Sustainability Lessons From The Global South with Shahid Khan

These lessons are gleaned from Shahid Khan, someone who has worked in human development and sustainability for many years in lots of different contexts.  His work is especially revealing in terms of the subtleties and structural understandings which need to be acted on in order for collective challenges to be met like climate breakdown.  Many of the answers which the world needs are to be found in the Global South in the ancient tried and tested means of, for example, creating ice in deserts. Read more…

Why Not an Economy of Recycling? by Amelia Modrak

The facts are there. Only 5% of the total plastic that is being produced is recycled, and a similar trend applies to the glass, metal and paper. The rest goes to its final destination: the landfill or the Ocean; or, speaking from a biological point of view, to the Ecosystem, with all the detrimental consequences attached to it.

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Podcast: George Monbiot; How Did We Get Into This Mess ?

This podcast was recorded on 16th March 2016 at University of Edinburgh,for the Ragged University project by request. With thanks to Elaine and Tarlochan at Wordpower Books, and thanks to Stuart for being welcoming with technical support. Elaine from Wordpower Books, Scotland’s Independent and Radical Bookshop introduces the event they have produced in conjunction with the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh.

The main lecture is George Monbiot who is launching his latest book – How Did We Get Into This Mess. The Twitter hashtag which was set up was #thismess.

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Pete Wilkinson Co-Founder of Greenpeace Talks About His Life

I imagine that nearly everyone has heard of Greenpeace.  It is one of the most famous non-governmental organizations in the world and it is renowned for activist protests to protect the environment.  I did not genuinely know much about the organisation until the other day a librarian at Edinburgh Central Library told me I should go along to the Edinburgh Reads event as one of the founders of Greenpeace was going to be talking. Read more…

International Waste Management; Crises and Opportunities by David Brown

Here David Brown, Waste Development David Officer for Derbyshire County Council, gives a talk about International waste management; the crises and opportunities which are presented to us.  In an age of neo-magical thinking, the culture which has developed is wasteful – that is, we imagine things both have no cost to the environment, and that our waste just magically disappears when it is out of sight. This is the major crises of our time as we are discovering in quick and powerful terms that the planets resources (of which the ecosystems which keep us alive are included) are finite.

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