World Water Day (03-22) - Net Impact

Water is crucial for sustainable development, including the preservation of our natural environment and the alleviation of poverty and hunger.  World Water Day - Saturday, March 22 - is a global day of observance and action to draw attention to the plight of the more than 1 billion people world-wide that lack access to clean, safe drinking water. Celebrated since 1993, World Water Day was designated in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly, and with each passing year the observance grows larger and stronger with events and activities around the world.   (Source:  Net Impact Weekly, Feb 20, 2008;  http://www.netimpact.org/associations/4342/files/20080220.htm)

California's Climate Action Team Embraces the Climate Challenge

  California's Climate Action Team embraces the innovative challenges of reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 - a reduction of about 25 percent, and then to reach 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

SustainAbility's BenchMark of Corporate Sustainability Reporting

 Google Search:  Tomorrow's Value 

Tomorrow’s Value, SustainAbility’s fourth international benchmark of corporate sustainability reporting, has once again been developed in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Standard & Poor's.... The pressures driving improved sustainability reporting continue to grow, ...
www.sustainability.com/insight/research-article.asp?id=865 - 27k

KP Netherlands -- Sustainable Insight Quarterly

Sustainable Insight October 2007

We regularly provide fresh analysis and industry insight into sustainability trends. Our quarterly 'Sustainable Insight' offers new research and analysis on emerging sustainability trends. The first edition explores the link between 'innovation and sustainability'.

We can keep you updated when a new 'Sustainable Insight' is published. Please send us a request by e-mail to be added to our mailing list.

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Knowledge for SD - Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems

 Google Search: Knowledge For Sustainable Development: An Insight into the EOLSS   An Insight into the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. Volume I Volume II Volume III ... www.eolss.net/eolss_ksd.aspx

Sustainable Insight Online Store

Google Search: Sustainable Insight is an online store boasting a wide range of books, DVD’s and educational resources related to sustainability. ... www.sustainableinsight.com.au

Sustainability: Insight from Industrial Ecology

Google search -- Science Magazine.  Sustainability: Insight from Industrial Ecology -- Karn and Bauer...  Indeed, studying nature allows us to capture the problem of sustainability, but it gives us no insight into the solution. We suggest complementing the ...  www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5537/1995?ck=nck

Science -- Sign In  Full Text : Karn and Bauer, Sustainability: Insight from Industrial Ecology, Science 2001 293: 1995-1996. You are on the site via Free Public Access. ... www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5537/1995 - www.sciencemag.org »

Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy

By Allen J. Scott.  A product of the Global City-Regions conference.

Global City-Regions - Trends, Prospects , and Policies for Wealth and Well-Being

The 1999 International Global City-Regions Conference convened by the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research ( October 21-23, 1999, Tom Bradley International Hall UCLA) led to the foundation of a new Center for Globalization and Policy Research.  The first two paragraphs of the Conference's Theme Paper follow. 

Although the conference addressed sustainability only secondarily, as a tangential environmental phenomenon, the conference synthesized many research tangents into a conceptual foundation for a powerful socio-spatial understanding of the forces of globalization and the implications for policy and planning research and practice.  Since the forces of globalization are a key component of the sustainability challenge, this conference and subsequent books, papers and the new Center for Globalization and Policy Research are useful resources in accurately understanding the challenge of sustainability and the requirements and critical path of an effective response.

Conference Theme Paper  GLOBAL CITY-REGIONS by Allen J. Scott, John Agnew, Edward W. Soja, and Michael Storper

Introduction
There are now more than 300 city-regions around the world with populations greater than one million. At least twenty city-regions have populations in excess of ten million. They range from familiar metropolitan agglomerations dominated by a strongly-developed core such as the London region or Mexico City, to more polycentric geographic units as in the cases of the urban networks of the Randstad or Emilia-Romagna. Everywhere, these city-regions are expanding vigorously, and they present many deep challenges to researchers and policy makers as we enter the 21st century. The processes of world-wide economic integration and accelerated urban growth make traditional planning and policy strategies in these regions increasingly problematical while more fitting approaches remain in a largely experimental stage. New ways of thinking about these processes and new ways of acting to harness their benefits and to control their negative effects are urgently needed.

