INSnet - Internetwork for Sustainability

INSnet - InterNetwork for Sustainability - is a nonprofit informal network to support and promote comprehensive sustainable development.

We do this by offering an open, international platform for publishing relevant information, knowledge and examples of good practices and results to support the work of people, parents, teachers, workers, businesspeople, politicians and administrators, communicators and leaders for leaving a better world for future generations.

Global Economic Growth Strains Earth's Vital Signs

The world is producing - and consuming - more food, material goods and natural resources than ever before, according to the Worldwatch Institute's "Vital Signs 2005" report on trends shaping the world's future.

Increased production and consumption of everything from grain to oil to meat to automobiles reflects strong economic growth in 2004, the report says, but this growth comes with ecological and social costs that often go unnoticed.

Pollution continues to increase, ecosystems are degraded, and many of the world's poor are being left further behind despite economic growth.

The physical indicators of growth "serve to remind us that we have by no means freed ourselves from the material world and its persistent threats," said Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin.

Based in Washington, DC, the research group has produced "Vital Signs" annually since 1992; this year's report tracks 35 economic, social and ecological trends.

http://www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2005/01/12/

PV energy payback time

Producing electricity with photovoltaics (PV) emits no pollution, produces no greenhouse gases, and uses no finite fossil-fuel resources.
The environmental benefits of PV are great. But just as we say that it takes money to make money, it also takes energy to save energy. The term “energy payback” captures this idea.
How long does a PV system have to operate to recover the energy—and associated generation of pollution and CO2—that went into making the system, in the first place?

Read on:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37322.pdf

Peak Oil - Peak Economy

In the last issue of New Solutions, we proposed that in addition to Peak Oil, we are at a time of Peak Technology as there are no new technologies which can replace fossil fuels.
In this issue, we examine the impact of Peak Oil on the world economic structure, one built on the confidence in ever-expanding markets fueled by technology, itself fueled by oil.
Our analysis suggests that there is every reason for concern – and unless serious action is begun now, we may very well be headed toward another Great Depression. We are hovering on the edge of an unsustainable Peak Economy.

http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS5.pdf

Humility & Reverence

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in it processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never clearly understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

Wendell Berry - Recollected Essays

Natural Capitalism - The Next Industrial Revolution

For decades, environmentalists have been warning that human economic activity is exceeding the planet's limits. Of course we keep pushing those limits back with clever new technologies; yet living systems are undeniably in decline.

These trends need not be in conflict—in fact, there are fortunes to be made in reconciling them.

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, is the first book to explore the lucrative opportunities for businesses in an era of approaching environmental limits.

http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid20.php

bluegreenearth

This group is a forum for people interested in global community, ecological, environmental and social reportage, opinion and analysis + news, views and facts.

The website www.bluegreenearth.com is run by BLUE, an editorial collective:
ROBERT ALLEN Commissioning Editor/Admin
TIM BARTON Web Design/Editorial/Art
STEVE BOOTH Green Anarchist Editorial
EANNA DOWLING Contributing Editor
ERIK VALENCIC Radio Student, Ljubljana News Editor - Central Europe/Contributing Editor

There is also an excellent Yahoo Groups site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bluegreenearth/

Our efforts unite...

Some men see things and ask "why?" I dream things that never were and ask "why not?" said George Bernard Shaw; and we asked ourselves "WHY NOT?"

Drops of water make an ocean, grains of sand make a desert, and clusters of star make a galaxy... Why not unite our efforts towards peace, stability and security? Why not realize our responsibility towards the global community? Why not be the ripple that sets currents of change rolling?

The future and destiny of the World is shaped in its classrooms. In this world of cataclysmic changes, the need of the hour is to think global but act local. We have to be worthy inheritors and conquerors of this World; and yet give it away to the one that seeks it the most. We have the responsibility of shaping the world we want to leave behind as a legacy.

