Integrated Sustainability

Don't trust your Stone Age brain: it's unsustainable Posted on 20 March 2013 by Helen Camakaris

Cognitive dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling we have when we know we should invest in solar panels but the 46″ wide screen TV wins out; we know we should catch the bus but we take the car anyway. It’s that sense of discord that arises when emotion and reason don’t get along. And unfortunately, it’s alive and well, sabotaging the climate change debate.

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It's 2061, how's life? Posted on 5 September 2011 by John Gregg

Andrew Craig hit the start-button on a balmy Albany April day. His Landcruiser unhooked from the household power, then the twin electric motors cut in and moved it quietly down the drive. The silence disturbed some people when HydroElectrics first took over the V8 market, so they’d bought the audio option that simulated the sound of a historical V8 engine. Now the only time you’d hear anything like that was when the amplified “chugga, chugga, chugga” of a Harley Electro Hog drifted through the open window.

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What is economic growth and are there limits to it? Posted on 29 August 2011 by Philip Lawn

Before we can consider whether there are limits to economic growth, we first need to understand what is meant by the term ‘economic growth’. In conventional terms, economic growth means either the growth in a nation’s real GDP (an increase in a nation’s output of goods and services) or the physical expansion of the nation’s economy (note: the two are not the same) (see Lawn, 2007a). So, when people refer to economic growth, what they really mean is either ‘growth of real output’ or ‘growth of the economy’.

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Shaping Tomorrow's World Posted on 6 April 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky

Our planet is finite. We have 510,072,000 km² of surface area to sustain all human economic and social activity.  We have 510,072,000 km² to support all of life. Nothing will change this physical limit. Our economy is based on growth. A fundamental tenet of capitalism is a continually growing economy that produces more and more goods. Indeed, per capita world economic output (GDP) has increased nearly 20-fold since 1960. During the same period, the world's population has increased from 3 billion to nearly 7 billion.

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