Category Archives: Big Back Loop

Dennis Meadows on Limits to Growth

Posted on March 5, 2010 by Garry Peterson

A video of Dennis Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth, from the 2009 World Economic Forum meetings in Davos meeting where he reflects on economic growth, oil, and decline. via the Oil Drum

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The Crises of Nature, The Nature of Crises

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Victor Galaz

Maybe it’s just part of my personal PCSD (Post Copenhagen Stress Disorder), but it seems like one of the most interesting topics emerging in frontiers of the earth system governance agenda, is that of building global institutions able to deal … Continue reading →

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Planetary Boundaries

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Garry Peterson

A number of resilience researchers, and many others, have proposed the concept of planetary boundaries in a new paper A safe operating space for humanity in Nature (doi:10.1038/461472a). Johan Rockstrom and others propose nine planetary boundaries, beyond which the functioning … Continue reading →

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Limits to Phosphorus?

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Garry Peterson

People have more than doubled the global flows of phosphorus, but unlike nitrogen, the other main fertilizer, phosphorus is mined. David A. Vaccari, an engineering professor from Stevens Institute of Technology writes in Scientific American about Phosphorus Famine: The Threat … Continue reading →

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Can science deliver? Only twenty more years to come up with sustainable solutions to many planetary dilemmas

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Beatrice Crona

Today, April 30, is the last day of the Open Meeting of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP).  It is a transdisciplinary meeting where scientists from all over the world come together to discuss solutions to the pressing social and … Continue reading →

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Lovelock, climatic regime shifts, and soft sociology

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Garry Peterson

In Nature, biogeochemist Andrew Watson reviews The Vanishing Face Of Gaia by James Lovelock in Final warning from a sceptical prophet: In The Vanishing Face Of Gaia, Lovelock argues that model projections of the climate a century ahead are of … Continue reading →

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Scenario: Resilience Economics

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Garry Peterson

Futurist Jamais Cascio presents a scenario set twenty years in the future where the world post-capitalism is based on resilience economics. He writes from the point of view of someone living in that future on his blog Open the Future: … Continue reading →

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Homer-Dixon on Our Panarchic Future

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Garry Peterson

In Worldwatch Magazine Thomas Homer-Dixon writes Our Panarchic Future about Buzz Holling‘s thinking, Panarchy and global transformation.  Homer-Dixon writes: Holling embodies something truly rare: the kind of wisdom that comes when an enormously creative, perceptive, and courageous mind spends a … Continue reading →

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Terra preta the only way to save our civilization?

Posted on February 1, 2009 by Garry Peterson

James Lovelock appears to be marginally more positive about our civilization’s capacity to avoid collapse, because of terra preta in a New Scientist interview One last chance to save mankind.  He says: There is one way we could save ourselves … Continue reading →

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Dennis Meadows awarded Japan Prize for work on Limits to Growth

Posted on January 31, 2009 by Garry Peterson

Dennis Meadows has been awarded the Japan Prize for his work on Limits to Growth.  The Prize Committee writes: [he] served as Research Director for the project on “The Limits to Growth,” for the Club of Rome in 1972. Employing … Continue reading →

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