Environmental

Eco-Friendlier Holiday Shopping

/ Danielle Kloster / Leave a comment

I was going to write a post on how to have an eco-friendly Thanksgiving this year, but a quick Google search showed that this has been done many times over. So instead, with Black Friday and the holiday shopping season quickly approaching, here are some ways to reduce your environmental impact while gift-giving.

1. Skip the mall. Although Destiny USA in Syracuse has achieved gold level LEED certification, this addresses only some components of sustainability, including recycling programs, building materials, energy efficiency, and water use. Malls take up huge areas of land, creating large areas of impermeable surfaces and destroying wildlife habitats and corridors. Impermeable surface areas, including both the building itself and the parking lots, prevent rain from infiltrating into the soil and causes runoff of both the water and any contaminants it carries into the sewer system or nearby water bodies (in the case of Destiny, Onondaga Lake). Malls also consume large amounts of energy for lighting and cooling, as well as the indirect energy consumed by the cars bringing shoppers from around the city and beyond. Many of the goods sold in the mall have traveled from around the world to reach the shelves.

2. Buy from local craftsmen and women. Buying from local producers keeps money in the local economy and reduces the energy consumed in transporting goods. Additionally, local producers may use local materials, further reducing the embodied energy (all of the energy used in producing and transporting the goods) in the goods.

3. Buy gifts that are made to last. Planned obsolescence means that an item is meant to last for a limited number of years and is meant to keep demand for that item up over time as people will need to replace it. This is why appliances made more recently tend to not last as long as appliances made twenty or more years ago. This results both in increased consumption and increased wastes in landfills. Even if the items are recycled, energy is required to make the materials usable again.

4. Consider an environmental gift for the people in your life who are difficult to shop for. The Nature Conservancy sells carbon offsets, clean water offsets (to fund water projects in developing countries), hummingbird habitat, and wild area protection in east Africa, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, the US, and coral reefs. Heifer International allows you to buy an animal for a family in a developing country, help fund the start up of a small business, or provide stoves for a village (among other gifts).

 

Happy Thanksgiving and happy shopping!

Sustainability: Higher Education’s Responsibility

/ Danielle Kloster / Leave a comment

This past weekend I attended a conference on campus sustainability at Pace University put on by the Environmental Consortium of Colleges and Universities. The conference was titled “Sustain What? Preparing Our Students by Greening Our Campuses” and while there was a huge amount of information on sustainability projects at various campuses, the underlying theme of the weekend was the importance of higher education in the sustainability movement.
On one level, campuses are uniquely positioned in their communities to serve as role models of sustainability. Thanks to large endowments and government and privately funded grants, they are often able to invest in renewable energy projects, sustainable construction of new buildings, sustainable food systems including composting projects, and other efficiency projects that the general population is often unaware of or unable to afford. Colleges and universities can implement relatively new technologies, educating the community and providing business to new companies.
However, higher education has a greater responsibility within the movement towards sustainability than simply incorporating efficiency into new building design and urging people to turn out the lights. The language of sustainability, argued some at the conference, should be incorporated into all classes offered by a university. I attended a break-out session directed towards faculty that led to a discussion of this issue. Coming from SUNY ESF, where all (or almost all) of our courses and programs are directed towards the environment and sustainability, it was interesting to see the perspective of faculty from other campuses, including predominantly conservative campuses.
The faculty members in the session discussed the lack of basic knowledge that their students had about the environment, including the connection between food production and climate change, and the history of environmental disasters including Love Canal and Bhopal. They also discussed the existence of environmental science/studies programs at their campuses, but the isolation of these programs from the rest of the schools. We came to a few conclusions about the role of higher education in our session (and the conference as a whole):
– Incorporation of sustainability concepts into classes other than those in environmental science/studies programs is not only possible, but necessary to making students more well-rounded as they enter a world facing ecological crises.
– If students learn about sustainability within their field of study, they are likely to take those concepts into their future jobs. Ideally, this would mean the next generation of bankers, businessmen and women, scientists of all stripes, educators, and so on will view the world through the lens of the need for sustainability.
– And most importantly, if higher education is not involved in sustainability, it is not performing its role as higher education.

