Friday, September 05, 2003

Waking the Sleepwalkers; CBC Ideas - William Rees (UBC; he brought forward the idea of "ecological footprint")

[roughly paraphrased]
We appropriate energy flows from nature (we eat almost everything, from the most delicate marine life to insect grubs; what we can't eat, we redirect, such as cactus: we feed cactus to the goats and then eat the goats); our environmental problems aren't problems in the environment, but how we exploit it: we harvest faster than it can produce, and discharge waste faster than it can recycle.

Further, we have turned away from direct sources of social good in favor of maximizing income, which we then turn towards purchase of those goods. The culturally mythic economy disregards our physical environment and our actions result in the problems outlined above.

Seperating reason from emotions makes it impossible to think these problems through. But they are only tendencies and predispositions, so we can think them through and find other ways.

Rees - Aurora Online
Rees discussing energy, oil peak & the future of human ecology (Global Public Media)
Ecological footprints: Making tracks toward sustainable cities (Linkages | Sustainable Consumption)

CBC Radio One: Ideas [features in 2003]

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