About Time: Speed, Society, People and the Environment - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1874719918 ISBN 13: 9781874719915

Publisher: Greenleaf Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

Where does all the time go? Despite the burgeoning army of machines designed to save us time - from cars and aeroplanes to dishwashers and microwaves - we don't seem to have any more of it on our hands. We simply fill the space we clear with more things to do - consuming more, spending more - and then look around for new ways of saving time. And so we spiral onwards, upwards, ever faster. Being busy has become a habit, and a habit that gives us high status - busy people are important people. The business of business is busy-ness. We are moving from a world in which the big eats the small, to a world where the fast eats the slow. But the fallout from a society hooked on speed is everywhere. It's affecting our health: 60 per cent of the adult population in the UK report that they suffer from stress, and more than half of these say that this has worsened over the last 12 months. It's affecting our family life, with a quarter of British families sharing a meal together only once a month. And it affects our environment too: air travel is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions, accelerating climate change as we speed around the world. And the faster we live, the faster we consume, the faster we waste energy and the faster we pollute the planet. The faster we seem to be running out of time. Is there something fundamentally wrong with the structure and values of this high-speed society? What are we running from and what are we running towards? Sustainable development is all about time. It's about trying to safeguard the health of the planet, and the people it supports, indefinitely, unconstrained by time. The idea of time offers a novel perspective on what sustainable development is all about. Looking at issues affecting society and the environment through the prism of time conveys the urgency of the challenge and leads us to solutions we might not have thought of before. "About Time", edited by the leading British th

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Review

This thought provoking compilation of essays should be the reference list of all undergraduate and postgraduate programmes concerned with social issues, time and future trends. It also needs to be brought to the attention of occupational scientists who seek to contribute to wider contextual issues of what people do in relation to a healthy, sustainable future ...

While each chapter could stand alone as a comment upon how technology or politics influences time, the editor has melded the contributions successfully to engage readers in debates about sustainability and how that impacts on society. - 'Journal of Occupational Science' Vol. 14, No. 1 (April 2007) || ... brings the many linkages between time and sustainability into sharper focus ... a collection of very readable essays ... it's a bit sobering to be reminded how out of synch we've become in our just-in-time, multitasking, everything-on-demand. 24/7 lifestyles ... and how dissatisfied ... A central theme running through many of the essays is the importance of individual choice in determining our relationship with time ...

Could it be that our relationship to sustainability is similarly constrained by a perceived lack of freedom to make choices? - Worldchanging.com - Joel Makower

About the Author

Edited by the think-tank Forum for the Future, About Time brings together ten of the world's leading thinkers and writers, from disciplines including biology, business, sociology, ethnography, astronomy, philosophy, politics, and sustainability.

Edition details

• Publisher: Greenleaf Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1874719918
• ISBN 13: 9781874719915
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Aldrich Tim