Many regions worldwide are facing new and major challenges for generations to come. The world is currently, going through tectonic transformations for meeting the UN-SDG (Paris meeting, 2015) and adapting more sustainable life-styles to meet the future realities of the post fossil-fuel era. With growing population, declining natural resources and increasing waste and pollution and uncertain climate and energy pressures, it becomes imperative to have careful large-scale and long-term planning and manageable policies. To meet the expected doubling of population in Uppsala county a Climate and Energy Strategy is being worked out with consideration to all development areas identified in the regional development plan. In this context, Uppsala county is planning to be an international centre of excellence in the climate-Energy area. 

See how one of the most explosive Swedish regions in terms of population and socio-economic developments is planning to cope with the complex challenges of its distant future.

Click to access strategy-short-version.pdf

The global climate change debate is so far focused on collection of information on climate change indicators by being mainly forced by what is known as man-made global warming. This is a consequence of the increasing levels of green-house gases in the atmosphere in particular carbon dioxide. Enormous amount of research were put to get “validated” data on the average global surface temperature. However, existing knowledge on the associated indicators (http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/) is mainly qualitative with major uncertainties what regards the spatio-temporal accuracies and uncertainties. Validated quantitative data and associated up and down scaling besides being very difficult to get using Environment and Climate Assessment Studies and Models are neither globally available not straightforward to get, e.g. for example using the spatio-temporal archives of lake-catchment systems to retrieve the complex data on indicators (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854826/pdf/ukmss-29587.pdf). Also, another key issue in quantitative studies is the type of base-line indicators that exist as reference framework for predicting the changes from “normal values”, i.e. how abnormal is abnormal in our observations? We are still left with considerable unknowns of the known unknowns while many new unknowns ars still remain to be known.

Energy and mass are conserved in closed systems. Looking at our universe, the solar system, the earth and using the concept of closed systems we find the following. Since the earth can be looked upon as a “closed system” then we can conclude that what we consume in terms of any fossil natural resources, i.e. being mined and used, is irreversible and can not be brought back as they were before. The same can be also said about natural minerals. Furthermore, all irreversable processes (mining and associated production to other forms, e.g. energy and industrial products) generally give rise to irreversible hazardous products in form of waste and pollution that impacts negatively on the functioning of natural systems. These natural systems, e.g. aquatic systems and land-water resources are generally expected to go out of order and to suffer from “malfunctioning”. In this context the earth’s natural resources can be generally classified into four main categories: 

(1) Mined and used irreversibly with major and remarkable large-scale and long-term damaging effects and negative environmental impacts 

(2) Mined and can be used reversibly but with high economic costs and major side-effects and negative environmental impacts

(3) Mined and can be used reversibly with minor economic costs and limited negative environmental impacts

(4) used and reused reversibly with limited environmental impacts

National Geographic, January 2016, has unique and interesting reportages with professional photographs.

A ski resort in Swedish Lapland is not where one would expect to find 600 refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. One hundred of them are children and they’re now adjusting to life above the Arctic Circle. Nor did the refugees expect to be seeing their first snowfall and figuring out the proper time to pray in a place where the sun hardly shines in winter and always in the sky in summer. But for these asylum-seekers, Riksgränsen offers an interim solution on the path to a permanent home. This ski resort Riksgränsen is in Swedish Lapland not far from the border with Norway. Its guests now, though, are not skiers enjoying the slopes—they’re refugees fleeing conflict.

In October, when there were 10,000 refugees entering Sweden each week, government officials called the resort to ask if he would be interested in opening it for asylum seekers. Once the government made a decision, things moved quickly as Sweden is organized country with well-established routines in this context. The government gives the resort 350 Swedish Krona (less than $41) per person per day—much less than a ski guest would pay. “We basically did it to do something good,” Kuldkepp says, the resort manager. See What Life Is Like for Refugees Above the Arctic Circle: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160111-refugees-sweden-photos/utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=pom_20160117&utm_campaign=Content&utm_rd=1084349381

It is all about sustaining life where education is imperative to understand where we were, where we are just now and where are we going to. Visit, share and contribute in http://sustain-earth.com

The International Renewable Energy Agency published an interesting report on the global Renewable Energy benefits “The Economics of Renewables”. This is the added-value of the decarbonization of energy for mitigating the global warming.  

https://www.dropbox.com/s/12cy7ynt4sgwzwk/IRENA_Measuring-the-Economics_2016.pdf?dl=0

  


The human eye can only see objects in daytime and not when it is dark by night. This is unlike, e.g. snakes, where they can see objects in dark space as well. The visibility of human eyes is made possible through the natural daylight coming from the sun which among its components some type of electro-magnetic radiation called “the visible light”. The visible light can also come from artificial light sources (http://www.continental-lighting.com/lighting-basics/artificial-light-sources.php) e.g. light bulb (heated wires), LED-lamps, flourescent, ….). Snakes for their visibility, for example, use other type of radiation called “the infra-red” which is also emitted from hot bodies including the human body. The global distribution of snakes bites leading to envenoming can be viewed at (http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1678-91992013000100205&script=sci_arttext&tlng=pt).

