ALBERT

Description: The paleosols of the Last Interglacial are presented in many loess sequences of the European temperate zone by soils with Argic horizon, that are considered to be the pedological response to the bioclimatic conditions of that period. We studied micromorphological, physical/chemical (bulk chemical composition, texture and dithionite-extractable iron) and mineralogical characteristics of two profiles – an Eemian Luvisol in Upper Austria (Oberlaab) and a Mikulino Albeluvisol in Central Russia (Alexandrov Quarry near Kursk) to compare them with recent analogous soils and to make further paleoecological and chronological inferences. Both profiles showed a set of characteristics indicative for weathering of primary minerals, clay transformation illuviation and surface redoximorphic (stagnic) processes. Paleosols demonstrate more advanced development than the Holocene analogues manifested however in different pedogenetic characteristics. The Eemian Luvisol in Upper Austria is characterized by stronger clay illuviation manifested in higher clay content and abundance of illuvial clay pedofeatures in the Bt horizon. Mikulino Albeluvisol in Central Russia is more strongly affected by eluvial and stagnic processes evidenced by deeper and more intensive accumulation of bleached silty material and clay depletion. We suppose that the properties of parent material are responsible for these differences. Russian Albeluvisol is formed on the Dnepr loess poor in weatherable minerals and having limited capacity for buffering acidity and clay formation. The higher development status of the Last Interglacial paleosols compared to the Holocene soils having however same type pedogenesis implies longer soil formation period, that agree with some of the paleobotanical proxies and could include besides MIS 5e part of MIS 5d; the warmer and moister paleoclimate during MIS 5e could also account for more advanced paleosol development Several phases of clay illuviation interrupted by frost structuring and deformation are detected in the Eemian Bt horizon in Upper Austria. It suppose even longer development that could extend to the Early Würmian interstadials (late substages of MIS5).

Description: research

Description: A detailed study of a loess-paleosol sequence in Oberlaab, Upper Austria, is presented with emphasis on macro- and micromorphological features, grain size distribution, rock magnetism properties, and weathering degree that allows correlation with other loess-paleosol sequences in neighboring areas, and interpretation of main pedogenic trends. The studied sequence comprises four paleosol complexes, which likely developed during four interglacial stages MIS 11, 9, 7 and 5e, and a modern soil. The oldest paleosol complex (OL5) represents three phases of soil formation, and distinct sedimentary events never reported in the area, with strong reductomorphic properties. The OL4 profile also results from three phases of pedogenesis with increased reductomorphic features in the deepest zone (affected by cryoturbation events). OL3 has abundant features related to gleyic/stagnic processes, but shows signs of clay illuviation. OL2 (Eemian soil) correlates with the MIS 5e. This paleosol shows higher degrees of clay illuviation and weathering, and fewer features related to reductomorphic processes. The modern soil is also polygenetic and constitutes a pedocomplex. Its lowermost part is formed by Würmian glacial deposits, where no well-developed soils are found; only reworked materials and pedosediments. Main pedogenic trends in the sequence are clearly differentiated. All of the paleosols were formed in humid environments, but differing in drainage conditions. The base, with OL5 and OL4 paleosols, was more affected by gleyic processes, while in the upper paleosols, especially OL2, clay illuviation is dominant. We interpret such differences to be caused by the topographic position. The basal paleosols were more affected by fluvioglacial processes due to their position on top of the terrace. The upper paleosols received increased amounts of sediment through fluvial, colluvial and aeolian (loess) input.

Description: research

Description: The more than 12 m thick loess-paleosol sequence in Paudorf, Lower Austria, has been known for decades as locus typicus of the “Paudorfer Bodenbildung” (Paudorf paleosol). The upper section of the outcrop contains an up to 1 m thick pedocomplex that developed during MIS 5. The differentiated sequence of loess-like sediment below, including a more than 2 m thick pedocomplex in its basal part, is an exceptional archive of landscape evolution from the Middle Pleistocene. Herein we present detailed paleopedological and sedimentological surveys, as well as first micromorphological observations to address the sequence in its entirety and the processes leading to its genesis. Furthermore, high resolution color and carbonate analyses, as well as detailed texture analyses, have resulted in a substantial database. The studies show that the loess sediments were subject to a polygenetic development under periglacial conditions reflected in eolian silt and fine sand accumulation, admixture of local material during (mostly solifluidal) redeposition and in situ processes. Horizons with signs of pedogenesis, particularly the two pedocomplexes, document longer phases of stability; the stages of development can be correlated to equivalent sequences and seen as paleoclimatic signals where chronological data are available. The upper pedocomplex is a Chernozem of the early last glacial (MIS 5c–[a?]), which developed in a solifluidal redeposited (MIS 5d) interglacial Cambisol (MIS 5e). Cryosols, typical for MIS 6 sequences, are present in the loess sediment below. The lower pedocomplex formed during several warm stages of varying intensities, with interruptions caused by colluvial processes and admixture of eolian sediment during colder stages.

