Powering the sustainable society

In Canada, our means of powering society are far form sustainable. Canadians generate energy from crude oil, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric power, nuclear and other renewable energy sources. When developing a system to obtain sustainable energy for a region, the source and uses of the energy must be taken into account. This has become increasingly important, as populations are growing as well as the demand for energy, preferably renewable. Assessing the options for sustainable energy is crucial and should not be overlooked. Depending on the area, different methods of energy can be employed, such as wind, tidal and solar generation. It is necessary to determine the distribution of the energy required. Larger communities will require higher energy inputs then smaller communities. The density of population in the area being supplied is also valuable information, larger, spread out areas may enable the use of wind or solar farms that otherwise may not have been instituted in urban, downtown areas.

Currently, unsustainable practices are being used to harvest energy. Crude oil is the leading form of energy used for Canadians and supply is decreasing. This means that soon crude oil prices will become so high that we will not be able to afford to heat our homes with this type of energy. Harvesting energy from crude oil, nuclear and coal are all unsustainable, inefficient and have polluting effects.

The question about biofuels for energy has encountered many issues. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Canadian government has encouraged the production and commercialization of biofuels and biofuel technology. Biofuel can be broken into two main categories: Ethanol and Biodiesel. Ethanol of harvested from grains such as corn, or cellulose from agricultural and forestry waste materials. Biodiesel is obtained form the combination of natural oils or fats with alcohol (methanol).

The production of Biofuels for energy can have great impacts but may take a long time to reap the benefits. In 2 decades, the UN says the 25% of the worlds energy needs have be provided from biofuels, and is a way for decrease our dependence on crude oil and nuclear options for energy production. According to Suleiman Jasir al-Herbish, Director-General of the OPEC Fund for International Development, biofuels have a negative impact on society and the worlds grain production. A large amount of corn needs to be grown, taking away from the food that could be used to feed starving civilians. Not only does this reduce food production, it also uses up large amounts of water, creating shortages in the water supply.

Micro-generation technologies are also being innovated to heat air and water through solar photovoltaic’s, as well as small wind turbines. Solar has been determined to be the most effective way of harvesting renewable energy. As discussed in class, active solar heating systems in Canada are successfully divert 23,200 tonnes of CO₂ annually. It is necessary to start replacing our dependence on unsustainable practices with more renewable ways to harvest energy.

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.

Sustainability and Community

A great limitation to sustainable communities is scale. An individual is able to change their own ways and live more sustainably, but change depends on how they can influence a greater number of people. Since individual in the community are not involved in keys aspects of planning and utility supply, they need to work with what they are given to reduce their ecological footprint and hopefully influence other to follow in their actions.

In this context, community describes a group of people with shared ethnic, cultural or religious views that live in a within a local area. They could reside in the same work place, organization or simply reside in the same area. It may seem ineffective for one person to being a movement towards sustainable living, but it must start somewhere. Community sustainability requires the maintenance of ecological, social and economic processes to preserve natural systems, diversity and human equity.

Reducing our carbon footprint is a great way to start becoming sustainable in your community with regards to ecological processes. You could start riding your bike to work/school, taking the bus or get involved in a ride share program. Using energy efficient light bulbs and installing low flow showerheads or dual flush toilets are a good way of reducing your footprint. Simple things like remembering to turn off lights, or turning down the heat are ways to save energy and are easy to do. Investing in carbon offsets or introducing them into your own home though solar panels is another option but is very costly, but If you have the means, why not?

Often we need encouragement from the people around us to get us motivated to live healthier, more sustainable lives. To obtain and maintain a sustainable community, you need to help and participation of many people; it may be a good idea to start a group to brainstorm ideas on sustainable living. It is necessary to livability and quality of life, without hindering health and well-being.

Issues such as climate change require community involvement to bring about change. Economic diversity, resilience and adaptability all require the support of a community to be upheld in order to drive innovation, lower costs and maintain a competitive edge.

Community involvement is key is planning a sustainable community. Once the area is understood, a plan can be created to maximize the benefits within the carrying capacity of the region. Once a viable plan has been created, it can be implemented. Results are not likely going to happen overnight, but a long-term vision of a reasonable goal can be achieved with perseverance.

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.

Overpopulation or overconsumption?

I have recently been faced with the question of what is a bigger issue, overpopulation or overconsumption? After reading a few articles, I have come to the conclusion that overconsumption is the main issue at hand, as well as being the only issue that we have control over.

It is hard to think that overpopulation is an issue here in Canada, where we have about 33 million people in an area of 3,559,294 square miles. In short, there are about 9.27 people per square mile. In reality the Southern half of the country inhabits most of the population. Although it seems like we have a lot of resources and space, we are only just living within our ecological footprint. This is shamefull! We have such a large amount of space but if our population continues to grow (and it will), we won’t have enough resources to sustain it.

Although population is growing, it can be seen in this chart that underdeveloped countries are growing at rates faster than in developed countries. This could be due to lack of education in birth control options and such education should be given to young females in underdeveloped and developed nations.

It has been suggested that the earth would not be able to produce enough food to sustain the growing population, but we have more food now than ever, and consequently we are consuming more now than ever before.

This leads me to believe that we are overconsuming and using our resources faster than they can be produced. The lack of enough resources to meet the growing population demand is a serious global problem. It is such a problem that people don’t see just how big of a problem it is. We are genetically modifying foods and crops to obtain the maximum yields of food, and people are still starving all over the world.

Major consumption of all of our resources seems to be taking place mainly in developed countries and underdeveloped countries are going to be affected. Not only are we overconsuming food, we are using up all our oil and creating a problem that will affect developed countries the hardest. Once we have used up all the oil (which we will at this rate), gas prices will be so high that we won’t be able to afford to drive our vehicles.

