Category: Students

Posts written by students

North Atlantic Winds Could Power the Whole World

Wind energy is a renewable source that can help achieve sustainability in our society. However, there are many complications that impede this idea to come to life. This article from Anthropocene Magazine gives new innovations and discoveries involving this  energy source that can improve the finer points of implementing wind energy into our society’s needs. Harnessing the power of the wind to create energy is nothing new. However, “the first offshore wind farm in the US, off the coast of Rhode Island, went online last year”(Anthropocene).  Scientists are pushing to see the boundaries that oceanic winds can play in creating a reliable and renewable energy source. There are many ways that overseas wind farms are safer, more potent and reliable. The massive power of the North Atlantic winds, and the North Atlantic current  carry dramatic changes on the lands in the area. The winds and the deep and shallow currents work together to bring the warm weather to that North Atlantic. It is time we started using the resources we have had for so long to create a sustainable society to live in.

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2017/10/wind-farms-in-the-north-atlantic-could-power-the-whole-world/

Britain spent ‘twice as much on overseas fossil fuels as renewables’

The UK has spent more than twice as much overseas support on fossil fuels projects as on renewable ones so far this decade, according to research commissioned by the Catholic aid agency Cafod.

The Overseas Development Institute, which analysed the figures, found that 46% of Britain’s £6.1bn energy spending in developing countries between 2010 and 2014 went on oil, coal and gas-fired schemes, compared with 22% for renewable energy projects.

Overall, fossil fuel support increased by nearly £1bn this decade compared with the previous five years, with a staggering 99.4% of UK export finance support directed towards “dirty” energy investments.

Cafod called on the government to clarify how it would bring public support for overseas projects into line with climate commitments under the Paris agreement.

Dr Sarah Wykes, Cafod’s lead energy analyst, said: “To tackle climate change we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground and switch rapidly to renewable sources of energy.

“Yet the UK carrying on a business as usual spending pattern overseas in recent years suggests a huge inconsistency in policy and a missed opportunity to promote greater investment in renewable technologies, as the Department for International Development (DfID) has tried to do through its spending.”

While UK export finance uses public funds to bolster British exports, DfID’s energy spending – 32% of which went to renewables compared with 22% for fossil fuels – is intended as overseas aid.

The Importance of Technology for Sustainability and the Environment

Cities around the world, including our own New York City, have been referred to as “concrete jungles,” one of the only real associations to nature given to cities, along with having to battle with pigeons as you commute to school or work. Despite having small designated areas reserved for nature in parks, the city itself remains largely grey. Naziha Mestaoui, a light artist, has created a powerful statement through her creation of the “One Beat, One Tree,” a technological light art piece, in which she projects virtual trees onto cityscapes and a new virtual tree will bloom with every heartbeat of the viewer. In her statement regarding this magnificent art piece, she said, “‘I wanted to create an art piece using technologies to connect us to this immaterial value of nature… If we want technologies to reconnect us to nature, we just need to create it’” (Frank). Her statement represents the need to use innovations and technology to reconnect us to nature and to remind the world of the importance of our environment.

Continue reading “The Importance of Technology for Sustainability and the Environment”

Water

We need to start taking care of our environment, if we want to take care of ourselves! Researchers have found plastic fibers in over 80 percent of the samples they have taken from water ranging from the United States Capitol building to the shores of Uganda’s Lake Victoria. These plastics are originating from all kinds of sources like synthetic clothes, tire dust, micro-beads, and plastic utensils. We need to change the way we recycle and dispose of plastic materials, to prevent from future water contamination!

https://inhabitat.com/plastic-fibers-found-in-over-80-of-tap-water-samples-from-five-continents/

 

The Importance of Harvesting the Wind Energy Potential Over Oceans

As humanity aggressively steps forward into the 21st century, our demands for energy have continued to skyrocket. Thus, the need for sustainable energy sources have become more critical than ever before, especially due to the detrimental effects of fossil fuel usage. New research published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science indicates that the wind energy potential over oceans could theoretically power human civilization. However, this would require extensive portions of the world’s oceans to be covered with wind turbines. The installation and the maintenance of this project would be difficult and unlikely due to the volatility of ocean environments; the project could even alter climate conditions. Nonetheless, wind speeds over the ocean tend to be 70% higher than on land. Over some sections of the oceans, storms regularly transfer wind energy down to surface level from higher altitudes; this indicates that the amount of energy that can be captured with floating turbines is higher than that of land turbines. Although these ideas are merely theoretical, and are undermined by many practical and seemingly inevitable issues, they emphasize the importance of adopting alternative sources of energy in the future.

Greenland’s deltas are growing as coastlines recede around the world.

Scientists have noticed shorelines slipping away into the ever rising sea level. All the while, a change in the trend is being observed in Greenland. Despite being home to the worlds second largest ice sheet, the river deltas are growing here, while they are receding everywhere else. In findings published in the journal Nature, researchers observed that as glaciers melt the fresh water they produce picks up and deposits sediments along the shorelines.  Scientists were surprised that the ocean does not play a larger role in eroding the coast line; they found that Greenland’s deltas are shielded from the ocean’s waves by large, steep-cliffed fjords. Greenland’s glaciers have been experiencing increasing ice loss for three decades. The shifting coastline is a  reminder that Greenland’s ice sheet is changing in ways that may have consequences elsewhere in the world.

