Related topics

The list below intends to inform, to help explain the focus of milliongenerations.org and to help avoid repetition. It is far from comprehensive, and does not imply endorsement. Please add references and relevant categories.

Perspective similar to milliongenerations.org

milliongenerations.org asks everyone to consider what follows from the assumption that civilization continues. Many already have, although probably not in the same way and with the same perspective. Please add any relevant information.

>Proposal to move regarding following text in section: SEE DISCUSSION

The assumption, that civilisation will continue is not a very prophetic one. Why shouldn’t it? It will continue until it will collapse. It looks like it will collapse some day, nevertheless it may take a while. As we are running to a certain extent this civilisation we seem to approve it. Thus to me it appears that for us two questions arise: How can we prevent it form collapsing due to our way of living? Civilisation will change. So which way do we want it to change it in order to improve living conditions and what should can we do to prolong its existence? Or maybe civilisation is endless. Doesn’t seem very probable to me. But for myself it will be endless. So why not assume it?

Long term thinking

(see also Futurology below)

• The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to creatively foster long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. (Milliongenerations.org would like to encourage long term thinking but was started in the belief that thinking about a steady state is in many respects easier than thinking about developments in tens, hundreds or thousands of years.)
• The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, researches and publishes on big picture questions for humanity. Its director is Nick Bostrom, who is also co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Explaining sustainability

• The Brundtland comission's report concluded that Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:
  • the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
  • the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

• Project Worldview has list of links on sustainability and enoughness

• US Environmental Protection Agency EPA defines Sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

• Wikipedia entry Sustainability discusses various definitions

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Theories about sustainable economy

• Albert A. Bartlett: REFLECTIONS ON SUSTAINABILITY, POPULATION GROWTH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT - REVISITED, January 1998
• Kenneth E. Boulding: THE ECONOMICS OF THE COMING SPACESHIP EARTH(1966)

• Herman Daly: "STEADY-STATE ECONOMICS" (1991): Chapter 5: A Catechism of Growth Fallacies

• Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend: VALUING THE EARTH: Economics, Ecology, Ethics (1993) p.267 - SUSTAINABLE GROWTH: An Impossibility

• Henry George believed that that the public collection of the rent of land leads to vigorous, sustainable prosperity.

• Schumacher, E. F.; Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered : 25 Years Later...With Commentaries !1999). Hartley & Marks Publishers ISBN 0-88179-169-5

• Wikipedia entry Sustainability discusses various economists and theories in its History section.

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Promoting sustainable development

• Lists
  • The Open Directory Project's list of societies concerned with sustainable development
  • Project Worldview has list of links on sustainability and enoughness
  • The Sustainable Development Network is a coalition of individuals and non-governmental organizations who believe that sustainable development is about empowering people, promoting progress, eliminating poverty and achieving environmental protection through the institutions of the free society.
  • Yahoo! collected sites related to Sustainable_Development.

• The Alliance of Civilization (AoC) was established in 2005, at the initiative of the Governments of Spain and Turkey, under the auspices of the United Nations to explore the roots of polarization between societies and cultures today, and to recommend a practical programme of action to address this issue. The Alliance of Civilizations (AoC) aims to improve understanding and cooperative relations among nations and peoples across cultures and religions and, in the process, to help counter the forces that fuel polarization and extremism.

• Michael Braungart and William McDonough: Cradle to Cradle Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002). In this book the authors explain that doing more with less may be less bad but is still no good, because only really fully wasteless (waste is food) ways are sustainable.

• Carbonrally is a web-based activism platform offering individuals and groups a fun, simple and social way to have a measurable impact on climate change.

• De Kleine Aarde is a Dutch organization providing inspiration for sustainable living.

• The Designers Accord is a global coalition of designers, educators, researchers, engineers, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact. Its mission includes createing a web platform to enable the conversation about opportunities and challenges associated with creating products and services that make positive social and environmental impact.

• The Earth Policy Institute is dedicated to building a sustainable future as well as providing a plan of how to get from here to there.

• Freedom from Hunger attempts to bring sustainable answers to the global hunger crisis.

• The Natural Capital Institute serves the people who are transforming the world. It describes itself as a team of researchers, teachers, students, activists, scholars, writers, social entrepreneurs, artists, and volunteers committed to the restoration of the earth and the healing of human culture.

