I went by train today to New Haven to visit my International Society for Industrial Ecology office at Yale. To my surprise and delight, the cab driver turned to me before we pulled away from the station and handed me a tote of recycled materials and a well-designed information card. The tote carried an Earth Day logo and the company name, Metro Cabs. Nice way to start the day. On the positive side, the day continued with a highly complimentary note from a faculty member at Penn State who had just read my book. Such feedback always makes my day,… Read More
Continue ReadingEarth Day 2009–Still Stuck
It is easy to find much written this day by people deeply involved in environmentalism and the greening world. I found an unlikely source with a highly relevant lesson for this day. One of the most respected management gurus and teachers, Henry Mintzberg, steps out of his usual role and delivers a powerful critique of business. His words ring far beyond the world of MBA’s who take the brunt of his blows, reaching to the core of our stuckness in unsustainability. Mintzberg is seeking the roots of the financial crisis and lights on management. Citing an analysis he and colleagues… Read More
Continue ReadingRenewing Responsibility: A Lesson for Earth Day 2009
The recovery of responsibility is one of the critical pieces necessary to create sustainability. The other two are, first, a renewed sense of the place of humans within the world, not outside of it looking on, and, second, a recognition that our species acts out of care rather than need (being not having). It is very interesting to me that David Brooks, [writing](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/opinion/21brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) about his impression of President Obama’s economic future speech at Georgetown University picked up on the theme of responsibility. > We’ve all heard liberal speeches on the economy. The central concern is inequality. Power and wealth tend… Read More
Continue ReadingA Resilient Definition of Sustainability
It’s important to define resilience and sustainability in ways that are both resilient and sustainable. If we do not, efforts toward creating these properties in a real world setting will always be aimed at a shifting target. Some of my [earlier posts](http://www.johnehrenfeld.com/2009/01/is-sustainability-becoming-ano.html) spoke about fears that sustainability and its cousin, greening, were in danger of becoming mere buzzwords. I certainly hope not. Jamais Cascio, [writing in Foreign Policy](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4851), adds to the confusion by miscategorizing the above two terms. Here’s his cut. > Sustainability is inherently static. It presumes there’s a point at which we can maintain ourselves and the world,… Read More
Continue ReadingPlaying With Life Cycle Assessment
[Life cycle assessments (LCA)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_cycle_assessment) are one of the most important tools in reducing unsustainability. They enable designers and managers to determine which of several product or service options will create the least environmental impact. They are not perfect, but can point to the most impactful aspects of a product over its entire life cycle. Slate did an LCA comparing credit card use to paying cash. > > What’s the most environmentally friendly way to spend my money—cash or credit card? Credit cards are made out of plastic, which I know I’m supposed to avoid. But it can’t be good for… Read More
Continue ReadingFlourishing: The Vision of Sustainability
Behavioral economics is a new branch of economics that has emerged to explore the reasons people behave differently from the way standard economic theory says they would. And the theories being developed in this field have potential to help guide people’s actions toward some social norm. Reporting in Yale’s Environment 360, Richard Conniff writes: > This new way of thinking about — and some would say manipulating — behavior is likely to be an important tool for addressing environmental issues over the next few years. Behavioral economics is the theory behind a variety of measures now being promoted by environmental… Read More
Continue ReadingSpamalot
More unintended consequences of technology. Not only unintended but very much unwanted. The San Francisco Chronicle [reports](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/14/financial/f210641D12.DTL&type=health) on the environmental impact of Internet spam. > There are plenty of reasons to hate spammers. Add this to the list: They’re environmentally unfriendly. > > A report being released Wednesday by security company McAfee Inc. finds that spammers are a scourge to your inbox and the environment, generating an astounding 62 trillion junk e-mails in 2008 that wasted enough electricity to power 2.4 million U.S. homes for a year. > > The “Carbon Footprint of E-mail Spam Report” estimated the computational power… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat’s Still Wrong With Kansas?
E. Thomas McClanahan, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist bad mouths Earth Day: > With another Earth Day coming up, we’re hearing the usual blather about sustainability — an essentially meaningless term. The [Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability) on the topic says that “For humans to live sustainably, the Earth’s resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished.” McClanahan’s impression of sustainability, like so many others, is distorted by the misuse of this important concept. Sustainability certain does have meaning. It is the ability of any system to produce something we want indefinitely or, at least, over a… Read More
Continue ReadingFlourishing (Continued)
Here’s another reference to flourishing as the condition that underpins human existence. The website, Citizen Renaissance, is well worth bookmarking and following. It’s very encouraging to find others who see sustainability as I do and am trying to convince others to recognize that this way will change their efforts from trying to fix what’s wrong to realizing a positive vision of life on the Planet. Here’s a few key paragraphs. > The idea of wellbeing is more complex than just ‘happiness’ – in fact, it is more about leading a flourishing, meaningful or virtuous life. The Greeks referred to this… Read More
Continue ReadingCan Twitter Feel My Pain?
If you follow this blog, you already know I have a skeptical or worse opinion of social networking technology. My concerns come from a general critique that points to the tendency of technology to suppress the essence of being human. Now cognitive science adds a more solid grounding to that general concern. [Writing in Fast Company](http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/jamais-cascio/open-future/continuous-partial-empathy), futurist Jamais Cascio, commenting on a new publication by Antonio Damasio and colleagues that claims that the human brain is relatively slow writes that “to recognize and empathize with emotional pain, or to acknowledge and celebrate virtue or skill. What this means is that,… Read More
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