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+Researchers propose critical planetary boundaries, transgressing them could be catastrophic. But there is hope.
+Johan Rockström, Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre warns that transgressing planetary boundaries may be devastating for humanity, but if we respect them we have a bright future for centuries ahead. Nine boundaries identified were climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. The study suggests that three of these boundaries (climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere) may already have been transgressed. In addition, it emphasizes that the boundaries are strongly connected — crossing one boundary may seriously threaten the ability to stay within safe levels of the others.
+http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/researchnews/tippingtowardstheunknown.5.7cf9c5aa121e17bab42800021543.html
+and
 Podcast on planetary boundaries: http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index-2009-09-24.html
+Polycentric Systems as One Approach for Solving Collective-action Problems (2008) , Ostrom, Elinor
+ "Providing and producing public goods and common-pool resources at local, regional, national and international levels require different institutions than open, competitive markets or highly centralized governmental institutions. If we are to solve collective-action problems effectively we must rethink the way we approach market and governmental institutions. We need analytical approaches that are consistent with a public sector that encourages human development at multiple levels. This chapter reviews studies of polycentric governance systems in metropolitan areas and for managing common-pool resources. "Hans Opschoor has devoted his academic career to the study of economic instruments and institutions related to development of and to coping with environmental problems. A fundamental set of problems facing individuals in all developed and developing societies are collective-action problems. The size and shape of these problems however differ dramatically. Polycentricity may help solve collective-action problems by developing systems of governmental and nongovernmental organizations at multiple scales. "After an introduction to the problem, this chapter will review the extensive research that demonstrated the capabilities of many citizens to design imaginative and productive ways of producing public goods and common-pool resources. Successful systems tend to be polycentric with small units nested in larger systems. Not all such systems are successful, and we need to understand factors associated with failure as well as success. The last section of the chapter will discuss design principles that can help guide the design, adaptation and reform of governance systems to achieve robust and effective systems over time.
+http://en.scientificcommons.org/38388982
+http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handle/10535/4417
+"We could be generating huge amounts of power from sewage. The process
+is fairly simple — just ferment sewage to produce a fuel called biogas.
+Biogas is almost entirely methane, and so is natural gas, so the two are
+essential interchangeable. The potential to produce biogas is almost
+entirely overlooked by most countries — except Sweden. In Sweden, 25% of
+all energy use is derived from biomass."
+http://www.metaefficient.com/buses/biogas-sweden-fuel-buses-trains.html
+Greetings from...Your Brightest Possible Future (Vauban District Freiburg)
+Yes, there is this whole Vauban scene, as if some Teutonic wizard had
+ransacked the dreams of every idealistic urban planner in the free world
+and stitched together all the bits and pieces of walkable, mid-rise,
+mixed-use, transit-friendly, eco-conscious design in the lee of a Black
+Forest hillside as the setting for a fairy tale called Little Green
+Riding Hood Rescues Hansel & Gretel and They All Flee the Dark Forest to
+Live Together in Solar-Powered Social-Democratic Harmony So Luminous It
+Convinces the Wolf to Self-Domesticate and Form a Limited Partnership
+with the Witch to Provide Efficiency Retrofits at Reasonable Prices.
+Yes, yes. All that. Lovely. Wunderbar."
+http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2010.05-environment-the-new-grand-tour
+"Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project to produce
+predictions of the Earth's climate up to 2100 and to test the accuracy
+of climate models. To do this, we need people around the world to give
+us time on their computers - time when they have their computers
+switched on, but are not using them to their full capacity."
+http://climateprediction.net/
+"Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste [...] the waste
+produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated
+by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power
+plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the
+surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power
+plant producing the same amount of energy."
+http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
+The Unforgettable Commencement Address by Paul Hawken -
+"you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being
+on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate
+of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not
+one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute
+that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system,
+you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades."
+…
+“Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.”
+The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.
+...
+“We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells.”
+So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.
+Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.
+This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.
+http://globalmindshift.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/the-unforgettable-commencement-address-by-paul-hawken-to-the-class-of-2009-university-of-portland-may-3-2009/
+"The European Union is backing projects to turn the plentiful sunlight
+in the Sahara desert into electricity for power-hungry Europe, a scheme
+it hopes will help meet its target of deriving 20 percent of its energy
+from renewable sources in 2020. [...] initial volumes would come from
+small pilot projects, but the amount of electricity would go up into the
+thousands of megawatts as projects including the 400 billion euro
+Desertec solar scheme come on stream."
+http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65J1ZO20100620
+A new study by researchers from a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has revealed that people who seed their life with frequent moments of positive emotions increase their resilience against challenges. "This study shows that if happiness is something you want out of life, then focusing daily on the small moments and cultivating positive emotions is the way to go," said Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences and the principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory.
+http://news.oneindia.in/2009/07/09/positiveemotions-increase-resilience-againstchallenges.html
+How resilient are you? – a quiz.
+http://psychology.about.com/library/quiz/bl-resilience-quiz.htm
+Roots of Resilience Located In Specific Brain Regions, by Joan Arehart-Treichel
+Successfully coping with a stressful situation can prime one for dealing with subsequent stressful situations that are not controllable. The brain circuitry that underlies this transfer of resiliency includes the prefrontal cortex and brainstem.
+http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/42/3/28.2.full
 The benefits of future predictions may be more in thinking in the larger scope/scale than in the accuracy of any one prediction. This is like the idea that planning is worthwhile even if a specific plan need to be taken with a significant quantity of salt. -Bruce Sterling