‘Do you think we’re going to be okay?’

This does not bode well for the quantity of water available around the world. And because it never rains but it pours, the quality of water is also deteriorating. Algal blooms provoked by fertilizer and manure run-off have resulted in vast ocean dead zones covering thousands of square kilometres. On top of this, pesticide concentrations are buildin

In this world of climate breakdown, reporters are repeatedly referring to a ‘new normal’, perhaps hoping that we’ve reached a new equilibrium, similar to when the term was coined after the post-2008 financial crash. But climate change is not a boom and bust cycle. There will be no equilibrium, never again in our lifetimes. It’s increasingly difficu

partial explanation may be the different modes of consumption society engages in at different levels of income. At low incomes, it makes a lot of sense to grow: consumption is necessary for shelter, food, water, electricity, education, bikes, library cards, children’s crayons, etc. Beyond a certain level of income, research suggests that it is our

In a particularly illuminating study, the US public were asked how much of the total national wealth each 20% of the US population owned, from the poorest 20% to the wealthiest 20%. They were then asked how much each group should own in an ideal world. They guessed that the wealthiest 20% of Americans owned around 60% of national wealth, but that t

The result has been a dynamic of materialism (‘retail therapy’) fuelled by cheap imports as compensation for the lost ability to work towards security (home ownership, for example), along with, increasingly, drugs and depression. Sociologist Wolfgang Streeck calls this ‘coping, hoping, doping and shopping’.

Although a lot of the attention is on electric cars, e-bikes are the real unsung heroes of electric transportation. They do much more heavy lifting than electric cars and take up far less space. Their use is already growing at more than 20% per year in many countries, including the US, China, India, and much of Europe.49 Even if you charged one wit

Manufacturing a smartphone requires about seventy-five of the 118 elements in the periodic table (the human body needs only thirty), with metals and plastics sourced from so many places in such complex supply chains that it’s difficult for companies themselves to know where their components come from. These materials are then refined into microcomp

governments and society respond, increasing pressures from investors and employees are changing global business attitudes, with the most exposed sector, insurance, showing perhaps the deepest concern. The largest of the world’s reinsurers, providing insurance policies to thousands of other insurers, Munich Re has stated that a two degree warmer wor