„Die Politiker blenden den größten Teil der Wirklichkeit aus“, schreibt Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek in seinem Buch „Grüne Lügen“. Sie machten den Bürgern mit Alibi-Maßnahmen wie dem CO2-Fußabdruck ein schlechtes Gewissen. Die wahren Gründe für den Klimawandel würden verschwiegen. Deshalb fordert er: „Schluss mit der Volksverdummung!“
Archive for the ‘Literatur’ Category
Grüne Lügen – Nichts für die Umwelt, alles fürs Geschäft – wie Politik und Wirtschaft die Welt zugrunde richten
Montag, Juni 2nd, 2014Reducing Resource Consumption. A Proposal for Global Resource and Environmental Policy
Mittwoch, März 16th, 2011a paper from the Lindau Group 2009 by Paul Ekins, Bernd Meyer and Bio Schmidt-Bleek1. INTRODUCTIONRecently, the world has witnessed how market failures and foresight incompetence impaired the stability of the global financial system and with it the entire economy. Insufficient accounting methods and incomplete early warning systems, missing competence in systems analysis and unwillingness to implement precautionary policies, short-term profit maximization and wrong prices of products were among the key causing factors. As one consequence, even the CEOs of leading financial institutions have called for a framework of rules capable of avoiding a similar disaster in the future. As another, thousands of billions of Euros were committed by governments to limit the potential damage inflicted upon civil society by just one industry.While the ecological crisis does not as yet seem as acutely threatening as the financial disaster, it does have some of the same roots. Here, too, market failures and foresight incompetence, short-term profit maximization and wrong prices of products are among the key causing factors. The current market process itself is thus prominently responsible for the continuing and long-term destruction of the life-sustaining ecosystem services. While the health of the financial system can eventually be restored, this is not possible for lost ecosystem services, putting ultimately into question the very survival of humankind on earth. more
FACTOR 10 – ECOLOGICAL RUCKSACKS AND MIPS
Dienstag, März 15th, 2011You have before you the English translation of the first extensive account of the Factor Concept. And here is a bit of history how Factor 10 came about:
It was in 1989 when I realized that our approach to environmental protection could not getus to sustainability. Progress demanded that we had to re-consider getting involved in solving one isolated problem after the after. Our attention had to be switched from the emission side of the economy to the input of natural resources. Only in so doing could we control the outputs and make the right decisions before the damage was done and payments for it became due. And what about energy? Shouldnt we begin to worry about its material intensity, rather than limiting our focus on the associated emissions, like SO2 and CO2?
It was a difficult and exciting time. Hardly anybody believed that maintaining a stable ecosphere would require dramatically reducing the use of resources. Factor 10 I said was the average reduction goal for rich countries! What I claimed was that we should measure environmental stress potentials of goods and services with a balance rather than – or at least in addition to – with a gas chromatograph or a mass spectrometer. Megatons, so I declared, were our big problem, not nano-grams. And the ecological rucksack was to be the new yardstick for the production of goods, and its big brother MIPS for assessing the whole life-cycle of things.
Ernst von Weizsäcker gave me a chance to solidify my model at the newly created Wuppertal Institut. To some degree he even believed my ideas. As is well known: he
reached out for factor 4 later when began writing about resources and energy. When you ask him about that, he will tell you that a tenfold improvement has to be reached in the long term. His earlier finding that prices do not speak the ecological truth is as true today as ever. And as long as this is the case, sustainability is but a dream.
In my endeavors at Wuppertal I got selfless help from young colleagues who had the guts to stand up to doubts, ridicule and even abuse from inside and outside the institute. Without being able to name them all, here are those who made vital contributions early: Stefan Bringezu, Friedrich Hinterberger, Harry Lehmann, Christa Liedtke, Christopher Manstein, Helmut Schütz, Joachim Spangenberg, Hartmut Stiller, Ursula Tischner, und Jola Welfens. I am grateful for their help in bringing my model to life. Without them a large basket of publications would not have appeared, convincing the world slowly that resource productivity of goods and services play a decisive role if a future with a future is to be gained.
Lately, industry and the ministers of economy have begun to worry seriously about the continued availability of natural resources. Welcome to the debate on a limited planet earth! One can only hope that nations will not apply economic power ruthlessly in the struggles ahead. The poor people would be again the ones to pay the price. And ecologically as well as economically we would continue to move away even further from sustainable conditions. During the past 20 years we have shown in many enterprises that a radical reduction of resource use for goods and services must not lead to a loss in end-use satisfaction.
But the big question stubbornly remains: what does it take for finally breaking away from the old ways and move toward a new economic reality?
Report on Eco-Innovation to the European Parliament 2009
Dienstag, Oktober 13th, 2009by: Wuppertal Institut (D), Sustainable Europe Research Institure (A), Factor 10 Institute (F).
www.wupperinst.org, ISBN: 978-3-929944-77-8
New Guideline for Eco-Design, 2009
Dienstag, Oktober 13th, 2009Resource Productivity in 7 Steps How to develop eco-innovative products and services
Contact: Michael Lettenmeier Wuppertal Institut, or Prof. Friedrich Schmidt Bleek Factor 10 Institute