Natural Capitalism

What Hacker News says

1. dillonmckayMay 2019
   I recommend 2 older books on the topic:

   Cradle to Cradle

   Natural Capitalism

   Appreciate other recommendations.

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2. sharp11Nov 2015
   This is a huge and growing space. Random NYT article from today: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/business/dealbook/buffetts...

   Check out B-Corps (For benefit corporations). Read Amory Lovins' Natural Capitalism.

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3. charlieparkAug 2011
   I'd be curious to hear others' recommendations, but I've gotten a lot out of Good to Great, The Innovator's Dilemma, and Natural Capitalism.

   If you're starting a startup, I'd recommend The Lean Startup over all of those, though.

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4. ochibaMar 2009
   The following books also contain some good coverage of the alarming state of unsustainable agriculture especially in the US (among a number of other topics regarding sustainability):

   Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins

   The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken (to a lesser extent)

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5. pchristensenMay 2008
   It's a reflection of the physical limits of transportation. Even if you have a weightless car, you still have to move the weight of the passenger, who's a lot heavier than the electrons getting moved around in computers. Really, nothing in history has improved as fast as computer hardware, so it's reasonable to assume that most things won't.

   That doesn't mean that huge advances are not possible - read Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken to learn how 250mpg cars are possible with current tech.

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6. dredmorbiusSep 2023
   On sources: I'm highly partial to the work of William Ophuls who's been writing on this topic for a half century. His PhD thesis was published in 1977 as Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (with an update in the early 1990s). That largely lays out the problematique, both in terms of resources and political dynamics. The book's old enough that many of its own projections can be tested, and I think these hold out exceptionally well, particularly in highlighting the (then future) rise of China as a global economic, political, and military force. Ophuls has gone on to suggest at least the framework of solutions, most especially in Plato's Revenge (2009), though that remains fairly high level. What really makes Ophuls's works tremendously valuable is his bibliographic notes which are comprehensive and, to use a favourite word of his, synoptic. The note for Ecology in particular covers much of the previous several decades' literature on growth and perspectives from both optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints, and Ophuls is exceedingly fair in considering both. I've gone back to many of those sources myself (Maddox, Kahn, Simon) to compare notes. I've actually typed out the note from Plato's Revenge, which captures a sense of his practice, though that focuses more on recent and political topics: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230607050023/https://old.reddi...>. In that sense, Ophuls is an excellent entry point into the literature as a whole. He has a website at <http://www.ophuls.org/William_Ophuls/Home.html> though in various states of disrepair.

   Ophuls's political-ecological approach is being carried on by Thomas Homer-Dixon: <https://homerdixon.com/writing/>

   There are other authors: Bill McKibben's Eaarth (sic), Joel Magnusonn's The Approaching Great Transformation, the book Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, all of which I have to hand. Vaclav Smil has written his own damned library on resources and sustainability from a technical perspective, largely looking backwards though with some forward-looking elements. I particularly recommend Energy in World History (1992, 2019) and Energy and Civilization (2017). Energy Transitions (2016) tackles the specific question of converting to a sustainable-energy path: <Energy Transitions>. And there's a long list of other Smil publications.

   Kate Rayworth's Doughnut Economics is another prescriptive work looking at ways forward. <https://www.kateraworth.com/>

   The original Limits to Growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens) remains relevant, and is freely available online: <https://donellameadows.org/the-limits-to-growth-now-availabl...>. I strongly recommend reading primary sources over hot takes, interpretations, and commentaries. It's also helpful to remember that LtG served not as a prescription but as an alarm: there's a clear problem and we've got to wake up to it. Sadly, more than 50 years onward, that alarm continues to be ignored by many (including within this thread).

   The now-defunct Worldwatch Institute published an annual State of the World publication which was an anthology of articles on sustainability generally, from 1984--2017, and give an excellent sense of the breadth and progress of thinking on these topics. Those are mostly available via the Internet Archive: <https://archive.org/search?query=worldwatch+institute+state+...>

   Worldwatch's founder, Lester R. Brown, has written numerous books, his latest covers this topic, The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy <http://www.earth-policy.org/press_room/C68/market_forces_dri...>

   Looking at the energy picture alone, there's David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, which breaks down the technical picture, with a focus on Britain though applicable elsewhere, clearly and soberly. Freely available online: <http://www.withouthotair.com/>

   That's just skimming the top of a huge literature. There are a tremendous number of different viewpoints, of topics and approaches, and of course disagreement. Contrary to the assertions of some, however, there are specific and actionable recommendations to be found. Looking into the bibliographies and notes of the works listed should launch you further in whatever direction you care to explore.

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