There are so many programs on TV that glorify overconsumption.Shows like CRIBS, where you get to see celebrities that have massive houses and 5 cars (probably a Hummer), make Americans feel that they need those things to be happy. But in reality, who needs 5 cars, or a massive house that resembles a hotel? The energy needed to heat a house that large is probably enough to heat 5 smaller houses. Another show, Man vs. Food, viewers can watch a man eat enough food to feed 5-10 people. It seems ridiculous that people are supporting this show and that money is being spent to allow this man to consume such a large quantity of food when there are people starving. The money used to produce this show should be put into a food security program for a developing country. It is disgusting how much people consume, even the McDonalds meals have grown considerably since they first opened. Why is this necessary? People don’t need to eat that much McDonalds.

The issue of overconsumption goes hand in hand with overpopulation and people around the world need to understand that this is an issue that won’t go away. Everyone needs to consume less to sustain the growing population demands.

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.

Sustainability at RRU

I am currently in my second semester in the Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science at Royal Roads University (RRU) in Victoria, BC. I was happy to hear that my university had a sustainability plan to address topics in waste, transportation and energy, to name a few. RRU’s sustainability plan has five key initiatives:

·       Greenhouse Gas Management

·       Going “Grid Positive” (after off-grid)

·       Transportation Demand Management

·       Ecological-Sensitive Siting and Heritage Conservation

·       University Stewardship

Although they have not met these goals, they are on a good path to achieve these goals in the future. They plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by the year 2020 as well as becoming carbon neutral by 2010. Through a Greenhouse Gas Management plan, RRU will address options to reduce and offset of the major sources of GHGs.

RRU has already reduced their energy consumption by 30% from 2001 to 2005 and plans to go ‘off-grid’ by 2018 with hopes of becoming ‘grid-positive’. We have been waiting for the completion of the new building, that is supposed to be ‘green’ and efficient in many ways. They have discussed a few approaches that could be taken including small scale, composting facility, cogeneration facility and wastewater treatment facility. I think its very important for all schools to take these types of initiatives and find alternate sources for energy with the intentions of becoming off-grid, if not at least trying to improve their consumption thus far.

 The transportation management plan needs work. A 2007 study completed at RRU determined that 90% of students and faculty come to the school in single occupant vehicles. The university offers parking at a very cheap price, practically providing an incentive for people to drive to RRU rather than take a bus or bike. Some good suggestions were brought up in class, possibly by giving incentives to those who do find other means of transportation, even carpooling helps. Since it is a known fact that vehicles are a leading cause for pollution through emissions, addressing transportation as an issue is a step in the plan to become sustainable.

Through university stewardship, RRU has an extensive recycling and composting system. They successful divert 72.6% of waste from reaching the landfill. This type of recycling and composting should be done in every school and business around the world. Why wouldn’t we want to divert as much waste from the landfill as we could, we don’t have a bottomless pit to keep dumping all our waste. Soon we will run out of space to put our waste, Hartland landfill is the only proposed landfill for Victoria, with no intentions of finding another site. There are also benefits of diverting this waste, not only can recyclables be reused or put back into manufacturing and compostables can be composted into nutrient rich soils.

 I was also interested in learning that RRU uses chemical free cleaners. They use microfiber towels and water to clean the entire campus. This may seem a bit unhygienic, but they have tested surfaces, and the combination of microfiber and water is able to clean counters just as good as disinfectants. They it won’t leave behind the residues that disinfectants will.

RRU has made some great leaps in sustainability through their action plans and methods of practice. I am proud to say that my school is a leader in sustainable practices.

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.

The cost of Inaction....

Right now we are in a time where climate change is upon us. There is no denying now that climate change is occurring, and that it is due to human actions. This is apparent all over the world with increased temperatures, water and food insecurity and population migration, to name a few.

The cost of ignoring climate change has already affected residents and the environment in BC. The Mountain Pine Beetle has had devastating impacts on forestry in BC. They are inhibited and die in cold temperatures. Since we have been experiencing such mild winters, the Pine Beetle has affected a large range of Canadian Boreal Forests. If we don’t step up and start changing the way we live, soon all our pine trees will look like the ones in the picture below. This picture was taken in August 2010 in E.C.Manning Provincial Park,BC.

Unsustainable practices all over the world have contributed to the rate of climate change today. Many countries have been devastated with environmental disasters as well as human activity induced “disasters” if you will. The picture below outlines some of the costs of these disasters.

1998 was determined to be the worst year recorded for weather related disasters (and that was over a decade ago). You’d think that we would have understood that climate change was already upon us, and that we should have began changing our ways long ago. Some of the facts are truly devastating, and yet why did I only hear about this in 2011? It truly shows that climate change was not on the list of priorities. This all happened in 1998:

·       The highest global temperature ever recorded

·       54 countries were hit by floods

·       45 countries suffered drought

·       14 million people were left homeless from floods in China

·        2/3 of  Bangladesh was underwater for several months

I could not imagine living in these conditions. It is sad, and true to know that the poorer countries are more affected by climate change. Since North Americans are not being directly affected by this climate change, why would they care? Soon enough, climate change will affect us all and North Americans will have to pay for their actions, or better said, lack of action.

A report I read concludes with the this statement

“Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21 century."

I don’t think people truly understand the devastating effects of our polluting ways. It scares me to think that people won’t understand until it’s too late. We will be faced with the greatest environmental, social and economic problems we have ever faced.

I feel it is absolutely important for my generation to start living with a smaller ecological footprint and find ways to live a more sustainable life. The David Suzuki Foundation has outlined a few ways to start taking action against climate change by cutting your carbon output, or even going carbon neutral by offsetting your carbon outputs. More information on how you can do this can be found at this website:

 http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/take-action/

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.