Limits to Growth Revisited

It was forty years ago today,
Donella Meadows taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile.
So may I introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years,
Donella Meadows' Limits to Growth.


.... Well, truthfully, it was forty years ago on March 1, but close enough.

This book, which sold over ten million copies in various languages, was one of the earliest scholarly works to recognize that the world was fast approaching its sustainable limits. Forty years later, the planet continues to face many of the same economic, social, and environmental challenges as when the book was first published. Suitably, the event has spawned a number of retrospectives. The most fulsome occurred at the Smithsonian where the Club of Rome sponsored Perspectives on Limits to Growth: Challenges to Building a Sustainable Planet. Among the presentations were the following:

• Dennis Meadows It is too late for sustainable development
• Jørgen Randers Lessons of forty years of promoting limits to growth
• Lester Brown World on the Edge
• Doug Erwin Biodiversity: past, present and future
• Richard Alley Climate change and energy; challenges and opportunities
• Neva Goodwin Labor’s declining share and future quality of life
• Panel discussion moderated by Eva Pell, Under Secretary for Science, Smithsonian Institution 

The full nine hour program -- including 10 minutes watching the audience mill about before the first presentation -- is archived at the above link.

For those who would like their celebration served up in a more time efficient manner, journey on over to Resilience Science where Garry Peterson has two interesting posts: Forty Years of Limits to Growth and Paul Gilding talks about Limits to Growth which includes Gilding's recent Ted Talk.

Call for Papers: Media Ecology Association

Close to home and interesting .... could be well worth checking out.

The Eleventh Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association
Media Ecology and Natural Environments

June 10–13, 2010
University of Maine
Orono, Maine

Media Ecology and Natural Environments

The subject of media ecology was formed with two biological methaphors in mind, Neil Postman wrote in “The Humanism of Media Ecology” (2000). In biology, a medium is a substance within which a culture grows. Change “substance” to “technology,” and media ecology defines a medium as a technology within which a culture grows, forming its politics, social organization, and ways of thinking. In biology, ecology is the study of what constitutes a balanced and healthy natural environment. Media ecology refers to ways that cultures maintain a healthy symbolic balance to help keep our natural world in order. Media ecology seeks to make us more aware that we live in two different environments. We live in both the natural environment of air, water, animals, and plants, and the media environment of language, images, symbols, and technologies that shape us.

The 11th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association invites papers, panels, creative projects, and other proposals exploring the connections between these two ecologies, one of culture and communication, the other of nature and the physical sciences. Convention submissions are welcome that draw on a wide variety of perspectives in environmental studies in the sciences and communication, from issues such as climate change, biodiversity, acid rain, and wildlife ecology. How do media ecology and natural ecology intersect? How do ecologists in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences create dialogue with each other? Can scholarship bring artists, communication researchers, and scientists together? What is the relationship between primary natural and virtual media realities? What is the history of environmental thought?

Electronic submissions of papers and session proposals are preferred and should be sent by January 15, 2010 to Paul Grosswiler, Chair, Department of Communication and Journalism, 420 Dunn Hall, University of Maine, Orono ME 04460, paulg at maine.edu.

All submissions will be acknowledged. The convention will be sponsored by the Vice President for Research, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine. Campus housing will be available. Tours of Maine’s natural environments will be offered.