![\"pixabay.com](\"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Natur_geralt.jpg\")
The conundrum here is, however, that removing natural resources or transforming landscapes paradoxically stands to diminish human well-being over time by compromising the provision of ecosystem services in that place. Reconciling this conundrum, the author emphasizes, stands out as one of the foremost environmental challenges of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, there are two different views on this question. The reigning view is a despairingly stark one: it sees humankind existing apart from nature. Fortunately, an alternative, emerging view from ecology inspires hope by imagining the possibility of humankind (the social<\/em>) and nature (the ecological<\/em>) existing together, entwined as a \u201esocio-ecological system\u201c, in which each part requires the other for its existence. Realizing that possibility, however, requires humanity to engage with nature very differently than it now does. \u201eEcosystem stewardship\u201c \u2013 as expanded valuation of nature \u2013 therefore is the consequence and basic suggestion of the author: \u201eAs a golden rule of sorts, humankind ought then to strive to ensure the integrity, resilience, sustainability, and beauty of all landscapes, both the human-built and natural alike\u201c (p. 13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar, so somewhat different idea is presented in the next essay on a \u201eHabitable Earth\u201c, on protecting biodiversity through natural systems. Building on various alarming reports about the state of the world\u2019s biological diversity, scientists and diplomats have begun to work at the global scale to set targets for biodiversity protection. For example, the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity suggested that 30 percent of the terrestrial and marine ecosystems of the planet should be put under strict protection by 2030 \u2013 known as the \u201e30 by 30 target\u201c. These efforts resonate with earlier visions such as Edward O. Wilson\u2018s \u201eHalf-Earth\u201c proposal \u2013 to set aside half the surface of the Earth for nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These and similar initiatives, however, stand in stark contrast to the resurgence of a \u201etriage\u201c: the dilemma that we possibly cannot save all species, and have to decide which ones should make it and which not. The author believes, that the world\u2019s biodiversity will require deepening the public\u2019s understanding of the Earth as a living planet made up of functional landscapes \u2013 <\/em>of self-sustaining systems that support humanity, allow the vast variety of species to thrive, and provide ecosystem services. The Amazon river basin and the Mekong River are thought to represent important starting points for thinking more seriouly about functional landscapes in the future which consequently need management as an ecological system, and not just as wood or freshwater sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next essay presents \u201eA Restoration Agenda for Native Forests\u201c. Before the industrial revolution, native forests covered more than 6 billion hectares, or about 30 percent of the global land surface. Today, only about 3.9 billion hectares of forests cover the terrestial surface; of them only a third remaining relatively intact. Fortunately, there has now emerged a global call for restoration, given the growing recognition that forests provide an enormous amount of services \u2013 like drinking and irrigation water, climate change mitigation, storm water management, recreation etc. \u2013 that allow humans to survive in the long term. But how best to promote the restoration agenda is under heavy debate. The authors of the essay go deeply into details, plead for better understanding forest diversity and forest succession \u2013 and they do so by looking at three case examples that illustrate the decisive principles. Unfortunately, the authors neglect the surprisingly positive, and worldwide debated study by Jean Francois Bastin et al. from ETH Z\u00fcrich on the global tree restoration potential (Science<\/em>, Vol. 365, Issue 6448, 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two more essays here, one on \u201ePrivate Lands\u201c, another on \u201eStewards of the Land\u201c, but both focus exclusively on the US situation. A broader view is taken by two authors on \u201eSustainable Intensification in Smallholder Farming\u201c; and they found an impressive title for it: \u201eToward an Evergreen Revolution\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two amusing, but serious essays complete the first part of the book. The one is on \u201eFound Water\u201c, or re-use and de-construction of the word \u201ewastewater\u201c. The author reminds us charmingly of the classic 1942 film Casablanca, <\/em>where Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is asked by the world-weary French captain Renault (Claude Rains), \u201eWhat in heaven\u2019s name brought you to Casablanca?\u201c \u201eI came to Casablanca for the waters\u201c, replies Rick. Captain Renault responds, \u201eThe waters? What waters? We\u2019re in a desert!\u201c. \u201eI was misinformed,\u201c deadpans Rick. So what, in heaven\u2019s name, has brought so many Americans to live in the desert or in arid regions, like California or the Colorado River basin? Were all these Americans moving west misinformed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nowadays, we are quite well informed about the water stock, and current water use. The OECD is regularly projecting long-term future global water demand. The last report showed a possible increase of 55 percent, due to growing demand from manufacturing, thermal electricity generation, and domestic use. Many states and regions oft he world have made solid progress in reducing water consumption in recent years. Still the question remains: Can water utilities keep up with growing populations, drought, and climate variability?