• Natural Step an organization started by Karl-Henrik Robèrt, see also the Wikipedia article on the Natural Step Framework

• SustainLane.com is a web based people-powered guide to sustainable living. SustainLane.com contains personal accounts of how-tos, news, and local business and product reviews for sustainable living. SustainLane US City Rankings is a national survey that ranks the largest 50 US cities in terms of their sustainability practices.

• Foundation Urgenda intends to stimulate and accelerate processes that aim for a more sustainable civilization, starting in The Netherlands.

• Worldchanging magazine is a solutions-based online magazine that works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.

• ZeroGrowth answers the question "why zero growth?" with another question: "why not?" Can someone explain this more clearly?

In many instances, "sustainable" seems to have become a fashionable adjective rather independent from a long-term, steady state perspective

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Futurology, Predicting and Shaping the Future

• The European Commission's FOR-LEARN Online Foresight Guide

• IEET: Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies intends to become a center for voices arguing for a responsible, constructive approach to emerging human enhancement technologies. It believes that technological progress can be a catalyst for positive human development so long as we ensure that technologies are safe and equitably distributed. They call this a "technoprogressive" orientation.

• IFTF: the Institute for the Future is an independent, nonprofit research group with nearly 40 years of forecasting experience. The core of its work is identifying emerging trends and discontinuities that will transform global society and the global marketplace. It launched a multiplayer forecasting game Superstruct Game in October 2008.

• The Millennium Project of The World Federation of UN Associations is a global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities.

• Jamais Cascio's Open the Future

• UNIDO's Technology Foresight provides inputs for the formulation of technology policies and strategies that guide the development of the technological infrastructure. In addition, technology foresight provides support to innovation, and incentives and assistance to enterprises in the domain of technology management and technology transfer, leading to enhanced competitiveness and growth.

• The World Future Society is a nonprofit, nonpartisan scientific and educational association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future

• The World Transhumanist Association advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. It also explores risks as well as benefits, with the ultimate aim of developing workable strategies and policies to enable societies and individuals to navigate the waters ahead.

• Wikipedia articles on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurology Futurology], Foresight and future studies and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

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Collapses of civilizations

• Jared Diamond: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005). New York: Viking Books. ISBN 0-14-303655-6. Video of a talk of J. Diamond at the Long Now Foundation

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Threats to survival of civilizations

• Armageddon Online collects stories about disasters

• Nick Bostrom's article on Existential Risks - Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards

• Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic's collection of essays by 26 experts Global Catastrophic Risks

• Exit Mundi, a large collection of end-world scenarios by Maarten Keulemans (also available as book in Dutch)

• Frank Furedi "Confronting the New Misanthropy" in Spiked, April 18 2006

• The Guardian April 14, 2005: "What a way to go" Scientists name the greatest dange r to civilization.

• John Hamaker: "The Survival of Civilizations", 1982 (www editon 2002 with annotations by Donald Weaver). Hamaker discusses the threat of a glacial period.

• James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" discusses the end of cheap fossil fuels.

• Jay Hanson, Tom Robertson site dieoff.org provide a lot of links and information on sustainability and energy

• Bill Joy's influential call to relinquish dangerous technologies "Why the future doesn't need us"

• Energy Resources Discussion Group

• Eugene Linden's "The Winds of Change" discusses weather and the destruction of civilisations.

• Stephen Petranek: 10 ways the world could end Video at the 2002 TED conference

1. Asteroids, a question of when and how big
2. Black Hole about a billion miles away could alter earth's orbit
3. Epidemic
4. Solar flares
5. Poles reverse
6. Biotech mishap
7. Particle accelerator mishap creates lasting black hole or strangelets
8. The Ecosystem collapses, solve by ecosystem modelling and huge biodiversity reserves
9. Aliens invade earth
10. We loose the will to survive due to the spreading of depression, the biggest epidemic humans have ever faced

• TV
  • ABC TV program Earth 2100
  • ABC TV documentary Last Days On Earth on 7 real end-of-the-world scenarios (Wed. Aug 30 2006)

• Wikipedia entries on Risks to civilization humans and planet Earth, Existential Risk and Societal Collapse summarize and reference a lot of work

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Surviving threats

• The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

• Google.org's Predict and Prevent initiative will use information and technology to empower communities to predict and prevent emerging threats before they become local, regional, or global crises.

• Wikipedia entry on Survivalism contains a many references, mostly about surviving on a personal level rather than as a civilization.

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