The concept of global city-regions can be traced back to the "world cities" idea of Hall (1966) and Friedmann and Wolff (1982), and to the "global cities" idea of Sassen (1991). We build here on these pioneering efforts, but in a way that tries to extend the meaning of the concept in economic, political and territorial terms, and above all by an effort to show how city-regions increasingly function as essential spatial nodes of the global economy and as distinctive political actors on the world stage. In fact, rather than being dissolved away as social and geographic objects by processes of globalization, city-regions are becoming increasingly central to modern life, and all the more so because globalization (in combination with various technological shifts) has reactivated their significance as bases of all forms of productive activity, no matter whether in manufacturing or services, in high-technology or low-technology sectors. As these changes have begun to run their course, it has become increasingly apparent that that city in the narrow sense is less an appropriate or viable unit of local social organization than city-regions or regional networks of cities. One tangible expression of this idea can be observed in the forms of consolidation that are beginning to occur as adjacent units of local political organization (provinces, Länder, counties, metropolitan areas, municipalities, départements, and so on) search for region-wide coalitions as a means of dealing with the threats and the opportunities of globalization. In this process, we argue, global city-regions have emerged of late years as a new and critically important kind of geographic and institutional phenomenon on the world stage.

In what follows, we attempt to bring these remarks into closer conceptual focus. Our discussion is driven by five main questions, i.e., . . . (continue overview paper here:  http://www.sppsr.ucla.edu/globalcityregions/Abstracts/abstracts.html)

Science Magazine's State of the Planet 2006-2007

by Donald Kennedy and the Editors of Science (Paperback - Jun 15, 2006).  Science’s “State of the Planet 2006–2007” explores global challenges.  They are many and deeply interrelated, and with increasing worldwide frequency they are at the top of the news: diminishing biodiversity, declining fisheries, threats to the quality of our air and water, climate change and sustainability. But with policymakers and the public often uncertain about environmental science, the result is political discord or paralysis.

Now the journal Science, published by AAAS, is offering a new book that provides clear, accessible scientific assessments of the environmental threats confronting Earth. “Science Magazine’s State of the Planet 2006-2007” [Island Press, June 2006, 201p; $16.95 soft/$32 hard] contains three dozen essays and news stories written some by some of the world’s most respected researchers, policy experts and science journalists. (AAAS members can obtain “State of the Planet” at a discount by ordering at the AAAS Bookstore.)

About the EarthPortal

The Earth Portal is an exciting and powerful new web-based tool for understanding and collaborating on environmental issues.  Its arena overlaps with that of sustainability, so some dimensions of the sustainability challenge will be addressed.  "The Earth Portal is a comprehensive resource for timely, objective, science-based information about the environment. It is a means for the global scientific community to come together to produce the first free, expert-driven, massively scaleable information resource on the environment, and to engage civil society in a public dialogue on the role of environmental issues in human affairs. It contains no commercial advertising and reaches a large global audience. The Earth Portal has three components (Go to http://www.earthportal.org/.):

1. The Encyclopedia of Earth, with over 2,000 articles, is produced and reviewed by 700 scholars from 46 countries.
2. The EarthForum provides commentary from scholars and discussions with the general public.

