Click to visit a great 3P resource L. Hunter Lovins, one of the most famous sustainability proponents in the United States, was recently interviewed by the Sustainability Industries Journal. SIJ caught up with her to find out what she had been doing since leaving the Rocky Mountain Institute in 2002. It sounds to me like she has been pretty busy, what with founding and managing Natural Capitlism Solutions.

In the interview, she introduces a concept which is slightly different from what we are used to, and one which I have had trouble articulating in the past. She talks about the integrated bottom line as a solution to the problems with triple bottom line reporting. If you have ever tried to account for your organizations social and environmental responsibility, you have probably noticed that doing the right thing often seems to reduce your profits. The integrated bottom line is a reporting concept that solves this conceptual dilemma.

Taken from http://www.conversationweek.org/top-ten-questions/

Top 10 Questions for 2008… Plus One!

Fifteen hundred people in 39 countries participated in suggesting and selecting the following ten questions as the most important ones in the world today. These are our concerns expressed not as demands but as the questions we must all consider at every level of life to meet the challenges of our times.

Conversation Week 2008 gives us a chance to talk with friends, neighbors and strangers about one or more of these questions – and discover answers that can re-direct our lives and work, while knowing that sincere people on the other side of the planet are doing the same.

So, how do we make people care about issues of sustainability? And not just part of the spectrum, but all of it. Consistently, we have people who single out an element of what it means to be sustainable, show little regard for anything else, and consider themselves sustainable. For example, we have the people in the corporate world who are focused on energy efficiency in order to decrease carbon footprint and still sustain if not augment profits. We have extreme environmentalists who are focused on, solely, the environment. And we have social dissidents who dislike many elements of society's current direction in general and thus fight for some kind of change. But sustainability means to bridge all these elements, coalesce them into some semblance of harmonious work.

There are almost no scientists debating whether or not humans are causing disruptive climate patterns any more, but the Heartland Institute (aka The Greenwasher) is sponsoring a "scientific" conference right now in New York City. They're calling it the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. Justice of the Peace Doug Reed is attending to learn more about "the issue" as Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe considers a moratorium on new coal plant constuction.

Now, why is JP/physics teacher Doug Reed so unconvinced about climate change? He is a physics teacher?! It makes me wonder why Arkansas consistently comes in low in national education rankings. Contrast our public official's statement with this one from California:

"You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind climate change."

An Introduction to Urban Ecology

What is urban ecology? It is not altogether new, but it is a relatively recent and refreshing change in perception of the relationship between human landscapes and natural ecosystems. It can be defined as the study of ecosystems that include humans living in cities and urbanizing landscapes aiming to understand how human and ecological processes can coexist in human-dominated systems and help societies with their efforts to become more sustainable (Marzluff et al., 2008)

Previously, studies in ecology and in social sciences have been separated, analyzed as individual components. But clearly, humans live within and are dependent on the natural systems of the earth. Therefore, we need to view society and ecosystems as interrelated. We must ask the question of how human and ecological patterns emerge from the interactions between socioeconomic and biophysical processes (Alberti et al., 2008). Practitioners of urban ecology propose this form of paradigm shift, to break free from what is called a reductionist approach, or studying only the individual components of systems, and shift into a more integrative approach to understanding the complexity of human relationships with nature.

Everybody knows about peak oil. In fact, there is a growing number of people saying that we have already passed it. Many people are even starting to talk about peak water, peak copper, or even peak bandwidth, but peak population is a topic that does not often get discussed in sustainability talks. Climate disruption and profitable incentives often dominate strategic planning, but overconsumption and overpopulation are certainly urgent crises that call for education and leadership initiatives. Unfortunately, scientific models of our planet's capacity to support human life are not very accurate.

Part of the problem is the complexity of the two major pieces to this puzzle:

1. What is the stable population that the Earth will support?

2. How much higher than that will our population peak?

Source Credit: 

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007830.html

December 11, 2007

[Editor's note: When most people think of sustainability, they often limit themselves to the environmental and corporate concepts, neglecting the social and personal aspects of such an important idea. Josh Newman is a very thoughtful counselor in Northwest Arkansas that has done a good job of articulating the relationship between our mental health and the sustainability of our society.]

The earth is a beehive; we all enter by the same door. African Proverb

It was the redwood trees of Northern California in concert with my fellow pilgrim who helped me to realize that my purpose in life is to be a mental health counselor.

Since it was November when we gave our last update, and because we have such a usable new website, I think it's time for us to give you an update of what we have been doing (and keep 'em coming). I can't put everything into one post, but this should be a good summary to catch you up to date. As time goes on, each of this activities will get its own page that describes in more detail our progress (or lack of it), who is involved, and where the projects are headed.

• "To all of the global warming skeptics.. <sigh> Listen to the science, people." - Governor Mike Beebe, opening speech of the 2008 AR Wind Energy Conference.

On Jan 17 I attended first ever Arkansas Wind Energy Conference, which took place on the UAFS campus in Forth Smith. I have to admit, I was skeptical going in because Arkansas is not know for progressive energy or economic policy. The conference was presented by the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the U of A Division of Agriculture. I want to thank the AEDC especially for arranging such an impressive conference. Just reading that quote from Gov. Beebe makes me giddy.