The Earth
Subtitle: natural resources and human intervention
By: Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek ; translated by Sandra Lustig ; Klaus Wiegandt, general editor.
Contributors: Wiegandt, Klaus.
Series: The sustainability project
Publisher: Haus Pub.
Published: 2009
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9781906598099
Subjects: Conservation of natural resources; Conservation of natural resources -- Citizen participation; Conservation of natural resources -- Economic aspects; Sustainable living
Work titles: Nutzen wir die Erde righting?
Notes: "Originally published as ... Nutzen wir die Erde rightig? : die Leistungen der Natur und die Arbeit des Menschen by Frankfurt Schmidt-Bleek. Ed. by Klaus Wiegandt"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [214]-219).

CONTENTS:

Preface: how environmental protection mutated into an eco-strategy -- The earth in motion. How we manage natural resources -- Dematerialization of the economy -- Moving resources -- Changing the way we manage the economy -- The necessity of dematerialization -- The ecological rucksack and an ecological metric -- Energy in the ecological rucksack -- How we manage resources -- From old to new environmental policy -- The true price of things. Focus on function -- Two new concepts -- Ecological rucksacks -- The ecological price, or the true price of things -- Material input factors : MIF -- Five different rucksacks -- Factor 10 -- In a nutshell -- The ecological metric. Costs per service -- The ecological price of utility -- MIPS is evidently the ecological equivalent of COPS -- The service unit S -- An example : what is dematerialized steel? -- Resource productivity : more utility for less environment -- Resource productivity of production -- Resource productivity of services -- Ecological prices and labels -- Ecological prices -- Do prices tell the ecological truth? --

The economy’s metabolism. An excursus : the Tower of Babel -- Inseparable : economic activity and the ecosphere -- Material flow accounts -- The resource strategy -- Material flows in Germany -- Food metabolism in Germany -- Material flows in the European Union -- The global economy’s material flows -- The population problem and resource consumption -- Boomerang effects -- Sustainable world trade? -- Consequences for the earth. The complexity of the economy and the ecosphere -- The devastation caused by hurricanes -- Early warnings -- The Kyoto Protocol : the path to the future? -- Sustainable solutions? -- Services and their utility -- Practical services -- Luxury and resources -- Services performed by machines -- Nature’s services -- The utility of life -- Changing values? -- Focusing on utility helps to create a future with a future -- Seeking ecological utility -- Choosing the best -- Making difficult choices -- The new Kondratiev Wave -- Who are the movers and shakers? -- Making MIPS smaller : dematerializing existing products -- Designing the invisible : innovations for tomorrow -- Multifunctional equipment -- Designing sustainable utility -- The earth in our hands. The productivity of labor and resources -- Unemployment with no prospects? -- Misdirected financial burdens? -- Energy and resource efficiency -- Unintelligent taxation -- Full-cost pricing -- The reality of wasting resources -- Innovation on the wrong track? -- The Aachen scenario -- We still lack information -- Carnoules potentials -- Investing in tomorrow -- Europe’s historic opportunity.