Let’s Talk About Immigration

/ Danielle Kloster / Leave a comment

It’s environmental and energy policy day, but today we’re going to think a little broader about the impact of non-environmental policies on the environment. I’m participating in a seminar this semester on human population growth and consumption and we spent this week discussing the implications of immigration on population growth and rising consumption. Few people, including environmentalists, think about the implications of immigration on the environment and on energy usage.
First, it is important to draw the distinction between immigrants and immigration. I, and other environmental writers on this topic, do not want to point a finger at individual immigrants and blame them for rising consumption and environmental damage due to population growth in the US. We are speaking instead about the general trend of increasing immigration rates. The US population continues to increase, despite reproduction being at a replacement rate, due to high levels of immigration (around 1 million people annually). Although there are moral arguments to allow people from less fortunate, developing countries the chance at a “better” life in the US, we must consider the moral implications of such opportunities. Is it moral to allow over-consumption of resources? Or increased energy demand, leading to increased emissions of harmful gases and dependency on foreign sources of fuel?
The “better” life promised by migration to America is highly dependent on consumption. Although it is not true for all immigrants, many move to the US with the goal of getting a better job. A better job means more disposable income to be spent on consumption, unless the money is sent back to their home country. The American way of life involves significantly greater energy use than other countries of the world. Per capita, the US used 312 million BTUs (British thermal units) in 2010, compared to the world average of 74 million BTU the same year (1). The same is true for many other resources, including freshwater and meat consumption. The UN reports that Americans use 215 cubic meters (7593 cubic feet) per capita per year, compared to 4 cubic meters (141 cubic feet) per capita per year in Mali (2). In 2002, Americans consumed an average of 124.8 kilograms (275.1 pounds) of meat per capita, compared to 79.6 kilograms (125.5 pounds) in the United Kingdom and 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in Bhutan (3). It is likely that new immigrants take some time to assimilate into this culture of high consumption and have lower consumption levels than Americans born and raised in this culture. However, as they live here longer and raise the next generation, they and their children are likely to have comparable rates of energy and resource consumption.
Additionally, higher population levels create environmental degradation. More people need more homes, leading to urbanization, urban sprawl, sub-urbanization, and subdivision of rural properties. More people and more consumption lead to higher levels of waste, requiring larger landfills and greater waste-water treatment capacity. More people means more food production leading to greater soil erosion, as well as higher levels of fertilizer leaching and pesticide spread. Tom Horton, a blogger in the ecologically fragile Chesapeake Bay area, argues that while granting amnesty to immigrants currently living in the US is laudable, the current immigration bill will end up encouraging greater immigration into the US, ultimately increasing the US population by 40% by 2050 (4). He makes the important point that concentrating our efforts on decreasing per capita consumption will not make a difference if the number of people is continually increasing. And, my favorite point he makes, “we’ve also learned that like the essential plant nutrients such as nitrogen which are degrading the Bay, too much of a good thing – including humans with aspirations for a better life – can overwhelm the rest of nature.”
It’s difficult for me to take a stand against immigration, as I strongly believe that immigrants contribute greatly to the cultural melting pot of this country. In a nation of immigrants, it is difficult to draw the line and prevent others from coming here and benefiting as we have. I don’t think Americans have a greater right to consume than non-Americans or immigrants. It is extremely important, for both environmental and moral reasons, to decrease American per capita consumption. However, I do think it is important in debating immigration policy to at least consider the environmental implications of allowing more people to come to the US and live like Americans when the world can barely sustain Americans living like Americans.
(1) http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=85&t=1
(2) http://www.unwater.org/downloads/Water_facts_and_trends.pdf
(3) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/meat-consumption-per-capita-climate-change
(4)http://www.bayjournal.com/article/immigration_reform_needs_to_be_handled_very_carefully

Life After the Government Shutdown and “The Story of Solutions”

