Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen is an American futurist who writes and speaks about sustainability and the future of the planet...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
biggest cities good growing minimize permitted quickly
The biggest thing growing cities need to do is minimize barriers to development so that as long as someone is doing good urbanism, they can get permitted quickly and get building quickly.
cities evidence frankly hard opportunity ourselves shows status
There's a lot of evidence that shows that if we push as hard as we need to for net-zero emissions, we'll find ourselves with cities that are more secure, healthier, and have more economic opportunity - are frankly better cities to live in - than if we settle for the status quo.
actions cans consumer importance level matter system
We don't need more recycling, we need a completely different system of closed-loop manufacturing, and no matter how many cans I crush, my personal actions at the consumer level are of very little importance in getting us there.
build challenges everybody human necessary society stability
We don't know yet how to build a society which is environmentally sustainable, which is shareable with everybody on the planet, which promotes stability and democracy and human rights, and which is achievable in the time-frame necessary to make it through the challenges we face.
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Climate change is not a discrete issue; it's a symptom of larger problems. Fundamentally, our society as currently designed has no future. We're chewing up the planet so fast, in so many different ways, that we could solve the climate problem tomorrow and still find that environmental collapse is imminent.
air believe centuries change climate dealing ethical hands pathway scenario throw whatever
There's no really rosy scenario ahead, where climate change just doesn't happen, but I believe we don't have the ethical right to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'Game over.' Whatever pathway we choose, our descendants will be dealing with that reality for centuries to come.
afford billions continue developing driving life lives malls neither people persuade planet planetary recipe shopping suburbs
We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.
air climate meant outdated protecting thick time tough waste wealth worldview
In tough times, some of us see protecting the climate as a luxury, but that's an outdated 20th-century worldview from a time when we thought industrialization was the end goal, waste was growth, and wealth meant a thick haze of air pollution.
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The Internet has made some phenomenal breakthroughs that are still only poorly understood in terms of changing people's ideas of us and them. If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite.
chance impress people tingle
What makes creative people tingle are interesting problems, the chance to impress their friends, and caffeine.
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There are a lot of different ways of building a prosperous society, and some of them use much less energy than others. And it is possible and more practical to talk about rebuilding systems to use much less energy than it is to think about trying to meet greater demands of energy through clean energy alone.
bigger carbon change climate co2 court lens letting obsession tackling
Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO2 reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.
best city issue needs quickly talking time universal
If we're talking about transportation, the best thing a city can do is densify as quickly as it can. That needs to be said every time this issue comes up, because it's the only universal strategy that works.
zero mean balance
Carbon zero simply means that the emissions you are releasing either are zero or balance out to zero.