scholarly journals The Future: 10 Challenges for Sustainability

Author(s):  
Jeremy L. Caradonna

Growing concerns about climate-change pollutants, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, resource shortages, and the world’s gamut of ecological problems have placed new pressures on sustainists. Creating a sustainable society that thrives within its biophysical limits is no longer seen as a distant and utopian objective; it’s now an urgent matter that, if neglected or mismanaged, will bring devastating consequences for the planet and the human economy that lives off of it. The increased political attention, institutional support, and financial commitment to the cause of sustainability means heightened expectations for immediate, tangible results. The public doesn’t want idle chatter; it wants workable solutions to very real problems. Can sustainists seize the moment and lead the transition to the sustainable future? The quest to create a sustainable society faces a host of obstacles, and many pressing questions remain unanswered: How can the entrenched political and corporate interests that perpetuate unsustainability be overcome? How can society willingly transform itself? Where will the money and political will come from to coordinate the transition? Will this sustainable society be “industrialized” or “post-industrial,” “globalized” or “localized”? Will the changes be top–down, bottom–up, or both? By charting the growth and development of sustainability since 1700, this book has not meant to imply that ecotopia is an inevitable end point. Even optimists concede that it’s quite possible that the task is too tall, that industrial society could drive itself straight into the ground, that collapse is a real threat, and that the Industrial Revolution was the first phase of humanity’s protracted extinction event. If sustainability does succeed in undoing the many harms that have caused our ecological predicament, it will only do so with the broad support of the public and through a cooperative effort to adapt and transform. At the risk of bombast, it will have to change the course of human history, and that’s no easy task. This book ends with a discussion of 10 challenges faced by the sustainability movement.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anis Ahmad

In the post-industrial revolution world, social change is often studied and understood in the context of change in means of production, mobility, urbanization and change in the constitution of workforce. Role of ethical values is generally confined to personal conduct and manners. Industrial society is supposed to have its own work ethics which may or may not agree with personal ethics and morality. Ethics and morality are generally considered, in the Western thought, as a social construct. Therefore, with the change in means of production or political system, values and morality are also expected to be re-adjusted in order to cope with the changed environment. Sometimes a totally new set of values emerges as a consequence of the change in economic, political, or legal set up. The present research tries to understand the meaning and place of these values in a global socio-cultural framework. Relying essentially on the divine principles of the Qur'ān it makes an effort to understand relevance of these universal and ultimate principles with human conduct and behavior in society.  It indicates that essentially it is the core values, principles, or norms which guide human beings in their interpersonal, social, economic and political matters. Islam being a major civilizing force, culture, and the way of life, provides values which guide both in individual and social matters. The values given by the Qur’ān and the Sunnah are not monopoly of the Muslim. These values are universal and are relevant in a technological society.


Author(s):  
Панасенко А. Р.

In the information (post-industrial) society, a revolution in the media has taken place, allowing anyone to collect, process and create content, regardless of their educational background.The guarantor of the reliability of each blog, as in the case with traditional sources, should be its reputation, which is the key to its popularity. After all, blogs are an interactive phenomenon, and feedback will quickly let the authors feel the mood of the public and the direction of the prevailing trends. But traditional journalists, it seems, are not threatened with retirement, because many of them have their own blogs. In this light, it would probably be wrong to consider the veracity of blogs in isolation from the general context of the media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 455
Author(s):  
Hongyun Han ◽  
Sheng Xia

Since the Industrial Revolution, a new era has arisen called the Anthropocene, in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change outside the stable environmental state of the Holocene. During the Holocene, environmental change occurred naturally, and the Earth’s regulatory capacity maintained the conditions that enabled human development. Resource overexploitation of the industrial “Anthropocene”, under the principle of profit maximization, has led to planetary ecological crises, such as overloaded carbon sinks and climate changes, vanishing species, degraded ecosystems, and insufficient natural resources. Agro-based society, in which almost all demands of humans can be supported by agriculture, is characterized by life production. The substitution of Agro-based society for a post-industrial society is an evolutionary result of social movement, it is an internal requirement of a sustainable society for breaking through the resource constraint of economic growth. The core feature of agriculture is to use organisms as production objects and rely on life processes to achieve production goals. The substitution of Agro-based society for a post-industrial society is the precondition for a sustainable carbon cycle, breaking through the resource limits of the industrial “Anthropocene”, alleviating the environmental pressure of economic development, and promoting society from increasing disorderly entropy to orderly decreasing entropy. Meanwhile, technological advancements and growing environmental awareness of society make it feasible for the substitution of an agro-based society for a post-industrial society.


