Sustainability

A twenty-six part course that proposes ways the economy, the environment, and energy are inter-related and questions their sustainability. The course concludes with suggestions for how to prepare for the massive changes to our way of life that Chris Martenson believes could occur and may already be underway.

Climate Refugees

UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That. (NY Mag Intelligencer, Oct 2018)
How to Save a Town From Rising Waters (Wired, 2018)
The Refugees The World Barely Pays Attention To (NPR, 2018)
Why Climate Migrants Do Not Have Refugee Status (The Economist, 2018)
Climate Change Is Driving People From Home. So Why Don’t They Count as Refugees? (NYT, 2017)
Dhaka: The City Where Climate Refugees Are Already a Reality (The Guardian, 2015)
Climate Refugees Documentary

Farming in America

Why are America's farmers killing themselves in record numbers? (The Guardian)
Shortage of Farmers Creates 'Dangerous Situation' for U.S. (NBC News)
A Looming Crisis on American Farms (Farmaid)
U.S. Farm Productivity Approaching Perilous Ground
Scarcity of phosphorus threat to global food production (ScienceDaily)
Not enough fruits, vegetables grown to feed the planet (ScienceDaily)
Climate change, rising sea levels a threat to farmers in Bangladesh (ScienceDaily)

Maryland's Genuine Progress Indicator

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) provides citizens and policymakers fruitful insight by recognizing economic activity that diminishes both natural and social capital. Further, the GPI is designed to measure sustainable economic welfare rather than economic activity alone. To accomplish this, the GPI uses three simple underlying principles for its methodology:

account for income inequality,
include non-market benefits that are not included in Gross Domestic Product, and
identify and deduct bads such as environmental degradation, human health effects, and loss of leisure time.