{"id":1315,"date":"2012-01-30T16:07:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T16:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=1315"},"modified":"2012-01-30T16:07:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T16:07:42","slug":"4th-global-universities-network-for-innovation-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/01\/30\/4th-global-universities-network-for-innovation-report\/","title":{"rendered":"4th Global Universities Network for Innovation report"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Lester Brown's Introduction [ The World on the Edge<\/em> ] to the 4th GUNI [ Global Universities Network for Innovation ]\u00a0report<\/a>: Higher Education in the World 4, Higher Education's Commitment to Sustainability: from Understanding to Action<\/em>'. \u00a0This is an inspiring (or gloomy, according to taste) tour d'horizon, and there and facts and figures aplenty if you want to scare the horses.<\/p>\n

The article ends like this:<\/p>\n

One of the questions I hear most frequently is: What can I do? People often expect me to suggest lifestyle changes, such as recycling newspapers or changing light bulbs.\u00a0 These are essential, but they are not nearly enough.\u00a0 Restructuring the global economy means becoming politically active, working for the needed changes, as the grassroots campaign against coal-fired power plants is doing.\u00a0 Saving civilization is not a spectator sport.<\/p>\n

Inform yourself.\u00a0 Read about the issues.\u00a0 Share this information with friends.\u00a0 Pick an issue that\u2019s meaningful to you, such as tax restructuring to create an honest market, phasing out coal-fired power plants, or developing a world-class recycling system in your community.\u00a0 Or join a group that is working to provide family planning services to the 215 million women who want to plan their families but lack the means to do so.\u00a0 You might want to organize a small group of like-minded individuals to work on an issue that is of mutual concern.\u00a0 You can begin by talking with others to help select an issue to work on.<\/p>\n

Once your group is informed and has a clearly defined goal, ask to meet with your elected representatives on the city council or the state or national legislature.\u00a0 Write or email your elected representatives about the need to restructure taxes and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.\u00a0 Remind them that leaving environmental costs off the books may offer a sense of prosperity in the short run, but it leads to collapse in the long run. \u00a0...<\/p>\n

The choice is ours \u2013 yours and mine.\u00a0 We can stay with business as usual and preside over an economy that continues to destroy its natural support systems until it destroys itself, or we can be the generation that changes direction, moving the world onto a path of sustained progress.\u00a0 The choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on Earth for all generations to come.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I said it was gloomy. \u00a0But it is well written and contains much by way of information and ideas; and not a few sound bites. \u00a0I was particularly struck by this quote from \u00d8ystein Dahle, former Vice President of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea:<\/p>\n

Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. \u00a0Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For \u2018capitalism\u2019, here, read civilisation, as it's likely to unravel before the market does. \u00a0Its doubly gloomy outside today: one of those drab, windless winter days where renewables are neither seen nor heard and we're grateful for all that coal at the power stations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Lester Brown's Introduction [ The World on the Edge ] to the 4th GUNI [ Global Universities Network for Innovation ]\u00a0report: Higher Education in the World 4, Higher Education's Commitment to Sustainability: from Understanding to Action'....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}