scholarly journals Limits to growth: human economy and planetary boundaries

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerryn Higgs
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Almost Everywhere ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many

The idea of physical limits to human economic systems is advanced by physical scientists and ecological economists, as well as appealing to the common sense proposition that unending growth in physical processes such as material extraction and waste disposal will ultimately be inconsistent with any finite entity, even one as large as the Earth. Yet growth remains the central aim of business and government almost everywhere. This paper examines the history of the idea of economic growth and the many influences and interests that supported – and still support – its enshrinement as the principal aim of human societies. These include the apparatus of propaganda in favour of corporate interests; the emphasis on international trade; the funding of environmental denial; and, underlying all these, the corporate requirement for profit to continue to increase. The dominance of these influences has serious consequences for the natural world while growth has failed to solve the problems of poverty.

The Common Fossils of The British Rocks

The Geologist ◽  
1858 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
S. J. Mackie
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

In a magazine devoted especially to the propagation of Geological knowledge, it seems no infringement of its space, no deterioration of its value, tha t some pains should be taken to aid the student in his early efforts, and to disperse broadcast some useful elementary information, which may prove to the mass at once a source of instruction and of enjoyment, and so, by clearing the road to future and higher studies, may foster a dawning taste, and ultimately prove the means of adding many volunteers, and not unlikely even some brilliant master-minds to the ranks of Geologists, that otherwise, deterred at the outset, might perhaps have turned their attention and talents to some more accessible, if not more congenial study.Who does not feel some interest in the past history of this beautiful world—the scene of our labours and of our loves—of our successes and of our failures—the stage of our existence and the tomb of our dust ? If the animated creations of the past were dumb brute animals, still the earth was green and gay with trees, and plants and flowers—the hu m of insects vibrated on the summer's air, and the snows of winter covered the ancient lands with their hyemal mantle—the tides of ocean rose and fell, and the world went rolling on through time and space, through years and seasons. There were earthquakes the n and blazing volcanos—and winds and storms—great waves and merry dancing ripples on the sea.

2. Ideas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Dobson
Keyword(s):  
Life Support ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Deep Ecology ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Core Belief ◽  
Aggregate Growth ◽  
Central Belief

‘Ideas’ explains the key ideas driving environmental politics. It begins with The Limits to Growth (1972) that questioned the long-term future of the Earth as a life-support system for humans. The concepts of ecological modernization, moral extensionism, ethics and the environment, deep ecology, and anthropocentrism are considered. It goes on to explain the ideology of ecologism and how it can be distinguished from conservatism, liberalism, socialism, feminism, and environmentalism. A central belief of ecologism is that aggregate growth must be reduced, and that this is very unlikely to be achieved by efficiency gains alone. The other core belief turns on the question of why (if at all) we should value the non-human natural world.

Feeding a Thousand Souls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijaya Nagarajan
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Rice Flour ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Sanskrit Literature ◽  
Tamil Literature ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Picture Languages ◽  
The Many

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book investigates aesthetic, symbolic, metaphorical, literary, mathematical, and philosophical meanings of the kōlam, the popular Tamil women’s daily ephemeral practice, a ritual art tradition performed with rice flour on the thresholds of houses in southern India. They range from concepts such as auspiciousness, inauspiciousness, ritual purity, and ritual pollution. Several divinities, too, play a significant role: Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, good luck, well-being, and a quickening energy; Mūdevi, the goddess of poverty, bad luck, illness, and laziness; Bhūdevi, the goddess of the soils, the earth, and the fields; and the god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Braiding art history, aesthetics, and design, this book analyzes the presence of the kōlam in medieval Tamil literature, focusing on the saint-poet Āṇṭāḷ. The author shows that the kōlam embodies mathematical principles such as symmetry, fractals, array grammars, picture languages, and infinity. Three types of kōlam competitions are described. The kinship between Bhūdevi and the kōlam is discussed as the author delves into the topics of “embedded ecologies” and “intermittent sacrality.” The author explores the history of the phrase “feeding a thousand souls,” tracing it back to ancient Sanskrit literature, where it was connected to Indian notions of hospitality, karma, and strangers. Its relationship to the theory of karma is represented by its connection to the five ancient sacrifices. This ritual is distinguished as one of the many “rituals of generosity” in Tamil Nadu.

