Products/Waste and Recycling

"One way to decrease the quantity of resources consumed is to design products for longer life by making items that are more durable, items that can be upgraded, or items that are easy to repair. The result is that fewer total resources are demanded per product use." (Robertson 2014)

I think this is becoming an ever increasing problem that the world is facing. In modern society, we use technology for everything. If we are continuously throwing these technologies away because there is something new on the market we will not have any important resources in the future. Companies that make things like phones need to produce better quality products that we can upgrade internally instead of having to buy something new every time. I know I have seen Motorola produce a phone that has attachments, such as a camera, that can be added to the outside. This provides multiple uses for this one devise which helps cut down on waste from the company.

Technology Waste posted on computerweekly.com

"Packaging design is a subspecialty within the engineering fields, with several professional societies, professional journals, and industry organizations devoted to more sustainable packaging." (Robertson 2014)

When I think of ways to cut back on waste I never think of the packaging things come in. with companies like Amazon and Ebay we are shipping millions of things throughout the world. Each one of these things needs to be packaged so if you add up all the waste from those packages it is crazy to think about. If a company could come up with a way to reduce the materials used in packaging or find a way that their packaging could be used for more than one use this would greatly cut down on waste. Companies should start using biodegradable materials in their packaging which can be used in compost or it will be easily broken down in a landfill. Companies use to package everything in packaging peanuts but over the past decade the use of these packaging peanuts have been reduced. This is a start in the right direction.

Packaging Waste posted on treehugger.com

"Composting, long a practice of organic gardeners, is increasingly part of many municipal waste management programs, which provide composting of leaves and yard debris." (Robertson 2014)

Composting could help with sustainability in a bunch of ways. First it allows you to use waste as fertilizer for plants instead of having it sit in a landfill. Second it promotes residences to start growing their own gardens that they could use their compost. This garden could help feed the household or at the very least reduce the amount of food that is bought at a grocery store. I know at my house we have a compost pile that we use to fertilize our fruits and vegetables that we have in our back yard. This is a never ending cycle for us because we use the fertilizer to help grow plants and then we add the waste from those plants into the compost pile which will in turn become fertilizer. If most households had something like this or if a community got together and used this technique, we would start take a big step in the way of sustainability.    

Composting posted on bluetreelandscaping.com

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Climate

"Before the Industrial Revolution, that is, before 1750, the carbon dioxide concentration was about 280 ppm. with the discovery of coal and oil, it began to climb. It is now around 400 ppm and rising by about 2 ppm per year." (Robertson 2014)

It doesn’t take a genius to see there is some sort of correlation between the burning of fossil fuels and the increased CO2 in the air. Everyone knows that the increased amount of CO2 in the air relates to the increase in temperature. If we continue on this path of unrestricted use of fossil fuels, the ppm in the atmosphere will continue to increase exponentially. Finding alternatives to fossil fuels has become top priority for many car companies as they develop new technologies for cars. They will eventually have to replace most if not all of the cars that are on the road today with cars that don’t add a substantially amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. It would the best of both worlds if they could find a car that would take in CO2 and clean up the air while not polluting it.

CO2 in the air posted on doityourself.com

"Changes predicted by computer models reviewed by the IPCC include heat waves; extremes of weather conditions including floods, droughts, and hurricanes; melting of glaciers and polar ice; sea level rise; changing ocean currents; changes to terrestrial and marine ecosystems including extinctions; and changes to human lifestyles including agriculture and economic issues." (Robertson 2014)

We have already started to see some of these changes in our lifetime. Each year seems to be hotter than the last, we have increasingly bad droughts in the west, our glaciers are melting so the sea is rising, and many animals and plants are using their habitats. There seems to be some efforts to prevent this from happening but there is not enough. Currently, our government wants to cut funding to the EPA and other governmental agencies that are trying to protect the damaged environment. This is very counterproductive to we should be doing and it will hurt us in the long run. If we don’t start doing more now, the ice caps will continue to melt, more plants and animals will lose their environments or become extinct, and we will eventually have crop shortages because of the heat.

Changing Climate posted on oliveoiltimes.com

"Emissions trading is, in a way, the inverse of offsetting. an offset is a reduction in emissions created by one entity and purchased by another entity. emissions trading, also known as a cap and trade system, refers to the buying and selling of permits to pollute." (Robertson 2014)

I didn’t know there was such a thing as emissions trading in the world. I don’t know what the limit is on the amount of emissions a company is allowed to use without going over their limit and it would be interesting to see the science that goes into deciding the number. I think that if a company is under their allowed emission usage they should not only get to see back their permit but they should also get tax breaks that encourages companies to try to be under. Additionally, companies that go over should have to pay more to get the permits because in a way they are breaking a law. This would greatly encourage companies to either stay right at their limit or under so they don’t have to pay a bunch of additional money.

Emission Trading posted on greenreport.it

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Livable Cities

"Urban planning deals with the layout and function of towns and cities. Variables within the patterns of urban development are sometimes described as the 'five D's': density, diversity, design, destination accessibility, and distance to transit." (Robertson 2014)

Im not sure how well Fort Myers was planned out. It is quickly becoming a very dense city that has a random design to it. There are neighborhoods going in everywhere; it doesn’t matter if they are next to a Walmart or if they are in an open area. I also don’t think that the public transit is that good down here. We have busses and other forms of transit but it doesn’t seem to be the easily accessible to people who live on the outskirts of the city. It would have been nice to see what Fort Myers would be like if the city planners laid it out a lot better than it currently is.

Urban Planning posted on http://urbanblightphotoessayassignment.weebly.com/

"New Urbanism is an urban design movement closely related to smart growth, focused on the elements of a neighborhood that make it attractive and successful, with a strong sense of community." (Robertson 2014)

Its cool to visit a city that is planned out in a practical way. One of the best planned out ones I can think of that is close would be Lakewood Ranch in Sarasota. It is basically a giant neighborhood that is planned so that it can operate basically by itself. They have their own schools, groceries, and entertainment within the layout of the city. You can feel a strong sense of community pride when you enter the limits. But when you go from a place like that to somewhere like Lehigh there is a big difference. Lehigh seems just has houses built basically where ever someone wanted one and there is no real plan for the neighborhood. It would have been nice if they would have thought it through and tried to plan out a nice laid out neighborhood.

Urbanism posted on http://globalbasketball.com/global-basketball-summer-league-new-york-city/

"Urban planners are working to complete the streets, that is to make them convenient and safe for all users, all travel modes, and all abilities." (Robertson 2014)

I think this could be a big step towards sustainability in many urban environments. There are a lot of bike lanes around here which is good to promote bike use instead of driving cars but I’m not sure how safe they are. Especially with Florida drivers, I think there needs to be a barrier, either concrete or plant, in between the bikes and cars. I think this would get a lot more people to ride their bikes places because it would be safer for them to do so. In cities like Vancouver there are a lot wider bike lanes that are clearly marked with green plant that gives the biker a safer ride than the ones down here. If we were to change the bike lanes down here it would take a lot of effort by civil engineers to rebuild the streets and the bike lanes that go along with them.

Safe Bike Lanes posted on http://www.bikearlington.com/pages/biking-in-arlington/bicycle-facilities/

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Douglas/ Water

"In California, 80 percent of the demand for water lies in the southern two-thirds of the stat, most of which receives only a few inches of rainfall a year, while about 70 percent of California's available water falls as precipitation in the less-populated northern third of the state." (Robertson, 2014)

This may be the biggest problem that we will face in the near future. Over the last 10 years we have been hearing more and more stories about water shortage in places all around the world. In California they have been implementing different techniques to try to conserve the little water they have left. When I was out in California a couple of years ago you can see the lack of water everywhere. Water reservoirs and canals on the side of the road are dried up and show no sign of water. We need to develop new techniques to try to distribute water throughout the states when some of the state doesn’t get a lot of water. If we could find a way to get some of the water from the northern section of California down to southern California we would have less of a problem than we have now. But as of right now we have not developed a technique like that yet.

