Headline: News 2013

<p>Local government is often more flexible and more innovative than national government in terms of sustainability. For this reason, a separate Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for cities is to be developed as part of the post-2015 development agenda. Participants at the international workshop "Urban productivity &amp; resilience: A case for Sustainable Development Goals", which took place at the end of October at the IASS, argued in favour of such an initiative.</p>

<p>Countries party to the “London Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes or other Matter” (LC/LP) agreed in mid-October to regulate marine geoengineering globally. The amendment was hailed as a historic achievement for the protection of the marine environment. IASS Project Scientist, Anna-Maria Hubert, whose research examines the legal issues associated with climate engineering, participated in the meeting as advisor to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).</p>

<p><strong>To launch the 2nd Global Soil Week (27-31 October 2013), IASS Executive Director Professor Klaus Töpfer, Volkert Engelsman from the “Save Our Soils” campaign and environmental activist Vandana Shiva broke up sealed soil at Potsdamer Platz and planted it with vegetables.</strong></p>

<p>IASS Director Prof. Klaus Töpfer and Volkert Engelsman of the campaign “Save Our Soils” will break open the impervious coverage of the soil at Potsdamer Platz, and plant vegetables</p>

<p>Ocotber 25, 2013, from 11.00 a.m.</p><p><strong>Soil Day in Berlin with symposium, panel discussion and exhibtion opening</strong></p><p>The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Agro Coordination cordially invite you to the "Soil Day" on 25 October.</p><p><br />11.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m.<br />Symposium: „Gone with the wind?! Soil protection between food security and climate change“</p><p>6.00 p.m. – 8.00 p.m.<br />Panel discussion: „The Truth from the Ground: we are losing the soil that feeds us“</p>

<p>Fertile soils are essential in order to achieve the most important global goals such as combating hunger, curbing climate change and securing fresh water supplies. However, we are currently continually losing soils: each year around 24 billion tonnes of soil are destroyed! With it, a basic resource on which life depends is also vanishing.</p>

<p>Climate engineering (CE) technologies have emerged against a background of discontentment with the lack of progress on emission reductions. Although CE has at times been portrayed as a cheap and simple remedy for some of the problems of climate change, many critical voices also emphasize the far-reaching implications any large-scale implementation would have.</p>

<p>Gross domestic product (GDP) has become the most powerful figure in human history and together with growth a fixed component of our political culture. In his recent book "The Power of a Number: A Political History of Gross Domestic Product" published by Suhrkamp Verlag, IASS economist Dr Philipp Lepenies asks the question "how": "How could a statistical construct which was completely unknown before the Second World War become so prominent? How could it establish and evolve this power in its current form?"</p>

<p>Under the headline “Arctic Shipping in 2050: A Vision for the Future?” the participants of the second annual Arctic NGO Forum from 16 to 18 October 2013 in Brussels discussed the implications, impacts and potential policy responses on new and increasingly used shipping routes through the Arctic. IASS scientist Dr. Kathrin Keil concluded that “we have to be very careful with grand expectations of globally significant Arctic shipping routes.</p>