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Relative importance of Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling |
[Sustainability] |
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Posted on February 26, 2009 @ 09:53:00 AM by Paul Meagher
Jessica Fox at the WattzOn blog reminds us that the three R's are not equally important. Many of us, myself included, give ourselves a pat on the back when we make the extra effort to recycle some consumer item. We should realize, however, that recycling is the least important of the R's and should only be done after we have determined that reduction and reuse can't be used to deal with our waste. Jessica has a useful graphic to illustrate the idea:
Credits: http://blog.wattzon.com/2009/01/08/reduce-reduce-reduce/
Perhaps it is time to change our stance towards recycling and examine whether we can address waste issues better by reducing our consumption of a waste item or incorporating re-using into the equation somehow. Recyling is not a positive fate for our waste if reduction and reuse are viable alternatives.
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Re-envisioning suburbia |
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Posted on February 12, 2009 @ 10:55:00 AM by Paul Meagher
Yesterday I listened to a radio interview with Jim Kunstler who is known for, among other things, his provokative blog Clusterfuck Nation. Jim sees many examples where we are attempting to "sustain the unsustainable" and parodies most of urban planning as a culture of "happy motoring". I agree with Jim in many of his criticisms and agree that we need to exercise our imagination as to what the future might be like after peak oil has seriously kicked in (his novel "The Long Emergency" deals with life after peak oil).
One common theme in Jim's criticisms is the idea that suburbia is an unsustainable dead end because it is built on a foundational belief in "happy motoring" - the idea that we can use an automobile to make up for the fact that many necessities and conveniences aren't located in close enough proximity to make active transport (e.g., walking, biking, etc...) a workable solution. Suburbia also uses valuable agricultural land that we will need because of an impending crisis in food production when petrochemical agriculture goes south due to peak oil. Jim has a hard time seeing any redeeming features in suburban living. This is where I begin to part company with Jim.
David Holgren, co-founder of Permaculture, offered a more optimistic view of suburbia's potential. His main point was that suburbia is well designed from the point of view of delivering water for irrigation to a population with the land base to grow things. He sees the potential for lawns to be relatively easily converted to gardens because it is often built on fertile land or can be made fertile by building up the soil. Water can be delivered through municipal infrastructure. He contrasts this with the greater difficulties that would be involved in retrofitting large apartment buildings to growing plants.
I am of the view that there is still potential to make suburbia a workable solution, however, we need to accept some of Jim's critisms regarding making it less automobile dependent. We also need to begin turning our lawns into gardens for growing food for our families. Where I come from, lawns are slavishly pruned to perfection for no functional purpose. This year we intend to break from this tradition and plan to start converting our front lawn to a vegetable garden. We've tried growing a garden in our back yard, but the problem is that our front yard gets the best sun. We also want to send the message that we don't buy into the perfect lawn concept anymore.
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The mythology of green |
[Sustainability] |
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Posted on February 3, 2009 @ 06:58:00 AM by Paul Meagher
In many North American aboriginal cultures, there are morality tales about the consequences of dishonoring the spirits. Many of the tales can be viewed as helping to enforce a land or conservation ethic. It could be argued that it is North American's lack of such a mythology that is a big factor in our unsustainable ways.
I've lately started to question whether in fact we lack a mythology that speaks to a land or conservation ethic. It could be argued that implicit in much of the green movement is a mythology consisting of two main parts:
- The world started out perfect, with each generating degrading what went before. The prime directive for humans is to try to maintain the state of the world in the same shape as it was given to us. David Holmgren talks about the Ancient Greeks believing this but I think that it is implicit in most environmental thinking and literature.
- There is a sacred balance to the world which we must respect. If we destroy this balance mother nature will reveal her displeasure.
Many would view these claims as not being "mythical"; rather, if they were reworded a bit differently, are simply common sense or well supported by empirical evidence. Does calling a set of beliefs "mythic" also mean it can't be common sense or well-supported by empirical evidence? I don't think so. It means that our appreciation of what is happening around us is based upon more than just commonsense or empirical evidence. When Al Gore persuades people of the dangers of climate change is it because of his convincing powerpoint graphs, or is it because he is successfully appealing to a mythic understanding of how the world works? If so, why do only some people get it or want to get it? Are they not convinced by the evidence, or are they not open to a mythic understanding of the world (perhaps because it would be against their interests)? Are we like modern aboriginals who have lost their mythologies and are only now realizing the power and purpose of those myths?
I tend towards a scientific viewpoint of the world so talking about a "mythic" understanding of the world is not in my comfort area. David Suzuki is a hard-nosed scientist, but that has not prevented him from appreciating and using the cultural resources of aboriginal cultures to undergird his environmentalism. I think we need to use all the cultural tools at our disposal to address environmental issues, including the sophisticated appreciation of what role mythology might play in promoting or hindering environmental understanding and activism.
I do think that children are more attuned to the above mythic beliefs, but over time become less attuned. Like modern aboriginals, we may need to find ways to ensure that this attunement is not lost via the competing mythologies of consumerism and endless growth.
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Sustainable subdivisions |
[Sustainability] |
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Posted on December 12, 2008 @ 08:00:00 AM by Paul Meagher
Listened to an interesting program on sustainable subdivisions. I'm not sure how accepted the definition of a "sustainable subdivision" is, but some of the points the expert made sounded good to me. A sustainable subdivision is built so that residents can get to common services by walking, biking, or other active transport modalities. You shouldn't have to get in a car to grab some milk, pick up your mail, take a walk in a green space, go to school, go to the dentist, go to a pharmacy, etc... Subdivision today can't exist without the automobile, however if we accept the reality of climate change, we can't keep building subdivisions in ways that necessitate frequent and unnecessary automobile usage.
