Editorial: Factor 10: The future of stuff

Abstract

Given current economic and environmental policies, nature’s lifesustaining services will continue to decline at a rapid pace. “Business as usual” may put human life on Earth eventually into question. Meanwhile, economic options will become limited and world peace more fragile. Traditional environmental policies focus on dealing with specific problems. In certain respects, this approach has been quite successful. For instance, it has cleaned up water pollution, taken dangerous goods off the market, recycled certain products, and slowed the acceleration of climatic change. However, since traditional problem solving begins after recognizing a problem’s existence, such policies are neither helpful on a systems level, nor are they preventive in a general sense. Solving individual problems can even exacerbate other problems, in particular those as yet undiscovered.

Keywords

• economic policy
• costs
• nonrenewable resources
• natural resources
• resource management
• technological change
• socioeconomics
• sustainable development
• human-environment relationship
• Factor 10
• ecological fottprint
• sustainability