More fun; less stuff

 

Drawing on a decade of work on lifestyles, sustainability, wellbeing and time use, Angela Druckman and Tim Jackson explore the premise that low carbon societies will be more successful if they don’t give up on the idea of people having fun. Not just fun as frivolity. But fun as fulfilment, the ability to participate fully in the life of society. And fun as flow – the opportunity for creative engagement in absorbing and challenging activities.     

 

This presentation explores two parallel strategies towards this end, one involving ‘technology’ and the other involving ‘simplicity’. It discusses the tensions and the resonances between these strategies.

 

 

This conference, hosted by the Royal Society, was intended to catalyse a transition in the climate change agenda from demand reduction towards non-marginal, step-change and systemic reductions. It aimed at providing an evidence-base for developing radical-mitigation strategies. More specifically, the two-day conference considered how to deliver reductions in energy consumption of at least 8% per year (~60% across a decade). It was set up to foster an "up-beat and can-do mentality". Obstacles, barriers and hurdles need to be considered, as do practical attempts that have failed to deliver: Translating failure into programmes of successful mitigation is paramount not just to the framing of this event, but more importantly in tackling the very real challenges of climate change.

 

Download the conference programme here. For more information on the conference, visit the Tyndall°Centre website.