Related papers: Physical basis of sustainable development
Much of today's sustainability discourse emphasizes efficiency, clean technologies, and smart systems, but largely underestimates fundamental physical constraints relating to energy-matter interactions. These constraints stem from the fact…
The development of sport performances in the future is a subject of myth and disagreement among experts. As arguments favoring and opposing such methodology were discussed, other publications empirically showed that the past development of…
It is still common wisdom amongst economists, politicians and lay people that economic growth is a necessity of our social systems, at least to avoid distributional conflicts. This paper challenges such belief moving from a purely physical…
Universal and rigorously derived concept of dynamic complexit (physics/9806002) shows that any system of interacting components, including society and civilisation, exists only as a process of highly inhomogeneous, qualitative development…
We review some basic issues of the life-prescribed development of the Earth's system and the Earth's atmosphere and discourse the unity of Earth's type of life in physical and transcendental divisions. In physical division, we exemplify and…
A reliable understanding of the Earth system is essential for the life quality of modern society. Natural hazards are the cause of most life and resource losses. The ability to define the conditions for a sustainable development of…
Can sustained open-ended technological progress preserve natural resources in a finite planet? We address this question on the basis of a stylized model with genuine open-ended technological innovation, where an innovation event corresponds…
The scientific data about the state of our planet, presented at the 2012 (Rio+20) summit, documented that today's human family lives even less sustainably than it did in 1992. The data indicate furthermore that the environmental impacts…
We construct a stochastic dynamical systems theory in which sustainability is a structural boundary property of a fully coupled Earth--Human--Production system. Each subsystem is modelled as a vector-valued process governed by stochastic…
We explore how questions related to developing a sustainable human civilization can be cast in terms of astrobiology. In particular we show how ongoing astrobiological studies of the coupled relationship between life, planets and their…
Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…
This paper presents a conceptual model describing the medium and long-term co-evolution of natural and socio-economic subsystems of Earth. An economy is viewed as an out-of-equilibrium dissipative structure that can only be maintained with…
The rising complexity of our terrestrial surrounding is an empirical fact. Details of this process evaded description in terms of physics for long time attracting attention and creating myriad of ideas including non-scientific ones. In this…
In a recent study (Garrett, 2011), I described theoretical arguments and empirical evidence showing how civilization evolution might be considered from a purely physical basis. One implication is that civilization exhibits the property of…
This paper establishes a quantitative and structural framework for civilizational continuity under rapid, non-linear ecological transitions. Utilizing empirical data on Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI), currently measured at 1.36 W/m^2, we…
Challenges due to the rapid urbanization of the world -- especially in emerging countries -- range from an increasing dependence on energy, to air pollution, socio-spatial inequalities, environmental and sustainability issues. Modelling the…
The Anthropocene is characterized by close interdependencies between the natural Earth system and the human society, posing novel challenges to model development. Here we present a conceptual model describing the long-term coevolution of…
We face unprecedented resource stresses in the 21st Century such as global climate disruptions, freshwater scarcity, expanding energy demands, and the threat of global pandemics. Historically, societies have relieved resource stress by…
Urban land growth presents a major sustainability challenge, yet its growth patterns and dynamics remain unclear. We quantified urban land evolution by analyzing its statistical distribution in 14 regions and countries over 29 years. The…
Economic growth is unpredictable unless demand is quantified. We solve this problem by introducing the demand for unpaid spare time and a user quantity named human capacity. It organizes and amplifies spare time required for enjoying…