Violence, terrorism, wars threaten the security and sustainability of our planet; and we are the biggest stakeholders in its consequences. We stand as the pivot of the world and we can change the world by changing ourselves. Globalization has brought in its wake new challenges. Awareness and understanding of international affairs are imperative to meet them with panache.

Yes. We dream of a world where mutual cooperation is the guiding precept of international relations. We dream of a world free from the scourge of war and terrorism. We foresee a world where borders do not divide... It is our firm belief that 'peace' would soon be realized. We are not covering huge distances; just a step a time; it is our humble attempt to dishevel any prejudice, voice our concern for global security and strive for what the world most needs - unity.
We have dared to dream... and why not?

http://www.effortsunited.com

Go by bicycle

Remember when you first learned to ride a bike? Think back for a second. It's just as much fun now as it was then.

The bicycle is the most efficient form of transportation ever invented.

If you see someone you know while riding, it's easy to stop and say hello. Bicycles create public space, enhance street life and build a sense of community.

So try it. Go by bicycle.

http://www.gobybicycle.com/

Oil and Food: A Rising Security Challenge

From farm to plate, the modern food system relies heavily on cheap oil. Threats to our oil supply are also threats to our food supply. As food undergoes more processing and travels farther, the food system consumes ever more energy each year.

The biggest political action individuals take each day is deciding what to buy and eat. Preferentially buying local foods that are in season can cut transport and farm energy use and can improve food safety and security. Buying fewer processed, heavily packaged, and frozen foods can cut energy use and marketing costs, and using smaller refrigerators can slash household electricity bills. Eating lower on the food chain can reduce pressure on land, water, and energy supplies.

Fossil fuel reliance may prove to be the Achilles heel of the modern food system. Oil supply fluctuations and disruptions could send food prices soaring overnight. Competition and conflict could quickly escalate. Decoupling the food system from the oil industry is key to improving food security.

Danielle Murray
Eco-Economy Update 2005-4

Read the full article:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2005/Update48.htm

Academic warns of global crisis as oil production peaks

With the rapid decline of global oil supplies, the United States is heading for an economic crash unlike anything since the 1930s. And the collapse of the dollar will affect every nation on earth.

This is the chilling warning from academic Richard Heinberg of the New College of California. Heinberg is in Cape Town this week to share his views on what governments and societies need to do to mitigate the imminent global crisis after world oil production peaks.

He sketches four main options available in response:

1. Following the US leadership in competing for remaining resources through wars;

2. Wishful thinking that the market or science will come to the rescue;

3. Assuming that we are already in the early stages of disintegration, devoting our energies to preserving the most worthwhile cultural achievements of the past few centuries.

4. "Powering down" - reducing energy resource use drastically through economic sacrifice, reducing the population size and developing alternative energy sources.

"The sooner we choose wisely, the better off we and our descendants will be," Heinberg said.

http://www.capetimes.co.za/general/print_article.php?fArticleId=2505413&fSectionId=271&fSetId=520

Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant

A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the closure of Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant.

The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter.

Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques devised to repair the £2.1bn plant.


Sellafield nuclear plant, where the Thorp reprocessing plant has been closed.

Paul Brown
Environment correspondent
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1479527,00.html

Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows

CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream — the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing.

They have found that one of the “engines” driving the Gulf Stream — the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea — has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

The weakening, apparently caused by global warming, could herald big changes in the current over the next few years or decades. Paradoxically, it could lead to Britain and northwestern and Europe undergoing a sharp drop in temperatures.