Water Education

Clean water is essential for life, but most people in the developed world don’t think much about the water they use for drinking, food preparation, and sanitation. In developing nations, however, the search for safe drinking water can be a daily crisis. Millions of people die each year, most of them children, from largely preventable diseases caused by a lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation.

Much progress is possible. In fact, due to the dedicated efforts of governments and NGOs since the 1992 Earth Summit, safe drinking water has been made available to some 1.7 billion people around the world, with projects ranging from modern piped plumbing to rainwater collection and storage.

About 5,000 children die each day due to preventable diarrheal diseases such as cholera and dysentery, which spread when people use contaminated water for drinking or cooking. A lack of water for personal hygiene leads to the spread of totally preventable ailments like trachoma, which has blinded some six million people.

https://twitter.com/elreymeg/status/925741590282493952

Water woes also trap many low-income families in a cycle of poverty and poor education—and the poorest suffer most from lack of access to water. People who spend much of their time in ill health, caring for sick children, or laboriously collecting water at distances averaging 3.75 miles (6 kilometers) a day are denied educational and economic opportunities to better their lives.

Competition can be fierce for this precious commodity. Agriculture claims the lion’s share of freshwater worldwide, soaking up some 70 percent, and industrial uses consume another 22 percent. Watersheds and aquifers don’t respect political borders and nations don’t always work together to share common resources—so water can be a frequent source of international conflict as well.

 

Many opportunities exist to use the water we do have more productively. Change begins with more efficient management of water resources.

“Seventy percent of all the water we use globally is for agriculture, so that’s where we first have to become a lot more efficient through methods like drip irrigation and growing crops that are more suitable to the local climate,” Postel said. “We still have too few incentives for farmers to use water more efficiently. Farmers are good businesspeople; they respond to incentives that affect their bottom line.”

The United National General Assembly has recognized “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.” Making that right become a universal reality, and providing each person on the planet with affordable access to the 20 to 50 liters of daily water required to sustain life, is a clear goal for the decades ahead.

I really like this article because a friend of mine used to work within the U.N and would talk to me about the sustainability goals. I would assist her in her work sometimes, gathering information on the state of water around the world. Its important to not the gaps with education and the impact that can have on a country.

Urban Water Systems—Olympics 2020 Takes a Backseat to Climate Change

A mountainous country, holding large metropolitan areas, surrounded by and filled with bodies of water—all of these are quite reasonable descriptions of Japan. As a nation that is no stranger to typhoons and intense flooding, officials have taken extra measures to ensure that defense infrastructures are in place. Yet, even with one of the most expensive systems—increased percentages of intense rainfall, storm surge, and parts of Tokyo already underwater have many worried that the systems are not effective enough. Fears are amplified by the prospect of the Olympics 2020, which will be hosted by Tokyo. In addition to managing the 38 million people already living in the Tokyo metropolitan, the system will have to support added stress. The Kasukabe site supports a large part of the treatment/divergence process. Though a possible solution would be to build a similar system, Prime Minister Abe warns that the economy may not be able to support such a feat.

Along with our discussion of city water treatment and anti-flood measures, I think another important factor to consider is the city capacity. I find it interesting that despite having a $2 billion anti-flood system, Tokyo alone is still at a high risk in terms of flooding issues. Yet in comparison to New York, which is also a highly populated city, Tokyo holds a high population in a much smaller space. Being highly developed and industrialized with little green space to act as a sponge, runoff could be a large issue, with very little room for infiltration, considering a lack of porous soil. Although the system is expensive, it does not necessarily mean it is the most effective either. The current technique used is a system of tunnels diverting water from floodplains. However, there are instances in which rainfall is so intense, which will be more frequent in the future due to climate change, that where the water is diverted to doesn’t necessarily stop flooding. Perhaps implementing green measures as New York has been planning, to create ‘sponges’ with green spaces is a viable option for this highly populated metropolis.

 

Sewage Spill in Hudson River

This summer, large amounts of sewage flowed into the Hudson River after storms in the area. This was a result of a combined sewer overflow. The 10 spills were not reported until about a week later. This is a problem because sewage and water flow systems should not allow for large storm to cause massive spills in nearby waterways. It is also a problem because people use the Hudson River for recreational use and may have come in contact with waste. This would not have happened had the spills been reported.

This article is a great source of evidence showing the problems we have with gray infrastructure that does not work during storms, which will soon be happening more often.

 

 

 

Algae in Lake Erie

Lake Erie Erie is a common water source for citizens living in surrounding towns. Unfortunately, an overuse of fertilizer on the region’s farmland has been creating an algae problem that has been growing since the 2000s. This is a huge issue, as algae blooms have been linked to being toxic in the past. These algae blooms are only increasing, threatening the health of over 3 million people, and hurting the economy by decreasing the ability to fish and attract tourists.

Although agriculture is necessary, it is clear that we need to rethink the way we grow our food if it is affecting water supply as negatively as these algae blooms. Lake Erie is not currently regulated through the Clean Water Act, despite the problem being very well known. It seems that when there is a health risk, government officials are very slow to address the issue. Flint, Michigan is the most popular example of this, but this lesser known issue has made me wonder whether citizens are using polluted water supply and are unaware of it. To many, it could have been unexpected that fertilizer can ruin such an important water supply. It is clear that we need to be careful of our everyday actions, since small,negative actions can add up to a detrimental situation in the future. We can only hope that Lake Erie can serve as a lessen for the future.