Qualicum Institute: Active since 2002
Publications: Warning About Limits to Growth and Sustainability
The following publications from the Qualicum Institute discuss important sustainability issues.
Are We Being Effective? Proposal to Millenium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB)
Conservation strategies – are we only addressing symptoms? (Original manuscript with references)
Conservation strategies – are we only addressing symptoms? (Published in BC Nature 45(3) and 45(4); no references)
Economic Growth—Our Common Foe. 2006. Published in Countercurrents.org
The Faulty Three-Legged-Stool Model of Sustainable Development. Published in Conservation Biology, 2003.
Petitions and Letters: Urging Governments to Base Policies on Sustainabilty Science
Our petitions to various levels of government requesting a science-based approach to “sustainability” have failed to break through the economic growth paradigm.
Governments at all levels provide responses that rely on unproven economic theories and concepts that sound good but are not scientifically sound (see “science and the decision makers“).
2006, Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN), RDN Sustainabilty Report 2003-2004
2010, Comments on the Qualicum Beach Sustainability Plan
2013, Comments on City of Parksville draft Official Community Plan
2017, The relationship of science to the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, Auditor General Summary of Petition No. 408.
2017, The relationship of science to the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy. The full environmental Petition No. 408.
2017, Minister’s response to our Environmental Petition No. 408.
2019, Minister McKenna: Where is the Science? Qualicum Institute’s response to the Minister’s reponse to Environmental Petition No. 408.
2022, Petition 441-01068 to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, presented to the House of Commons by MP Rachel Blaney, 14 December 2022, including a response by the Minister.
2024, https://steadystate.org/we-asked-for-science-we-got-sustain-a-babble/
Presentations: Uncovering the Myth of Economic Growth as Helpful to Humanity
Up until 2016, multiple presentations were made to various groups: environmental organizations, political affiliations, business groups, and different levels of government. The presentations were always well received and “thought-provoking”. But no meaningful follow-up action to address the root cause of biodiversity loss (economic growth) was ever made.
Based on the inertia shown by all of these groups, the Qualicum Institute is no longer giving presentations, but happy to help any community leaders develop an interactive Zoom session for their group. See our Contact info.
2016, Growing, growing, gone! (Not with a steady state economy!) Sample: Presentation to BC Nature AGM, 13 May 2016.
More Letters and Outreach
Other outreach efforts include letters to environmental organizations, encouraging them to work together to change the economic growth paradigm. Our requests have borne little fruit – but, given the increasingly drastic effects of climate change, perhaps there may be a more pressing urgency to unite.
2011, Occupy Nanaimo
2021, Letter re uniting with uniform message for bigger impact sent to 32 environmental organizations receiving no responses from these organization.
2024, “Urgent: Environmental organizations need to unite to address the root cause of steadily worsening climate change and biodiversity loss”. Sent to 26 environmental organizations, with supporting references and graphs showing steadily increasing carbon dioxide and biodiversity loss levels.