Description: research

Description: This book attempts to outline the history of gold mining and related subjects like marketing, trading and use of gold from the legendary times until today. The work will not limit itself to the borders of present day Ghana but will have to consider also adjacent areas of today's Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria to put especially the earlier historical developments into their proper context. This History will attempt to piece together not only the technical development of gold mining, but the historical, political and socio-economical pressures which caused and were also generated by the development of the gold mining sector within this geographical area. A disadvantage for the historian digging into West African History is the fact that the peoples dwelling in these areas had not developed written records but rather depended on oral tradition of their history. Systematic attempts to preserve this oral history through taping or writing down were undertaken only over the last 100 to 150 years, in sporadic attempts may be a little earlier. The historical events of the last millenium, i.e. from 1000 A.D. to today can be reconstructed for the first half through the written records overcome by the efforts of the muslim scholars, which in a very scientific manner recorded historical, political, economical and social developments in West Africa and in the sub-Sahelian areas. Over the last 500 years the advent of European traders, missionaries and adventurers produced written records of events they encountered during their more or less long ventures at the shores of the West Coast. Of course, a lot of information they gathered and laid down in their records was based on hear-say sources because only very few adventurers penetrated the hinterlands. Nevertheless, we will realise that all these records, as one-sided and biased they might be in many cases, together with oral tradition culled from the traditional rulers and archeological evidence, can form a quite solid basis for the reconstruction of historic events in West Africa in general and the area of today's Ghana in particular. Completely different is the picture for the earlier times, i.e. before 1000 A.D. for the three millenia back to 2000 B.C. We are very certain that negroid ethnics were populating the West African lands but we do not know where they came from, how they called themselves, which political and socio-economic systems they had developed for themselves and whether or when they perished, migrated away or were absorbed by other negroid ethnic groups who themselves migrated from almost uncertain directions into these tropical rainforests. In short, whilst we can speak of the Bono, Gyaman, Guan, Asante for the last millenium, we can only call the previous inhabitants the black "West-African", sometimes differentiated according to distinct cultures named according to the location of their archeological finds, like Ntereso, Nok, Benin etc. These sites prove the existence of highly developed cultural and technical skills expressed in the overcome artefacts found in the excavations. But the curtain in respect of the true nature, descendancy, sociology of these people, who were the originators and perpetuators of these documented cultures, can not be lifted. Here reflection on the flow of historical events from the ancient times to modern times. Guggisberg's citation We will leave it to you, the esteemed reader to form an opinion on the question: Did the development of the gold mining sector benefit the People of Ghana ?

Description: I have sighted his estate and processed according to these as his brother. Therefore I am publishing the last works of my brother Dipl. engineer Winfried Peters now, so that his bequest is filled. I have revised this work after best knowledge and conscience. I would be pleased if this work would find a wide audience and would activate to new and further researches.