According to the expert, in green subdivision planning a developer would plan to use half of the development area for green space and half for housing. To make this profitable for the developer, and ecologically sustainable, the density of housing needs to be increased - smaller lots for each house. Developers like density because there is less pavement and other services to put in when housing is denser.
Proponents of sustainable subdivisions say that putting a green space into your subdivision up front is better than trying to create it afterwards. Not much mention was made about the use of the green space but lately I've been hearing about "food security" and the need to start growing more food locally, including in subdivision environments. When the price of oil goes up again, the issue of "food security" will be brought to forefront again as our industrial food systems are critically dependent on oil for their existence. Planting a community garden or Communty Supported Agriculture of some sort would get my vote for how a part of the green space might be used.
The expert talked about how "sustainable subdivisions" might be developed. He through that one important way was to get the first one built. This might be done with government assistence or it could be done as a green private venture wishing to gain expertise and credibility in an emerging market. I think we also need to come up with innovative ways to move the installed base of subdivisions into more sustainable directions.
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Microeconomic indicators of sustainability |
[Sustainability] |
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Posted on October 1, 2008 @ 09:00:00 AM by Paul Meagher
Previously I discussed macroeconomic indicators of sustainability. Today I will discuss microeconomic indicators of sustainability. These are metrics that individual businesses can use to assess their sustainability. In the list below, we have the economic objective the sustainability metrics are trying measure followed, in parenthesis, by indicators of whether these objectives are being met with the desired directionality in square brakets:
- Sustainability certification (Percent certified [+], Sustainability reporting compliance [+], Pacific sustainability index score [+])
- Zero waste (Recycling rate [+], Emissions [-], Longevity [+])
- Eco-efficiency (Recycled content [+], Intensity [-], Facility rating [+])
- Workplace well-being (Job statisfaction [+], Turnover rate [-], Commuting [-])
- Community vitality (Local procurement [+], Local economic impact [+], Community support [+], Living wage ratio [+]).
These metrics can again be used to discover and justify investments, however, these investments would be geared towards moving the business towards a more sustainable path. Green entrepreneurs can anticipate these business objectives and supply products and services to meet the increasing microeconomic demand from businesses to become more sustainable. It is critical in such cases to be able to actually measure the degree to which these objectives are being by individual businesses and to track achievement over time in light of implemented initiatives. It is also critical that businesses report to its stakeholders the scores on these sustainability metrics along with more traditional metrics of business performance.
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Macroeconomic indicators of sustainability |
[Sustainability] |
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Posted on September 30, 2008 @ 08:00:00 AM by Paul Meagher
In "A New Bottom Line for Progress", John Talberth discusses a variety of macroeconomic and microeconomic indicators of a sustainable economy. Today I will discuss macroeconomic indicators. Talbeth classifies macroeconomic indicators according to the economic development objectives they are meant to measure. The 5 sustainable development objectives, along with their indicators (in parenthesis), and desired directionality (in brackets), are:
- Genuine human progress (Genuine progress indicator [+], Happy planet index [+], Well-being index [+], Human development index [+])
- Renewable energy platform (Carbon footprint [-], Energy return on investment [+], Energy intensity [-])
- Social equity (Index of resentational equity [-], GINI coefficient [-], Legal rights index [+], Assess to improved water and sanitation [+])
- Protect and restore natural capital (Ecological footprint [-], Genuine savings [+], Environmental sustainability index [+])
- Economic localization (Local employment and income multiplier effect [+], Ogive index of economic diversity [-], Miles to market [-])
Currently, all of these economic indicators are taking a back seat to the almighty GDP indicator which has nothing to say about whether economic performance is sustainable or not. Each of these economic indicators has an academic literature associated with it and claims to better reflect important aspects of our economic health and performance than a single GDP score.
Note that when these indicators are moving in the wrong direction, where there is a gap between how the rest of the world is performing and how the U.S. is performing, there is an opportunity for a green entrepreneur to propose a project to help move that macroeconomic indicator in the correct direction. These sustainabiliy indicators have a role to play in discovering and justifying the need for various types of green projects.
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Green Burials |
[Sustainability] |
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Posted on August 13, 2008 @ 05:57:00 AM by Paul Meagher
According to Wikipedia, each year, 22,500 cemeteries across the United States bury approximately:
- 30 million board feet (70,000 m³) of hardwoods (caskets)
- 90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
- 14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
- 2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
- 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
- 827,060 US gallons (3,130 m³) of embalming fluid, which most commonly includes formaldehyde.
The sustainability of such funeral practices is being increasingly called into question. One greener alternative to traditional funeral practices are "Green Burials".
The details of what is included in a green burial are not all agreed upon, but generally it involves:
- No embalming fluids
- No casket put into the ground
- GPS coordinates used to identify grave site
- Protected burial area that can be easily visited from populated areas
- Emphasis on a burial area that can be enjoyed as a nature and wilderness area
In most cases one would expect a green burial to be cheaper than a traditional burial, however, there would be costs associated with preserving and maintaining the conservation area used for green burials.
The Green Burial Council has a list of cemetery operators in many states who are willing to accommodate green burial, as well as funeral professionals who can provide services/products that do not involve the use of toxins or materials that are not biodegradable.
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