Tag Archives: sustainability

Linear, recycling and circular economies

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I photographed this infographic at Killerton Hall in Devon this summer at the entrance to an exhibition called ‘Thirsty for fashion – circular fashion, past and present‘ which was about how clothes have been altered and repurposed through the centuries.  I hear many references to the circular economy at the moment but I suspect many people do not really know the difference between a recycling and circular economy, and I thought this infographic elegantly illustrated it.  Just a short post this week as we begin to slow down for the end of the year [see ‘Slow down, breathe your own air‘ on December 23rd, 2015].

Virtual reality and economic injustice in a world with limits

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Decorative photograph of a pile of carved stonesIt is sometimes suggested that materialism and greed are key drivers of our social and political system that largely refuses to acknowledge that we live in a world of limits.  However, Rowan Williams has proposed that we have a ‘culture that is resentful about material reality, hungry for anything and everything that distances us from the constraints of being a physical animal subject to temporal processes, to uncontrollable changes and to sheer accident.’  In other words, it is our desire to be in control of our lives and surroundings that drives us to accumulate wealth and build our strongholds.  Education and learning lead to an understanding of the complexity of the world, a realisation that we cannot control the world and perhaps to unavoidable insecurity, particularly for those people who thought they had some distance between themselves and uncontrollable events.  It is more comfortable to believe that we are in control, adhere to the current out-dated paradigm, and ignore evidence to the contrary. This is equivalent to living in a virtual reality.  This approach not only accelerates uncontrollable changes to the planet but also leads to economic disparities because, as Williams states, economic justice will only arrive when everyone recognises a shared vulnerability and limitation in a world that is not infinite.

Source: Rowan Williams, Faith in the public square, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Image: a pile of carved stones in the cloisters of Hereford cathedral where I bought a second-hand copy of ‘Faith in the public square’ while on holiday [see ‘Personale mappa mundi‘ on November 1st, 2023].

Is it time to change priorities on climate change?

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It seems unlikely that global warming will be limited to only 1.5 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels in the light of recent trends in temperature data [see ‘It was hot in June and its getting hotter’ on July 12th, 2023 ]. It is probable global warming will lead to average surface temperatures on the planet rising by 4 or 5 degrees, perhaps within a matter of decades.  A global average temperature rise of only 2 degrees would make the Earth as warm as it was 3 million years ago when sea levels were 25 to 35 m (80 to 130 ft) high (Blockstein & Wiegman, 2010).  While it is still important to aim for zero carbon emissions in order to limit global warming and avoid global temperatures reaching a tipping point, it seems improbable that politicians worldwide will be able to agree and implement effective actions to achieve the goal in part because of the massive, vested interests in industrialised economies based on fossil fuels [see ‘Are we all free-riders?’ On April 6th, 2016].  Hence, we need to start planning for potentially existential changes in the climate and environment that will force us to adapt the way we live and work.  In addition to rises in sea levels, a world that is 4 degrees hotter is likely to have an equatorial belt with high humidity causing heat stress across tropical regions that make them uninhabitable for most of the year. To the north and south of this equatorial belt will be mid-latitude belts of inhospitable deserts extending as far north as a line through Liverpool, Manchester, Hamburg, the straits north of Sapporo in Japan, Prince Rupert in British Columbia and Waskaganish on the Hudson Bay.  The habitable zones for humans are likely to be north of this line and in the south in Antarctica, Patagonia, Tasmania and the south island of New Zealand.  Agriculture will probably be viable in these polar regions but will compete with a very dense population [see ‘Belts of habitability in a 4° world’ in Nomad Century by Gaia Vince].  In other words, there will likely be mass migrations that will force a re-organisation of society and a restructuring of our economies.  Some estimates suggest that there could be as many as 1.2 billion environmental migrants by 2050 (Bellizzi et al, 2023).  We need to start adapting now, the world around us is already adapting [see ‘Collaboration and competition’ on June 8th, 2022].

Immeasurable productivity?

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Decorative image of a poppy flowerThis is the second in a series of ‘reprints’ from my archive of posts.  I will be back with new posts in a few weeks refreshed after my vacation.  This post was first published in November 2013 under the title ‘Productive cheating‘.

I cut out a Dilbert cartoon from the New York Times a few weeks ago that I found amusing and shared it with my new Head of School.  Dilbert informs his boss that he will be taking advantage of the new unlimited vacation policy by being away for 200 days in the coming year but will still double his productivity.  His boss replies that there is no way to measure productivity for engineers.

Of course, bosses are very interested in measuring productivity and marketing executives like to brag about the productivity or efficiency of whatever it is they are selling.  Engineers know that it is easy to cheat on measures of productivity and efficiency, for instance, by carefully drawing the boundaries of the system to exclude some inputs or some wasteful outputs [see my post on ‘Drawing Boundaries’ on December 19th, 2012 ].  So claims of productivity or efficiency that sound too good to be true probably aren’t what they seem.

Also in the New York Times [on October 15th, 2013] Mark Bittman discussed the productivity of the two food production systems found in the world, i.e. industrial agriculture and one based on small landholders, what the ETC group refers to as peasant food webs.  He reports that the industrial food chain uses 70% of agricultural resources to provide 30% of the world’s food while peasant farming produces the remaining 70% with 30% of the resources.  The issue is not that industrial agriculture’s claims for productivity in terms of yields per acre are wrong but that the industry measures the wrong quantity.  Efficiency is defined as desired output divided by required input [see my post entitled ‘National efficiency‘ on May 29th, 2013].  In this case the required output is people fed not crop yield and a huge percentage of the yield from industrial agriculture never makes to people’s mouths [see my post entitled ‘Food waste’ on January 23rd, 2013].

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/opinion/how-to-feed-the-world.html?ref=markbittman&_r=0

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/poster-who-will-feed-us-industrial-food-chain-or-peasant-food-webs