Author(s):  
Andrew Davies

What is a project? How is it organized? Projects: A Very Short Introduction looks at how projects have developed since the industrial revolution to create the human-built world in which we live, work, and play. Considering some of our greatest endeavours—such as the Erie Canal, Apollo Moon landing, and Chinese eco-city projects—it identifies how projects are organized and managed to design and produce large and complex systems, cope with fast changing conditions, and deal with the immense uncertainties required to create breakthrough innovations in products and services. It concludes by considering how projects could be organized to address the challenges facing the post-industrial society of the 21st century.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-1) ◽  
pp. 176-187
Author(s):  
Maria Kondratyeva ◽  

The article explores the idea of social progress in the context of the history of human society. The author considers the concept of progress in interrelation with the three revolutions. The first revolution was an agrarian one, which established the dominant religious consciousness and dependence on the divine intervention. Accordingly, the idea of progress as opposed to the perfection of God was not dominant. The world of nature is born, develops, and dies. This approach prevailed for about seven thousand years: from the first civilizations to the XV - XVIII centuries. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, after the fall, the world fell away from God. This understanding corresponds to the primordial approach and is also opposite to the idea of progress. In the Renaissance, the secularization of consciousness and culture begins. Culture and values are formed on the basis of religious Judeo-Christian values, but a man becomes the bearer and guarantor of these values. The ideas of humanism and worshipping of a human being as the main creator are reflected in philosophy, art, and painting. In accordance with this approach, the idea of progress is born. The idea of progress is fully formed and takes possession of the masses in the age of Enlightenment. During this period, the industrial revolution is taking place. In European culture, the primacy of rationality, machine labor and equality is asserted. But at the same time, the industrial revolution entailed many social crises that are still relevant today. The United States and Europe were gradually able to overcome the challenges of the industrial revolution and create a system of “capitalism with a human face”, while partially imposing their system on other countries where production is cheaper. Therefore, the problems of the so-called “wild capitalism” still take place in the third world countries. By the middle of the XX century, science became the leading factor in manufacturing. Society is changing from industrial to post-industrial. The article focuses on the problems and opportunities of the modern post-industrial society with all the accumulated baggage of the previous stages of development. Humanity has achieved great technological success, and the scientific and technological revolution has brought material benefits to society. But at the same time, the consumer society creates many problems. What is progress in the context of modern discourse? The answer to this question is the purpose of this article.


Author(s):  
Andrey V. Shipilov

The article examines  the problem of the changing nature of labor and attitudes towards it. The relevance of this topic continues to grow due to current trends in socio-economic development. The author draws attention to the fact that only in the industrial society, which was formed in Europe of the XIX century as result of the industrial revolution, labor was seen as the ability, need and duty of a person, as something that did and makes him a person. The positive value status of labor persists to some extent even today, but the industrial society has ceased to exist due to the overflow of labor force from industry to service. This overflow happened because of the increase in working efficiency. In the postindustrial society the process of a general reduction in labor in favor of leisure is unfolding as the value of the latter increases and the value of the former decreases. In this regard, it is useful to remember that in the agrarian society, as well as in the era of Antiquity and the Middle Ages labor was viewed as an anti-value and was the occupation of the lower classes and estates. The attitude towards labor in the post-industrial era approaches the attitude of the pre-industrial period, turning from positive to negative, while leisure becomes self-valuable and self-sufficient. Thus, one can agree with the opinion that the civilization of labor is being replaced today by the civilization of leisure.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Gould ◽  
Michael J. Bourk ◽  
Jean-Etienne Joullié