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must rapidly look for alternatives, the author says. There are new technologies, refered to as water re-use,<\/em> that provide new opportunities to discover \u201efound water\u201c in a community\u2019s wastewater stream and convert it into a valuable resource. In conclusion, there is no longer such thing as wastewater, there is only water that is wasted. Unfortunately there are many, like Rick in Casablanca, who are misinformed as to what water re-use implies. The idea easily defined: \u201eWater reuse involves using water more than once to expand a community\u2019s available water supply\u201c. The author then gives a sketched overview on the US states and counties active in this field, California included. Unfortunately, a sketch of the global potential of water re-use is missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The last essay in Part One is on \u201ePeople and the Ocean\u201c, and a new narrative with transformative benefits. The author concedes that a new narrative does not automatically change the status quo, but if widely adopted, it can alter people\u2019s sense of what is possible. So she starts a fascinating historical journey about people\u2019s relationship toward the ocean, and makes it a masterpiece of thought and dedication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all human history and well into the late 20th century, the ocean\u2018s size, productivity, and resilience made it impossible for people to ever imagine depleting or disrupting it. In many places, fish were so abundant they sometimes leaped into the fishing boats. The 1960s general political mantra \u201eDilution is the solution to pollution\u201c reinforced the notion that anything we put into the ocean could not really affect it. The ocean was a seemingly endless source of food, minerals, oil, gas, and salt. And it was also a convenient repository for all kinds of wastes, for sewage, vehicles, garbage, toxins, military debris, and even nuclear waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People and the Ocean 2.0: The ocean is doomed. Massively and fatally polluted, deleted and disrupted, the ocean is too big to fix it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the last few decades, the general att\u00edtude that the ocean represented an endless bounty and bottomless dump was gradually questioned. Scientists discoverd that human activities had fundamentally altered its chemistry, biology, and physical structure. One now often sees images of widespread coral bleaching, enormous plastic pollution, and even tumor-riddled sea turtles. In several regions fishery has collapsed, and illegal fishing threatens the livelihoods of millions of people. There is also increasing evidence that climate change is making the ocean warmer, stormier, more acidic, and oxygen-depleted. And in the long term there will be a drastically increasing sea level, with dramatic consequences for numerous cities and millions of people. What may make these trends ever more frightening, is that the situation of the ocean seems impossibly complex, the drivers too ingrained, the vested interests too powerful, and the available political options too limited to make a real difference. The common perception often is that the problems of the ocean are now so massive, and so complex that they are impossible to fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People and the Ocean 3.0: The ocean is so central to our future, it is too big and too important to ignore. If we heal the ocean, we can solve multiple global problems and heal ourselves. It is our path forward.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201eLike a phoenix from the ashes\u201c, the author says, \u201ehope however is beginning to emerge and steer us away from the current dismal ocean narrative\u201c (p. 74). With these words Jane Lubchenco starts the last nine pages of her essay. These pages are full of facts, figures, and constructive visions \u2013 but too voluminous to be presented here. The essay is a must-read, a must-read also for the reader of this review. I personally declare it a master-piece, a high-light of this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part Two of the book is on \u201eInnovation and Technology\u201c, with eight essays, some competing, some supplementing another. \u201eFrom Red Lights to Green Lights\u201c is Daniel Esty\u2019s plea for more innovation-oriented sustainability strategies. He deplores that environmental law and policy as framed in the 1960s and 1970s focused on \u201ecommand and control\u201c regulatory strategies under which government told business (and also individuals) what they should not<\/em> do. This framework, he says, has proven to be incomplete: \u201eIt has failed to offer signals as to what society needs business to do<\/em>, including what problems to solve, what research to undertake, and what investments to make\u201c. His conclusion therefore is straightforward; \u201eWe need to complement our system of red lights with an expanded set of green lights<\/em>\u201c. The author is clever enough not to generally condemn red lights but to look for adequate solutions \u2013 making red and green equivalent colors, shining different in different cases of decision-making. This would make careful policy design \u2013 balancing control and adequate incentives \u2013 obligatory. When it comes to meet the demands of the \u201esustainability imperative\u201c, this may indeed be a big idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the following essays are examples of the search for optimal technical innovations, other are more about the search for innovative policy solutions. There is for instance the essay on \u201eEnvironmental Protection through Systems Design\u201c. The authors deplore that our understanding of the environment has mostly been built on the scientific reliance on reductionism: Obtaining understanding through observation of what changes take place when modifying a single factor while holding all other factors constant. In practice, that very often ended in doing the right things wrong: Biofuels from food crops was such an example; water purification by hazardous chemicals was another, and so it was with solar panels using rare, toxic metals, and many other innovations. While a certain reductionism may be indispensable, integrated systems thinking is thought to be absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To put systems-thinking into practice, the authors give a number of interesting suggestions: Brake down the media-based structures in our environmental ministries and agencies; establish a solutions orientation; use new tool boxes; collaborate across agencies. The final suggestion is, that through a systems framework that reflects the world we are striving toward, we can expect progress while minimizing negative trade-offs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because they are rather complex, I pass over the essays on \u201eGenomics\u201c and \u201eAn App for That\u201c in silence. The essay on \u201eReimagining Solar Fuels to Power the Planet\u201c is very speculative, and so I thought to leave it to other reviewers. The essay on \u201eFostering Energy Innovation for a Sustainable 21st Century\u201c sounds more realistic, but the author is just following one fixed idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The next essay seems more promising. It\u2018s on \u201cBuilding Climate Change Resilience by Design\u201c. First of all, it is on climate change, the currently most debated environmental topic, and second it is on resilience, the most debated adaptation topic of the current Corona pandemic. Unfortunately, the author has a totally different perspective: She wants to talk about our \u201ebuilt environment\u201c, especially the material infrastructure, and she wants to make it resilient.The necessary shift in perspective she describes is rather \u201egreen\u201c: \u201eBack to nature \u2013 using history to guide future development\u201c is the first suggestion; \u201eImagining green schools\u201c is the next; followed by \u201ebuilding floodgates into infrastructure\u201c and \u201eintegrating water into urban form\u201c. The sad point in the story is, that if climate change develops as projected, and the sea-level is rising as expected, the results may come very close to what is debated in this essay: disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The last essay in Part Two is on \u201eBracing for Impact\u201c \u2013 Transforming the National Weather Service for the Climate Change Challenges Ahead\u201c. The number of articles on the difference between weather and climate goes into the millions. But the chance to make a weatherman (or weatherwomen) into a climatologist is close to zero. Still, there is a good point made in the essay: \u201eThe United States is weather-ready\u201c, but the \u201eUnited States is not climate-change-ready\u201c (p.146).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part Three of the book is on \u201eLaw and Policy\u201c, the part I had been waiting for. It has eight essays, some highly expected, and one a big surprise (and personally a challenge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201eBuilding Public and Political Will for Climate Change Action\u201c, that is, no doubt, a major task in all parts of the globe. The author calls it a \u201emassive collective action problem\u201c (p. 155), and declares the \u201epublic will\u201c, expressed through citizen activism, the most important influence of the policy-making process. He describes the conditions for \u201ewindows of opportunity\u201c, mentions the different public forums within a population and their motivations to reduce global warming, quotes traditional environmental groups like the Sierra Club \u2013 but, to my great surprise, finds no word for the young generation, and the globally active \u201eFridays for Future\u201c movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201eBroadening Action on Climate Change\u201c, this is an essay in which the strengths and the weaknesses of the Paris Agreement on climate change of 2015 are being carefully considered, and the weaknesses prevail. Therefore, the author looks at the possibilities of other international regimes to \u201ehelp out\u201c: most significantly, the Montreal Protocol, and The World Trade Organization, but also sectoral regimes like the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization which have started making a (somewhat) \u201egreener sector\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of financial assistance to developing countries, the picture is mixed. The \u201eGreen Climate Fund\u201c has had a somewhat rocky start, but is now about to deliver funding for both mitigation and adaptation. The author, however, is right in saying that this type of funding, in contrast to the high promises made, is but a drop in the bucket compared to the overall financial flows that need to be \u201egreened\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A more drastic reform of climate policy is presented by William Nordhaus, the Nobel Prize winner of 