"In the fullness of the #Anthropocene, what does a hard look at the relationships between #ecosystems and economic #systems in the broadest sense suggest about our collective #future?"
"Before articulating prescriptions, we first need a comprehensive diagnosis of the patient. In 2019, we are beyond a #piecemeal listing of what’s wrong. A coherent description of the global economy requires a #systems view"
"Ecological economics acknowledges that real economies are completely dependent on energy. However, orthodox economic theory remains blind to this reality. As a result, so do our institutions and our citizenry. The disconnect has massive implications for our future."
"there are hundreds of medium & high heat industrial processes (for textiles, chemicals, cement, steel etc.) using fossil fuels that have no current (or even under development) alternative using low- carbon technology."
"We use around two calories of fossil fuel to grow one food calorie in our modern agricultural system – but we use 8–12 additional fossil calories to process, package, deliver, store and cook modern food."
"Carbon emissions and economic activity can be 'decoupled' if we increase non-fossil energy production faster than energy consumption growth (essentially: faster than economic growth). But that’s not happening globally."
"In tandem with some fraction of the best remaining fossil energy, we certainly could use intermittent renewable energy in ways that could power a great human #civilization – but it would look quite different than the one we currently live in and are #planning for."
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"The #UnitedStates is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health #crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel 'persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness' rose from 26 percent to 44 percent"
"More than 1 in 4 girls reported that they had seriously contemplated attempting suicide during the pandemic, which was twice the rate of boys. Nearly half of LGBTQ teens said they had contemplated suicide during the pandemic, compared with 14 percent of their heterosexual peers"
"But the big picture is the same across all categories: Almost every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it’s happening all across the country."
"Our results showed that (i) the #biodiversity loss per citizen shows large variations among countries, with higher values when per-capita income increases; (ii) the share of biodiversity losses due to GHG emissions in the ...
... #biodiversity#footprint increases with income; (iii) food consumption is the most important driver of biodiversity loss in most of the countries and regions, with a global average of 40%; ...
... (iv) more than 50% of the #biodiversity loss associated with consumption in developed economies occurs outside their territorial boundaries; and (v) the biodiversity footprint per dollar consumed is lower for wealthier countries.
"We find that, between 2009 and 2013, #tourism’s global #carbon#footprint has increased from 3.9 to 4.5 GtCO2e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas #emissions."
"The United States tops the carbon #footprint ranking (Fig. 1,top left) under both DBA (1,060 MtCO2e) and RBA (909 MtCO2e) accounting perspectives, followed by China (528/561 MtCO2e), Germany (305/329 MtCO2e) and India (268/240 MtCO2e)."
"The majority of these carbon #footprints are caused by domestic travel."
"Oxfam found that '13 out of the 15 #IMF loan programs negotiated during the second year of the #pandemic require new #austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk.'"
"The Oxfam report notes that the conditions of a 2021 loan of $2.3 billion to #Kenya compelled the country to freeze public sector pay for three years, while mandating higher taxes on food and cooking gas"
"#Sudan has had to end fuel subsidies, a policy that has disproportionately affected the nearly 50% of the population that is impoverished."
"We found that in total 83% of total regional species loss (4747 species) is incurred due to land use devoted for domestic consumption whereas 17% due to export production (a total of 969 species)."
"Fig. 1c shows that imports into the USA&China embody highest species lost. It is interesting to see that even countries with smaller populations such as Japan, Germany, South Korea,...—all cause high biodiversity loss abroad owing to their high per capita consumption and import"
".... For example, total German food consumption was estimated to result in 46 species lost, of which 43 are from imported food items."