Researchers have now created possibilities for extending the visibility of human eyes to include in addition to visible light the infra-red radiation. Read the story below:

http://www.slipperybrick.com/2014/04/night-vision-contacts/
  

The world around us is moving steadily  and rapidly towards different distinations to meet the growing challenges for post oil and fossil-fuel era or even more seriously stated towards what we can call the post natural resources era. One exception is the solar energy which will outdate all other natural resources on earth including water and the life itself. 

This does come with a surprise as all existing knowledge and research predictions indicate that all natural resources on planet earth are, or sooner or later will be, going through peak-consumption followed by gradual decline and even annihilation. In the case of water and life it is about peak-quality and peak-life as we are also facing peak-waste and peak-pollution in this very century. However, it is only our collective human intelligence, integrated worldwide innovation and coherent hardwork combined with systematic planning and above all sustainable policies and management strategies that can save our planet from total collapse and annihilation. 

Successful transformation to sustainable future for planet Earth can not and will not be achieved without effective global dialog, shared knowledge and expertise combined with worldwide solutions and work for implementation of innovative and sustainable policies and management strategies. We can not imagine that this can be achieved by “business as usual” where only a small and localized portion of the world population has access to knowledge and expertise while the large majority of the global population lack the resources and capabilities to contribute constructively in saving planet Earth. 

It is not about finding false and destructive solutions for erasing poverty (only filling the hungry stomachs) since we will be overloading planet Earth with more blind consumption, generating and accumulating enormous waste and pollution everywhere. It is about empowering the majority of the world population with resources and capabilities to actively share the heavy responsibility for preservation and protection of our collective natural resources on earth. This is only possible if we have collective vision and mission for more sustainable future for our planet Earth. 

It is interesting to see how some first-class universities (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) are taking major steps for the globalization of knowledge and increasing the mobility of expertise around the world.

The post industrial revolution era was  geared to lifestyle based on production and consumption engineering technology. While our global lifestyle is moving on new tracks to revert what went wrong in the post industrial era new concepts are being emerging. Future  technology will involve the expansion of the so-called “Reversed Engineering” where 12 GREEN Engineering Principles would be absolutely imperative for getting our planet on large-scale and long-term sustainability roads. 

Read more about this: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es032373g

Transformations to sustainable societies involve seeing the big picture to achieve optimization in all sectors and on all levels, i.e. for the benefit of everyone. An example is provided here, INDUSTRIAL AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT. 

http://learningcourses.com.sg/dt_courses/diploma-industrial-operations-management-rp/
Join “Sustain-Earth.Com” to inform and get informed on the existing urgent and imperative global needs for transforming our life-styles and tuning them towards a sustainable future for planet Earth.
  

Humans find security in what they know, what they are familiar with and what they believe they master. Human security (http://www.un.org/humansecurity/sites/www.un.org.humansecurity/files/human_security_in_theory_and_practice_english.pdf) depends on building and establishing life-styles that are based on packages of knowledge, i.e. science and technology, that are in best cases founded on hypothesis and models that are still to be tested, examined and validated. Seeking security is a natural instinct for survival as living in an ocean of unknowns is associated with fear that can gradually grow and grow and piles up to end with panik and collapse. Feeling secure, which may or even can be run-away from reality, i.e. an illusion associated with moving with a “mainstream” even when we don’t know where it will end up. From history we know that a mainstream can not be always right, it is just a mainstream that can mean escape from fear and from the unknowns that can be knowns or unknowns. For decades we were moving and still moving with a global mainstream “fossil-fuel” driven by blind economy and some  packages of science and technology that we are mastering for the sake of short-term survival though not sustainable on the long-term but even destructive. 

Now everything is turned upside down, and our secured mainstream collapsed, with failing life-quality everywhere. The quality of life for all of us is degrading and dragging us in a spiral of unending anhilation. The quality of life is fading away and not any longer a priority but an option and even it is only for few of us for the sake of economical survival. An economical survival “capitalism” and not even for everyone and what was for everyone “socialism” didn’t last and failed to deliver the most essential for survival “equality in quality”. 

Our new reality, i.e. post fossil-fuel era is calling for tectonic shifts to”post-capitalist” (http://gu.com/p/4ay9c?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) and “post-socialism” (https://www.dukeupress.edu/postsocialism-and-cultural-politics).

Nevertheless, not all the science and technology that were supposed to provide sustainable security as measured in terms of life-quality was wrong as fortunately few of us believed in exploring what most of us didn’t believe in or felt uncomfortable and an inconvenient truth. Few of us went against the mainstream to search about the unknowns that are shaking the stability of life on earth and to question the knowns that are driving the mainstream. 

The world population is moving away from a known insecurity “global warming” to an new unknown insecurity “post fossil-fuel era”. An insecure future as we don’t know much about it yet, only few of us may know. With this said, the majority of us are not even prepared to change their life-styles as they not yet have access to the necessary education, resources and infra-structure to do so. Above all the only thing we know at the moment is that we will be facing an enormous challenge to limit the average global surface temperature increase to 2°C (3.6°F). Indeed, we are stepping away from an existing insecurity resulting from being dependent on unclean energy resources to a future insecurity of implementing technology that is not accessible and affordable for everyone especially in a world with population structure that will look very much different by the end of this century (http://wapo.st/148nw27).