Rethinking Sustainability

Here we are in 2024, careening towards 2 degrees warming and beyond while it's becoming clear that even 1.5 degrees is not safe. Clearly, destroying your own life support system is not a clever move and yet we're doing it anyway. In this episode, Sue Ferris contemplates the difference between intelligence and wisdom. We have one, but what about the other?   Sue Ferris is the author of  Let’s Not Lose Them If you'd like to contribute to this series, please get in  touch .

You know the answer these questions:  Is our civilisation sustainable? No. Are we doing what's required to protect our environment? No. Are our efforts on climate change working? No. The question is, why? After all the vast effort from so many committed people, why are we failing? That's an ambitious topic for short podcast, so here instead, we open this series with a fundamental question. What does 'sustainability' really mean? This is the theme of the books  The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation  with Mark Diesendorf and Sustainability and the New Economics with Stephen Williams. If you'd like to contribute a podcast to this series, please get in touch .

The genesis of the Rethinking Sustainability occured at the November 2023 NENA conference, where we pitched the idea to an enthusiastic audience. That drew quite a few people who are keen to contribute episodes. The heart of  Rethinking Sustainability  is that it is a community project, bringing together many people and many voices. The idea of commnity activism is central to the book (please excuse the plug) that Mark Diesendorf and I wrote, The path to a Sustainable Civilisation . Often when people talk about 'sustainability', they're referring to the environment, but it's far bigger than that because it encompasses  a vast range of possible topics. Podcasts could also be on economics because - not suprisingly - this drives so much of our economies...and politics.  Crucially also, we should talk about society because ultimately, it's people who drive decision making. But also - and contrary to neoliberal thinking - we do not have a sustainable future without a s...