Visioning Sustainability
Sharon Barfoot, the Director of the Southampton Art School, recently emailed me with a link to two websites: Bonnie deVarco's Scale Independent Thought, and Chris Jordan's photographic arts site. Some of Chris' amazing photography is from Midway, an island about 2000 miles from the nearest continent, where baby albatross are dying at a high rate from ingested garbage. The photos of the dead babies with the plastic showing from their stomachs is heart-rendering.
Bonnie's article on Visioning Sustainability is one of the most thought-provoking and connective articles I've read, and I highly recommend it, particularly because of the discussion of Ehux phytoplankton blooms that can create an albedo effect, cooling the oceans. In the article, she mentions a number of neat initiatives around the world, and I'll mention a few here:
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge has a fully searchable database of socially-responsible
initiatives, in all stages of development, in need of further funding
and support, with ideas from a Barefoot College, Fundred dollar bill project, and BK Farmyards.
2009 Winner
There is a link to the
Global Footprint Network, which explains the science and methodology of assessing the footprint of ourselves, our communities, and nations. It also explains Earth Overshoot Day, which was September 25 in 2009.
"What is Earth Overshoot Day?
Earth Overshoot Day marks an unfortunate milestone: the day when
humanity begins living beyond its ecological means. Beyond that day, we
move into the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, utilizing
resources at a rate faster than what the planet can regenerate in a
calendar year.
Globally, we now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our
lifestyles. Put another way, in less than 10 months, humanity will have
used ecological services it takes 12 months for the Earth to
regenerate."
There are so many neat websites, with people all over the world working on initiatives that can make things better for everyone and everything.
We need to know exactly what we are getting our world into so we can plan properly for the future: "Forewarned is forearmed."