Water Shortage posted on www.southbayresidential.com

"In parts of the arid US West, 70 percent of residential water may be used for keeping lawns green." (Robertson, 2014)

This is crazy to me. I understand that we want our lawns to be nice and pretty but if we are running out of water something has to give. I work the night shift as a security guard and when I drive around my neighborhood there is so much waste of water. Lawns get watered two times a night and sometimes the sprinklers are pointed onto the street and are not watering anything. Another thing I see is the water running when it is raining. Why would we need to water our lawns when it is raining outside? If we can change some simple things it seems like we can cut back on the amount of water we use for our landscaping.

Watering Lawns posted on Huffington Post

"The saw grass stands drying to old gold and rustling faintly, ready, if there is a spark anywhere, to burst into those boiling red flames which crackle even at a great distance like a vast frying pan..." (Douglas, 2011)

This is what happened a couple of weeks ago. Right now we are in the dry season and haven’t gotten rain in a couple of months. This causes the grasses in the everglades to dry out and when a spark hits the dry grass, either by man or by nature, all the grass goes up into flames. This is a natural phenomenon that has happened for centuries but it effects us now because we are trying to develop as close to the everglades as possible and the flames can start to damage humans. Natural the flames would just die off but since it was threatening us we had to put it out. We see this battle with nature all over the US with wildfires damaging infrastructure.

Everglades Wildfire posted on Wild Fire Today

Douglas, M. S. (2011). The Nature of the Everglades. In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future. Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Food/Food Inc

"Permaculture emphasizes the use of perennial plants rather than annuals and avoids disturbing the soil by digging and plowing. Chickens and other animals have a variety of roles to play including nutrient cycling, pest control, and food production and are often part of permaculture farms." (Robertson, 2014)

I think that this is a really good concept in theory but I don’t know how practical this would be in today’s society. The larger scale producers of meats and grains would not be able to produce the quantity that they do if they couldn’t plow the ground and had to only rely on perennial plants. It also seems that it would cost them much more money than what they are spending now to produce their crops and of course they wouldn’t want to spend more money when they don’t have to. I think this would be a good practice for small self sustaining farms or farms that produce small quantities of things. It should be a relatively easy switch for them to implement this idea with out to much money spent.

Permaculture posted on eco-evolution

The first wow moment that I could think of in the Food Inc movie was when they were talking about how farmers could be sued if some of Mosantos seeds blew onto their land, even if the farmer wasn’t using them. A farmer shouldn’t be penalized if the wind or animals pick up seed somewhere else and bring it to their property. It would be almost impossible for the farmers to tell the difference between the two seeds unless they tested every plant that was growing. Plus Mosanto is a big enough company that if this where to happen they could almost sue the farmer out of their farm and therefore destroying their lives. We are almost punishing people for wanting to produce their own crops instead of selling their land to a big company and that doesn’t seem right at all.

Corn Field posted on pinterest

The second wow moment was the drop in food safety inspections by the FDA. It said that there has been a drop by almost 42,000 in only 30 years which is ridiculous. The way we produce food now there should be more inspections done because there seems to be a lot more deadly disease outbreaks. The way most of our food is produce helps bread diseases and we are just willing letting them go unchecked. There should be more legislation in place that says the factories that produce our food should at least be check once a year. This would cut down on outbreaks and would lead to a better quality of food produced. Its crazy that we don’t think that we deserve at least disease free food.

FDA food inspection posted on marlerblog.com

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Carson/Pollution

"Carbon dioxide is essentially for keeping Earth's temperature warm enough for life, but when it builds up faster than the earth system can accommodate, climate regulation is disrupted." (Robertson 2017)

This is the problem that we are seeing now. Due to many reasons, we have produced to much carbon dioxide that has built up in the environment and it has disrupted the natural climate. Its only February but it feels like summer in Florida and other parts of the country. This weather change disrupts plant growth, animal habitats, and many other things critical to our lives. We need to find a way to scale back the amount of carbon dioxide that we are producing and maybe even work to reduce the amount built up in the atmosphere. If we don’t do this we will continue down the same path that we are on and it may become the end of our existence. 

