Keyword: sustainable development

Seven Billion People and Their Carbon Emissions: What's the Correlation?

Picture: climate Action Group Saliem Fakir - Environmental debates never escape the proverbial slip of the tongue about the planet having too many people. This debate may have some relevance, but high carbon emissions and population size tend to be lumped together in simplistic ways, which do not clearly demonstrate the true relationship between population size and carbon emissions. This past Monday, October 31, a new historical moment was reached: the world population became home to seven billion people. By 2025 it is expected the...

COP 17 and Rumours of 'Success': What Should One Expect?

Picture: kool_skat_kat Saliem Fakir - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to be hosted in Durban later this year, with this round of talks commonly referred to as COP 17, must not be seen in isolation of the troubled waters gnawing at the knees of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Things aren’t working like they used to or perhaps never really worked. The rupture between environmental values and economic growth has always been there and bodes ominously for the future...

How to Build a Sustainable World: Practical Guidelines to Change How We Live and Work

Picture: greenforall.org Glenn Ashton - The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has recently released a practical strategic analysis that provides a “greenprint” to shift us from our collective environmental crises toward a sustainable future. Entitled “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication - A Synthesis for Policy Makers,” it highlights the economic opportunities, which emerge if we shift away from our exploitative patterns of business as usual....

Just How Much Economic Growth can the Planet Sustain?

Video We are told that "the banks are too big to fail" but its the planet that is too big to fail says a panel of ecological experts. Sadly, economic growth still seems to be taking place at pace with little consideration for its impact on the finite resources of the planet and within a system devoid of any consideration for justice. If every human were to enjoy the living standard of the average North American, we would need four planet Earth's to sustain us all. The opportunity to...

Meeting MDG 7: Is South Africa on Track to Nurture a Sustainable Environment?

Picture: www.ucsc.edu Michelle Pressend - In this time of multiples crises often referred to as the ‘FFF’ - food, fuel and finance crisis - more than ever before, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7, which is to ‘Ensure Environmental Sustainability’, is a critical goal to achieve. In the planetary ecological crisis, both the North and South continue to prioritise economic growth based on conventional economic models -- the North wants to maintain its high growth rates and the South wants to play...