Description: research

Description: Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt die paläomagnetische Bearbeitung der Mittel- bis Oberpleistozänen Löss-/Paläoboden-Sequenz im Areal der ehemaligen Ziegelei Würzburger in Aschet bei Wels vor. Fünf intensiv entwickelte Paläoböden, bzw. Pedokomplexe wechseln mit dazwischen geschalteten Lößlehmlagen ab. Im Rahmen einer Aufbaggerung konnte ein Profil mit einer Mächtigkeit von über 12 m erschlossen werden. Für die magnetostratigraphischen Laboruntersuchungen im Paläomagnetiklabor der Montanuniversität Leoben wurden insgesamt 587 orientierte Proben entnommen, so dass eine beinahe lückenlose Beprobung vorliegt. Die Proben wurden mit magnetischen Wechselfeldern sowie thermisch abmagnetisiert. Zur Bestimmung der magnetischen Trägerminerale in den Sedimenten wurden Curiepunkt-Bestimmungen durchgeführt, die eine Hauptträgerphase mit einem Curie-Punkt bei ca. 580°C (Magnetit), sowie untergeordnete Anteile von Hämatit mit 670°C Curie-Punkt ergaben. Die magnetischen Parameter zeigen eine Folge von Bereichen mit intensiver Magnetitbildung in den Paläoböden, die dem relativ wärmeren Klima von Interglazialen zugeordnet werden können. Die Mehrzahl der Proben zeigen charakteristische Remanenzrichtungen im Bereich des normalen pleistozänen Erdmagnetfeldes. In einigen Profilabschnitten traten stark abweichende Remanenzrichtungen auf, die auf Exkursionen des Erdmagnetfeldes hinweisen. Die beobachteten Exkursionen im Profil Wels-Aschet werden aufgrund paläopedologischer-pedostratigraphischer Ergebnisse in das Zeitintervall von 570 ka (Emperor - Big Lost - Calabrian Ridge) bis 110 ka (Blake) gestellt. Die Brunhes/Matuyama-Grenze (776 ka) wurde nicht erreicht.

Description: research

Description: Auf den mittelpleistozänen fluvioglazialen Terrassen der Traun-Enns-Platte in der Region um Wels (Oberösterreich) wurden drei Löss-/Paläobodensequenzen untersucht. Jedes dieser Profile ist für mittelpleistozäne Abfolgen im nordöstlichen Alpenvorland charakteristisch. Die Profile umfassen mächtige Pedokomplexe, welche eine Differenzierung und Einstufung von interglazialen Paläoböden erlauben. Die Löss-/Paläobodensequenz von Oberlaab ist auf der fluvioglazialen Terrasse des Mindel-Glazials im klassischen Sinne entwickelt (Jüngere Deckenschotter) und weist vier interglaziale Paläoböden auf. Diese Tatsache macht eine Einstufung der Jüngeren Deckenschotter mindestens in die fünftletzte Kaltzeit wahrscheinlich (MIS 12). Die Deckschichten auf den Günz-Deckenschottern im klassischen Sinn (Ältere Deckenschotter) beinhalten fünf Paläoböden. Beide Lokalitäten weisen eine sehr intensive Pedogenese in ihrem basalen Pedokomplex auf, die wesentlich ausgeprägter ist, als in den überlagernden Paläoböden. Die pedostratigraphischen Ergebnisse lassen eine Einstufung der Älteren Deckenschotter mindestens ins MIS 16 zu.

Description: research

Description: Grain size analyses, bulk and clay mineralogical data were used to characterize weathering within the loess-paleosol-sequence of Oberlaab in Upper Austria. Soil horizons can be clearly identified by the calculation of weathering index Kd from granulometric parameters. The mineralogical composition of the bulk samples shows increasing weathering intensity from the top to the bottom. The weakest weathering stage 1 is not present in Oberlaab, because all samples are free of carbonate minerals. Weathering stage 2 can be found in the upper part of the profile, whereas stage 3 is mainly present in the lowermost horizons. The highest weathering stages 4 and 5 are not present in Oberlaab. The clay mineral distribution in the profile is dominated by the disappearance of primary chlorite in the upper part of the profile and the neoformation of vermiculites from illite by pedogenesis in the lower part. Two different types of mixed layer minerals were found in the pedocomplexes. An illite/chlorite mixed layer mineral occurs following the disappearance of chlorite and is present in the Eemian luvisol. The second mixed layer mineral consists of illite/vermiculite and is present in the whole profile. The weathering stages obtained from the clay mineral composition are slightly lower than that of bulk mineralogy, but reach as well stage 3 in the lower part of the profile.

Description: research

Description: ‘Transgovernance: Advancing Sustainability Governance’ analyses what implications recent and ongoing changes in the relations between politics, science and media – together characterized as the emergence of a knowledge democracy – may have for governance for sustainable development, on global and other levels of societal decision making, and vice versa: How can the discussion on sustainable development contribute to a knowledge democracy? How can concepts such as second modernity, reflexivity, configuration theory, (meta)governance theory and cultural theory contribute to a ‘transgovernance’ approach which goes beyond mainstream sustainability governance? This volume presents contributions from various angles: international relations, governance and metagovernance theory, (environmental) economics and innovation science. It offers challenging insights regarding institutions and transformation processes, and into the paradigms behind contemporary sustainability governance. This book gives the sustainability governance debate a new context. It transforms classical questions into new options for societal decision making and identifies starting points and strategies aimed at effective governance of transitions to sustainability.

