Factor Four – Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use

Weizsäcker, Ernst von; Lovins, Amory B.; Lovins, L. Hunter

doi:10.1177/014459879701500608

Cited by 173 publications

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“…The Club of Rome described this opportunity to attain economic, social and environmental surplus, or synergy with its report "Factor Four. Doubling Wealth, Halving Resources", (Weizsäcker et al 1997). Indeed, besides the theoretical discussion there are many practical examples to verify this thesis.…”

Section:  Examplementioning

confidence: 72%

Culture, Diversity, and Education

Warikoo¹

2012

Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education

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Chapter I, accordingly, articulates the central thesis, that culture, constitutional characteristic of the Homo sapiens' (Lat: the wise human), mode of social organisation and human development, itself determined through mimetic arrangement, learning, meaning-making and identity-progression, provides techniques to help maintain itself as a referential, networked system by means of autopoiesis.In this regard, culture appears as something unifying. This seems to contrast strongly many common perceptions of "culture" as an expression of -for example ethnic -differences.When people travel on vacation, they visit and eventually explore the other "culture".Huntington even tries to argue that cultures could "clash", which presumes difference as well.2010 was declared, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, to be the International Year of the Rapprochement of Cultures.The text assumes that culture is organised not only into theoretically abstract, principle modes as described above, but also through the practical interpretation of these modes, denoted as "patterns". The modes define how patterns evolve. This means that the patterns are unique, societal expressions of such modes, which they express diversely. In this sense the abstract, theoretical modes of culture are practically applied in society, unfolding sociocultural diversity, (usually denotes as cultural diversity). While "culture" defines communicative, community-and meaning-making techniques, such as narration and performance, socio-cultural patterns are the expressions of particular stories, rituals, meanings, values, symbols, perceptions, etc.Socio-cultural diversity is the expression of human agility, dignity and uniqueness as an end in itself. It isn't a disturbance factor in the promoting of a global ethics of human co-habitation and sustainability. Instead socio-cultural differences are mutually stimulating. Differences evoke friction and conflict, which can contribute to the innovation of socio-cultural meanings and societal structures. Mimetic learning "allows to suspend the self and to experience as well as regard it from the perspective of the other", states Wulf (2002: 84). Current meanings, represented in lifestyles, in consumption and production patterns, in national politics and the supra-national neo-liberal market-economy, have caused complex, global challenges that are growing. The "Limits of this Growth" (Donella/Club of Rome 1972) suggest that it is necessary to access and assess development alternatives. In is in this context that sociocultural diversity becomes functional. Globalisation evokes global interdependences. These are not only economical or political (institutional), but also socio-cultural interdependences.Global challenges, such as climate change, the spread of poverty and population growth affect, at least in the long-run, all socio-cultural protagonists, all people and all societies.  Example:One can feel and hence be German and Algerian (independent of what their passport indicates). At the ...

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Section:  Examplementioning

confidence: 72%

Culture, Diversity, and Education

Warikoo¹

2012

Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education

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“…'Earth Politics' (Weizsäcker 1989) reforms designed to counter this fall short (cf. Mármora 1990), or they take the initiation of necessary changes no further than the model of a new 'Marshall Plan' (Gore 1994).…”

Section: Bibliographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism

2010

Hist Mater

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For(e)ward: An InvitationA '"message in the bottle" for a different future' , Fredric Jameson wrote 25 years ago, after the first four volumes of the (German-language) Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus (hkwm) -Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism (hcdm) -had been published. Admittedly, the Preface to the first volume may have approached the matter somewhat less modestly, stating that it was the hkwm's task, 'as if on Noah's Ark' , to carry 'humankind's treasure trove of enlightening knowledge and social imagination […] into a new era' , so as to salvage it from 'an enormous mountain of historical debris, one which threatens to indiscriminately bury both that system's rational elements and seeds for the future, along with those elements which are irrational and hostile' to life (1994, iii).1The time in which these lines were written -and, indeed, understood as a historic mission -was shaped by the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In December of 1994, Heiner Müller captured the situation in the following verses: 'From my cell before the blank page / In my head a drama for an empty auditorium / Deaf are the victors, and the vanquished mute' .We announced the first volume under the title 'Abbau des Staates bis Dummheit' (Dismantling of the State to Stupidity). To the news magazine Der Spiegel this sounded so absurd that it printed our announcement in its Hohlspiegel column, which features involuntarily comical quotes. Of course, this brought us attention. However, the first volume had become considerably too long and had to be divided up. The new, rather sober title was Abbau des Staates bis Avantgarde (Dismantling of the State to Vanguard). The second volume, titled Bank bis Dummheit in der Musik (Bank to Stupidity in Music), was published the following year and earned an appreciative review from the centre-left daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, which we used for its cover blurb: 'Considering its philologically precise form and its convincingly undogmatic approach, this dictionary won't be one of the worst legacies of the intellectual culture of this century to be carried over into the next millennium' .We, for our part, however, were obviously quite unaware of the magnitude of the endeavour we had embarked on. The hcdm would probably 'not be completed before the year 2000' , concluded the Preface written that autumn in 1994 (vi). The fact that the first volume had to be limited to entries beginning with the letter 'A' should have made us aware of the absurdly overambitious under-xx for(e)ward: an invitation wasg Arbeit & soziale Gerechtigkeit -Die Wahlalternative, German political party founded 2004 by leftist members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (spd) and trade union actors, merged with the pds in 2007 to form the democratic-socialist party die linke.

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“…It would involve a consumer oriented market approach, coupled with intervention by way of a portfolio of measures to counter market deficiencies, including economic instruments, environmental regulation and land use planning procedures. Scenarios such as the 'dematerialisation' or 'factor four' project advocated by Ernst von Weizsacker and Amory and Hunter Lovins 26 suggest that economic welfare in the industrial world might be doubled while resource use is halved (thus the factor four). This resource use productivity is reflected in the technology component of the IPAT equation, and in the energy intensity term in its energy consumption equivalent.…”

Section: Resource Productivity: Factor Four or Morementioning

confidence: 99%

Science, sustainability and the establishment in a technological age

Hammond¹

2004

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

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Sustainable development, balancing economic and social development with environmental protection, has become a modern paradigm in our technological age. The British government, amongst others, regards science as being important in underpinning the move towards sustainability. However, many of the principles that bolster the three pillars of sustainable development – ‘people, prosperity and planet’ – are often viewed as being unscientific by sceptical natural and social scientists. But these principles are no different from the rules of thumb that engineers typically employ to design technological systems. The links between science, technology and the need to achieve environmental sustainability are explored here mainly in the context of the energy sector, which accounts for ninety-five per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK. It is argued that the UK national academies of science and engineering tend to provide policy advice to government that favours ‘advanced’ technologies. They advocate support for such technologies often without regard for the results of science based integrated appraisal methods or for the need to engage in wider stakeholder dialogue. Greater attention is paid to ‘hardware’ than to, for example, energy efficiency or resource productivity more generally. The national academies could instead place themselves at the forefront of moves towards sustainability, by locating themselves more firmly in the vanguard of those devising a sustainability assessment framework.

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Factor Four – Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use

Cited by 173 publications

References 0 publications

Culture, Diversity, and Education

Culture, Diversity, and Education

Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism

Science, sustainability and the establishment in a technological age

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