Such a change has long been predicted by scientists but the new research is among the first to show clear experimental evidence of the phenomenon.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1602579,00.html

Designing the Future - William McDonough

Imagine buildings that generate more energy than they consume and factories whose waste water is clean enough to drink. William McDonough has accomplished these tasks and more. Architect, industrial designer and founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry in Charlottesville, Va., he's not your traditional environmentalist. Others may expend their energy fighting for stricter environmental regulations and repeating the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle." McDonough's vision for the future includes factories so safe they need no regulation, and novel, safe materials that can be totally reprocessed into new goods, so there's no reason to scale back consumption (or lose jobs). In short, he wants to overhaul the Industrial Revolution—which would sound crazy if he weren't working with Fortune 500 companies and the government of China to make it happen. The recipient of two U.S. presidential honors and the National Design Award, McDonough is the former dean of architecture at the University of Virginia and co-chair of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development. He spoke in New York recently with NEWSWEEK's Anne Underwood.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7773650/site/newsweek/

Is it already too late?

This extraordinarily bleak possibility actually looks like a probability – a third of a century after we had our best chance, when the likes of Aden Meinel were preaching a renewable energy transition strategy and Paolo Soleri and others were saying the same about replacing the city of cars, sprawl and gasoline with pedestrian ecological cities. I thought, back then, that human creativity could come to the fore and the positive side of an ecologically healthy future could be built, in the style some call, unfortunately not very melodiously, "proactive." The "reactive" approach – wait for the disaster to move people first – struck me as having the potential to erode the positive alternatives in a deadly manner. Now we have to face the likelihood that we have waited too long and have little time and resources left for positive investment. As they say, it takes a long, long time to turn a gigantic tanker around when its underway – and our physical "built infrastructure" is a million times as big as the largest tanker ever constructed and it definitely has massive momentum in its destructive direction. Perhaps the end of oil and beginning of expensive energy will be the iceberg for an even more accurate maritime metaphor. Tanker hell! This is a passenger ship!

excerpt from "Design, Oil and the End of the World"
by Richard Register
September 24, 2004
http://ecocitybuilders.org/design.html

Help fight global warming

Each time you fly, you are contributing to global warming.

Aeroplanes use kerosene, which is a non-renewable fossil fuel that releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as it burns.

The Guardian, The Observer and Guardian Unlimited have joined forces with Climate Care to enable you to pay to balance out your share of your flight's emissions. Your money will be used to fund projects that absorb, reduce or avoid an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases elsewhere. This is called an 'offset'.

Guardian Newspapers Ltd offsets all of its business air travel booked through its main travel agent, and aims to extend this to cover staff flights booked through its other suppliers during 2005. All reader flight offers through our marketing department now offer the option to offset emissions. By taking this action you are helping to repair your impact on the climate.

Calculate the cost to offset my flight

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatecare/0,15715,1394054,00.html

New Zealand first to levy carbon tax

New Zealanders will pay an extra NZ$2.90 (£1.11) a week for electricity, petrol and gas when the country becomes the first in the world to introduce a carbon tax to address global warming.

It is expected to add about 6% to household energy prices and 9% for most businesses but will help the economy in the long run, according to Pete Hodgson, the minister responsible for climate change policy.

Mr Hodgson set the tax yesterday at NZ$11 a metric tonne of carbon emitted. It will come into effect in two years. "If we are going to tackle climate change, we need to start taking environmental costs into account in the economic choices we make," he said.
The tax, planned after New Zealand signed up to the Kyoto protocol, would make polluting energy sources such as coal and oil more expensive than cleaner ones such as hydro, wind and solar, he said.

A government spokesman said the tax would have long term benefits for the economy: "If New Zealand does nothing _ our emissions will continue to rise as will the future cost of reducing them. If we can curb our growth in greenhouse gas emissions now, we will be better placed to make a smooth transition to more challenging commitments after 2012."

Other countries, especially in Europe, have energy taxes which are weighted against producers but New Zealand is believed to be the first to ask the public to pay directly for the costs of reducing global warming. Proposals for a Europe-wide carbon tax were abandoned in the 90s.

Read the full article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1476775,00.html

"As the human population grows and our demand for natural resources increases, more and more habitats are devastated.
Today, we may be losing 30,000 species a year -- a rate much faster than at any time since the last great extinction 65 million years ago that wiped out most of the dinosaurs.
If we continue on this course, we will destroy even ourselves."