Description: The concept of boundary work has been put forward as an analytical approach towards the study of interactions between science and policy. While the concept has been useful as a case-study approach, there are several weaknesses and constraints when using the concept in a more systemic analysis of the interactions between knowledge production and sustainable development decision-making at the international level, such as its inability to capture the diversity of institutions involved in such boundary work. Another inability involves a lack of conceptualisation of the impacts of the specific conditions of intergovernmental decision-making, such as rules for representation and the mode of negotiation. This chapter suggests complementing the concept of boundary work with a configuration approach based on a two-dimensional conceptualisation of the boundary space in international decision-making that allows the positioning of institutions with regard to their degree of politicisation and their position in terms of national and regional representation. Such an approach could be a useful guide in the further conceptualisation and application of the boundary concept.

Description: The recognition of soils and their functions by the public and, in particular, the planning community isgenerally poor. However, conversion of soils to urban uses is occurring at an unprecedented rate dueto an increasing share of the population living in urban areas and changing lifestyles. Urban planners,developers and planning agencies allocate urban lands to varying uses but land use decisions aregenerally not based on soil information as urban growth is managed predominantly for economicdevelopment. However, urban areas must also deal with challenges such as demographic change,urban densification, climate change and infrastructure provision. Thus, managing urban sustainabilityhas to include ecological aside economic, cultural, and political dimensions. Urban developmentneeds to be managed to minimize negative impacts and maximize environmental quality. Policydecisions towards maximizing short-term economic benefits must be balanced by decisions towardssustainable use and management of urban soils as urban land use has long-term consequences. Therecognition of soils by the planning community can particularly be improved by highlighting the valueof urban soil functions for the well-being of urban dwellers. This approach was recommended at thedialogue session ’Urbanization: Challenges to Soil Management‘ during the first Global Soil Week2012 in Berlin, Germany. Further suggestions how to raise the awareness about urban soils and howto deal with challenges regarding their management will be presented.

Description: Sustainable development is all over the place. The concept is broad and vague. The vagueness of the concept has a Janus face. It has been called a unifying concept because its vagueness breeds a consensus that might be utilised later on. Vagueness is an asset if it triggers action. On the other hand, if sustainable development is everything, maybe it is nothing… Although – or maybe because – the concept is vague, it has overwhelming appeal on political agendas, programmes and dialogues. The precautionary principle is the nucleus of a powerful moral imperative. The multidimensional nature of the concept, covering ecological, economic and social aspects of change relates to our needs for integration. Sustainable development as a concept bears a persuasive character. Actors of all kinds may contribute to it, citizens, enterprises, NGOs, governments et cetera. Thinking about the governance of sustainable development leads us to the recognition of a multi-level, multi-scale, multi-disciplinary character of the problematique. Moreover, the term development refers to change, to transitions and transformations. Governance of sustainable development therefore has to cope with complex dynamics. This chapter deals with the specific consequences of sustainability governance inside knowledge democracies. The concept of knowledge democracy sheds new light on the emerging relationships between politics, media and science. It shows how the emergence of participatory democracy besides representative democracy, the revolutionary rise of social media besides corporate media, the emergence of transdisciplinary trajectories besides classical disciplinary science lead to explosions of complex interactions. We will digress upon the variety of possible future variants of knowledge democracies, quiet and turbulent ones, in relation to the quest for sustainable development. Our main conclusion will be that strategies for sustainability may vary with the types of knowledge democracies around.

Description: STORY HIGHLIGHTSA little bit more than a year ago, delegates of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD or Rio+20) agreed that they would “strive to achieve a land-degradation-neutral world in the context of sustainable development.”

Description: Solar radiation management(SRM), a subset of approaches to climate engineering, aims to manipulate the global climate on a large scale. It includes techniques like spraying sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere or brightening marine clouds to reflect more sunlight back into space. In an attempt to examine the socio-political context of SRM, research frequently starts from model projections of physi cal changes in the environment. But assessing socio-political matters is complex, and while model projections may help, experiences from research on CO2-induced climate change reveal many blind spots and some unique challenges.

