About Science for Sustainability

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Science for Sustainability is a project to share information and encourage discussion on the threats to human life on Earth and how we can tackle them, based on science and scientific evidence.

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This project is inspired by the late Professor Sir David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air" which made it possible for ordinary people to understand the challenges and possibilities of decarbonising our energy use, and threw down a challenge to everyone proposing ideas for doing so to come up with plans that add up – an idea that was quite radical at the time[1].

Wikis and 'pedias

Science for Sustainability isn't trying to be some sort of Wikipedia. It looks like Wikipedia because it runs on the same MediaWiki software that Wikipedia uses. Like Wikipedia it tries to present its content with a "Neutral Point Of View" and base it on "Reliable Sources", but it is different in that whilst Wikipedia prohibits "Original Research" SfS does not, provided it is transparent.

Who is behind SfS?

The project is the creation of an old, cishet, white, man living in the Thames Valley area of England, whose ambition is for his kids to get old too.

It is run on a shoe-string: all expenses come out of SfS's pocket: no shill bucks have been solicited or forthcoming, and the project has no financial interest in anything except the continuation and flourishing of global human civilisation and the planetary ecosystems on which we depend.

Getting in touch

Feedback is most welcome, and help even more so: reviewing existing pages for accuracy, editing existing/creating new pages, suggesting topics and/or sources to include, sysadmin etc.

You can contact the project[2] through the contact page

There is also a Science for Sustainability Facebook page (which is for announcements and discussions about this wiki and its articles), and a Facebook group (which is for discussions of general issues of science and sustainability).[3]

— SfS


  1. And, sadly, still does seems to be, to some.
  2. Some rather contorted language is used throughout this site to avoid having to choose between saying either "I" or "we". Whilst at the time of writing everything here is the work of the founder, it is hoped that in due course there will be a team working on it (even Jimmy Wales had to start somewhere!) and it would be nice not to have to go round changing singular pronouns to plural all over the place.
  3. The difference between Facebook pages and groups seems to be that in a group all members are equally able to post new threads, and comment on each others' posts, whilst in pages (which can also, perhaps misleadingly, be known as communities) it is generally the page owner who creates new posts (although people who follow the page can comment on them).