2018, in his short, two-page essay on \u201eInternational Carbon Pricing\u201c. The most effective incentive for change in his view is a high price for carbon. As a means of projecting carbon pricing into the international space, he proposes a \u201eclimate club\u201c. The notion is that one can overcome the syndrome of free-riding by adopting the club model rather than the voluntary, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) foreseen in the Paris Agreement. A climate club is an agreement in which nations would be penalized if they did not meet their obligations. Unfortunately, the international community is a long way from adopting the climate club model, most discussions are still focused on the doomed voluntary model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this part of the book there are more interesting essays, such as \u201eThe Role of Climate Change Litigation\u201c and \u201eDeploying Machine Learning for a Sustainable Future\u201c. But I would like to leave those to the discreet reader. Instead, I must refer to an essay that was a great shock to me: \u201eThe Case of Fracking\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its author, an expert of hydrology, cites science as his foundation for policy advice. On basis of his private engagement in the development of the fracking industry in the state of Pennsylvania, he blows the trumpet for more fracking in the future and in other regions. He seems to know the manifold environmental effects and damages of that technology very well, but is of the opinion that everything can be handled on the basis of careful use of given science. But his real problem is different, and concentrated in a sentence he uses as his private mantra:\u201cWe may be stuck with oil and gas \u2013 and the technologies that produce them \u2013 for the foreseeable future\u201c (p. 219). No, Sir, we need not be stuck \u2013 alternative science is here, and alternative technologies exist, to free us from self-inflicted prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part Four is on \u201eResources, Economics, and Sustainable Business\u201c, with six essays. The text on \u201eNext-Generation Corporate Sustainability Leadership\u201c understands the first word of the chapter\u2018s title in a special sense, as personal and personell resources. The essay reflects on the American history of non-regulatory path-ways to progress, the extraordinary promise, today, of stronger accountability between investors and corporations, the need to transform whole sectors and to begin to secure the next generation of regulatory and governance frameworks needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After investigating the progress and the limits of voluntary initiatives and the emergence of broader platforms, the view goes on the new rewards and accountability for progress made, the improved reporting with rating tools, like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and the way from better reporting to better governance. The main conclusions are that today\u2019s shareholders and investors increasingly expect early disclosure of long-term risks due to climate change, and more regularly discuss the issues of emerging environmental risks. In turn, the author expects corporate leaders to increasingly disclose the long-term risks of climate change and environmental damage, with \u201esustainability committees\u201c providing credible oversight, and work pro-actively to secure governance systems to reduce their business risks, and the risks to society at large. \u201eWishful thinking\u201c \u2013 or future reality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201eMaking Companies Work for Society\u201c is the closely related essay that follows, but starts with a view on rather unfriendly take-overs and aggressive mergers in the American economy. Over the last 50 years, the perception of the role of companies has shifted dramatically toward a vision of companies as agents for wealth generation, more specifically, wealth generation for their shareholders. This notion of shareholder primacy<\/em> gained enormous traction in the 1970s when Milton Friedman argued that a corporate executive is \u201ean agent serving the interests of his principal\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shareholder primacy stands, however, in stark contrast to sustainable finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tension between shareholder primacy and sustainable finance models has become acute over the last decades as a result of two trends: There is a growing awareness among companies that they need to address environmental as well as social challenges. The second trend arises from the growing awareness that shareholder primacy increases the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Given these trends, some commentators write off sustainable finance as a \u201edream\u201c. The author, however, believes that we may be close to a system of sustainable finance, driven by external and internal factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As this topic seems to be rather speculative, the next one comes down to earth: \u201eWaste and Materials Management\u201c. Many Americans have grown up with basic waste management principles:\u201c reduce, reuse, recycle\u201c. Yet, over half of what was generated in homes and businesses ended up in landfills. In the future, waste and materials policy should seek to preserve, rather than throw away, the materials and energy that go into the products used. Fortunately, we now see many environmentally minded firms pioneering new material management strategies and models that create value through re-use, repair and re-manufacture. The author goes into details as regards