Thoughts on Sustainability

Though I have spent most of my life not understanding what was meant by "sustainability," my review of UN, EPA, and widespread architecture and engineering manuals has led me to share Brudtland's frustration at the slow pace that sustainability concepts have been applied and adopted.  I see sustainability as coming into the conversation of development alongside the globalization of assessment, standards, and evidence-based approaches to management.  I worry about the compartmentalization of sustainability in that it might defer much needed reflection on standard operating procedures of global governance that produce widespread degradation across ecosystems and non-accountability for the actors that produce it.  I would again like to look at the US in comparison to other countries for my research work this semester.

Review of Sabin and his Reviewers

After reading The Bet by Paul Sabin for the third time, I think I'm ready to move to a new text for ESS 210.  The advantages of the text include that 1) it's easily accessible, because it is written in an approachable narrative style, 2) it provides a brief history of environmental history and politics, through the context of the Ehrlich-Simon debates, and 3) the book sets the stage for current environmental debates and for the Sustainable Development goals that we address next in the class.  While no text will delight each and every student, there might exist other recent reading materials in Environmental Studies that provide either more excitement for readers or more depth in a review of the environmental context we deal with today.

I reviewed Wharples review of Sabin previously.  This economist's review is entertaining, and I recommend reading it.  He feels so slighted by Sabin, who is otherwise widely reviewed as being overly non-positional. 

Who we are shapes the books we choose to read and how we read them

Peter Dykstra reviewed The Madhouse Effect, a climate change graphic novel by Michael Mann and Tom Tole, for the Daily Climate.  On his twitter feed, @pdykstra, Dykstra describes himself as a “Retired Catholic.  Runs well for a catcher.  Name ends in a vowel.”  His most recent tweet chimes, “Except for being in denial about deniers, AP’s science & envir work is superb.”  Though Dykstra sees his work in confronting oppositional, even confrontational, voices against climate change as important, I am left wondering about his techniques.  Who does the Daily Climate reach?  And, who would pick up “The Madhouse Effect,” who wasn’t already a convert?  I completely agree with the review’s assessment that the climate debate must become more accessible and less exclusionary to the general public, but with just a look at the cover of “The Madhouse Effect,” I’m unconvinced that it’s a step forward in that direction.