WHOLE EARTH ALIGNING HUMAN SYSTEMS AND NATURAL SYSTEMS?

Mark Edwards Lloyd Timberlake

There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.

William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

WHOLE EARTH? ALIGNING HUMAN SYSTEMS AND NATURAL SYSTEMS

Mark Edwards Lloyd Timberlake Published in Great Britain in 2012 by Still Pictures Moving Words Ltd 199 Shooters Hill Road London SE3 8UL, UK

Text © Mark Edwards and Lloyd Timberlake, 2012

Photographs © Mark Edwards/Hard Rain Picture Library and other photographers as credited Cover image: Car dump, Montana, USA, © David Woodfall/Hard Rain Picture Library 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The rights of the authors have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-905588-04-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Still Pictures Moving Words Ltd., application for which must be made to the publisher.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this book. Any omissions will be rectifi ed in subsequent printings if notice is given to the publisher.

The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the copyright holders.

Design Bailey and Kenny Managing editor Mark Reynolds Scans by Andrew Jackson, Actpix Ltd Image preparation by Stephen Johnson, Copyrightimage Ltd Printed by Pureprint Group, Uckfi eld

4 Special thanks to Dag Jonzon, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Peter Bennett, Rainforest Concern and Annemiek Hoogenboom and Clara Govier, People’s Postcode Lottery. They made the Whole Earth? exhibition possible. I also want to thank Joan Walley MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee for her support and encouragement and for talking the message to a new audience. Mark Edwards

5 6 Contents

9 Roadmap to a sustainable future 40 The great migration 10 The tasks ahead 42 A swarm to the cities 12 Reinvent the model world 54 And those who stay behind 14 A web of energy 62 Indigenous people 16 Energy for all 18 Super-efficient homes 64 Getting personal 20 Population: numbers and appetites 65 What’s the big idea? 22 Meeting the needs of all 66 Choose Fairtrade 24 ‘Systematizing’ cities 68 Message in a bottle 26 Housing people 70 Salad days 28 Future farming 73 Where’s the catch? 30 Water: scarce, cheap and wasted 74 Making waves 32 The problem of stuff 35 Costing the earth: changing the rules 76 What’ll you do now? 36 The web of life 38 Human rights: the foundation of it all 78 About Hard Rain Project 81 About the contributors 85 How this book was made 86 Forest Credits by Rainforest Concern 88 Hard Rain Project partners

7 8 Roadmap to a sustainable future

Bob Dylan’s song, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” that are available – if we choose sustainable inspired this book and exhibition. I had the idea to development. It’s a big if. illustrate each line of the lyrics, and for thirty years I once saw a homeless man in the early hours I travelled around the world on assignments that of a freezing cold morning in London take off his allowed me to capture the photographs that turn jeans to feed the fire he sat beside. I was with a Dylan’s prophetic words into images of the real friend who was wearing two pairs of trousers; he world. Over the years I replaced many of my own immediately took off the outer layer and gave them to images with pictures by friends and colleagues. Our the homeless man. A wonderful gesture, but this way photographs partner with Dylan’s eerily beautiful lyrics of thinking won’t solve the problems we