possible future developments. For many countries, achieving better recycling and waste disposal would translate into significant benefits for human health and the natural environment. For the United States, he thinks, the focus should be on re-imagining the top rungs of waste hierarchy, and that includes quite a few points of improved information and better management. Unfortunately, however, he fails to present a convincing model of a \u201eZero Waste Society\u201c \u2013 for America, and the World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the next essay we come closer to the title of the book. The question is: \u201cCan we Define Planetary Boundaries on the Human Use of Materials\u201c? If not, we should certainly try. The author first refers to the work of Johan Rockstr\u00f6m and colleagues who attempted to define the safe operation space for humanity with respect to the Earth system, and in 2009 proposed the concept of \u201eplanetary boundaries\u201c. Their focus was on the planet\u2018s biophysical subsystems, and they defined \u201esafe operation spaces\u201c for several global metrics, such as greenhouse gas concentration, water use, and biodiversity loss. They then delineated a structured progression of steps to evaluate human impacts on the environmet: a \u201esafe operation space\u201c, a \u201ezone of uncertainty\u201c, and a \u201ezone of danger\u201c. This concept captured the imagination of the science community and actively stimulated the debate in environmental politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With this framework as starting point, how might this concept be applied to the ever increasing human use of materials? The author suggests first, choosing the materials or material groups important for human activities, identifying potential rates of demand over time for those materials, and specifying \u201esafe operating demand\u201c, \u201ezones of uncertainty\u201c, and \u201ethresholds of high-risk demand for each\u201c.The intent of this exercise would be to define levels of materials use that are sustainable over the long term, while simultaneously permitting progress toward realizaion of the UN-initiated \u201eSustainable Development Goals\u201c (SDGs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right away, the author establishes a list of \u201epotentially critical\u201c materials, containing six groupings, including (a) those materials used most widely, (b) those with lower use rates but that appear crucial in enabling sustainable technologies, and (c) those for which processing and product fabrication result in heavy environmental impacts. The author instantly realizes that this is not only a \u201ebig idea\u201c but also requires a complex research strategy. He ends with some strong words: \u201cGiven anticipated trends in economic development and its high materials dependence, establishing planetary boundaries for materials would seem to be imperative\u201c (p. 265). Is this simultaneously the way toward a sweeping de-materialization of the economy? The author, unfortunately, does not take up this question \u2013 and so misses a \u201ebig\u201c idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next essay in this part picks up views developed in the first part the book, the role of natural capital, equity, and the sustainable development challenge \u2013 and is suggested to be read separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part Five, the final part, is on \u201eSociety, Equity, and Process\u201c, with altogether ten essays. It is the longest but for me the weakest part of the book. In some of the essays it\u2018s difficult to find out whether the ideas presented by the authors could really be big at all; others are at least interesting to read. Therefore, in a short overview, I shall now try to find a \u201ebig\u201c idea and, if not successful, to hint at some missing questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is \u201eHip-Hop Sustainability\u201c? It could perhaps be a big idea, if there were many hip-hoppers around. Is that so, modestly asked? \u201eDriving Systems Change through Networks\u201c, that is what already exists in many forms. But how is it, that \u201eFridays for Nature\u201c is not quoted here as one of the globally successful networks? \u201eMoral and Spiritual Contributions to a Flourishig Earth Community\u201c that, at least theoretically, is a big idea, when thinking of Pope Francis, but not of the Catholic church. Buddhism could be one, if thinking of the Dalai Lama, but not of the migration policy of the current military rulers in Myanmar. In the US, \u201egreen religion\u201c has been growing, but relevant authors on this phenomenon are not cited in the essay at hand. \u201eEnvironmental justice\u201c is a big idea, no doubt. But is it really relevant for public health science or for environmental protection? On a threatened planet \u201ePreparedness for Natural Disasters\u201c should of course get higher priority: full-stop! Most cases of serious environmental problems are created in urban areas, and therefore re-imagining city and its parks are in full swing, recently under the imaginative heading of \u201eResilient City\u201c. Literature on such efforts, however, I found missing. And then there is the essay called \u201eFrom Static to Adaptive Environmental Policy\u201c, which I found disturbing. There are many blockers and many actual blocks in practical environmental policy, no doubt, but in my life I have always found environmental policy as being on the move; I am even tempted to say, that there is no other field of politics that is as flexible. And that is so, because environmental consciousness is growing day by day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201eWhy Big Ideas so Often Fail\u201c is the last essay of the book, essay Nr. 40. Astonishingly, it is written by three youngsters. This I found daring but very interesting at the same time. I could agree to nearly every point made, and there is a statement that I loved very much; \u201eBig ideas, by their nature, rally attention to urgent problems of seemingly universal significance. Their scale and audacity make them compelling \u2013 but also vulnerable to failure. The best way to avoid \u2026 pitfalls is to be aware of them and plan for them in problem diagnosis, project design, and implementation\u201c (p. 367).