Tagged: Sustainability

By Simons/Staff Sgt. (according to Exif data) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Carbon offsetting: back from the dead

Back in 2006, before ‘foreclosure’, ‘credit default swaps’ and ‘double-dip recession’ became terms we needed to worry about, climate change was an issue that actually had some traction in popular culture. This was the year that An Inconvenient Truth was released, a film which, unusually for an apocalyptic documentary, actually made an impact. Not only did Al Gore’s film highlight the issue of climate change, but it also made viewers aware of they could do to make a difference. That...

Sustainability, social progress, environmental protection, economic growth and energy

Sustainability, social progress, environmental protection, economic growth and energy are discussed using the sustainability framework in Figure 1, where sustainability is at the confluence of social progress, environmental protection and economic growth. Figure 1 Sustainability framework (Source: IUCN 2006) There are designs being made toward Ecological Civilization and welcome moves to address the shortcomings of GDP in Completing the picture – environmental accounting in practice by the Australian Bureau of Statistics .  Extending the national accounts to include degradation of natural resources makes a measurable target...

Windmills on Lanai: Qui Bono?

Hawaii is strapped for energy.  Most of the State’s energy comes from foreign oil, and Hawaii spends 8% of its GDP on oil and the island that uses the most energy (Oahu) has the fewest sustainable sources.  (In Kihei, Maui, Gas is $4.86 for regular.)  Other islands have had limited success with solar and small scale windfarms, but a new proposal calls for a large wind farm on the island of Lanai. The company that owns Lanai has proposed a 12,800 acre windmill...

Avatar’s Themes as Exposing Real-Life Occurrences?

James Cameron’s Avatar has been making millions of dollars from movie ticket sales worldwide. The movie features humans invading the planet Pandora in the future. Corporate entities in cooperation with military units hope to extract natural resources from territory inhabited by indigenous people called the Na’vi. Although a human named Jake Sully initially agrees to gather intelligence for the military by using an avatar identity, he eventually decides to help the Na’vi mount an attack against the military. Regardless of...