Foundations
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- climate change
- We are now seeing the effects of GHGs emitted in the 90s
- Even if we start regenerating now, we are going to see catastrophes happening
- climate change
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everything is interconnected -interbeing-
- The illusion of separation, that humans are separate from Nature is a Memetic Virus that our culture spreads, encouraging domination over nature
- We think we have to conquer Nature because we don’t realize that we are Nature’s children Alan Watts
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resentment is not a good starting point to create positive change
from Paper - Our Future in the Anthropocene - Folke 2021
Bioregionalism and Localism
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Localism based on small scale self-sufficiency
- Small experiments, quick feedback, Decentralization & resilience
- ecological limits are more immediately identifiable
- We do need to bring lessons from Regen Communities to cities and the rest of the population
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Bioregionalism requires a wider focus, on the bioregional scale
- Increasing capacity for local food
- Re-foresting
- Energy transition
Enhancing the Resilience of the Earth System
3 broad categories to enhance balancing feedback loops:
- reducing GHG emissions
- creating carbon sinks to enhance Earth carbon storage
- ”modifying Earth’s energy balance (for example, via solar radiation management, although that particular feedback entails very large risks of destabilization or degradation of several key processes in the Earth System)“
Steffen et al 2018 - Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
Reforestation as Key
“Our model results demonstrate that one of the most powerful means that humanity has at its disposal to combat climate change is respecting the land system change boundary. Bringing total global forest cover back to the levels of the late 20th century would provide a substantial cumulative sink for atmospheric CO2 in 2100. This reforestation seems unlikely, however, given the current focus on biomass as a replacement for fossil fuels and the creation of negative CO2 emissions via bioenergy with carbon captureand storage. Both activities are already serving to increase pressure on Earth’s remaining forest area.” (Richardson et al., 2023, p. 11)
Paper - Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries by Richardson et al 2023
Technology Won’t Save US
technological change alone will not lead to transformations towards sustainability. It could lead humanity in diverse directions, pleasant and unpleasant ones, and with different social and environmental impacts. For example, rapid advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics have enabled exploration of the ocean genome, but the capacity to access and use sequence data is inequitably distributed among countries and companies (Blasiak et al. 2018, 2020). The technological dimension of development has to be deliberately and strategically guided, to contribute to just and sustainable futures and guided how and by whom as a central challenge
Technological change has been instrumental in globalization and will be instrumental for global sustainability. No doubt, the new era of technological breakthroughs will radically change the structure and operation of societies and cultures. But, as has been made clear here, the recipe for sustainable futures also concerns cultural transformations that guide technological change in support of a resilient biosphere; that reconnect development to the biosphere foundation
Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere) by Stockholm Resilience Center
Target Space
Defining a sustainable development target space for 2030 and 2050 - van Vuuren, Sarah Cornell, Johan Rockstrom et al 2022 link