Global warming posted on Insurance Journal by Alex Morales

"Since DDT was released for civilian use, a process of escalation has been going on in which ever more toxic materials must be found." (Carson 2011)

When DDT came out everyone thought it was the cure all for all our crop problems. People would spray it everywhere. This even included spraying it in the presence of humans, even kids. If we did that today we would probably be arrested because we know what it could potential do to people. DDT has opened the door for other companies to produce other chemicals that kill more insects or that kill insects more efficiently. We again spray this on our crops without knowledge to what it does to the ecosystem when it is presented to it. It seems that we are repeating the mistakes of the past and Im sure that we will be talking about these chemicals the same way we talk about DDT today.  I know Counting Crows wrote the song “Big Yellow Taxi” that mentions DDT. They talk about not wanting someone to spray DDT on apples they would rather save the birds and the bees that it affects. I wander if another band will sing a song about the chemicals we put on our plants today.

DDT spraying posted on Sustainable Pulse

"We train ecologists in our universities and even employ them in our governmental agencies but we seldom take their advice." (Carson 2011)

This seems to be the biggest problem that we have when it comes to effective change in the way we produce crops. The people that are in position to enact change don’t do it because they are in the pockets of the companies that produce the chemicals. They are making a bunch of money with the way we are producing crops now so why would they want change. It doesn’t matter how many ecologists or experts say what we are doing is wrong if these people are always in power. It all comes down to money and the people in power don’t want to lose the money that they make in order to change the way we do things

Bribe posted on SEC Whistleblower

Carson, R. (2011). A Fable for Tomorrow. In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future (pp.151-160). Acton, MA: Copley Custom textbooks

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

The Biosphere/The Human Sphere

"A terrestrial ecosystem is never static and lives in a state of dynamic equilibrium, periodically undergoing some kind of disturbance to remain healthy." (Robertson 2014)

I remember learning about this when I was in middle school. An ecosystem will periodically go through something like a fire that will destroy it and then it will slowing grow back to what it was before the fire. Its allows the ecosystem to refresh the plant life that is there and to allow new plant species to grow. If this didn’t happen, the ecosystem would recycle the elements that are in the plants and it would become stagnant. I remember on our wet walk we talked about two different areas; one where a controlled chemical burn happened and one where nothing has happened to it. The area where the chemical burn happened had begun to regrow the plants that where present before while the other area looked over crowded and some of it was dead. Sometimes the environment needs to hit the reset button and these disturbances allow it to do that.

Forest regrowth after a fire posted on http://envirosci.net/111/succession/fire_ecology.htm

"The replacement fertility rate is the number of births per woman that will keep the population constant at zero population growth. for humans, the replacement fertility rate is 2.1, slightly above 2.0 to compensate for infant and child mortality." (Robertson 2014)

When you think of the stereotypical American family they have two children to each mother. However, this is not the case many times. I know my mom has 5 kids, which is way over the 2.1 children to each mother. Additionally, I know a lot of family that have more than the 2 kids so that is part of the reason that the human population is growing at an astounding rate. This isn’t just happening in America also. In many underdeveloped parts of the world the more children you have the more hands you have to work to make money for the family. This means that family’s will have way more than 2 kids so they can make enough money to live. Also it use to be the case in China where you could only have a certain number of children. Im not sure if that is the case anymore but I don’t know if that is the answer to this dilemma. Its going to be nearly impossible to come up with a solution to this problem that makes everyone happy.

Family picture posted on http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/biblical-womanhood/book-review-start-your-family/

"Growth as the core economic paradigm has been developing for several hundred years and has become solidly entrenched since the last century. Although an end to growth seems inevitable, moving to a different economic model will involve dramatic change." (Robertson 2014)

I agree that we need an economic shift if we are going to start to try to live sustainable but I am not sure how possible that is. We have always lived as a capitalist economy that promotes growth and competition. This doesn’t take in account what it is doing to the natural world when we are producing the products that we want. It will take a dramatic change in what we are doing now to get us away from this thought process and Im not sure people are open to that idea. It will take agreement with all countries around the world to make this shift because just a couple of countries doing it will not have the effect that is needed on the environment. I also think that it maybe too late to make this shift. It is going to take many years in implement this and by the time that it goes into effect and actually makes a difference in the world we may have done too much damage already.

Capitalism posted on http://speakingofdemocracy.com/tag/capitalism/

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.