I stumbled across a few interesting bits and bobs over the last week or two that i’d like to share with you fine people.
Consumption
This article in the New York Times about the psychology of consumption and links between purchasing and happiness is a fascinatnig read and also provided some serendipitous links to a few other interesting nuggets.
How many possessions do you really need? Like, really? The 100 Thing Challenge is a really provocative idea. Set up by Dave Bruno in San Diego, it’s garnered loads of press, including this article in The Times last year.
This article, from the consistantly brilliant Good, on the need for “disruptive innovation” to revolutionise our meat-eating habits.
Next Saturday, 21st August 2010, is Earth Overshoot Day, the day on which humanity uses up all of nature’s budget for the year. From Sunday onwards we all start going into ecological debt.
A thought-provoking post on the rise of Artisanal America: “The return of the artisanal is like a return to the gold standard, the durable value of the well-made thing“. Although i’m sceptical this is an inherently good thing rather than just a different strain of mass consumerism. Especially when the same website has another article entitled “Striped Sweaters: You can never have too many”. Hmmm.
Busniess & Marketing
Alex Bogusky, the “Elvis of Advertising”, leaves the industry and re-invents himself as social entrepreneur.
The CEO of Unilever rallies against short-termism and performance by share price: “A lot of problems the world has found itself in are because people were chasing quarterly targets”.
Jon also mentions CEO Paul Polman in his previous post How Can We Make Now Longer?
Politics
Leo Hickman in the Guardian argues that political short-termism fails the environment. A somewhat depressing, but necessary read:
“Humanity’s fundamental flaw is that we are seemingly hardwired not to be able to do long-term thinking…but taking a chainsaw to environmental regulations and conservation efforts will be judged by future historians to have been just as shortsightedly foolish as taking out a 110% mortgage.”
Economics
And as this blog is about economics as well as the environment here is an in-depth report by Raoul Palon (ex-Goldman Sachs and Hedge Fund manger) on the state of the global economy. It has some quite sobering predictions, but turn to page 21 to learn why he predicts that the UK will eventually default on its debt. Ho-hum!
That’s it for now.
The idea is that this becomes a weekly post on the interesting articles we’ve collectively stumbled on, so please use the “conservationeconomy” tag on delicious if you find anything you think we should include.
But Will It Make You Happy?
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