Program on Global Sustainability and Health
What the Future Must Look Like
Imagine a world with abundant wildlife and natural resources, clean air, clean water, and a stable climate.
Such a world would contain attractive, walkable communities with pleasant parks and public meeting places, shops and businesses that people can walk to, supplies of clean, renewable energy, and locally produced food. This type of community would have many profound benefits for human health and well-being. Such a vision is possible, but will require new thinking, new methods, and much effort to achieve.
Many authors and analysts have described a future that is motivated by the challenges of climate change and dwindling energy supplies. Such a future is:
- Locally-based
- Decentralized
- Downscaled
- Low-energy
- Resource conserving
- Reorganized for local and regional food production and distribution
- Based on international cooperation
The Program on Global Sustainability and Health is addressing these issues.
Recommended Reading
- Heinberg R. Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. Canada: New Society Publishers, 2007.
- Kunstler JH. The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Grove Press, 2006.
- McKibben B. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2007.