Broadening Boundaries
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Three-mile Transect: Ten-minute Mobility
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David A. Driskill
Urban centers are sustainable within a 3 mile radius, allowing 10-minute mobility by multiple modes of transportation. The transect consists of a mixed-use core, banded with mid-scale development and an outer ring of low density housing. This suggests an urban form of satellite density rings situated approximately six miles apart in lieu of the traditional urban to rural transect, which is the focus of this study.
Sustainability and Space Age: From Spaceship Earth to Space Station Earth View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mikko Puumala
This paper examines the conceptual, philosophical, and ethical implications of space exploration to sustainability. Sustainability discourse is often operating within a Spaceship Earth metaphor, seeing Earth as a closed system in which limitless growth is impossible as the resources are limited. However, in the long-term future the resources and ecological space available to humanity will not be limited only to our planet. The object of this paper is to assess the conceptual and ethical implications for key concepts in the sustainability discourse: substitutability (are Earth resources and ecological space substitutable with extraterrestrial resources and space?), future generations (are the interests of future generations Earthbound?), and limits of growth (can and ought we to pursue limitless growth outside Earth?). The study contributes to establishing a new conceptual and ethical framework for re-assessing the goals of sustainability in terms of the coming Space Age and our common space future. Research methods in this study include the standard philosophical methods, including conceptual analysis, and thought experiments, leaning on the conceptual framework of environmental ethics, sustainability ethics, and space ethics. The paper concludes that the old Spaceship Earth metaphor is steadily turning obsolete as humankind is about to take its first decisive steps towards being a truly multiplanetary species. Rather, we inhabit a Space Station Earth from which we set forward to explore, exploit, and inhabit our Solar System.
Featured Structural Impediments to Sustainable Development in Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ahmed Badreldin
In its efforts to administer a collective global response towards combating climate change and limiting global warming, the United Nations, at its 2015 Climate Change Conference, succeeded in committing member nations to the Paris Agreement. Through the Agreement, the United Nations exemplified its dedication to supporting sustainable development. Accordingly, the primary objective of this chapter is to investigate structural impediments that prevent Australia and the Asia-Pacific region from achieving their Paris Agreement targets and consolidating sustainable development. While neoliberal globalisation has nurtured ecological damage, and widespread poverty and wealth inequality in a systematic manner, this chapter argues that the accumulation and persistence of these structural deficiencies portend severe implications against the attainment of sustainability targets. The chapter introduces an assessment approach suggesting the stage of economic development, the extent of social equity, and the political orientation of each country to distinguish its vulnerability and exposure to these structural impediments. It further addresses difficulties that governments, businesses, and civil societies face with a focus on solving them. Lastly, it anticipates a paradigm shift away from the GDP growth-based, fossil fuel-driven industrial type of economic development towards a more inclusive and equitable model comprising eco-efficient low-carbon enterprises and economies. The chapter concludes that only the equitable, more inclusive, and democratic developmental regimes are capable of consolidating sustainable development.