AAAS Special Edition of Science on Cities and Urban Transformation

AAAS Special Edition of Science (8 February 2008 ) "explores the ramifications of urban transformation. News articles offer an on-the-ground look at how cities are tackling specific problems from poverty and sanitation to traffic jams. Reviews and Perspectives examine how cities take shape and the impacts of urbanization on the environment, human health, economic growth, and the demographics of the developing world. A related podcast segment discusses the tradeoffs between urban living and fertility, and an online video presentation accompanies the issue."  Go to this URL for an overview, PDF access, the podcast, and the video:  http://www.sciencemag.org/cities/

FW: Twenty-four Outstanding Challenge Entries Advanced

From: The Buckminster Fuller Challenge [mailto:challenge@bfi.org]
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:13 PM
To: scott-e22@earthlink.net
Subject: Twenty-four Outstanding Challenge Entries Advanced

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
<http://challenge.bfi.org/img/challenge_logo_334x22.jpg>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, visit: http://challenge.bfi.org
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=865&qid=10588
5>
Contact: Matt Barron, Tel: 718.290.9283, Email: challenge@bfi.org

TWENTY-FOUR OUTSTANDING CHALLENGE ENTRIES ADVANCED TO THE NEXT ROUND OF
REVIEW

FEBRUARY 4th, 2008 NEW YORK CITY - The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) is
pleased to announce that twenty-four outstanding entries to the BUCKMINSTER
FULLER CHALLENGE have been advanced to the next stage of the selection
process.

"The 250 entries we received for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge included a
very broad and varied set of initiatives, all characterized by a deep sense
of purpose, stewardship and humanitarian activity. To witness such a
demonstration of responsibility, initiative and sense of purpose was very
inspiring. While only twenty-four were selected to advance to the next
round, every entry deserves respect and appreciation", remarked Elizabeth
Thompson, Executive Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute.

As a group, the twenty-four solutions advanced are a set of world-changing
applications of technology and know-how that have the potential to
revitalize struggling economies, restore fragile environments, provide food,
water, and shelter to those most in need, and shift our fundamental
understandings of how energy is produced and stored. The entries present
diverse solutions that range from a modular, carbon-neutral home; a
comprehensive plan for regenerating the environment and economy of
Appalachia; a simple and elegant plan for farm and ranchland sustainability;
to a broad and expansive new theory of energy and atomic structure. A common
thread linking all of these solutions is a deep concern for humanity, and an
inspired commitment to addressing - and indeed solving - the most critical
issues facing the world today.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge jurors will engage in final deliberations
in mid-March, 2008. A winner will be selected in April. The distinguished
jurors for the 2007-2008 Challenge are: JANINE BENYUS
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=866&qid=10588
5> , celebrated natural sciences writer, innovation consultant and author of
six books including The New York Times bestseller Biomimicry: Innovation
Inspired by Nature. Co-Founder of The Biomimicry Institute; SIR NICHOLAS
GRIMSHAW
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=867&qid=10588
5> , renowned architect and President of the Royal Academy of Arts, London;
HAZEL HENDERSON
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=868&qid=10588
5> , futurist, author and consultant on sustainable human development and
socially responsible business and investment; founder, Ethical Markets
Media, llc; DANNY HILLIS
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=869&qid=10588
5> visionary inventor, computer scientist, author, engineer; Chairman and
CTO of Applied Minds, Inc., co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation; HUNTER
LOVINS
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=870&qid=10588
5> , President and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions and co-author of
nine books and hundreds of papers, including the 1999 bestseller Natural
Capitalism; WILLIAM MCDONOUGH
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=871&qid=10588
5> , sustainable design visionary, bestselling author, and founder of
William McDonough + Partners, a leading architecture firm practicing cradle
to cradle design; and VANDANA SHIVA
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=872&qid=10588
5> , renowned physicist, author, and environmental activist, founder and
Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New
Delhi.

Inspired by the life and work of visionary 20th Century futurist and global
thinker, R. Buckminster Fuller, The Buckminster Fuller Challenge seeks
solutions that epitomize what Fuller called the trimtab principle
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=873&qid=10588
5> - how small amounts of energy and resources precisely applied at the
right time and place can produce maximum advantageous change.

The $100,000 prize will be conferred to the winner of the first Buckminster
Fuller Challenge in late June 2008 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in
New York City.