/ Ana Diaz / Leave a comment

October 1 2013 was an eventful day, to say the least: the government shut down leaving thousands of government workers furloughed, and the American (and global) public were left to wonder about the state of affairs of the richest country in the world. After listening to several NPR radio talk shows addressing the issue, I was not only worried about the government shutdown, but also about the looming deadline to increase the government debt ceiling in the next weeks in order to continue “business as usual” for the U.S. Where would we even start taking care of the multitude of problems that just manifested themselves as a government shutdown? Coincidentally(?), later that evening I stumbled across a video released that same day, the “Story of Solutions”, from the same makers of the “Story of Stuff”.

A short story made shorter, the video critiques the American society’s goal of accumulating more stuff. Our goal should not be to acquire more stuff, but rather to build and have better stuff: better education, better health and a better chance of surviving in this planet. This mentality of acquiring more stuff (fueled by cheap energy derived from hydrocarbons) is what has translated into many of the mess we have created today. These include, but are not limited to: a stagnant economy, polluted air and watersheds, depleted natural resources, poverty and deep social inequalities. Our society’s efforts should focus on issues of health, safety and equity, not on figuring how to make people buy more iPhones, the latest car or buy bigger homes. The next generation of solutions to be proposed in America should deviate from the old model of economic growth. To quote Annie Leonard, the maker of the video, each contributing solution should pursue the following  G.O.A.L.:

1) It GIVES people more power, allowing them to “flex” their citizens muscles,

2) It OPENS peoples’ eyes about to the truth about happiness ( which is found in communities, health, and a sense of purpose),

3) It ACCOUNTS for all the costs by internalizing instead of externalizing them, and

4) It LESSENS the wealth gap between those who consume more than their fair share, and those who have barely enough to fulfill their basic needs.

Let me be clear here, this is by no means unheard of, and for the most part, you might already be familiar with similar discourses. I don’t claim Annie Leonard’s position to be revolutionary or even perfect. Politicizing our society’s problems does not make for easy or quick fixes; In fact, these solutions are bound to be slow and messy, as we take into account the many factors that have been disregarded by techno-fixes we are used to. And although today is reserved to talk about energy and environmental policy, I have taken the liberty to step back, and look a the bigger picture. Energy and environmental policy (or really, any kind of policy) will not yield the results we as a society and species need for survival if we keep operating on the wrong principles, and aiming for the wrong goals. 

A transition to a system where our efforts do not revolve around economic growth and accumulation is bound to be rough, and definitely not pleasant for most of us. Even thinking about it can be overwhelming and paralyzing. However, challenges are also opportunities. Bringing out the optimist inside me (for a change), I would like to say that the government shutdown, and the upcoming debt ceiling negotiations, are prime opportunities to focus our attention on the bigger problems facing us today, and, as Ms. Leonard would say, “game-changing solutions ” to overcome them.  

 

Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman

Recently, NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Bob Odenkirk who plays the most popular fictional lawyer currently on television–Saul Goodman of AMC’s Breaking Bad.

Here is a description of the interview:

“When the going gets tough, you don’t want a criminal lawyer — you want a criminal lawyer.”

That’s how meth dealer Jesse Pinkman describes the fast-talking, sleazy Saul Goodman on AMC’s Breaking Bad. Played by Bob Odenkirk, Saul knows how to bend the law, or break it, depending on his clients’ needs. He helped Walter White — a high-school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker — launder money, stay out of prison and get connected with a meth drug lord.

Now, in the final season, even Saul is scared. Walt has plenty of drug money stashed away, but he’s murdered a drug lord. Worse still, a DEA agent (who happens to be Walt’s brother-in-law) may be on to him.

Before Breaking Bad, Odenkirk was best known as the co-founder and co-star, with David Cross, of the HBO sketch-comedy series Mr. Show.

Breaking Bad begins the second half of its final season on Sunday. Odenkirk tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross about Saul’s comb-over, the character’s penchant for long-winded speeches, and his own thoughts on playing the most comedic character in a serious drama.