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coming to the close of a rather long review of an important and voluminous book, I would like to end with a compliment and a \u201ebig\u201c wish: 33 of the 53 authors are professors or graduate students of Yale University; this indicates a high potential to make Yale \u201ethe\u201c environmental university of America. This to happen, however, may require additional personell and expertise in the field of economics and political science. Preparing then for another book to \u201eSave the Earth\u201c might necessitate extending the perceptions of the authors: for instance regionally, to the European region, to the new regional groupings in the Pacific area, and toward the late-comers in Africa and Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would like to end in saying, that in Part Five on \u201eSociety and Equity\u201c I had expected contributions on where the American society, individual countries and the international community stand, and where they intend to go. In environmental policy, there are forerunners, latecomers, remainers, and those even blocking any progress. Why is this so, and what would be needed to make progress?<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the international level, a milestone of environmental policy was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, with its \u201eRio-Declaration\u201c of 27 principles, the \u201eAgenda 21\u201c, the establishment of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the subsequent installation of three UN-Conventions: on Climate, on Biodiversity, and on Desertification. The global forestry problem at that time was also on the agenda, but till today remains \u201eunfinished\u201c business. The United States never made close friends with these UN environmental activities, but they still exist, have some, though different success, are important for international understanding \u2013 and should be developed further. In a book by American authors one would like to have read something on these UN activities \u2013 not only on the issue of whether or not transforming the rather weak UNEP into an effective World Environment and Develoment Organization (WE-DO). Does forgetting the United Nations make for a better planet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concluding remarks:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The readers of this rather long review might ask whether the story of \u201ea better planet\u201c could not have been told in a totally different way. Well, a lot could be said here and many books could be quoted for that. To make the answer short and private, I would like to present a personal view: my ideas for an environmentally sound, sustainable future in the shortest possible way, not in form of two fundamental imaginations, as John Lennon once proposed, but as four conrete strategic projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking into regard UN General-Secretary Antonio Gutteres\u2018 recent declaration: \u201eThe state of the planet is broken\u201c, it seems to me that there is, first, the need for a comprehensive Re-Naturalization of planet Earth. There is, second, the need for a De-Carbonization of the energy systems to prevent climate catastrophe. There is, third, the need for a De-Materialization of economy and society to respect planetary boundaries and to prevent physical break-down. And as all this needs sweeping system change there is, fourth, strong need for a peace-devoted Earth System Governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a certain way, this four-parts-focus on the issue of global sustainability is reflected in several of the 40 ideas presented in the book \u2013 at its best in the first Part on nature, land, and water. On de-materialization I found nothing special, and on system change nothing systematic was presented. On the issue of climate change and de-carbonization there were many interesting texts; the most challenging to my mind was the two-page paper of the Nobel Prize winner, William Nordhaus, who doesn\u2019t trust the voluntary arrangements of the Paris Agreement and favours instead a strictly ruled \u201eCarbon Club\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Dr. h.c. Udo E. Simonis<\/a><\/em> is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Policy at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) 2021<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Fotolia.com](\"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Wasser_Glas_arttim.jpg\")
![\"bigstock](\"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/ozean_ChrisVanLennepPhoto.jpg\")
People and the Ocean 1.0: The ocean is so vast, bountiful, and endlessly resilient, it is simply too big to fail.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
![\"Depositphotos](\"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Klimakatastrophe_nejron.jpg\")
![\"pixabay.com](\"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Ressourcen_geralt.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/DanielC-Esty_AbetterPlanet.jpg\")
Source<\/h5>\r\n\n\n\n