Building higher education around sustainability (journal)

Sustainability science as a foundation for higher education

Stephen Mulkey Sustainability: The Journal of Record

Lays down a challenge to all those working in higher eduction to put sustainability at the heart of their teaching and curriculum development in order to produce the next generation of sustainability leaders. Suggests various practical ways this could be done.

International business risk from climate change (report)

Climate Change and Environmental Risk

This is something a bit different; a business-focused analysis of risks posed by climate change around the world. Maplecroft’s suite of climate change products features analysis and mapping tools to enable the assessment and comparison of risk to supply chains, operations and investments worldwide. As well as a climate change atlas, Maplecroft produce an in-depth climate change vulnerability index covering every country in the world.

NB: Maplecroft is a commercial organisation and its products are not endorsed by the Permaculture Association

Climate change having clear impact on USA (report)

Federal Advisory Committee Draft Climate Assessment Report

The draft report from the leading US government committee on climate change makes grim reading, concluding that climate change is already having a clear impact on food production and weather patterns in the US and that this will intensify if action is not taken. It also concludes that climate change is almost entirely due to human causes.

 

UN stresses challenges to food production (report)

Our Nutrient World: The challenge to produce more food and energy with less pollution

This report highlights how nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are estimated to feed half the human population alive today, and how they will remain critical in the future, especially given increasing population and potential bioenergy needs. Yet high nutrient use has created a web of pollution affecting the environment and human health, while insufficient access to nutrients has led to soil degradation, causing food insecurity and exacerbating the loss of natural ecosystems. This report shows how these problems cross all global change challenges, threatening water, air and soil quality, climate balance, stratospheric ozone and biodiversity.

Guide to sustainable fish (on-line)

Good Fish Guide: The Consumer Guide to Ethical Seafood

The Marine Conservation Society's on-line guide to sustainable fish consumption will help you choose which fish to eat without damaging the planet.

Global energy crisis caused global financial crisis (report)

Perfect Storm: Energy, Finance and the End of Growth

Not for the faint-hearted, this report by respected analysts Tullett Prebon creates a direct link between the current crisis in the world economy and a crisis in energy. The economic growth of the last two hundred years has been based on the consumption of more and more energy, but as that energy becomes harder to obtain and more costly to use growth will inevitably slow, or even stop. In the short term the gap was plugged by growing levels of debt, but since the 2008 crisis this has become unsustainable, leaving the world facing an unprecedented economic crisis that certainly means an end to economic growth, and may mean the end of the economy as we know it.

Biochar and agroforestry offset climate change (journal)

Agroforestry and biochar to offset climate change: a review

Ilan Stavi, Rattan Lal Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 33: 1, Jan 2013

Agroforestry combined with the application of biochar to the soil holds out considerable promise in reducing climate change. This article reviews the evidence for the impact that these two techniques could have. It also includes a discussion of incentives to persuade farmers to introduce such techniques. This article is freely available to all.