For more information, visit http://challenge.bfi.org
<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=865&qid=10588
5>

<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=874&qid=10588
5> The Buckminster Fuller Challenge PDF Announcement

<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=874&qid=10588
5> > Download the Challenge Announcement as PDF with graphics

<http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=875&qid=10588
5> > Download the February 4th, 2008 press release as PDF

To unsubscribe from this newsletter, send email to this
.org> address.
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address.

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FW: Earth Policy News - Ice Melt Accelerates Around the World

-----Original Message-----
From: Earth Policy News [mailto:Earthpolicynews@earthpolicy.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 4:16 AM
To: scott-e22@earthlink.net
Subject: Earth Policy News - Ice Melt Accelerates Around the World

We apologize for any duplication.

Eco-Economy Indicator -- ICE MELT

February 4, 2008

Eco-Economy Indicators are the twelve trends the Earth Policy Institute
tracks to measure progress in building an eco-economy. Ice melting is one of
the most visible indicators of climate change.

ICE MELT ACCELERATES AROUND THE WORLD
Frances C. Moore

With atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at new record highs and
global average temperature now some 0.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
levels, the frozen regions of the earth are showing us just how rapidly
climate change can take effect. Recent years have seen ice melt accelerate
and spread to new, previously unaffected regions. In many areas, the pace of
melting has surprised even the scientists studying it most closely,
providing a strong early indication that the consequences of climate change
could come faster and be more severe than previously believed.

The most dramatic loss of ice in recent years has been the decline of summer
sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Between 1953 and 2006, the area covered by sea
ice in September shrunk by 7.8 percent per decade, more than three times as
fast as the average rate simulated by climate models. Researchers were
further stunned in the summer of 2007 when Arctic sea ice extent plummeted
to the lowest level ever measured, more than 20 percent below the 2005
record...

For entire text see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Ice/2008.htm
For data see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Ice/2008_data.htm

For an index of Earth Policy Institute resources related to Ice Melt see
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Ice/index.htm

And for more information on the effects of rising temperature and how to
stabilize climate, you may be interested in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save
Civilization by Lester R. Brown (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008),
posted at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.
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State of the [Silicon] Valley (2008) Town Meeting

Friday, February 22, 2008 -- 7:30 am to 1:45 pm, San Jose, $125 ($100 for nonprofit/student); includes copy of 2008 Silicon Valley Index.  www.jointventure.org.  408-271-7213.

Small Business Sustainability Workshop

The nonprofit Urban Solutions (San Francisco) will ofer a free workshop on the benefits of small businesses going greetn (thurs. jan. 31, 2008, 5:30-7:30pm.  Register at www.urbansolutionssf.org or call 415-553-4433 x101.

Carbon Advantage, Competitive Advantage

by Dave Douglas (Business Week Article).  "Considering carbon offsets? Companies can get a better return by offering products and services that improve sustainability for others.  Business is about competition. Successful companies win customers and take market share from rivals. Climate change is different. Ultimately we'll either all win or all lose. If the effects of climate change end up depressing the global economy, no one's quarterly results are going to look good. On the other hand, if we collectively get to a more sustainable global economy, we'll all have the opportunity to compete and succeed in growing markets."

The article is on target in terms of the boot-strapping systems effect individual companies' efforts can have on pushing the economic system towards sustainability.  However, the description of "carbon advantage" does not really reference carbon per-se, but the competitive advantage arising from core business innovation that  increases resource and energy efficiency and produces new green products and services -- the more general "sustainability" advantage. At this point, the world needs BOTH actions:  (1) firms internalizing the external cost of their carbon emissions by paying for an offset and (2) innovating in their core business to eliminate the need to purchase an offset and reap the larger competitive advantages of sustainability innovation. Taking the first action increases the value of taking the second action! Further, new initiates need to address the systems-level innovation required so that firm-level innovation will shift the economy to sustainability.  This innovation in new institutions or institutional initiatives could be government, public-private, or purely private, but they are essential.  Firms will not - cannot - undertake this type of innovation, and it is essential for sustainability success.  The source of the sustainability crisis in the first place is a range of key phenomenon being outside the price system and outside the concept system of individuals, firms, regulators, and the economic system itself, except when they manifest too late to respond, as the costs of increasingly severe and frequent weather events, the destruction of the biospheric conditions that support a relatively low-cost and benign environment for human habitation, the individual health effects of air, water, and food pollution and toxicity, etc.

