Topic: Environment
Want to see a new kind of economy?
Article / 1st September 2016What is common wealth? And how might we use it to build a more local, equitable and sustainable economy? Peter Barnes imagines an economy in which everyone benefits from a variety of co-inherited and co-created assets.
The new economy: A living earth system model
Article / 22nd August 2016In this thinkpiece for The Next System Project, David Korten sets out his 'natural case for sharing'. No-one has a right to own or control, for his or her exclusive private benefit, a share of assets essential to living far beyond any conceivable personal need, if this results in depriving others of a means to life, he argues. Redistribution to achieve a semblance of economic democracy is not only just, it is an imperative of a viable human future.
The Right to Development at 30: Looking Back and Forwards
Article / 18th August 2016To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Right to Development, the Human Rights Council held a Panel discussion at the Palais des Nations (Geneva) on 15 June 2016. As argued in a speech by the South Centre, this Declaration remains an important framework for the achievement of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, and it has an enduring practical relevance for the key global issues of our time.
Why distinguish common goods from public goods?
Article / 15th August 2016It’s time for a rational conversation on the norms, rights and duties of every citizen for global common goods: the shared resources that must be negotiated and organized by the world’s people themselves, writes James B. Quilligan.
We need new stories for a prosperous descent
Article / 12th August 2016Our defining challenge is to seek out the ‘middle way’ between over-consumption and under-consumption, where basic material needs are sufficiently met but where attention is then redirected away from superfluous material pursuits, in search of non-materialistic sources of satisfaction and meaning, writes Samuel Alexander in a new book.
Earth’s resources used up at quickest rate ever in 2016
Article / 8th August 2016In just over seven months, humanity has used up a full year's allotment of natural resources such as water, food and clean air – the quickest rate yet, according to a new report.
Our attitude towards wealth played a crucial role in Brexit. We need a rethink
Article / 1st August 2016Our planet and the human race face multiple challenges that require us to collaborate and share, both within nations and across national borders, if humanity is to survive, writes Stephen Hawking.
Connecting the dots: Human rights, inequality and poverty
Article / 1st August 2016We can rapidly realise the human rights of the world’s poor through global institutional reforms that reduce inequality and share the planet's natural resource wealth, argues Professor Thomas Pogge.
UNCTAD 14: Elites speaking in the name of peasants and the global poor won’t solve anything!
Article / 12th July 2016At the close of UNCTAD's 14th session, a coalition of civil society organisations call for a new development model that is inclusive and socially just, in which governments uphold their obligations to provide social services and guarantee Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Pathways of transition to agroecological food systems
Article / 16th June 2016A new report by leading sustainability experts has reaffirmed the case for a paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological systems – fundamental to which is a call for redistributing power back into the hands of those who feed the world.