Brown argues that, as with the ancient Mayans, escalating world food demands are leading to topsoil losses that are eroding the foundation of present civilization. Deforestation, overgrazing and overfishing are shrinking the economy's resource base, leading to the biological equivalent of deficit financing. Unremitting inflation indicates that the transition to a sustainable society is behind schedule. Yet Brown finds reason for hope, China has recently halved its population growth rate and U.S. oil imports were cut by a third in two years. There are exciting signs of a shift to renewable energy, endowing the economy with permanence. Unlike the Mayans, today's societies know the course corrections needed to put it on a sustainable path.

Examines how Norway has positioned itself as an alternative, environmentally-sound nation in a world filled with tension and instability.

The world has changed dramatically. We no longer live in a world relatively empty of humans and their artifacts. We now live in the “Anthropocene,” era in a full world where humans are dramatically altering our ecological life-support system. Our traditional economic concepts and models were developed in an empty world. If we are to create sustainable prosperity, if we seek “improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities,” we are going to need a new vision of the economy and its relationship to the rest of the world that is better adapted to the new conditions we face. We are going to need an economics that respects planetary boundaries, that recognizes the dependence of human well-being on social relations and fairness, and that recognizes that the ultimate goal is real, sustainable human well-being, not merely growth of material consumption. This new economics recognizes that the economy is embedded in a society and culture that are themselves embedded in an ecological life-support system, and that the economy cannot grow forever on this finite planet. In this report, we discuss the need to focus more directly on the goal of sustainable human well-being rather than merely GDP growth. This includes protecting and restoring nature, achieving social and intergenerational fairness (including poverty alleviation), stabilizing population, and recognizing the significant nonmarket contributions to human well-being from natural and social capital. To do this, we need to develop better measures of progress that go well beyond GDP and begin to measure human well-being and its sustainability more directly.

A revised edition of a classic work long out of print, this book is based on the Schumacher Society Seminars on Community Economic Transformation. It presents the underlying ideas and essential institutions for building sustainable communities. The three major sections of the book deal with community land trusts and other forms of community ownership of natural resources; worker-managed enterprises, and other techniques of community self-management; and community currency and banking.

Aiming squarely at replacing capitalism with an ecologically sound and socially just society, Magdoff and Williams provide accounts of how a new world can be created from the ashes of the old. They show that it is possible to envision and create a society that is genuinely democratic, equitable, and ecologically sustainable. And possible--not one moment too soon--for society to change fundamentally and be brought into harmony with nature. --From publisher description.

A collection of articles addressing the issue of whether the industrial model of human progress can be sustained in the long term. It asks what the social, political, economic and environmental implications as well as potential solutions to the problem of resource-intensive growth are.

This book presents five critical dimensions on relationships, institutions, produc-tion, organisation, and governance from design and systems perspectives for thesystematic transition of unstable and vulnerable communities across the world tosustainable community systems.• The first section discusses features of relationships and processes to deepencooperation and trust within a community.• The second section examines institutions within and outside a district tofoster synergy across institutions within a district and to minimise negativeexternalities on local communities within a district.• The third section deals with food production systems that are nature-friendly, resilient, efficient and sustainable.• The fourth section discusses the design of producer organisations that cangraduate to become sustainable community enterprise systems.• The fifth section focuses on community governance that can facilitatedecentralised, participatory, transparent and democratic local governancesystems. This book• offers a fresh perspective on design thinking for optimising internal designconsistencies.• provides a systems perspective on building sustainable community systemsat the lowest governance unit in different countries, such as Ward/GramPanchayat/Panchayat Council/Gewong/Union Council/GN.• gives insights into design & systems perspectives towards buildingsustainable community systems within a district of any country across the/divworld.