SustainabLINKS Archives - Achieving Sustainability

SustainabLINKS April 30, 2015

April 28, 2015April 30, 2015 by Aaron Redman

There is a lot of really interesting news that accumulates over two weeks but don’t despair, I promise these are worth your time :).

The trends indicate that batteries are going to make a hugely positive impact on clean energy sooner than expected. Batteries are already being used to keep utilites from stopping the clean energy movement… even in AZ!
Great story about how and why water is sold in bags in Ghana. Brings back memories of picking plastic out of my teeth in El Salvador.
How can we expect people to care about nature when we are working so hard to “conserve” it by isolating it from any human contact? The Spatial Paradox of Conservation.
It makes me sad that our Sustainable future may come down to who can tell the best story. But perhaps we can treat science deniers like those detailed in Merchants of Doubt as a virus for which the best treatment is to use educational inoculation. Or maybe we can just all watch/read Game of Thrones.
I am skeptical that our consumption choices can really improve our challenges with water Sustainability but Wired has the best guide I have seen yet for giving it a shot. It wasn’t your shopping choices that brought water back to the Colorado River Delta it was policy w/o which no amount of water saved during teeth-brushing was going to matter.
I found the news of the collapse of the pacific sardine fishery to be extremely disturbing. While numerous fish are being eaten out of the ocean, I thought that at least the ones in well-managed fisheries such as pacific sardines were safe…
Chipotle is eliminating GMOs. I don’t see this as a great leap towards Achieving Sustainability but the logistical challenges are very similar to anyone that wants move towards Sustainable food at SCALE.
On the other hand: Bill Gates reviews a book that asks the key question about the Sustainability of our food system, “Should we eat meat?” Not convinced? How about the environmental case in one sentence? Or maybe this video:

Print This Post

Email This Post

SustainabLINKS November 10, 2014

November 9, 2014November 10, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Whatever else this election was, it appears to be foreboding for Sustainability, whether it is national climate policy, state level climate action, or a deep seated antipathy for the EPA, though some saw a silver lining.
Though I guess if our politicians are not going to do anything, maybe we can learn how to resolve our climate challenges from aliens.
Michael Levi has a good point that talking about the cost of “ideal” climate policies is not very relevant because these only will be implemented in economist’s models, never in the real world.
A moral argument for renewable energy.
Ensuring honest and accurate “green” labeling is a vital role that governments can play as is demonstrated by the monster fine be levied by the US on Korean carmakers for misstating their cars’ mileage.
Sustainability Science is Puzzling. My take: the role of Sustainability professionals should be to look at the whole picture on the puzzle box and not just a piece or two-that is the role of disciplines.

Print This Post

Email This Post

SustainabLINKS November 2, 2014

November 2, 2014November 3, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Ever wondered what people where talking about with this Anthropocene. Michael Schoon has a nice brief overview.
Vox.com discusses why bike share users tend to be wealthier despite the fact the poor are more likely to use bikes as their main form of transportation.
Earlier Vox also featured an interesting discussion of possible reasons why carpooling has declined in America. I wonder how the so-called sharing economy will even further effect this trend.
Vox was really on a Sustainability tear this week with an interesting article on dams stemming out of a new paper cataloging dam building plans around the world.
Climate Change as always merits several mentions:
- The big news this week was the release of the IPCC’s Synthesis report. For a synthesis of the synthesis check out National Geographic’s five takeaways or Vox’s seven.
- Ruth Graham reflects on how a previous energy transition (from wood to coal heating) can assist us in the one we confront now.
- If Chile can do it why can’t we? Chile implements a carbon tax cover more than half of their emissions.

Print This Post

Email This Post

SustainabLINKS October 27, 2014

October 26, 2014October 27, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Attending AASHE 2014 Conference today in Portland, Oregon-looking forward to lots of Sustainability inspiration!

Fascinating graphics from National Geographic comparing what people eat around the world.
Energy news:

A new study has begun to quantify how much natural gas is being lost through leaky pipes before it gets to our home. The picture does not look good.
Walmart has installed an astounding amount of solar panels, far outpacing the rest of corporate america. Would be curious to know how this compares to their total energy demand.
Diffusion research has long suggested the new innovations spread through social and/or geographically based networks. Research on uptake of solar panels has found this to hold at a neighborhood level with rooftop solar.

Manufactured homes present significant advantages for more accessible and sustainable housing, argues a piece in the Atlantic.

Print This Post

Email This Post

SustainabLINKS September 8, 2014

September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Food news: Christie Wilcox covers in more depth what I wrote about briefly, how concerned should we be about pesticide residue on food? “To date, there is no scientific evidence that eating an organic diet leads to better health.” Two interesting graphics-how the world wastes food and a fun set of glimpses of what a … Read more…

Print This Post

Email This Post

SustainabLINKS September 1, 2014

August 31, 2014September 1, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Climate change news:

Study out of MIT suggests that cutting carbon emissions will virtually pay for itself with health savings…
Which is good because the World Bank is more forcefully concerned about how climate change will impact agriculture, particularly in Africa…
And yet even clearly communicating the issues is probably not enough to motivate the public to the necessary change.
Interesting discussion (if somewhat academic in tone) of how individuals responses to a changing climate needs to be taken into account when modeling the future.

Dr. Shiva’s response to last week’s New Yorker piece. While correcting some errors and oversights, she does not make a very convincing case for her all-out war against GMOs (and her belief in a conspiracy against her shines through).
Even massive reforestation efforts in China are falling short. Fixing our mistakes is much harder and more expensive than avoiding them.
Quick review of the startling high extinction rate humans are driving (ignore the silly title and questions about how this links to human extinction-seems to have been thrown in to generate clicks). An issue worth reflecting about on the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon.
Great visual with which you can explore Louisiana’s disappearing coast.

Print This Post

Email This Post

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.

Print This Post

Email This Post

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.”

Print This Post

Email This Post

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!!

Print This Post

Email This Post