Stories tagged with social change

Localism and some thoughts on Social Change

Posted by Luis de Sousa on June 5, 2007 - 3:00am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: Corporations, Localism, Retirement, social change, sociology, sustainability [list all tags]

A few days ago I attended a talk by Professor David Hess, entitled “Rethinking the Sustainable City: Exploring the Potential of Local Social Enterprises”. It gave me a lot to thought about on the social questions raised by the Hubbert Peak, and how energy (or the lack of it) can shape the future of our Society. Less energy will likely mean less travel and more local networks. Reshaping our Society to the local level might seem both good and inevitable, but what problems may we encounter doing so?
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UK's Guardian: Are Capitalism and a Habitable Planet Mutually Exclusive?

Posted by Prof. Goose on February 3, 2006 - 7:05pm
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: capitalism, climate change, peak oil, social change, socialism [list all tags]

(hat tip: Energy Bulletin)

Robert Newman writes in UK's Guardian:

Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change.

There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.

There's much more of an argument in the article, but this was rather my point a long time ago about the governance of the commons: with scarce resources, a society either needs to find another scarce resource to compensate, a way of creating/enforcing/reinforcing tribal/cultural norms that encourage people do not hoard more than their "share" of resources, or you need a central government/public sector that controls resource allocation.
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