Our Future Planet News

Flight to the Future

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 18:55

International travel can be massively harmful to the environment. Our future planet looks for more sustainable ways to get about.

Glancing at greenhouse gas emissions, it doesn’t take a genius to work out international travel is a serious offender.

But travel is also one of the most important ways to foster better understanding and a sense of global community. The more widespread global links become, the more previously separate communities and cultures come to understand one another and our responsibility for the planet we inhabit.

Sustainability in action

Tuesday, 02 February 2010 10:37

Sustainability is complex, and even the most conscious among us may wonder whether we really live sustainable lives. Giles Crosse looks at how to take more meaningful action.

What is considered sustainable? Do we have to give up everything or are there more realistic options for balancing impacts with a more thoughtful way of life?

Rediscovering the Common Wealth

Friday, 29 January 2010 17:41

By Geof  Wood Professor of International Development Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Bath

My father died in 2005. He was 100. His father died 30 years earlier aged 101. He was about 10 when General Gordon was killed in Khartoum (1885). My grandfather remembered it well. So I have a very direct bloodline back to 1874, when Victoria had been on the throne 37 years, and had another 27 to go. I overlapped with my grandfather for 30 years, so those paying attention can work out my age! And I have a 3 year old grandson.

My grandfather and I shared his past and my future through his endless stories and my aspirations. In the curiosity of my growing up, we shared a fascination for trying to explain the paths of society—ours and others. In the last decade of his life I lived at times in Africa, India and Bangladesh, always calling in on him on the eve of departure and reporting in on my return. I brought back stories to add on to his. Together, we spanned the heyday of British imperialism; the Boer wars; the two Great Wars; the intervening depression; the holocaust; the break up of empire with (strongly in his mind) the empire coming to Yorkshire through immigration; the rise of China; as well as my career focus upon the removal of poverty and alienation in poor countries of the world. And together, we witnessed the formation of the welfare state in the UK, reflecting the theory of Polanyi, the detail of Beveridge and the political acumen of Lloyd George through his reincarnation in Atlee, supported by the strength of Nye Bevan. This was a humane advance for my grandfather, with me as its beneficiary.

Financing the future

Thursday, 28 January 2010 10:07

New currency concepts might usher in an age when international debt is eradicated, and global equality and trade commonplace. Giles Crosse imagines a more equitable finance.

Finance has the power to shape our future planet, its problems, successes, poverty, wealth, happiness or misery for billions of human beings. We know today’s systems are at best functional, at worst criminal, but finding new ways won’t be easy.

Picture provided by Envirowise

Conflicting views: War and conflict have long been among the greatest threats to global sustainability and harmony

Monday, 25 January 2010 18:48

Giles Crosse examines our historical capacity for bloodshed.

Conflict over resources is perhaps the most ancient of human problems. But in spite of advancing technologies and advancing mindsets, war and violence remain as prevalent as ever at the start of the 21^st century. What’s stopping us moving beyond such archaic ways of resolving differences?