August 2014 - Achieving Sustainability

The World Leaders in Bike Sharing Programs are really all in China

August 27, 2014August 27, 2014 by Aaron Redman

I must admit that I generally greet the regular semi-sensational internet titles about how China is Achieving Sustainability such as “China has just built 20 million miles of high speed rail when the USA can’t build any” with a large degree of skepticism. For this I have three main justifications: Authoritarian governments can make absolute … Read more…

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A Paradox Grows into a Conundrum

August 25, 2014August 26, 2014 by Aaron Redman

In his 2011 book Conundrum, David Owen asks a fundamental question–can we commit to doing what is necessary to really Achieving Sustainability? Are we willing to make the necessary sacrifices, to reduce our consumption as both individuals and societies on a massive scale? As his subtitle points out Owen is really asking these questions about … Read more…

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SustainabLINKS August 26, 2014

August 25, 2014August 25, 2014 by Aaron Redman

On our global food system:
- “Just 55% of the world’s crop calories are consumed directly by humans”, sounds like some room for improvement.
- “The biggest problem facing modern day manure management: farmers and stockmen often work in separate geographic areas.” Sustainability will require bringing them back together.
- In depth, well-informed and critical look at Vandana Shiva’s knee-jerk and extreme anti-GMO stance.
- Glad to hear that this project has only grown since I got a chance to check it out some years ago. Inspiration!
Good news in continuing setbacks for coal in the Midwest and their aspirations to export it out of Oregon.
Stephen Bocking contends that universities divesting from fossil fuels is mostly window dressing–divest from parking lots instead!
A long, wandering account of a voyage to sample plastic pollution in the South Atlantic, interspersed with somewhat sensational claims about it’s impact.
Feeling disillusioned about hopes for conservation? Joern Fischer suggests that connecting to colleagues and focusing inwards can help propel you forward.
“Giving people an opportunity to have fun while doing “good” is far more effective than asking people to make a sacrifice for an abstract notion of the common good. If water agencies throughout the state could come up with a water conservation equivalent of the Ice Bucket Challenge the results could be pretty powerful.” and more good stuff like that.
The incentives to produce and publicize “surprising” study results (regardless of their validity, robustness or repeatability) are powerful. All consumers of news must be more aware and those knowledgeable enough must publicly provide critique and counterpoint.

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Update on Sustainability in Spanish

August 17, 2014August 19, 2014 by Aaron Redman

When I wrote about the two competing words for Sustainability in Spanish, I focused my discussion on using some of Google’s tools to analyze usage in the hopes of providing a new perspective on the issue. I have neither standing nor the ability to comment personally on the linguistic appropriateness of the two sustainabilitys. Fortunately, … Read more…

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SustainabLINKS August 18, 2014

August 23, 2014August 18, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Stimulus money spent on rail has gotten nearly as much scorn as Sloyndra but Michael Grunwald¹⁾Who wrote a whole book defending of the impact of the stimulus. that this is completely undeserved.
Buying bottled water from drought stricken California. Crazier than buying water from Fiji?
“For more Americans to choose healthier food they must have a basic sense of security about their future.”
A decade and a half after Bowling Alone (which I reviewed here), our un-neighborliness continues to increase–with consequences for our health and our politics.
If you have tried to walk anywhere on windy, overly wide suburban roads with no services for miles, you know the frustration that would make anyone give up walking-and active lifestyles overall.
The small minority of scientists who maintain contrarian views on climate change are asked far more frequently to pontificate to the media than their peers, which feeds the continuing unbalanced coverage in the media of climate change–see John Oliver for a more balanced approach.
Meanwhile, the worst case scenarios for climate change are looking worse as Antarctic ice has the potential to cause more sea rise and faster than previously thought.
Is air-conditioning Sustainable (in the multi-faceted capital-S sense)? Well we can certainly agree that it has remade us.
Title says it all: “Not a single person has died using bike share in the US.”

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What is Sustainability research?

August 13, 2014August 14, 2014 by Erin Redman

Today we have a guest post from Dr. Erin Redman on our current research in Mexico and what makes Sustainability research unique. Many people know what ecologists or cell biologists study but what do Sustainability scientists research? First, since I believe that Sustainability is ultimately a human endeavor, 100% of our research includes interacting with … Read more…

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I agree, the School of Sustainability is Great!

August 13, 2014August 13, 2014 by Aaron Redman

The school year is starting up again and if you are interested in gaining an academic perspective on Achieving Sustainability, there is no better place to do that than at Arizona State University’s (ASU) School of Sustainability (SOS). Disclosure: I got my master’s degree there from 2008-2010. The current dean, Dr. Christopher Boone is laying … Read more…

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SustainabLINKS August 11, 2014

August 13, 2014August 11, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Seems to be a lot of discussion about food system sustainability recently:

The “evidence” which shows the harmfulness of GMOs to human health doesn’t stand up well to critique.
Irradiation of seeds is one method used in traditional crop breeding. Not so traditional? “Traditions” usually are not.
It is not surprising that the number of farmer’s markets are no longer increasing so fast, but the more interesting information would be whether the number of vendors and shoppers per market is increasing.
The author of this post asks: why do most people (including conservationists) persist with diets that are so clearly damaging to the environment? This is a question we all need to be asking.
A non-food article! Ontario has made incredible progress on eliminating the use of coal, some reasons are unique to it’s situation, but there are many lessons to learn.
Bets on new technologies are risky and don’t payout right away but its looking like another one of those infamous Department of Energy loans is going to work out pretty well. We need more of this!!

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Mexico, a World Leader in Obesity

August 6, 2014August 7, 2014 by Erin Redman

Today we have a guest post from Dr. Erin Redman on obesity and Sustainability in Mexico. Mexico is experiencing, simultaneously, significant epidemiological1)This epidemiological transition is characterized by a shift from high infectious disease morbidity and mortality (rates) to an increasing prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases (NCCD). (disease) and nutritional2)The nutrition transition is the shift from … Read more…

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Why I Capitalize the S in Sustainability

August 5, 2014August 6, 2014 by Aaron Redman

One thing you will notice on this website, and certainly something that the spell checkers do, is that I capitalize the S in Sustainability. The reason is simple. Sustainability in the sense that I mean it- “Achieving the highest quality of life possible for the most people at the most times and places within the … Read more…

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