In class, we discussed the one water solution and how integration of the water systems would lead to an increase in water management. This approach helps the environmet and helps communities manage their water in a not so difficult way. While being aware that recycling water is a good thing nowadays, we must be aware of the cost and work that needs to be done in order to make it happen. For example, water that has been used must be decontaminated in order to reuse it. Water such as stormwater runoff impacts source water quality and therefore treatment is needed in order to reuse this water. While ways to access this treatment may be expensive and costly, its pretty much worth it because in the end, we are saving water which is something we all need. It is our responsibility to provide clean water for the public and this is a great way to begin with the possibility of reusing water already available to us.
Category: Students
Posts written by students
Copenhagen: “Sustainability does not have to be boring”
In 2018, the CopehnHill, a waste management and energy plant will open in Copenhagen. The facility will be the most efficient energy saving plant in the world. Sustainability does not have to be boring. The facility will include water sports, soccer fields, go-kart track, and a ski slope on its roof. The plant will be able to produce 25% more energy than the former plant with the same amount of waste. It will power 160,000 households across Copenhagen. The technology that powers the plant will also make it the most efficient waste burning plant in the world and allow for flexibility for future energy production.
https://quartzy.qz.com/1103633/copenhagens-newest-architectural-gem-is-a-waste-management-plant/
The National Flood Insurance Program
Many people have still not been able to reach an agreement with their insurers on flood claims… ever since Hurricane Sandy which happened about 5 years ago. In David Clutter’s case, the insurer happens to be the federal government. As the federal government resists Clutter’s claims, Mr. Clutter has been digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole, recently taking out a third mortgage so that him and his family have a home. For more than 5 million households, the National Flood Insurance Program is the only source of flood insurance and unfortunately, this program is broken and corrupt. “The program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been in the red since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005. It still has more than a thousand disputed claims left over from Sandy. And in October, it exhausted its $30 billion borrowing capacity and had to get a bailout just to keep paying current claims (Mary Williams Walsh).” The decision to keep the program going has been put into question because it has done quite a lot more damage than good. The need for reform as it a high and if reform is not established, many families may go completely bankrupt. Not only does the program need a better financial advisement but it also needs to make permanent long term changes so that it doesn’t blow through billions of dollars without helping people. Additionally, the government is attempting to put high premiums on houses and replaces small house like Mr. Clutter’s with big ones. What happens to the forgotten?
green design
I love those pictures of what a construction site will look like when it’s finished. It always looks like it’s so far in the future. My high school had a bunch of those hanging up … I always doubted it would ever get done. So, when I googled green design, I was automatically drawn to those photos. There were all different kinds: some with houses with green roofs, others were futuristic parks. I loved them all. It made me wonder about the people who think sustainability cannot go together with aesthetics. If anything, I think it will improve how our earth looks. More like it should be, with more nature and grass than bricks and cement.
The Biggest Public Health Threat of the 21st Century
For some reason, the phrase “climate change” doesn’t incite quite as much fear or panic as the otherwise triggering terms “Zika” and “Ebola.” Perhaps this is because, for many people, climate change is a rather abstract and distant notion. And unfortunately, we don’t fully recognize the implications of climate change until it’s too late – until we are subjected to a wave of new mosquito borne diseases that thrive in warmer temperatures or until we are forced to abandon our homes because the land on which they were built has been overtaken by rising sea levels or until we are staring face to face at the remnants of a community destroyed by a natural disaster. Climate change exacts a toll on not only our physical environment, but also our personal well-being. A 1 to 2 °C rise in temperature may appear minuscule, but the effects are far-reaching, and unevenly felt. Weather disasters that strike communities struggling with poverty, inadequate housing, and water scarcity, for example, create dire and lethal conditions for the populations that live there. As some scientists believe, climate change has thus become a “threat multiplier.” It’s incredibly crucial for humanity to recognize the complex and dynamic issue of climate change, and respond with urgency and boldness.
Will #ClimateChange prove to be the biggest public health threat of the 21st century? #bcsfh2o https://t.co/ktrMNILr3A
— Jordan Williams (@jordwill98) November 2, 2017
Sustainable Water Management in Ethiopia as a Key to Socio-Economic (and Green) Expansion
Ethiopia is hovering on the cusp of socio-economic transformation. But despite the government’s ambitious targets for the country, the practicality and achievability of its agenda will revolve around the availability of freshwater sources. Water, and freshwater specifically, fuels nearly all aspects of life. Thus, figuring out a way to increase water efficiency and conservation has become of paramount importance to the country, and has surfaced as a recurring theme in the national dialogue. Sustainable water management will require the collective participation and cooperation of a variety of actors, including the government, the private sector, and civil society. Ethiopians will need to mobilize and act as a joint unit to provide widespread access to reliable data, to foster awareness on all levels, and to encourage sustainable financial investments. Another critical aspect in the transition to sustainable water practices is coherent policymaking that responds to evidence-based information and reflects a willingness to negotiate beyond partisan divides.
