"A good life for all within planetary boundaries" (2018)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4

> Abstract: Humanity faces the challenge of how to achieve a high quality of life for over 7 billion people without destabilizing critical planetary processes. Using indicators designed to measure a ‘safe and just’ development space, we quantify the resource use associated with meeting basic human needs, and compare this to downscaled planetary boundaries for over 150 nations. We find that no country meets basic needs for its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. Physical needs such as nutrition, sanitation, access to electricity and the elimination of extreme poverty could likely be met for all people without transgressing planetary boundaries. However, the universal achievement of more qualitative goals (for example, high life satisfaction) would require a level of resource use that is 2–6 times the sustainable level, based on current relationships. Strategies to improve physical and social provisioning systems, with a focus on sufficiency and equity, have the potential to move nations towards sustainability, but the challenge remains substantial.

> "Radical changes are needed if all people are to live well within the limits of the planet," [...]

> "These include moving beyond the pursuit of economic growth in wealthy nations, shifting rapidly from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and significantly reducing inequality.

> "Our physical infrastructure and the way we distribute resources are both part of what we call provisioning systems. If all people are to lead a good life within the planet's limits then these provisioning systems need to be fundamentally restructured to allow for basic needs to be met at a much lower level of resource use."

Perhaps ironically, our developments in service of sustainability (resource efficiency) needs for a civilization on Mars are directly relevant to solving these problems on Earth.

Recycle everything.

Survive without soil, steel, hydrocarbons, animals, oxygen.

Convert CO2, sunlight, H20, and geothermal energy to forms necessary for life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars

Algae, carbon capture, carbon sequestration, lab grown plants, water purification, solar power, [...]

Mars requires a geomagnetic field in order to sustain an atmosphere in order to [...].

"The Limits to Growth" (1972, 2004) [1] very clearly forecasts these same unsustainable patterns of resource consumption: 'needs' which exceed and transgress our planetary biophysical boundaries.

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (#GlobalGoals) [2] outline our worthwhile international objectives (Goals, Targets, and Indicators). The Paris Agreement [3] sets targets and asks for commitments from nation states (and businesses) to help achieve these goals most efficiently and most sustainably.

In the US, the Clean Power Plan [4] was intended to redirect our national resources toward renewable energy with far less external costs. Direct and indirect subsidies for nonrenewables are irrational. Are subsidies helpful or necessary to reach production volumes of renewable energy products and services?

There are certainly financial incentives for anyone who chooses to invest in solving for the Global Goals; and everyone can!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

[2] http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-develop...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan