Despite seeing the occasional negative review I decided to take on the book edition of "World Changing - A User's Guide for the 21st Century" and also post brief summaries and followups. When I bought the book the female cashier exclaimed "Oh what a beatiful book". My hope now is that it 's also beautiful on the inside.
The books editor Alex Steffen presents the bad and good news in the Introduction. The bad news starts with the unequal distribution of the ecological footprint (based on Wackernagel's ideas). If you are not familiar with the footprint framework it is good to learn about it because it is a way to actually measure and potentially price non-sustainable footprints. Then he continues with overpopulation "adding one city like Seattle every week" and ecological overshoot is adressed: "we are using the planet with such intensity that it is unable to restore itself". He conludes the bad news with a summary of energy resources, ie the environmental costs of producing non-renewable energy resources and that they are indeed running out and describes the tensions created by the current global economic unequality.
Finally Steffen adresses the good news and that the illusory tradeoff between "doing well and doing right" can be countered by small smart individual and collective steps of innovation. Sharing green innovation and inspire readers to innovate is the overall purpose with the book. He stresses that we should strive for individual actions with global impact. Start with the things you know and address some of the easier stuff and then incrementally and collectively adress the more complex issues. Making the "What will I do?" more maneagable and finding suitable societal networks for knowledge sharing.
I'll return to the questions and overall objective, when posting on each chapter. Stay tuned.
The books editor Alex Steffen presents the bad and good news in the Introduction. The bad news starts with the unequal distribution of the ecological footprint (based on Wackernagel's ideas). If you are not familiar with the footprint framework it is good to learn about it because it is a way to actually measure and potentially price non-sustainable footprints. Then he continues with overpopulation "adding one city like Seattle every week" and ecological overshoot is adressed: "we are using the planet with such intensity that it is unable to restore itself". He conludes the bad news with a summary of energy resources, ie the environmental costs of producing non-renewable energy resources and that they are indeed running out and describes the tensions created by the current global economic unequality.
Finally Steffen adresses the good news and that the illusory tradeoff between "doing well and doing right" can be countered by small smart individual and collective steps of innovation. Sharing green innovation and inspire readers to innovate is the overall purpose with the book. He stresses that we should strive for individual actions with global impact. Start with the things you know and address some of the easier stuff and then incrementally and collectively adress the more complex issues. Making the "What will I do?" more maneagable and finding suitable societal networks for knowledge sharing.
I'll return to the questions and overall objective, when posting on each chapter. Stay tuned.
