What I did last summer

04Sep08

In the summer of 2007, I had the privilege of working for a great non-profit watchdog group, New Yorkers for Parks. I got to travel to city parks across the city and asses their condition and maintenance. It was a great way to explore a new city, and learn a lesson about inequality in America.
The [...]

Filed under: environment, nyc   |  1 Comment

True cost pricing, in the present

25Oct07

In my honours thesis, I wrote about how the tendency of humans to discount future value is what makes sustainability so problematic – whenever we can create an advantage in the present by disadvantaging the future, we do so. My friend Josh points this out when he says that it’s “too good to be true” [...]

Filed under: economics, environment   |  1 Comment

Limits to optimism

15Jun07

Now that I’m officially done with my undergraduate degree, I thought I’d share the longest (although not necessarily highest quality) paper it produced. Here [.pdf] is my honours thesis, entitled “Limits to Democratic Growth: Examining Theoretical Conflicts Between Democracy and Ecological Sustainability”, for anyone who is interested. Its main thrust is that we shouldn’t be [...]

Filed under: academia, democracy, environment   |  2 Comments

Post-geographic pollution: Debunking the eco-city

15May07

In this lecture the man who invented the term “ecological footprint”, William Rees, rips apart the notion that any North American city could declare itself sustainable.

Looking at Shanghai and Vancouver, it’s easy to think that there is a sharp difference in environmental practice is going on here: coal-generated electricity and overpopulation make Chinese [...]

Filed under: economics, environment   |  3 Comments