Bulletin Board for World Sustainability, Spring 2011

Professors Edelstein and Hayes

Edition #6: 10/31/2011

The essay on global crisis and disabling analysis is deferred due to weather and power outages reported by many students. The due is by class time on November 7.

We will convene groups in class on Thursday November 3 to pursue topics for your presentation on civil society organizations. Please give attention to the country you wish to cover for this requirement.

Edition #5: 10/24/2011

Our class on October 27 will examine the Aral Sea disaster. Please go to Friends Hall, second floor of the Student Center.

Please see the column in today's New York Times by Joel Cohen, Seven Billion. This timely article explains some of the implications of the human population hitting that number, on Halloween.

Edition #4: 10/17/2011

Tom Friedman of the New York Times has just published a column that fits nicely with Ecology, Economics, and Ethics: Something is Happening Here, October 11, 2011. We should peruse it for class. Friedman is following up on his prior column on this topic, The Earth is Full, June 11, 2011.

Edition #3.1: 10/10/2011

In class today, I used an acronym to help provide context to Lester Brown's Plan B 4.0, SUDS:

• Substance means that sustainability needs form and content, the classical definition of substance from Aristotle. That is, sustainability needs thought, trends, and structure.
• Urgency issues from Brown, such as his primary goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2020. along with population, poverty and the restoration of nature, Brown presses upon us that these issues cannot wait. See his statement of goals, pages 23-24.
• Depth requires that we dig beneath the surface to engage the larger civilizational meaning of sustainability. We are speaking of how humans inhabit the earth for the long term. Thinking about World Sustainability must be done wisely and thoroughly.
• Strategy implies that we need to be clever and realistic about how goals that promote World Sustainability can be realized. 

I developed the acronym while taking notes for a set of lectures in the Foundations of Sustainability course in the Master of Arts in Sustainability Studies. See my introduction to Plan B 4.0.

Another point that appeared to resonate is that Brown provides detail on the overshooting of Earth's carrying capacity by the impact of our species.

We have entered the global crisis and the disabling analysis, which culminates in an essay due on October 27.

Please note that in the class schedule, we have pushed back the Course Enrichment Component until December 5.

Edition #3: 9/27/2011

Joaquin Maravillas, a student in Ecology, Economics, and Ethics, noted a significant case of dispossession reported in a recent New York Times article: In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out. We will review this article in class. Notice how the project assessment document appears similar to the situation depicted in Banking on Disaster.

In class on September 29, we will follow the links in the schedule about the Brundtland Commission report that defined and explained sustainability. See the web site for the Earth Summit 2012, a.k.a. Rio+20, June 2012. See A Pocket Guide to Sustainable Development Governance. Recent trends on poverty are displayed by Hunger Notes.

Edition #2: 9/26/2011

Please note that we have modified the course schedule, pushing back the graphic organizer to October 3.

I regret to note the passing of a heroine of World Sustainability, Wangari Maathai, of Kenya. (See also New York Times obituary.) The Greenbelt Movement initiated by Dr. Maathia and other women in Africa offers a beacon toward World Sustainability.

Edition #1: 9/18/2011

Welcome to the Bulletin Board for the fall 2011 offering of World Sustainability by Professors Michael Edelstein and Wayne Hayes:

• ENST20902 (CRN 40717), Professor Michael Edelstein
• ENST20903 (CRN 41355), Professor Wayne Hayes

This co-taught course meets on Monday and Thursday in the ASB-136 and ASB-137 lecture hall from 2:00 P.M. until 3:30 P.M. Please examine the course syllabus and the course schedule, both of which are available online.