There has been a lot of heated debate about the production and consumption of meat, milk and other animal-derived products. The arguments are conflicting: promoting vegetarianism to save the planet versus the crucial role of cattle in Finnish agriculture, taking beef off the menu in the UniCafe versus “cow-is-yes“-tags by producers, fate of forlorn calves …
Category Archives: Sustainability Science
Against Ecological Illusions
Standing around a cocktail table during lunch at the 2019 Sustainability Science Days in Espoo last May, I and my new-found colleagues marvelled at the cutlery. The spoons were plastic but they had been designed to look and feel like wood. Together we thought it would be good to find a name for these plastic “wooden” spoons. “Greenwash” did not seem right as it was associated with corporate behaviour and we dispersed to the next session – on sustainability transitions – without managing to find the right term.
Towards a GREEN university
There is no doubt that the world needs to become more sustainable. A simple calculation demonstrates that we cannot consume more than we have, and currently, we are far from achieving that. The annual announcement of “Earth Overshoot Day” which marks the date when humans have used up all resources that earth can regenerate within …
Culture of the Future? A systems-eye view of cultured meat
What considerations must we have of a future food system as cultured meat enters the field? As the hype, technology, and industry around cultured meat grows (pun intended), questions about how it may impact the future of the food system loom just as large.
Sustainable well-being of indigenous peoples in the Arctic
The centuries old specific narrative about the Arctic region is a paradox: on the one hand, the area is portrayed as a periphery empty of people, as terra nullius. At the same time, it is imagined as a cornucopia, a horn of plenty, and a “resource frontier” from which riches can be extracted. The indigenous …
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