March 24-27, 2009
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Convenors: Drs. Ferdinando Villa & Marta Ceroni, University of Vermont
Managing without Growth. Slower by Design, Not DisasterEcological economist Peter Victor is Professor of Environmental Studies at York University. Before rejoining academia as Dean he was an Assistant Deputy Minister in the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. As a private consultant Dr. Victor undertook numerous influential policy-related economic studies in Canada and abroad. He was the founding President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics and he serves on many advisory boards and committees in the public, private and NGO sectors.
Economic growth is the over-arching policy objective of governments worldwide. Yet its long-term viability is increasingly questioned because of environmental impacts and impending and actual shortages of energy and material resources. Furthermore, rising incomes in rich countries bear little relation to gains in happiness and well-being. Growth has not eliminated poverty, brought full employment or protected the environment. Using a simulation model of the Canadian economy, we will consider whether full employment, an end to poverty, dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and maintaining fiscal balance is possible without economic growth.
Core Principles and Energy SolutionsDr. Cutler J. Cleveland is Professor of Geography and Environmental Science at Boston University, and on the faculty of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. Dr. Cleveland is the founding editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Earth, the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Energy, winner of an American Library Association award, and the Dictionary of Energy. For more information about Dr. Cleveland, see his website.
The study of energy has played a pivotal role in understanding the creation of the universe, the origin of life, the evolution of human civilization and culture, economic growth and the rise of living standards, war and geopolitics, and significant environmental change at local, regional and global scales. But if you wanted to know just the 10 most important ideas about energy, what would they be? Dr. Cleveland discusses a list of core principles that forms the seed for important discussion and debate about solutions to our energy challenge.
Holism and the Reconstitution of the Domains of Everyday LifeGideon Kossoff served as programme administrator from 1988 until 2007 for Schumacher College’s MSc in Holistic Science and developed its extensive library. Gideon’s research focuses on the relationships between humans and the natural environment and humans and the built/designed world as the foundation for a sustainable society. In the late eighties he attended the Institute for Social Ecology, Vermont, where he studied with social ecologist Murray Bookchin and others, with whom he continued to work with for several years. In the early and mid-nineties Gideon set up a Social Ecology Network (SEN) whose remit was to disseminate information about social ecology and related ideas to a U.K. audience.
The interconnected issues facing humankind at a global scale must be addressed holistically at the level of the everyday if we are to transition to a sustainable society. In this lecture, Gideon Kossoff proposes a holistic framework within which an ecological critique of everyday life can be made and from which alternatives can be developed. The framework brings together four strands of thought that include: 1) everyday life as the context for social and ecological issues, 2) holistic principles from the natural world, 3) a theory of needs and their satisfaction, and 4) nested, networked, self-organizing and emergent social forms. This methodology is used to disclose underlying principles of ‘wholeness’ found in pre-industrial societies in order to understand the shortcomings of modern society.
Ecological Design: Worldview, Relationships, and PlaceTerry Irwin combines freelance design consulting, guest teaching at colleges and universities in Europe and North America with her own PhD research. She is a lecturer with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at The University of Dundee in the Design History, Theory and Practice department. She believes that design is a key element in many of the social and environment crises confronting us today, and that it has the potential to contribute significantly to their solution. For more information about Terry Irwin, see her website.
Ms. Irwin’s talk will focus on what sustainable design is, how it arises out of a more holistic/ecological worldview, and the responsibility and ethics implicit in that definition. She will discuss the ubiquity of design and its implication in most of the large problems confronting us today, how the transition to a sustainable society is first and foremost a design problem, and how design needs to change to become more transdisciplinary.
Channel 17 Airtime(s) for
On the Waterfront - Bob Costanza on Sustainability, (Tue, Jul 24, 2007)
July 16-20, 2007
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Convenors: Dr. Robert Costanza and Azur Moulaert, University of Vermont
Last modified March 12 2009 02:51 PM