Purpose This paper takes a long-term view of how the US public and private sectors have been viewed in relation to each other. It notes that since the time of approximately the Nixon Administration, each sector has not been viewed favourably by the public. Over the past 40 years, the private sector has been perceived as being run by the unscrupulous and the public sector by incompetents. The essay argues that Donald Trump was able to exploit these circumstances to win the 2016 election. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a polemic. It relies on archival research and data to create a new view of historical eras in US business history. The object of analysis is the idea of relative legitimacy, the public image of the State vis-a-vis business and business managers. Findings Although the paper addresses business history, a novel argument is presented about the 2016 US Presidential election. It is proposed that Trump took advantage of unique historical circumstances; therefore, his win had more to do with the moment than with him personally. Research limitations/implications The paper interprets the 2016 Presidential race as the end-point of a 250-year journey. It sets a new agenda, in that previous analyses have mostly viewed the ascendancy of Trump as pertaining to distinctively post-industrial twenty-first-century phenomena. Social implications In analysing the 2016 Presidential race, the emphasis is largely removed from issues of personality or partisan politics. Originality/value The paper takes a view of the 2016 election which has not hitherto been adopted. It proposes a new concept – relative legitimacy – as having a substantial explanatory value.


Author(s):  
Muhammet Ali Köroğlu ◽  
Cemile Zehra Köroğlu

There are turning points in human history changed the destiny of humanity: Representing the transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture, Agricultural Revolution or the Neolithic Revolution. French Revolution that took place in 18th century and the Industrial Revolution providing the transition from the agricultural economy to industrial economy. From 19th century, Information Revolution, the whole world has experienced the effects of it in varying degrees. Information Science and technologies have become areas that their communities give the greatest importance for them and they make maximum investments to them in the globalized world conditions. As Daniel Bell describes, Industrial society left its place to Post-industrial society which is an Information society in a sense.


Author(s):  
Clio Flego

A group of visual activists, architects, software developers and archaeologists as well as a multicultural team composed of artists, investigative journalists and lawyers – an organic organization. Forensic Architecture ‘Investigative aesthetic’ is based on visual aggregation on data allowing viewers to enhance their perception-cognition of events by the integrated use of augmented photography. Their works have been presented in front of a court, but also exhibited at international shows all around the world. FA expanded use of photography, integrating in the urbanistic reconstruction of frames of any kind of multimedia information collected, consider it not simply as a medium, but as a proper tool for triggering critical reflections and political action. Forensic Architecture have mainly been investigating the area of conflicts with the aim to present counter- investigation on unclear circumstances, often underlining social constructs in the public forum. The particular role that FA plays, claiming social truth and assigning to photography the function to be a “civil act,” remarks its place in the history of war photography, and underlines the importance of also having a contra-culture in a post- industrial society, permeated by the presence of technology. Keywords: evidence, Forensic Architecture, forensic reconstruction of event, photography, truth-value


Human Affairs ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Giancristofaro

AbstractThe way in which folklorists study their “scientific subject”, that is the creativity and the rich ways people attach meanings to their existence, has often been considered to be static and decontextualized. An interest in popular culture for propaganda purposes is associated with past regimes. Therefore, the notion of “folklore” still carries contradictory meanings and connotations. The author starts from a debate prompted in Italy by Alberto M. Cirese: in recent decades, Italian “native” ethnology has focused on endangered village traditions rather than opening itself up to new instances of cultural change. The main risk was misrepresenting the methodology proposed by Antonio Gramsci in 1929. Today Italian research into folklore places the subject of “folklore” in its broadest context, investigating developments in society associated with the shift from a peasant to an industrial society, and embarking on additional research domains through transnational cultures. This research draws on the growing interest in cultural heritage in the public sphere, and, simultaneously, draws on recent advances in the study of uses of culture and memory. The paper studies two aspects of daily life: pure yarn handmade clothes and ornaments, and long-life tomato sauce. The study concludes that contemporary everyday folklore takes on many free and unofficial forms that call for a renewed approach. To evaluate the multiplicity of folklore meanings and their capacity to integrate interactions between the traditional and the contemporary in specific contexts, the author explores the practicality of a new idea of folklore as sustainable, popular, domestic creativity using material and immaterial goods. This idea implies a rethink of the concept of heritage and of the complexity of its increasingly official, bombastic and rhetorical manifestations


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