The Strata Machine

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Zalasiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Chicago Tribune ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Henry Ford ◽  
Tangible Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Inert Mass ◽  
Resource Exhaustion ◽  
The Many

History is bunk—or so Henry Ford is reputed to have said. Folk memory, though, simplifies recorded statements. What Henry Ford actually told the Chicago Tribune was ‘History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only tradition that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today.’ So folk memory, in this case, did pretty well reflect the kernel of his views. Henry Ford also said that ‘Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it; if you are sick, you shouldn’t take it.’ Henry Ford was a very powerful, very rich man of strongly expressed views. And he was quite wrong on both counts. Not having known Henry Ford, interplanetary explorers may have their own view of history. As, perhaps, an indispensable means of understanding the present and of predicting the future. As a way of deducing how the various phenomena—physical, chemical, and biological—on any planet operate. And as a means of avoiding the kind of mistake—such as resource exhaustion or intra-species war—that could terminate the ambitions of any promising and newly emerged intelligent life-form. On Earth, and everywhere else, things are as they are because they have developed that way. The history of that development must be worked out from tangible evidence: chiefly the objects and traces of past events and processes preserved on this planet itself. The surface of the Earth is no place to preserve deep history. This is in spite of—and in large part because of—the many events that have taken place on it. The surface of the future Earth, one hundred million years from now, will not have preserved evidence of contemporary human activity. One can be quite categorical about this. Whatever arrangement of oceans and continents, or whatever state of cool or warmth will exist then, the Earth’s surface will have been wiped clean of human traces. For the Earth is active. It is not just an inert mass of rock, an enormous sphere of silicates and metals to be mined by its freight of organisms, much as caterpillars chew through leaves.

Why Dreams Mattered in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Bronwen Neil
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Dream Vision ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Spiritual Authority ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
Key Terms

The introductory chapter outlines the standard methods of approach that have been adopted in post-Foucauldian scholarship on dreams and their cultural importance. It reviews the history of recent scholarship on dreams and the various methods of approach to modern and pre-modern dreaming, including the gender studies perspective adopted here. It defines key terms such as ‘dream-vision’ and ‘divination’, and introduces the main themes of the chapters to follow. The study of the three monotheistic traditions—rabbinic Judaism, Byzantine Christianity, and early Islam—together in this volume shows the many ways in which dreams and spiritual authority were inextricably linked across the various cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. Ancient religious approaches to dreams are contrasted with modern psychoanalytic and social psychology approaches. The book adopts an ‘ecumenic perspective’ on dream interpretation, treating it as a shared ideology of pagans and monotheists in the East and West. An ecumenic perspective focuses on the common idea that the prophetic dream carried a message from the realm of the divine, rather than focusing on what prophetic dreams can tell us about the dreamer’s subconscious mind. The chapter offers a summary of the scope of the study and of the contents of the remaining six chapters.

„Ludzie bezdomni” Stefana Żeromskiego jako prefiguracja współczesnej powieści ekologicznej

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 414-431
Author(s):  
Dariusz Piechota ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Living Organism ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Rational Use ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Ecological Thinking

This article attempts to read Żeromski’s novel as a prefiguration of a contemporary ecological novel. The green reading of the writer’s work redirects readers’ attention towards non-human forms of life, introducing alternative optics for describing reality. The story of Tomasz Judym is tangled with the history of the natural world. While wandering around Paris, Warsaw, Cisy and Zagłębie, the protagonist notices the symptoms which prove the progressive degradation of the natural environment. As one of the few protagonists, he sees the destructive impact of industry on the natural environment. Judym is abandoning the anthropocentric perspective in favour of the biocentric one, making him more sensitive to the suffering of others, understood here as non-human inhabitants of the Earth. Nature is a self-regulating living organism, a powerful element whose contemplation can both delight and frighten. “Ludzie bezdomni” anticipates contemporary ecological thinking, which calls for rational use of earthly goods.

scholarly journals Knowing and doing in the sixteenth century: what were instruments for?

