions Journal)
- ‘Overcoming systemic roadblocks to sustainability: The evolutionary redesign of worldviews, institutions and technologies’ (PDF) by Beddoe et al. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
What does that mean?
Well, according to data from the Global Footprint Network, humanity is surpassing nature’s budget for the year, and is now operating in overdraft.
Similar to the way a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, Global Footprint Network tracks human demand on nature (for example, for providing food, producing raw materials and absorbing CO2) against nature’s capacity to regenerate those resources and absorb the waste. Its calculations show that, in approximately nine months, we have surpassed a level of demand on resources that the planet would be able to sustainably support this year.
For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by depleting resource stocks and accumulating CO2 in the atmosphere.
Working to reduce the amount of plastic packaging and waste, Ecologic Brands has developed a new cardboard bottle with an internal plastic pouch. It’s outside is made from entirely recycled cardboard and the inside pouch - which uses 70% less plastic than a plastic jug - is fully recyclable.
also, lots more info at the link but here’s the list:
The Green Depot