Ethiopia's plans for socio-economic development will rely heavily on #SustainableWaterManagement. #bcsfh2ohttps://t.co/z72wnZGhPf
— Jordan Williams (@jordwill98) November 2, 2017
Genetically engineering invasive species on the Galapagos Islands.
Humans have introduced a multitude of species into the once pristine, untouched Galapagos Islands. Some of these species have thrived over the past centuries and assimilated into the equilibrium of the environment, but a select few have thrown off the natural predator- prey balance of the island. Eradicating the invasive species on the island is very expensive, time consuming, and dangerous to the animals and even people which are it targeted. Researchers are beginning to look to a more long term goal to fix the problem. If scientists genetically engineer the sex cells of the invasive species they could make it so that the species targeted are no longer viable, or only producing males thereby eradicating their population off the islands in the future without ever employing and toxic chemicals to the island injuring its inhabitants. This form of genetic engineering is called gene drive. The basic strategy of using gene drive in the conservation setting is to work with the DNA using either the new gene-editing tool CRISPR or other tools of genetic manipulation, to change the odds of sex inheritance; one example would be to produce offspring that would be exclusively male. The elimination of females, would establish a reproductive dead end for the invasive species species.
The MTA is underwater(in more ways than one)
New York is a city on the water. For hundreds of years, its rivers and harbor have worked to its advantage, bringing it speedy transportation and pleasant temperatures.
New York City has experienced 7.5-foot floods several times in the past decade. Superstorm Sandy loosed 10- or 11-foot floods on much of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, killing 43 people and inundating more than 88,000 buildings.The next couple hundred years may not be as smooth sailing. Global warming, caused by the release of carbon-dioxide pollution into the atmosphere, will cause the seas to rise and the storms to intensify around the city. A new study from an all-star list of climate scientists attempts to estimate how a few of climate change’s symptoms—higher seas, large storm surge, and more intense hurricanes—will intersect in New York over the next 300 years.It isn’t pretty. Sea-level rise will make every tropical cyclone that hits New York more likely to release damaging floods. For instance, storm floods of nearly seven-and-a-half feet once occurred only a couple times per millennium. In today’s somewhat warmed climate, 7.5-foot floods are projected to happen every 25 years. By 2030, these floods will occur every five years.
Princess Mononoke and finding peace between nature and humans
Hayao Miyazaki’s film Princess Mononoke takes place in fictitious Japan during the 15th century – a point in time in which cities and towns are quickly industrializing. The main character, Ashitaka, journeys to Irontown, which is currently on one side of a vicious war against the spirits of the forest. The inhabitants of Irontown are pillaging and wrecking the forest in order to expand their town and acquire more resources. What is important about this movie, however, is that it doesn’t villainize either side of the war. The people in Irontown are poor, outcasts of society (deformed, disabled, etc), and/or are women, and it is through industrialization that they are able to provide for themselves.
The message in this animated film is important, because it forces viewers to consider a complex question- how can we live life sustainably while making sure the poor and disenfranchised are still members of this society?
Poor countries and people cannot afford water sustainability
As population continues to skyrocket water sources become depleted as the needs of that growing population are fulfilled. In China and India, citizens are dependent on glacial melts which will be gone within the century. People also get water through snow melts, which have been heavily altered by climate change – hastening the speed of snow melts and leaving noting to sustain people and their farms through the dry summers. China continues to pump underground aquifers, which are quickly being depleted, to water farms. And “the Yellow River has been diverted to the point that it no longer flows to the sea.” In India, upstream states sometimes stop water flow to downstream states when rainfall is poor, which is happening more and more often due to climate change.
However, solutions are costly. “…Better pricing of water will lead to much greater efficiency. Drip irrigation can reduce the water demand of crops. Desalination can vastly expand water supplies, though at high energy costs. Water storage systems can spare farmers the misery of crop failures. But these solutions presuppose vast expenditures of capital, and such solutions do not automatically address the needs of the poor, who are unable to pay for that capital.” The solutions are not easily accessible to the poor and countries that need it the most, will not bring about immediate and sweeping change, and could potentially have even worse affects on the environment.
A solution must be found soon, and fast for this global problem. And while the poor can’t afford some solutions, they (and everyone else) cannot afford to continue living unsustainably.
