Avainsana: sustainable development
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Endless energy, eternal cycle and Kardashev’s dream
Humanity is here to stay. When thinking about sustainable development, we cannot observe on a time scale of tens or hundreds of years, but rather we are talking about millions and hundreds of millions of years. Our energy system, the recycling of materials and the green transition must be such that they last for hundreds…
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”Unity in diversity” – the ghost of colonialism and the harmony of nations
There are thousands of indigenous peoples in the world. There are more than 6000 different languages alone. A large part of them disappear every decade. For example, Grizelda Kristina, the last native speaker of Livin, died in 2013 at the age of over 100. Some languages have only a few speakers left. Only 2 people…
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Path dependency, scenarios, change, sustainable development and wisdom
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated: ”Everything flows (changes). Nothing stays in place. — We both step and do not step into the same rivers, we are and we are not.” Everything in the world is under constant change, either fast or very slow. The continental plates move a few millimeters or centimeters a year.…
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Complexity and ”wicked problems” – complex sustainability problems require equally complex solutions
When a problem is simple, it has few components and its interactions are linear. In this case, it is easy to find a solution to the problem. However, environmental and sustainability issues are very rarely simple and linear. The socio-ecological system is very complex, it has numerous variables and interactions. For example, nature loss and…
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After the energy revolution – a peek into the world and energy system of the 2040s
As I have stated several times: the future of energy production globally is in non-combustion-based clean renewable energy, especially wind and solar power. They are the cheapest, most logical, most profitable, easiest and cleanest ways to generate electricity. Wind power and solar power are available all over the world and can be stored as energy…
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Elysium – A Good Earth in the Year 2122
I present a thesis: the world’s problems are caused by relationships. Ecological problems, i.e. environmental problems, arise from the fact that man’s relationship with nature is broken, and social, i.e. societal problems, such as wars and poverty, from the fact that man’s relationship with other people is broken. In the Bible, the relationship between God…
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Climate change today and the path from extreme disaster to sustainable balance
It finally came to this because of humanity’s greed: A couple of friends in India said that there has been no monsoon for three years and half of the palm leaves have turned yellow and died. A friend in Italy says that local people don’t go out there at all because of the scorching heat.…
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Flying and the environment – reasonable flying is not an environmental crime
Flying, including all passenger and freight traffic as well as airport infrastructure, globally causes about 2.5% of carbon dioxide emissions. Traffic causes 24-27% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (Our World in Data; EPA). Of this, 3/4 is road traffic. Car traffic causes about 20 % of global climate emissions, in Finland and the USA…
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Methane ice clathrates and climate, the powder keg of the oceans
There are several feedbacks related to climate change that can either slow down or accelerate global warming. Climate change affects these and they, in turn, affect climate change. These include, for example, the earth’s albedo, i.e. the reflectivity of snow and ice in particular, which cools the earth by reflecting the sun’s radiation away. Warming…
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The earth does not have a closed system – mines and factories always leak into the environment
In physics and thermodynamics, a closed system means a natural or human system that does not interact with its environment in such a way that it exchanges matter with its environment. In an isolated system, neither matter nor energy would be exchanged. The fact is that there is no isolated system except the entire space…