FW: Earth Policy News - Solar Cell Production Jumps 50 Percent in 2007

CROSS POSTING

-----Original Message-----
From: Earth Policy News [mailto:Earthpolicynews@earthpolicy.org]
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 5:35 AM
To: scott-e22@earthlink.net
Subject: Earth Policy News - Solar Cell Production Jumps 50 Percent in 2007

Eco-Economy Indicator -- SOLAR ENERGY

December 27, 2007

Eco-Economy Indicators are twelve trends that the Earth Policy Institute
tracks to measure progress in building an eco-economy. Using energy from the
sun is a key component of the Plan B renewable energy economy.

SOLAR CELL PRODUCTION JUMPS 50 PERCENT IN 2007

Jonathan G. Dorn

Production of photovoltaics (PV) jumped to 3,800 megawatts worldwide in
2007, up an estimated 50 percent over 2006. At the end of the year,
according to preliminary data, cumulative global production stood at 12,400
megawatts, enough to power 2.4 million U.S. homes. Growing by an impressive
average of 48 percent each year since 2002, PV production has been doubling
every two years, making it the world's fastest-growing energy source...

For entire text see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Solar/2007.htm
For data see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Solar/2007_data.htm

For an index of Earth Policy Institute resources related to Solar and other
Renewable Energy see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Solar/index.htm

And for more information on moving rapidly to renewable energy, see the
brand new book by Lester Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
Information at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm

Holiday Hope 2007 for Sustainability Success

There are so many initiatives these days that provide hope for sustainability success.  Their shared theme is renewal, a theme at the heart of the holiday spirit. Here are but a few examples of pioneers, path-breaking initiatives, and actions of ordinary people.

• Earth Policy Institute's  Plan B 3.0:  Mobilizing to Save Civilization  by reversing trends fast undermining our future.  Four goals: stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore damaged ecosystems.
• Worldwatch's State of the World 2008 showcases innovations for a sustainable economy that are shifting whole societies onto a sustainable path.
• Collaborating World Politicians! - The Bali Roadmap - not a panecea, but a promising beginning for reversing the accelerating climate catastrophe.
• Corporate Sustainabiltiy Pioneer & Leader since the early 1990s - Ray Anderson & Interface Corporation.  Vision/Mission:        zero environmental impact by 2020.  
• The Free Market Responds to the climate catastrophe and larger sustainability crisis with venture capital - the fuel for next generation innovation: new energy finance.   new carbon finance. 
• Restoring the Balance - TerraPass, a pioneer in carbon offsets. 
• Integrative Understanding is Accelerating:  MIT & Sustainabilty, the S-Business Laboratory.  The Earth Portal for accurate, authoratative, and accessible information and intelligence.  Wiser Earth - a wiki community collobrative tool for sustainability.

WWI's State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy

"Growing evidence suggests that the global economy is now destroying its own ecological (read "economic") base and offering little to billions of impoverished people. In response, pioneering policymakers, business leaders and concerned citizens around the globe are creating the architecture of sustainable economies, one innovation at a time.

• Zero-waste cities
• Cars designed for remanufacture
• Cap-and-trade carbon markets
• Closed-loop manufacturing
• Microfinance for the very poor
• Product take-back laws
• And much more!

Order now at WWI's special pre-publication price $15. Price is good through December 31. You must enter promo code PPSOWB during the checkout process."