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Tag archives for Stockholm Environment Institute

Tipping point: Threat or opportunity?

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Photo: Romain Laurent.

For anyone who happens to be in Stockholm before the third of June, I would highly recommend a visit to Kulturhuset, Stockholm’s own house of culture. But not only because it’s one of my favourite places – somewhere you are always welcome, offering culture in all its forms and shapes (and often for free).

For a long time Kulturhuset  has shown a great interest for sustainability, environment and how to live greener. Recently they took a wider perspective on this and opened an exhibition created together with scientists and experts (for example from Stockholm Environment Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre).

This time it’s not about the small perspective, as how to recycle or our waste, but the big picture: That humanity is a part of nature, what we are doing to the planet and what we can do to change the situation.

In Tucson, USA, several entirely intact hot dogs were find during excavations done 1974–2005. Raises one or two questions about what we put in our food, doesn’t it? Photo: Sara Jeswani.

Tipping Point, which is the name of the exhibition, is a term that describes how a sudden change can have large consequences for both society and eco systems. Like the melting Arctic ice, which isn’t melting gradually, but at a certain point starts to melt uncontrollably because of feed-back mechanisms.
The change in itself can seem small, but might force us to much bigger changes.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

April 10, 2012

Swedish report: CO2 is threatening our oceans (and it’s expensive!)

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The Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Noaml  (CC: By, Nc)

When no arguments seem to work to stop environmental degradation, economy sometimes does. For example it was a report by the economist Nicholas Stern that first opened the eyes of many decision makers towards the threats of climate change.

This time Stockholm Environment Institute has calculated the costs of letting climate change and other human-caused factors ruin the world’s oceans.

Today the oceans are providing humanity with enormous values through for example fishery and tourism. When those functions are reduced, a lot of people will be left without incomes. Costs can also go up because of climate change, which causes sea-level rise, storms and reduces the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

March 22, 2012

What do people over 55 think about climate change?

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spring-walk

An active ageing population means people who both have the time and will to continue consuming and seeing the world. How does this affect the way over 55s look at the world? asks researchers. Photo: Helena Wahlman/imagebank.sweden.se.

They are know both as heavy polluters and those who could be the most vulnerable to a warmer climate. On the other hand, people who have lived on this earth more than 55 years, are seldom asked about their views or worries when it comes to these issues. It’s rather the coming generations we talk about.

Now a project run by Stockholm Environment Institute wants to change this by finding out what over 55s really think through an international survey.
– Some very old people say they don’t care, since they will anyway soon be gone: Others worry about what kind of world their grandchildren will grow up in, Gary Haq, who is leading the research team says in an interview with the newspaper Sydsvenskan.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

February 13, 2012

Researching in all directions for a sustainable society

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landscape
Humans and nature, how can we co-exist? Photo: Guillaume Baviere (CC: BY)

Johan-Rockström

Johan Rockström will lead the research project. Photo: SEI.

Sweden will the be the hub for a very interesting research project that will hopefully give us more answers about how environmental issues are linked to basic human development and how to solve the problems we face.

The project, which is named the Earth System Sustainability Initiative, will try to provide global coordination for science to respond to the most pressing societal and environmental challenges, joining researchers from the social, economic, natural, health, and engineering sciences.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

October 10, 2011

A Nobel 911 call from Stockholm to the world

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This week a significant number of Nobel Prize winners (Around 20 of them actually, from physics, chemistry and economics all the way to literature prize winner Nadine Gordimer) and other prominent thinkers have gathered in Stockholm for the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability.

Victoria-and-Nadine-Gordimer

Crown Princess Victoria and Nobel Prize winner in Literature 1991, Nadine Gordimer. Photo: 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability.

Their task is to look at the huge challenges humanity is facing, such as climate change, fresh water scarcity, loss of species and destruction of forest land – toghether instead of as isolated problems. And it’s urgent.
– A call from Stockholm. This is not a local call. This is a long distance 911 call from the future. A call that we need to take right now, said Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria in her opening speach.

In an radio interwiev Carl Folke from the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, which is organizing the

Judge-Molina

Nobel Laureate in chemistry, Mario Molina, was judge during the Nobel Court Case: Planet Earth vs. Humanity. Photo: 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability.

symposium together with Stockholm Environment Institute among others, stated that we have about 10 years to start bending the negative environment curves.
– It’s all about our own survival, not the Earth’s. This planet will continue to live even without us, the big question is how many of us that will be left, he said.

Yesterday the Nobel price winners acted as a jury when humanity was put on trial for mistreating the planet.
– Our generation is the first to know that human pressure is so large that the possibility of irreversible changes to the Earth System can no longer be excluded. The prosecution will therefore maintain that humanity must work towards global stewardship around the planet’s intrinsic boundaries, a scientifically defined space within which we can continue to develop, said Professor Will Steffen, prosecutor and Director at Climate Change Institute, Australian National University.

Today the “court verdict” was part of a compilation of recommendations that were signed by all the Nobel Prize winners and handed over to the UN panel on sustainability. A few of the key messages:

- Rethink our economic development model and find welfare indicators that are better than GDP.

- Phase out fossil fuels.

- Shift away from today’s culture of consumerism.

Tomorrow (Thursday) the symposium ends with a panel discussion about the future. Everyone is welcome to send in their questions on Twitter, marked with #PlanetaryOpps. It’s not every day you have an expert panel like this to answer your questions, so why not take the opportunity?

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

May 18, 2011