Can we square our need to consume with sustainability? with Dr. Jean Boucher, James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland

Episode 116 March 03, 2024 00:51:32
Can we square our need to consume with sustainability? with Dr. Jean Boucher, James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org
Can we square our need to consume with sustainability? with Dr. Jean Boucher, James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland

Mar 03 2024 | 00:51:32

/

Show Notes

We live in a Consumer Society.  Rising consumption is good, since it makes the economy grow.  At the same time, we face a Climate Crisis.  Rising consumption is bad, since it makes carbon emissions grow.  People across the Global North believe we must reduce emissions but they are reluctant to reduce their consumption. What can we do?  Some advocate ecological modernization by making our goods and services greener.  Others argue that only shrinking the economy--"degrowth"--will do the trick.  Maybe both are more mythic than technologically or politically feasible. Can we square the circle (or, maybe, circle the square?) and find a path to sustainability?

Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Jean Boucher, about the promises and myths of sustainable consumption.  Boucher is a senior Research Scientist and Macaulay Development Trust Fellow in Land Use and Societal Metabolism at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland.  His research ranges from people's attitudes about climate change and their carbon-intensive lifestyles to the demographic distribution of clean energy technologies, the socio-technical factors that influence cultural and institutional behavior, and macro-scale societal metabolics analyzing materials and energy flows through households and economic sectors.

Other Episodes

Episode 94

May 02, 2023 00:43:48
Episode Cover

The Ideal River: How control of nature shaped the international order, with Dr. Joanne Yao

Rivers have long been the object of poems, songs, novels, studies, fishers, swimmers, sewage, engineers, farmers and salmon.  In California, rivers and the water...

Listen

Episode 142

May 17, 2025 00:53:18
Episode Cover

Food Apartheid and Food Hubs--A Visit with Saba Grocers and co-founder Lina Ghanem

Food insecurity and food apartheid are a common challenge in many low-income and minority neighborhoods across the United States.  Big supermarket companies avoid those...

Listen

Episode 39

February 24, 2021 00:57:06
Episode Cover

Environmental Literacy for K-12 Students, with Amity Sandage, Santa Cruz County Office of Education

Sunday, February 21st: Host Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with Amity Sandage, environmental literacy coordinator for Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Sandage leads a countywide...

Listen