Like many people I’m pondering the intensifying COVID-19 infectious disease crisis, with daily life here in Australia (I live in Melbourne) beginning to transform as governments implement policies which upend daily life and many industries. Initial forecasts suggest we’re likely to see the worst level of unemployment since the Great Depression. I have no idea … [Read more…]
I recently spotted an interesting piece on the use of ‘extreme scenarios’ in climate policy research and debates. If you ignore the inflammatory click-bait title regarding “climate porn” and focus on the substance of the piece it makes some interesting observations regarding the apparent institutionalisation of particular ways of constructing scenarios that are relevant to the … [Read more…]
These questions have been on my mind lately, particularly in relation to an article entitled “The Uninhabitable Earth” (link) which recently caught fire on social media. This post briefly considers these questions and related questions about human action on climate and energy issues. The questions are not simple or straightforward to consider, but topical high-profile … [Read more…]
It’s a bit too soon, arguably, to do a full postmortem on the book The Population Bomb and especially on related debates – given the global population continues to rapidly rise and is heading towards 9 or 9.5 billion by mid-century – but lately I spotted some interesting revisiting of the book, its impacts, and … [Read more…]
Last night I went to the Sustainable Living Festival’s annual great debate, this time on the somewhat convoluted topic (perhaps written by a committee?) of “To collapse or not to collapse: Pushing for economic ruin or building a great transition”, juxtaposing: At one end of the spectrum, [are] some environmentalists [who] are fueled by a … [Read more…]
It seems to be increasingly common to consider the prospect of collapse (or some form of major “breakdown”) in the near-future (e.g. here, here, here, here). Authors and activists like Paul Gilding assert that some form of collapse is inevitable. Gilding writes that “the time to act preventatively has past” and asserts that “the coming … [Read more…]
Worse case scenarios are an important part of sustainability discourses which I’ve recently been prompted to consider more deeply. Indeed Cass Sunstein – in his book Worst Case Scenarios (published by Harvard University Press in 2007) – talks about “worse-case specialists”, a group which he contends includes environmentalists (along with many others such as those … [Read more…]