"The ultimate recession": a recession caused not by failed regulation and bankers' greed, but by very high oil prices, food and water shortages, disappearing forests, accelerating climate change, forced migration and mass civil disruption...The long and the short of it, unfortunately, is this: more politicians still believe that economic recovery depends on continuing to live beyond our means (financially and ecologically) than on learning to live within our means. And that's why the ultimate "Perfect Storm" recession still looms on the horizon

...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed

Absolutely love the new campaign from the Optimum Population Trust: do your bit for addressing climate change by having fewer children - or even no children. The lifetime CO2 emissions of a UK citizen amount to 750 tonnes (the equivalent - apparently - of 620 return flights between London and New York), so the extra 10 million by which our population will rise between now and 2074 will, over their lifetimes, emit around 7½ billion tonnes of CO2..."births averted" is probably the most single most substantial and cost-effective intervention that governments could be using

Any regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short-lived spasm of spurious prosperity

The World Health Organization recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes and additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year. With one billion people overweight around the world-of whom at least 300 million are obese-that's an additional one billion tonnes.

...living more sustainably means living happier, more balanced and potentially more fulfilled lives than most of us 'choose' to live today, whatever Jeremy Clarkson may have to say about that!

Peace, non-violence, human rights and the environment - if only everybody saw these as the seamless whole that they are