American Museum of Natural History

Climate change warning over food production

Climate change is set to do far worse damage to global food production than even the gloomiest of previous forecasts, according to studies presented at the Royal Society in London, UK, on Tuesday.
“We need to seriously re-examine our predictions of future global food production,” said Steve Long, a crop scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US. Output is “likely to be far lower than previously estimated”.

According to Andrew Challinor of the University of Reading, UK, climate change will mean tropical countries like India will face short periods of super-high temperatures - into the high 40s Celsius. These temperatures could completely destroy crops if they coincide with the flowering period.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn7310

If the Earth were only....

The Theory of the Dipper and the Bucket

Each of us has an invisible bucket. It is constantly emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to us. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it's empty, we feel awful.

Each of us also has an invisible dipper. When we use that dipper to fill other people's buckets -- by saying or doing things to increase their positive emotions -- we also fill our own bucket. But when we use that dipper to dip from others' buckets -- by saying or doing things that decrease their positive emotions -- we diminish ourselves.

Like the cup that runneth over, a full bucket gives us a positive outlook and renewed energy. Every drop in that bucket makes us stronger and more optimistic.

But an empty bucket poisons our outlook, saps our energy, and undermines our will. That's why every time someone dips from our bucket, it hurts us.

So we face a choice every moment of every day: We can fill one another's buckets, or we can dip from them. It's an important choice -- one that profoundly influences our relationships, productivity, health, and happiness.

http://www.bucketbook.com/

Bob Hunter

Greenpeace founding member dead at 63

Perhaps more than anyone else, Bob Hunter invented Greenpeace. His death on March 2nd 2005, of cancer, marks the passing of a true original, one of the heroes of the environmental movement.


Bob Hunter - Greenpeace

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/bob-hunter

State of the World 2005

A quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai provided a visual backdrop for the April 27 launch of State of the World 2005: Redefining Global Security in Berlin: "If we did a better job of managing our resources more sustainably, conflicts over them would be reduced. Protecting the global environment is directly related to securing peace."

http://www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2005/05/02

Keep smiling! 

Millenium Ecosystem Assessment

Recently, the most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.

Four years in the making, the project was given the tongue-twisting name Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and it brought together nearly 1,400 experts from 95 countries. Their goal was to conduct a global inventory of the state of our ecosystems, quantify the effect that human activities are having on them and make suggestions for the future.

Although many people still consider nature as something that is "out there," and not relevant to our everyday lives, we are, in fact, deeply embedded in the natural world. As a result, the health of natural systems actually has a profound impact on our quality of life. Natural systems purify our air and water, stabilize our climate and soils, provide us with raw resources and much more. That's why the assessment focused especially on how ecosystem health affects human well being.

http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4391835.stm

Ecovillage living

The Earth is in need of visions and solutions, which give hope and show a possible path forward for humanity. How do we solve the global, ecological and social problems all at the same time? What will the solutions look like? How do we dream of living with each other and the natural world? Is it possible to create a lifestyle, which is basically peaceful, just and sustainable for all? Are ecovillages and sustainable neighborhoods the way forward?

Ecovillages are urban or rural communities of people, who strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life. To achieve this, they integrate various aspects of ecological design, permaculture, ecological building, green production, alternative energy, community building practices, and much more.

Read more:
http://gen.ecovillage.org/about/wiaev.php
http://ena.ecovillage.org/store/ev-living_english.html

Earth Day 2005

We celebrated Earth Day in Auroville on April 22nd. It turned out a fabulous day with lots of "serious" fun around the theme Auroville Motor-Less!


http://www.auroville.org/journals&media/avtoday/May%202005/earthday.htm

Life after the oil crash

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.
This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global “Peak Oil.”

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

That's me! :-)

http://www.auroville.org/journals&media/avtoday/may_04/profile_jos.htm
http://www.auroville.org/journals&media/avtoday/dec_2002/solar.htm