Displaying 1 - 25 of 95
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Article
The so-called 'Five Horsemen' technologies that can and will reshape the world and humanity's impact on it -- nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, information technology and applied cognitive science -- are approaching rapidly enough that the time has come to seriously consider how to incorporate these technologies into a sustainable future.
by Brad Allenby
2
Article
Have the environmental/sustainability movements allowed themselves to be segmented and made a part of the postmodern political chessboard, moved by others for their own purposes?
by Brad Allenby
3
Article
Just as railroads fundamentally changed the country and the world in the 19th century, five even more power technologies are already among us, making it all the more imperative that we examine them from their potential environmental impacts.
by Brad Allenby
4
Article
Educating students about sustainability -- and training them to develop the solutions that will make it a reality -- has never been more important than right now. Unfortunately, without radical changes to the education system, the leaders we need may never appear.
by Brad Allenby
5
Article
Framing the environmental challenges that we face as simply as possible allows people to act, even if ineffectually; frame it as the complex adaptive system that it is, and people go back to television. But rethinking how we discuss climate change solutions may result in rethinking how we think about the problem at all.
by Brad Allenby
6
Article
The cliché has it that there is no environment in Los Angeles, but as a mythical city facing hordes of environmental, economic and social challenges, there are a multitude of lessons there that we can use in developing and sustaining the environmental movement.
by Brad Allenby
7
Article
The practice of science offers a solution to our many looming crises -- climate change among the largest -- only if we step back from our drive to analyze details at the smallest possible level and begin examining the bigger picture.
by Brad Allenby
8
Article
As shown by the current uproar over the use of food crops as stock for alternative fuels, we need to incorporate a flexible and highly adaptive system of ethical guidelines to our plans for addressing the environmental problems that loom increasingly large over human activity.
by Brad Allenby
9
Article
Science and technology have led us to our current environmental crisis, and many believe that it also holds the most promising key to getting us out of this predicament. But several new books explore the notion that the rise of 'scientism' can lead to an erosion of personal freedoms.
by Brad Allenby
10
Article
As the current backlash on corn-based ethanol shows, when we fall in love with promising new technology too quickly, we run the risk of creating worse problems than we're originally trying to solve.
by Brad Allenby
11
Article
A recent string of harsh public statements and policy proposals addressing climate change -- including, but not limited to, the comparison of climate change deniers to Hitler -- does show just how widely accepted global warming has become. Although vehement public acceptance moves us closer to action, it may also serve to stifle productive dialogue on possible solutions or strategies on the crisis.
by Brad Allenby
12
Article
The trend toward individual participation in all things technological will surely have some benefits, but given the reins, the public may choose its SUV desires over the planet's hybrid needs.
by Brad Allenby
13
Article
A recent trip to the Netherlands demonstrates how infrastructure design can either liberate or constrict the choices we make about the way we travel.
by Brad Allenby
14
Article
Although the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC is a victory for scientists doing science -- and potentially a win for the environment -- it also sends the less enlightened message that fear works as a way to cause social change.
by Brad Allenby
15
Article
Environmental modeling becomes highly unreliable when it doesn't factor in the instability of social and cultural structures.
by Brad Allenby
16
Article
At this point, there is almost no doubt that human civilization has caused a range of changes -- albeit poorly understood changes -- in many natural systems, including the climate. But the heavy reliance on environmental modeling in our debate on the significance of those changes, can often serve to complicated and even change the results of those models.
by Brad Allenby
17
Article
The disconnect that many environmentalists see in their fellow air-travelers -- preferring to watch the in-flight movie over enjoying the natural scenery, for instance -- in many ways shadows the ongoing struggle to save the world that most people only view from a distance through windows or the television screen.
by Brad Allenby
18
Article
All good behavioral and predictive models undermine themselves: Climate models, by existing, change behavior and institutions in ways that invalidate their initial assumptions. This does not make them any less useful, but in fact will help us address the climate crisis.
by Brad Allenby
19
Article
While environmental considerations are clearly key to sustainability, it is also axiomatic that 'green engineering' is not sustainable engineering.
by Brad Allenby
20
Article
Different areas of the world have developed different relationships to technology as well as environmentalism. In order for environmentalists to succeed in crossing the gap from West to East, Brad Allenby writes, they must embrace technology as they ask the world to embrace the environment.
by Brad Allenby
21
Article
Brad Allenby writes that business interests have long worked to speed the creation, adoption and dispersal of new technologies into the economy; with the increasing global concern over climate change, they're also encompassing landscapes, biological operations and whole ecological systems, but to what end?
by Brad Allenby
22
Article
That humans are inclined to make choices that offer more pleasure than pain comes as no surprise, but a look at how marketing -- whether of consumer goods or environmental causes -- offers intriguing ideas on how to create change, Brad Allenby writes.
by Brad Allenby
23
Article
Brad Allenby writes that the biggest threat to progress in societies across the globe may be the fact that our institutions can't embrace and constructively shape new technologies as they're adopted by the people.
by Brad Allenby
24
Article
Climate change is being repositioned from a difficult and complex challenge to a looming planetary disaster, with all other values now paling in comparison, writes Brad Allenby.
by Brad Allenby
25
Article
Climate change has become the existential challenge of the environmental era. But, says Brad Allenby, that challenge is now moot.
by Brad Allenby