Moral Imagination, Strategic Foresight and Backcasting for Sustainable Futures
The Climate Economy requires a way of thinking that includes the future in every strategic decision. We do this all the time in our daily lives without thinking too much about it. We help our kids with their homework so they can be more likely to succeed in the...
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Shop Local – Unleash Your Inner Entrepreneur
Since it's Labor Day, we're going to talk about how the shop local movement is not just about shopping; it's about people doing jobs that are rewarding, useful, entrepreneurial, and less impactful on the environment, while contributing to community growth and...
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EcoTourism
With summer upon us, you may be looking for vacation ideas. Not to rain on your parade, but your vacation is probably not going to be great for the environment. Most mass-market tourism, the way we often practice it nowadays with no-holds-barred travel, accommodation,...
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Blockchain for Carbon Credits in the Climate Economy
Well there's a mouthful! It might sound like a foreign language to you, but probably in less than a decade it will be the source in billions of dollars of economic activity. We gave a brief introduction to "blockchain for energy" in a previous post; if you're to...
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Climate SWOT
Here's a skill we're going to need more of in the future: Climate SWOT. What's SWOT? It's a tool for competitive analysis. It's a business analysis where you consider: Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats - Read more on Investopedia. What's Climate SWOT?...
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Biochar: Resurrection
Biochar is something you make out of dead organic stuff (e.g., wood waste), by bringing it back to life with a new purpose. Biochar has been around for a long time. It's been found in ancient forests, responsible for maintaining the health and productive capacity of...
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Why the Climate Economy #7: Leave Denial Behind, and Act
It's time to stop pretending that it's not happening. It's time to stop making excuses. It's time to stop saying it's too hard or it's too late. It's time to stop acting like our daily decisions don't make a difference. It's time to stop being in denial that you need...
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Natural Climate Solutions: Trees, Water, Land and More for 37% of GHG Reductions in Near Term
Building on the soil theme, there's a fabulously detailed new study on "natural climate solutions" (NCS); it tells us how to use conservation, restoration, and land management actions across forests, wetlands, grasslands, and farmland. The actions will increase carbon...
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Why the Climate Economy #6: For Future Generations
We are optimists at TheClimateEconomy.com, but we deal with reality and facts. We look at the facts, sometimes unpleasant, right in the face to understand what we need to do. This post is a reality blast in the face. It's alarming, but there's hope. If we...
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Labels for Impact
The world needs a meaningful measure developed for products (and services) that provide information about life cycle environmental/social impact. How much energy is used, how much waste is produced, water used, if they stay under a certain carbon footprint (or zero...
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Fossil Fuels Aren’t Cheap
Do you want cheaper energy? Maybe you need to go clean. Google "fossil fuels aren't cheap" (with quotations) and you get something like 300+ results. Why is that? Lots of fossil fuel folks say we need to keep them around because they're so cheap. Who's right? Well,...
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A Fashion Transformation
"One truckload of clothing is wasted per second." Are you kidding me? This is from the findings of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's (EMF) new report on the textile industry. Also this: "If the industry continues on its current path, by 2050, it could use more than 26...
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Soil: The Next Carbon Frontier?
Have you heard about the permafrost melting? This is soil or ground that's been frozen for sometimes thousands of years, and it covers one quarter of the land in the northern hemisphere. As recently reported, in places like Alaska and others, we're finding out that...
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Climate Change and Behavioral Health
Did you happen to see the news about the continuing mental health trauma for people in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, since the floods now more than a year ago? Many died, thousands were forced out of their homes, they still haven't returned in many cases, some people lost...
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Break a Leg, Climate Change
There has been quite some controversy recently about a story out of NY magazine: The Uninhabitable Earth. It goes into detail about things that "could" happen to the planet with projected changes in climate, such as food shortages, plagues, continuous wars, etc. Some...
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TCE Opinion: The Paris Climate Agreement “Decision”
TheClimateEconomy.com has been closely watching for the Trump administration's "decision" regarding the Paris Climate Agreement. There are two things we feel are important to know about it at this point: At TheClimateEconomy.com we prefer to follow the truth, as in...
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Waste Not Want Not
Waste is a huge opportunity. We're talking mainly here about waste from human consumption and daily activities (food, shelter, clothing, etc.). Humans produce it daily by the bucket loads (about 4.4 pounds per day per person according to most estimates). According the...
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Why the Climate Economy #5: Um, Climate.
We humans kind of need planet Earth to be healthy so that we can all, well, survive. If the planet gets really sick, the only ones who will survive will likely be those hydrothermal vent creatures and super rich who can escape to the moon or Mars. Do you fall into...
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Smart Buildings and Energy Efficiency
I'm not going to be able to say it better: Buildings Account for 39% of CO2 emissions in the United States The commercial and residential building sector accounts for 39% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States per year, more than any other sector. U.S....
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Why the Climate Economy #4: Resilience
Rising temperatures, increasingly extreme weather events, and melting ice caps leading to rising sea levels are just a few of the things that are happening right now that are going to bring about monumental changes in life for everyone on the planet. There were 15...
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