Business could be the most powerful force in the world in achieving higher levels of sustainability and resilience but its potential is blocked and shareholders’ interests are put before those of society and the planet.
Why Pittsburgh Real Estate Never Crashes: The Progressive Reform that Stabilized an Economy [DAN SULLIVAN]
Site value taxation is the reason why Pittsburgh’s foreclosure rates are low despite the downturn, its home prices are climbing slightly and construction rates are increasing.
Definancialization, Deglobalization and Relocalization [DMITRY ORLOV]
Attempts at recovery will fail. Anyone who recognizes this should spend whatever money they have engaging with their neighbors and the land.
Part III: New Ways of Using the Land
Cutting Transport Costs and Emissions Through Local Integration [EMER O’SIOCHRU]
Rather than bringing similar activities closer together to reap the benefits of scale and agglomeration, different activities should be situated beside each other to be more energy and carbon efficient.
The Nutritional Resilience Approach to Food Security [BRUCE DARRELL]
Very few soils have a perfect balance of minerals. If the option of filling one’s plate from all over the world disappears, human health will likely decline unless the missing minerals are applied to the soil while it is still possible to do so.
Turning the Land from an Emissions Source to a Carbon Sink [CORINNA BYRNE]
Ireland needs to implement new policies in order to get its land to absorb CO2 rather than release it. Biochar could reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions and build up the fertility and carbon content of the soil.
Part IV: Dealing with Climate Change
Future Global Climate Institutions [ALEX EVANS]
Any framework for dealing with the climate crisis should distribute the global carbon budget among the world’s nations according to a transparent, equitable formula. To achieve this, global climate institutions will have to change.
Cap and Share: Simple is Beautiful [LAURENCE MATTHEWS]
Cap and Share is a fair, effective, cheap, empowering and simple way to reduce emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. It could form the basis of a wider global climate framework but how realistic is it to call for its introduction?
Influencing High-Level Strategic Decision Making Toward a Sustainable Low-Carbon Economy [JULIAN DARLEY]
Decision-making at a global level is governed by a number of non-economic factors which need to be taken into account if the new systems required to deal effectively with climate change are to be introduced.
Part V: Changing the Way we Live
Danger Ahead: Prioritizing Risk Avoidance in Political and Economic Decision-Making [BRIAN DAVEY]
Now that the financial and political components of the present system have largely discredited themselves, a fluid situation exists that might allow more viable options to emerge.
Transition Thinking: The Good Life 2.0 [DAVIE PHILIP]
We need to make an evolutionary leap in the way we do things if we are to make a controlled, planned transition to a post-industrial, low-carbon society. The Transition Towns movement provides a potential model.
Sailing Craft for a Post-Collapse World [DMITRY ORLOV]
Land transport will be costly, difficult and dangerous after the industrial system has broken down. Moving goods and people by water will be a better option even for quite short distances.
Part VI: Changing the Way We Think
The Psychological Roots of Resource Overconsumption [NATE HAGENS]
Humans have an innate need for status and for novelty in their lives. Unfortunately, the modern world has adopted very energy- and resource-intensive ways of meeting those needs.
Busy Doing Nothing: Seven Reasons for Humanity’s Inertia in the Face of Critical Threats and How We Might Remove Them [MARK RUTLEDGE AND BRIAN DAVEY]
Why have humans failed to curb their excessive resource consumption? Seven reasons are outlined here, some of which are systemic, others the result of the way humanity evolved.
Cultivating Hope and Managing Despair [JOHN SHARRY]
Modern psychological models of motivation and change suggest strategies that can be used to help individuals come to terms with the nature and extent of the changes facing them.
Collapse or No Collapse: We Need to Respect to Survive [LUCY MCANDREW]
Respect for ourselves, for others and for nature is fundamental to survival because it is what gives us a sense of our place in the world and, when we lose that, we float free of the network of relationships that sustains us.
Enough: A Worldview for Positive Futures [ANNE RYAN]
There is a crucial need for a new, self-limiting worldview which recognizes that “enough is plenty”. Adopting such a worldview would nourish a culture in which social justice could prevail.
Escape Routes: Fleeing Vesuvius – Which Way Should We Go? [CAROLINE WHYTE]
Contributors to this book suggest steps they think should be taken to escape disaster in four areas — in one’s family, in one’s community, in one’s country, and in the world.
Should the United States Try to Avoid a Financial Meltdown?
RICHARD HEINBERG
“What a goldmine!” That was my first reaction upon digging into the contents of this book. Others might have said something more along the lines of, “Oh my God! I had no idea our predicament was this terrible! What a pit we are in!” My rather gleeful response was due to the fact that I happen to be in the midst of researching and writing a book exploring the evident fact that resource depletion, debt overhang, and climate change have brought about the end of world economic growth (as currently defined). When I drilled into Fleeing Vesuvius, I encountered a rich vein of thought very much attuned