Description: The urban ecosystem and its ecosystem services (ESs) are managed for the wellbeing of urbandwellers. Thus, sustainable urban development depends on ESs aside economic, cultural and politicaldimensions. Soils play a central role in the urban ecosystem as they fulfill various functions andprovide several ESs. In urban areas, they are usually built to perform specific functions and providespecific ESs, e.g., (i) supporting buildings, roads and infrastructure; (ii) waste adsorption; (iii)supporting biomass production for green infrastructure and urban agriculture; (iv) filter, buffer andtransformation of contaminants; (v) regulating air and water quality; (vi) supporting nutrient cycling.In urban areas, some soils may be strongly modified by human activities, which changes theircomposition and functions, and, therefore, their ability to provide ESs. Urban soils and, moregenerally, SUITMAs (soils in urban, industrial, traffic, mining and military areas) may fulfill individuallya smaller number of ESs, smaller than those of natural soils outside of urban areas. Secondary andincidental ESs, if not disservices, may also be performed by SUITMAs.In this paper, we attempt to rank SUITMAs, according to the ESs they provide. Focus is made onthe nature of services, their importance and the number of services provided by each soil type. Workis also assigned to assess the extent to which urban soils can be deliberately altered to enhance ESs.After the tentative classification of soils, two examples will be given, i) sealed soil deemed tocomplete only few functions and provide specific services, and ii) soils of green-roofs designed toprovide a wide range of ESs, including particularly the control of the quality of air and water, thetemperature control, and the moderation of biodiversity loss.In conclusion, focus is to turn the attention towards the recognition of SUITMAs and theirmanagement as basis for the sustainable development of the urban ecosystem.

Description: The concerns about tax haven activity shown by leading nations originate not only from a sense of injustice caused by the fact that tax havens allow multi-billion dollar firms such as Google, Starbucks and Apple to pay only a few pennies in taxes but the notion that tax haven activity fuels international financial instability through various avenues. This contribution evaluates the risk of financial collapse or liquidity crisis to tax havens in general. It shows that tax havens are more exposed to the risk of a financial collapse than non-tax havens and that this risk positively depends on the amount of profits shifted to them. We find that the risk of a tax haven collapse is positively related to the corporate tax rate and MNCs are willing to make more daring investments in tax havens the higher corporate tax rates. However, MNCs take the risk of losing their investments due to a financial collapse into account and hence invest only a fraction of their profits in tax havens.

Description: In the 20 years since the United Nations summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the world has become more diverse, turbulent, fast and multi-polar. Tensions between old and new forms of politics, science and media, representing the emergence of what has been framed as the knowledge democracy, have brought about new challenges for sustainability governance. However, the existing governance frameworks seem to deny this social complexity and uncertainty. They also favour centralised negotiations and institutions, view governments as exclusive decision makers, and imply hegemony of Western economic, political and cultural principles. This is also reflected in the language of sustainability governance: it is centralist and is referring to monolithic concepts (the economy, the climate, the Earth System) rather than embracing diversity and complexity. This chapter sheds light on the problematic relations between cultural diversity, sustainable development and governance. These three concepts share a normative character, which is always a good predictor of trouble if interaction takes place. It is argued that the implementation deficit of sustainable development can be traced back to three problems: a neglect of the opportunities which cultural diversity offers, an implicit preference for central top-down political solutions, and an underestimation of the ‘wickedness’ of many sustainability challenges. It is concluded that sustainability governance should be more culturally sensitive, reflexive and dynamic. This requires institutions, instruments, processes, and actor involvement based on compatibility of values and traditions rather than on commonality or integration. It also calls for situationally effective combinations of ideas from hierarchical, network and market governance. This implies an approach beyond traditional forms of governance, towards a culturally sensitive metagovernance for sustainable development, beyond disciplinary scientific research, beyond states and other existing institutional borders, beyond existing ways to measure progress, beyond linear forms of innovation, and beyond cultural integration or assimilation, towards looking for compatibility. Governance for sustainable transformations requires what we have framed in this volume as transgovernance.

