State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?

Three of the boundaries may already have been transgressed: those for climate change, changes of the global nitrogen cycle, and the rate of biodiversity

That requires, according to Laurie Mazur, diversity, redundancy, modularity, social capital, agency, inclusiveness, tight feedbacks, and the capacity for innovation.

move beyond individual actions.

is likely to fuel a desire among others for greater government power and control.

individual choice on environmental issues have focused on providing information and persuasion rather than working together to change the context in which the choices are made.

At the global level there are so-called Earth System services operating on large temporal and spatial scales without the major direct influence of living organisms (unlike ecosystem services).

development, education, law and policy, energy, community engagement, food and agriculture, and data analysis.

Three critical attributes distinguish freshwater from other “resources”: it is essential to life, there are no substitutes for it, and because we cannot ship it around the world in large quantities, how it is used and managed locally or regionally is what matters.

Adaptive management.