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIM BENNETT
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Online Database ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Mathematics ◽  
The Relationship

Despite recent work on scientific instruments by historians of science, the meeting ground between historians and curators of collections has been disappointingly narrow. This study offers, first, a characterization of sixteenth-century mathematical instruments, drawing on the work of curators, as represented by the online database Epact. An examination of the relationship between these instruments and the natural world suggests that the ‘theoric’, familiar from studies of the history of astronomy, has a wider relevance to the domain of practical mathematics. This outcome from a study of collections is then used in re-examining an established question in the history of science, the position of William Gilbert on the motion of the Earth.

Planet Earth and Humanity

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 688-697
Author(s):  
Herman Verstappen
Keyword(s):  
Future Generations ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Master Plan ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Club Of Rome ◽  
The Many ◽  
Mother Earth ◽  
Common Future

The earth, a futility in space, is the only home for all humans and, at present, the theatre of the globalization of our society. Humanity has always been wondering about the origin of our blue planet. This is rather irrelevant for everyday life however. What really matters is that all of us can live in harmony and diversity on ‘Mother Earth’ and preserve our environment for future generations. Our planet is inhabited by an amazing variety of living creatures, among which at present are 7 billion humans. This number has risen at an alarming rate for more than a century and will reach the 10 billion mark around the year 2100. But whether the earth resources can cope with the growing demands is most uncertain. What will be our common future? This global issue has been the focus of the Reports of the so-called Club of Rome,1 the Brundtland Report,2 etc, but the responses of society are as yet inadequate. Science and technology can now unravel the many subtle interrelations between geosphere, atmosphere and biosphere and monitor the worldwide growing impact of human activities on the environment.3 Earth observation from aerospace and geo-information systems have opened new vistas in this field. It is evident that there are limits to growth and that the present ‘rape of the earth’ should be stopped and a master plan for global sustainability be made. This plan should not be imposed top-down but be rooted in our free will and thus have a polycentric structure. The political agenda for globalization should not be a flywheel for economic growth but be oriented to the tripartite: sustainability–social balance–economic requirements. Can we make this happen?

scholarly journals Environmental Care in Islamic Teaching: A Qur'anic Perspective

ICR Journal ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-283
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hashim Kamali
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
Common Values ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
Environmental Care ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Human Management ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Future

This article addresses the human-earth relationship from an Islamic perspective in two parts. The first part draws attention to a set of principles, beginning with that of Divine Oneness (tawhid) and the vision it conveys of the common predicament of man with the rest of the created world. The author reviews the principle of vicegerency of man (khilafah) on Earth - which designates humankind as trustee and custodian of its natural environment - and the principle of trust (amanah). The second part addresses instances of violation of these two principles. Three such instances are discussed: spreading mischief (fasad) on earth, extravagance and waste (israf), and infliction of harm (darar). The focus of the discussion in this part is on the human management, or rather mismanagement, of the earth with the result that humanity itself has become the chief victim of its own failings. In his conclusion the author seeks to contextualise his observations within the civilisational renewal (tajdid hadari), arguing that the shared vision of Muslims must be inspired by common values and commitments for the ecological wellbeing of the planet Earth and that Islamic teachings can make a distinctive contribution to that vision by infusing man’s management of the natural world with transcendent (revealed) values and ethics that look toward a common future for humanity and the rest of its earthly inhabitants. The article ends with recommendations for possible reforms.

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