[MCN] New Scientist July 14, 2026 -- Can everyone live a ‘good life’ without destroying the planet?

Wed Jul 15 11:21:10 EDT 2026

New Scientist    July 14, 2026

Can everyone live a ‘good life’ without destroying the planet?

Cutting back on our use of energy and materials so that we live within Earth’s means can seem like an insurmountable challenge. But after a decade grappling with these problems, a historic Portuguese city is beginning to walk this tightrope

By April Reese <https://www.newscientist.com/author/april-reese/>
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2532951-can-everyone-live-a-good-life-without-destroying-the-planet/
1st 5 paragraphs

In the rolling hills of northern Portugal, where castles are almost as common as churches, the city of Guimarães is undertaking an ambitious experiment that could influence the world. With a zeal reminiscent of the city’s 12th-century battle for independence, when the city’s Portuguese nobility fought off Spanish invaders to gain independence and establish the new nation’s first capital, elected officials have joined forces with sustainability scientists to transform the region once again.

At a time when many of us feel like helpless bystanders as environmental crises escalate around us, Guimarães’s green transition is showing how it is possible to live within the planet’s essential limits – while ensuring a comfortable quality of life for everyone. “Social justice and the principle of leaving no one behind are truly central to our approach,” says biologist Carlos Ribeiro, <https://sciprofiles.com/profile/CarlosARibeiro> who heads the Landscape Laboratory, a research and education facility created to help drive these sweeping changes in the city.

These might sound like utopian aspirations, but behind Guimarães’s plans are solid calculations that, against common wisdom, suggest it is possible for the entire global population to tread the tightrope between our well-being and that of Earth – and that, in fact, the two are intertwined. But achieving that vision will require seismic shifts in economies and the way many people view luxuries versus necessities. Can this be achieved without limiting personal freedoms – and who ultimately gets to decide how much is enough to live well?

 <https://www.newscientist.com/article/2456335-extreme-heat-is-now-making-cities-unlivable-how-can-we-survive-it/> <https://www.newscientist.com/article/2456335-extreme-heat-is-now-making-cities-unlivable-how-can-we-survive-it/>
The idea that there is a safe operating space <https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a> that humanity must find a way to live within was first described in a landmark 2009 paper by Earth system scientist Johan Rockström <https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/johanro/homepage>at the University of Potsdam in Germany and his colleagues. They identified nine planetary boundaries <https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-life-support-systems/> – limits on phenomena such as climate change <https://www.newscientist.com/topic/climate-change/>, ocean acidification <https://www.newscientist.com/article/2458149-ocean-acidification-is-reaching-deeper-waters/> and land-system change – that, if breached, will knock us out of the stable conditions that have allowed humanity to thrive for 12,000 years.

Humanity has now crossed seven of these boundaries, largely because of what we consume and how quickly we consume it (see chart below). Total domestic water use, for instance, has increased sixfold over the past 50 years <https://www.wri.org/insights/domestic-water-use-grew-600-over-past-50-years> – a faster rate than in agriculture or industry. The overall extraction of natural resources and energy use have tripled over a similar period <https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption>.

~~~~~
"The big challenge is still to deliver emissions reductions at the pace and scale needed, especially in a world where economies are driven by consumption.”

Sonja van Renssen.The inconvenient truth of failed climate policies. Nature Climate Change  MAY 2018

Published online: 27 April 2018 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0155-4 

~~~~~

“if Americans were asked point blank whether they would agree to reduce their energy consumption by one-half, many would probably recoil in apprehension and reject the idea. 

"Yet energy consumption in 1960 was about half of what is now [ 1970 ]. Many of us remember 1960. Surely we had a civilized country then, with roads, electricity, entertainment, and so on. Yet we we were consuming half the energy.”

*****

 “I just want it to be clear that the mainstream environmental movement has been asking very little of people for decades.”

“There’s no element of, ‘We are in an emergency. We all need to do more than what we’re doing.” 

Extinction Rebellion’s radical philosophy
July 22 2019
https://thinkprogress.org/the-radical-philosophy-of-extinction-rebellion-5857d3955b57/

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