2013 March - 31 articles
In French economist Serge Latouche’s 2009 book, Farewell to Growth, Latouche discusses “degrowth” in great detail, but he also explains how racial bias (and bias in general) in the world today has no place in a post-GDP world that embraces the princi...
Efforts to sustain the earth’s biodiversity will include the establishment and manipulation of isolated rescue populations, derived either via in situ fragmentation, or under ex situ circumstances. For target species, especially those with limited pr...
Ecological restoration is an increasingly important component of sustainable land management. We explore potential facilitative relationships for enhancing the cost-effectiveness of restoring native forest understory, focusing on two factors: (1) ove...
Environmental sustainability of post mined limestone quarries often requires reclamation to a diverse woody plant community. Woody species diversity may be severely limited if only nursery stock is relied on for propagation material; thus other sourc...
This paper argues that the contemporary growth paradigm needs to be reconsidered on a micro level of consumption and product service-systems. This becomes necessary since a dynamic link between macro strategies and micro implementation of sustainable...
Nowadays, the electric connection circuits of power plants (based on fossil fuels as well as renewable sources) entail generator circuit-breakers (GCBs) at the generator terminals, since the presence of that electric equipment offers many advantages...
Active restoration is one strategy to reverse tropical forest loss. Given the dynamic nature of climates, human populations, and other ecosystem components, the past practice of using historical reference sites as restoration targets is unlikely to r...
Replacement of fossil carbon by renewable biomass-based carbon is an effective measure to mitigate CO2 emission intensity in the blast furnace ironmaking process. Depending on the substitution rate of fossil fuels, the required amount of biomass can...
After a successful start in 2011, the 2nd World Sustainability Forum (WSF) was held on sciforum.net from 1–30 November 2012. More than 80 papers were presented and over 180 authors contributed to the multidisciplinary conference. The objective of t...
Consumption is a transcending challenge for the 21st century that is stimulating research on multiple pathways required to deliver a more environmentally sustainable future. This paper is nested in what is a much larger field of research on sustainab...
The food system is facing unprecedented pressure from environmental change exacerbated by the expansion of agri-food corporations that are consolidating their power in the global food chain. Although Africa missed the Green Revolution and the wave of...
In Scotland, homebuilders are requested to take valiant efforts to meet the government’s ambition that all newly built homes should be carbon-neutral by 2016/17. In delivering net zero carbon homes, the application of renewable energy technologies,...
Human actions have contributed to numerous environmental challenges, including climate change and a significant loss of the world’s biodiversity. As the scientific study of human thought and behaviour, psychology has much to offer in better understan...
There is increasing interest in the role that schools can play in promoting education for sustainable development (ESD), and evidence is emerging that schools can be influential in the emerging agenda around the ecological, ethical and social aspects...
As the current growth economy has created severe environmental pollution and unbalanced distribution of prosperity, there is an increasing amount of critical voices calling for a change. The new concept of degrowth addresses a fundamental change in p...
During the last decade, agriculture has lost its importance in many European mountain regions and tourism, which benefits from attractive landscapes, has become a major source of income. Changes in landscape patterns and elements might affect scenic...
As it touches all aspects of human activity and society in general, energy has become an object of discourse. Two main discourses have formed on the use of energy: risk discourse and security discourse. While environmental changes and oil depletion c...
The construction and service of urban infrastructure systems and buildings involves immense resource consumption. Cities are responsible for the largest component of global energy, water, and food consumption as well as related sewage and organic was...
Within conservation, the need to measure the impacts on people from conservation initiatives such as projects and programs is growing, but understanding and measuring the multidimensional impacts on human well-being from conservation initiatives is c...
Climate adaptation has emerged as a mainstream risk management strategy for assisting in maintaining socio-ecological systems within the boundaries of a safe operating space. Yet, there are limits to the ability of systems to adapt. Here, we introduc...
In Garrett Hardin’s popular essay on “The Tragedy of the Commons”, he presents a model of a shared commons where herdsmen graze their cattle to illustrate the tension between group and self-interest that characterizes so many social dilemmas. However...
International climate policy over the last 7–8 years has been characterized by the increasing involvement of developing countries. While COP-13 at Bali marked a stronger willingness to participate in mitigation efforts in principle, there are now num...
One of the factors that led to the wide rejection of the 1972 “Limits to Growth” report was the inability for most people to understand the model used in the study. In the present paper, the author builds simple “mind sized” world models designed to...
Coasts are the primary habitat for humanity. Throughout history, coastal cities and towns have been a crucible for innovation. However, business and technological innovations imperil coastal communities, because prevailing practices are unsustainable...
This is the second of two articles that explores the coastal innovation paradox and imperative. Paradoxically, innovation is necessary to escape the vulnerability trap created by past innovations that have degraded coastal ecosystems and imperil coas...
There is increasing interest in long-term plans that can adapt to changing situations under conditions of deep uncertainty. We argue that a sustainable plan should not only achieve economic, environmental, and social objectives, but should be robust...
We must develop a serious approach to the fact that emotions, thoughts, assessments, and decisions originate in the mind, and as such are firmly based in human beings. We sense, experience, and act on the basis of internal processes, but which criter...
This study explores relationships between upper secondary school students’ understanding of prices and environmental impacts. The study uses responses from 110 students to problems in which they were asked to explain differences in prices and also...
In Washington, over fifty percent of the wheat produced under rainfed conditions receives less than 300 mm of annual precipitation. Hence, a winter wheat-summer fallow cropping system has been established to obtain adequate moisture for winter wheat...
The aim of this paper is to suggest and discuss policy instruments that could lead towards a more sustainable waste management. The paper is based on evaluations from a large scale multi-disciplinary Swedish research program. The evaluations focus on...
Land managers in the western US are beginning to understand that early 20th century forests displayed complex patterns of composition and structure at several different spatial scales, that there was interplay between patterns and processes within an...