Description: It seems intuitive to identify boundaries of an earth system which is increasingly threatened by human activities. Being aware of and hence studying boundaries may be necessary for effective governance of sustainable development. Can the planetary boundaries function as useful ‘warning signs’ in this respect? The answer presented in the article is: yes; but. It is argued that these boundaries cannot be described exclusively by scientific knowledge-claims. They have to be identified by science-society or transdisciplinary deliberations. The discussion of governance challenges related to the concept concludes with two main recommendations: to better institutionalise integrative transdisciplinary assessment processes along the lines of the interconnected nature of the planetary boundaries, and to foster cross-sectoral linkages in order to institutionalise more integrative and yet context sensitive governance arrangements. These insights are briefly confronted with options for institutional reform in the context of the Rio + 20 process. If humankind will not manage a transition towards sustainability, its ‘safe operating space’ continues shrinking. Governance arrangements for such ‘systems at risk’ may then be, first, more ‘forceful’ and, second, may run counter to our understanding of ‘open societies’. It is not very realistic that the world is prepared to achieve the first, and it is not desirable to get the effects of the latter. Scholars and practitioners of sustainability may find this a convincing argument to act now.

Description: Truth is always concrete, as are emergencies. If truth and reliability of good decisions is what, in general, nourishes change and the readiness of people to trust in transformation, emergency response should be at the heart of this. Responding to emergency situations is about immediate decisions and action. If carried out incorrectly or badly performed, it not only fails in substance, but is likely to destroy and delegitimise any further attempts to transform constraints and contingencies which have caused the emergency situation in the first place. Neither the recent debates on international environmental governance nor those focusing on the multilateral governance framework for sustainable development, emphasise the issue of emergency response. This reluctance is most likely due to the fact that dealing with emergency control is still regarded as a strictly national task. This article believes that this approach is inadequate. It argues that the character of emergencies is changing. Whereas conventional emergencies are mostly local, it is clear that limited and calculable nuclear accidents and the adverse effects of climate change, demonstrate that the modern generation of emergencies has the potential to surpass geographic limits, national borders and to be long term. Therefore, this article argues that emergency control may have an important role in clustering change processes and transition efforts, at least under certain conditions and whilst framed by the concept of transgovernance.

Description: In this chapter, the Summary and Recommendations are included of the first report of the TransGov project of IASS, Potsdam, authored by Roeland J. in ’t Veld. For this report the contributions to this volume were used as source of inspiration.

Description: The chapter argues for a lecture of the notion of development as strongly linked to the uneven distribution of material and non-material sources of power among groups. It thus analyses the rise of a public environmentalist awareness in the late twentieth century as a challenge to the capitalist pattern of production and consumption. Finally, the chapter aims to shed some light on the process of mainstreaming these claims by subsuming them within the western model of societal transformation, under the new, catchy label of sustainable development. Pressing for institutional solutions to environmental depletion has meant to further spread the sustainability goal worldwide. On the other hand, it has also implied a kind of betrayal of the truly transformative instances of many social movements and local communities, which were seeking for a revolutionary, rather than reformative, path to societal change.

Description: In the late 1960s a debate about the long-term feasibility and desirability of economic growth as a one-size-fits-all economic policy emerged. It was argued that economic growth was one of the underlying causes of ecological and social problems faced by humanity. The issue remained strongly disputed until the inception of the Sustainable Development discourse by which the debate was politically settled. Nevertheless, given that many ecological and social problems remain unsolved and some have become even more severe, there are renewed calls for the abandoning of the economic growth commitment, particularly in already affluent countries. This chapter summarises the growth debate hitherto and examines two alternatives, the steady-state economy proposed by Herman Daly and economic de-growth proposed by Serge Latouche. In spite of recent disputes between the Anglo-Saxon steady-state school and the emerging continental de-growth school, it is argued, consistent with recent contributions on the issue, that steady-state and de-growth are not mutually exclusive but inevitably complements. The steady-state has the advantage of comprehensive theoretical elaboration, while de-growth has the advantage of an attractive political slogan which has re-opened the debate on the issue. Latouche is also a social thinker who gives a voice to the critiques of economic growth contained in the notion of development from outside Europe and the United States. The steady-state economy, and de-growth are held by some analysts to be beyond what is politically feasible. Although this argument is valid, it fails to recognise that past desirable societal changes were made possible through reflexive societal processes conducive to collective action and institutional change. It is concluded that the debate must ultimately rest in the physical quantities that a given economy needs for the ‘good life’ in the long run, how to decide on these quantities, how to achieve them, and how to maintain an approximate global steady-state. Finally, some recommendations for further research along with some reflections on the potential role of scholars are provided.