I believe that the Industrial Age system of education that has spread around the world in the past 150 years will change dramatically in the coming decades. The assembly-line progression of grades (first, second, third, etc.) coordinated by a fixed curriculum and headed by teachers in charge of...

In today's global marketplace, with its ever-diminishing resource stocks, one thing is obvious: demand is outstripping supply. And here is the conundrum: increases in living standards are tightly coupled with growth in resource consumption. We have all heard the dramatic statistic that if all...

International climate change negotiations continue to be slow and problematic, with long-standing differences between rich and developing countries difficult to overcome. Emission reduction pledges put forward at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in...

We discuss global climate mitigation that builds on existing unilateral measures to cut emissions. We document the extent of these measures and discuss the rationale arguing that such measures have the potential to generate positive spillover effects both within and across countries. We argue...

Resilience, in the context of earth's ecosystems, is defined as the capacity to absorb a shock, reorganize, and continue to function as before. This basic ability is often taken for granted by the global economy, and yet evidence is mounting that crucial ecosystems are in decline. Without a...

Simply put, there are currently two pressing problems in the developed and in the developing worlds: unemployment and the depletion of the planet's resources. In my opinion, Western fiscal systems are the fundamental cause of both…

Ever since the Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in 1992, negotiation of emission limits has been intertwined with efforts to define a threshold for “dangerous” climate change. In this chapter, I explain the logic behind this framing of the collective action problem; show...

For long, the EU has assumed leadership in advancing domestic and international climate change policy. Whilst pushing its negotiations partner in international negotiations, it has led the way in implementing a host of domestic measures including a unilateral legally binding target, an ambitious...

The following is an excerpt from a new book by James G. Speth, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy (Yale University Press, 2012). Speth envisions a future America in which citizens have created a sustainable and desirable society, and lived up to our present challenges. The vision...

For more than 100 years, the coal-producing counties of eastern Kentucky have been dependent on the coal industry, which has dominated them politically and, submitting only to the limits of technology, has come near to ruining them. The legacy of the coal economy in the Kentucky mountains will...