Costanza's View on the World. A discussion for 2010

Costanza's Home Page
Costanza CV and other articles written
Costanza, R. 2000. Visions of alternative (unpredictable) futures and their use in policy analysis. Conservation Ecology 4(1): 5.

I took slightly alternative approach to the Costanza article where I thought it would be interesting to see what the lay-may thought of the 4 possible futures that were available to us in this article. I approached my family and friends to see what they would like to see and what path they feel we are heading.


My parents who are extremely well educated and worldly and who also have zero faith in the Y-Gen felt that if the future is left up to the Y-Gen that everything would fall to pieces and probably end up in a Mad/Max scenario and very doomsday, they pointed out though that they feel things are heading more into a Big Government scenario where many more laws will be put in place to prevent the abuse of the environment in the future and maybe eventually leading to a relief for the population and environment.

My partner who is also well educated and well travelled felt that they way things are heading at the moment was towards Mad Max and the doomsday approach and that a disease killing off a lot of the population would be inevitable because we all live on top of each other in high density situations. He wishes though, that things will head towards Ectopia and back to a day where people are more self reliant and less reliant on technology as he feels that as a culture we have lost that ability to be self reliant and community based.

Our flat mates, who are not well travelled and moderately educated, felt that the human race is heading towards the Star Trek Theory. That as they already have 4 kids they would like to see a world where four kids were the norm and that technology would probably end up saving us. They felt that Ectopia was unreachable and their lack of respect for the government lead me to believe that Big Government was out of the question.

When I sat down to look at the possibilities and the question posed it dawned on me that I was a definite pessimist when it came to the 4 futures. I would really like us to head towards Ectopia as that’s what I would love to see for future generations. But where would the motivation come from? If there is no money and no employment.....what would people work towards? What would motivate them? If there were no trades like engineering because we are all living in small communities...what would we teach kids at school? I felt that (although I love the show) the Star Trek approach was just unrealistic. The logistics of moving people to space would be insane. And what would we do with all the waste? Put it in space? Let it float around? Fill up the voids in space till we have destroyed that environment too? I think if we wanted to move towards a more modern “Star Trek” ideal....lets rather call it the “Avatar Ideal”

I feel that big government is achievable if we could all just co-operate, but the wars and problems cause from ignorance might make that a very hard situation to solve. But i really do feel that it could be achievable.

Aaaa....finally the mad max approach. When I got to thinking this one through i really wanted to keep telling myself that this wasn’t possible. By I couldn’t. I really feel realistically, this is where we are heading as a society. We already have out breaks of diseases and HIV/AIDS is a pandemic. There are already societies which have crumbled and are on the brink of destruction because of poverty and exponential population growth. Just living in South Africa and Thailand, it’s like night and day compared to Australia. South Africa has SO much poverty and societies which are at each other all the time. Orphans because of parents with aids and then the kids have aids and it’s just a shambles and how, realistically, are we going to fix this without doing something really drastic? Which makes me think that this is route we are heading, and pretty quickly to which for me is a MAJOR concern. It’s really made me rethink having kids if this is the future.
XXX Nicola

Building sustainable homes - Brisbane City Council

Building sustainable homes - Brisbane City Council


Sustainable homes have three main design elements that provide benefits during construction and for the lifetime of the house:

1.Environmental sustainability: the home is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save water and energy usage, and reduce waste.
2.Social sustainability: the home has built-in safety features to prevent injuries, as well as security features to reduce crime and improve the occupants’ sense of security. Universal design features are used so everyone, including children or people with limited mobility, will be comfortable.
3.Economic sustainability: the home is designed to save money and avoids the need for major renovations. Costs of energy use, water use and maintenance will be reduced.
Brisbane City Council is encouraging people who are building or buying a new home to discuss their home’s sustainability features with architects and builders.