The Cost of Inaction

The cost of not taking action against climate change is a touchy subject.

On a household level you can actually measure the ‘costs’ or difference between being sustainable and being unsustainable. Just think of electricity bills. The more unsustainable you are the higher the cost of the electricity bill. To become more sustainable you can switch the type of light bulbs you use, get energy saving appliances, use less energy and in general the cost will go down. So, on a very small scale it is simple to determine the costs that will come for being unsustainable. The same can be said for water use and in most communities (if a garbage limit is in place) the same can also be said for waste production.

To measure the costs on a more global level though, is pretty much impossible. If you don’t know what the results could be then how can you really prevent them? Of course there are predictions of what may happen, but there are definitely many unforeseen results as well. This is what causes political and social unrest. Do we spend money, time and resources on preventing events that may not happen? How do we account for results that we never expected on a global scale?

People continue to refute the evidence of change, they refute the statistics (which according the book Damned Lies and Statistics they have reason too!), they live in denial about facts! Many of the statistics given related to climate change are considered to be “dark statistics”, which means statistics that are believed to be true but have not yet been proven. Even if the stats are a bit exaggerated, which im sure they are, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take action! Any change can be bad change even if its just a little bit.

In my opinion these questions will never be answered and the costs of inaction will far outweigh the cost of taking action. But who am I to tell the world my opinion! Maybe in the future....I will be president of the world and save everyone from climate change and all things bad. But until then, I will just keep doing what feels right and take action in my own life to reduce my negative influence on future conditions.

This video makes total sense to me... hopefully others too. The more the word is spread the better chance the world has!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

And of course..... shedding some light on the subject.

Why can't everyone think like that bear! Good thing we have our own class environmental bear, Pepper!!

Sustainability at Royal Roads

Royal Roads has taken many actions to create a sustainable campus, the most intriguing to me being the policy on chemical free cleaning. When I first discovered cleaning products were harmful back in the day, it was because of my dog, Max.

We were told not to use chemicals on the floor because they would get on my dogs paws and then he would lick them and get sick. I didn’t really make the connection that obviously if they are harmful to dogs they are harmful to humans. Even when I first began to buy “greener” cleaning products it was because of the effect the cleaners had if they got into the environment, more specifically the water system. Again, not even thinking of how they could make me sick! I am a person with very sensitive skin and allergies so to hear the story from the head of housekeeping at Royal Roads it really made me think. It makes me just want to tell everyone “Stop using cleaning products... start using alternative like the microfiber clothes, or vinegar and lemon juice tea tree oil and baking soda!!” This website gives a guide to how to produce your own non-toxic cleaning products http://www.care2.com/greenliving/make-your-own-non-toxic-cleaning-kit.html.

Royal Roads spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on electricity and natural gas each year. To reduce this cost I think the best idea would to put in an enclosed compost facility to produce biogas. All compostable material could be put into this facility. Through fermentation it would release methane to provide heat and electricity to Royal Roads. An example given in one of my classes discusses the use of an anaerobic digester in India. This digester received 100kg of waste and could produce 10m cubed of biogas within 30 days. More information is written in this report.ààà( http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/oct102004/917.pdf)

 It is a very successful small scale system and it only makes sense that it would also work on a larger scale. Most people really don’t enjoy composting. Reasons for this include..... it smells, you have to turn it, and maintain it, it attracts pests, there is no room for it, etc... So they would probably love someone to do it for them. If Royal Roads does not produce enough food waste on their own they could partner with a compost pick-up company that would charge a small fee to pick up their compostable waste. This could then be put in the digester and produce energy for Royal Roads. And if enough energy is produced it could even be sold to others. This would reduce the consumption of natural gas and electricity by the university and it would also reduce the cost to get rid of the compostable waste that they produce. The residual left over from the digester can also produce a profit as it can be used to grow mushrooms or it can be used as a fertilizer.

A witty joke I came across......

The government is finally doing something about energy conservation. They are asking motorists to remember to turn off their wind-screen wipers whenever they drive under a bridge.

(http://signature103.wordpress.com/2006/02/28/environment-and-sustainability-jokes/)

What is Sustainable Development?

The most common definition of sustainable development is “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. (http://www.iisd.org/sd/) There are many other definitions but this is the most commonly used and can be expanded upon in many ways. Sustainable development is figuratively represented as an equal balance between the environment, society and the economy as represented in the image below.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/05/23091323/4

I do not believe that this definition fully gets the point of “what sustainable development is” across. It is important to realize when referring to sustainable development it is not just considering physical development such as buildings, but any sort of development such as physical development, social development, cultural development, etc. One reason I don’t agree with the current definition is that future generations are going to have needs that differ greatly from the needs that our generation has now (just as we have different needs compared to our parents when they were young). There is no way that we can predict what the needs of future generations will be, so how can we develop in a way that will ensure those needs are met??

This current definition of sustainable development only really referrs to future human generations, but what about the future plant animal generations? When creating and undergoing a sustainable development the future generations of all living things should be considered. If a certain development is going to cause another species to go extinct then it is not allowing that species to fulfill its needs.

The figurative representation of sustainable development shows an equilibrium between economy, society and environment. In reality this is rarely satisfied as the economy, more often than not, comes first. This occurs for many reasons, one main reason being the difficulty of putting economic value on environmental aspects, such as putting a price tag on a river or stream. There are many other models of sustainable development available. One is referred to as the bullseye model and is represented by the image below.

When I first saw this image of the bullseye model I was confused as to how it represented that the environment was the most important aspect. Normally with a bullseye you aim for the middle, therefore I thought that this would make more sense to represent the economy as the most important. After discussion with my classmates I realize that it was meant to represent the fact that the environment encompasses society and economy (and society also encompasses the economy) but I feel there are better ways to illustrate this relationship.   

I do agree with the message this model is trying to get across (environment should be most important). Without the environment we would not have a society to sustain or an economy to sustain. The economy is based on industries that produce goods and services created from the environment such as the oil & gas industry, agriculture industry, forestry industry, etc. Without the environment, the other two would not be possible and therefore it should be seen as the most important. If we do not sustain the environment we will lack the goods to sustain the economy and to sustain society.

Sustainable development is very difficult to define, but here’s a short list of some of the aspects that I think should be considered when defining it:

Ø  Effects on future generations of all living things

Ø  Methods of appropriately estimating the price of the environment

Ø  Ensuring that the economy does not come before the environment when new developments occur

Ø  Current needs of all living organisms

Ø  The list goes on.....

Shedding some light on the topic:

http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5565