Global Population

Conference about efficient, liveable and sustainable cities

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Today cities consume an estimated 75 percent of the world’s energy, and emit more than 80 percent of greenhouse gases. By the year 2050 approximately 75 percent of the world’s population are expected to be residing in megacities. With an estimated increase of the global population to nine billion, the future cities of the world face great challenges.

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This is the focus of a ‘Future Cities’ conference to be held at the Danish parliament in Copenhagen on 7 November 2013 at 12am–5pm. The conference will cover topics such as the green cities of Europe, the intelligent energy-grid and megacities future use of big data as smart cities.

One of the speakers is Claus Bjørn Billehøj who works for the City of Copenhagen to insure sustainable, green growth and realise Copenhagen’s ambition of becoming the world’s first carbon neutral capital by 2025.

The conference is free and open, but registration is mandatory due to security requirements. It is organised by The International Committee of Radikale Venstre.

» More information: futurecities2013.dk

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
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Call for Papers – Climate Change, Sustainability and an Ethics of an Open Future

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Societas Ethica, the European Society for Research in Ethics, in cooperation with the ESF(European Science Foundation) network A Right to a Green Future is calling for papers for their Annual Conference, this year held in Soesterberg, Netherlands on August 22-25, 2013. It will be the 50th Societas Ethica conference.

“Climate change, dwindling resources, and growth of the global population have emerged as challenges for all areas of political action in modern societies. These challenges have been on the political agenda since the “Limits to Growth” report was released in 1972. While the challenges are well known, and while there appears to be some form of consensus that sustainability is a goal worth striving for, there is little discussion of how the changes necessary to achieve this goal will affect our political institutions, our social relationships, our moral responsibilities, and our self-understanding in general. The more far-reaching the necessary changes are, the more pressing the following questions will become: To what extent are political and economic institutions – national as well as global – capable of realizing sustainable politics and what is its ethical basis? To what extent will personal liberties, such as freedom of movement, property rights, and reproductive autonomy, need to be limited in order to realize sustainable politics? How could we extend the current system of human rights to incorporate the rights of future generations? Can we expect human beings to take responsibility for the living conditions of future generations, and how do such responsibilities affect philosophical and eschatological theories? An ethics of an open future must develop criteria for moral action under conditions of uncertainty. A developed theory of the principle of precaution in ethics and law is, however, lacking.”

Paper channels:

  1. Climate change and scarcity of resources as ethical challenges
  2. Sustainability, future generations and human rights
  3. Democracy, global governance and political ethics
  4. An open future; philosophical and theological responses
  5. Reflections from different cultural and religious perspectives
  6. Open channel

Authors are invited to submit an abstract of max. 4,000 characters. Abstracts should be suitable for blind review.

Deadline for submissions: March 31, 2013

For more information on the call and the conference visit www.societasethica.info

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

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