Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, George D. Aiken Center, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, and Community Development and Applied Economics, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.
Published: February 2009
A high and sustainable quality of life is a central goal for humanity. Our current socio-ecological regime and its set of interconnected worldviews, institutions, and technologies all support the goal of unlimited growth of material production and consumption as a proxy for quality of life. However, abundant evidence shows that, beyond a certain threshold, further material growth no longer significantly contributes to improvement in quality of life. Not only does further material growth not meet humanity's central goal, there is mounting evidence that it creates significant roadblocks to sustainability through increasing resource constraints (i.e., peak oil, water limitations) and sink constraints (i.e., climate disruption). Overcoming these roadblocks and creating a sustainable and desirable future will require an integrated, systems level redesign of our socio-ecological regime focused explicitly and directly on the goal of sustainable quality of life rather than the proxy of unlimited material growth. This transition, like all cultural transitions, will occur through an evolutionary process, but one that we, to a certain extent, can control and direct. We suggest an integrated set of worldviews, institutions, and technologies to stimulate and seed this evolutionary redesign of the current socio-ecological regime to achieve global sustainability.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812570106 | DOI Listing |
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Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Sacramento, CA, 95819, USA.
Wildfires have become larger and more severe in recent decades. Fire retardant is one of the most common wildfire response tools to protect against loss of life and property. Previous studies have documented various effects of fire retardant, which commonly contains chemicals used in fertilizers, on plant and invertebrate community composition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Cancer Surviv
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Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
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