This lesson proved to be my least absorbed of the first half of the semester. Not to say that I did not learn from the lesson, nor to say that I did not pay attention or take notes, rather, there was so much to absorb I failed to get it all! This can be proved by my midterm, as the majority of my points were taken off from this lesson. The triple bottom line, in my notes, reads “A framework by which policy decisions can be made by individuals, corporations and government.” Past that, the triple bottom line “sustainability includes jobs, poverty, opportunity, safety, social justice, and family sustainability.” I did not get this question right on the midterm and was wondering if what my notes reads is also incorrect. Another question I answered incorrectly asked for the four variants of fixing a problem in places like factories. End of pipe treatment, pollution prevention, design for environment and sustainable development. I enjoyed this and the three level model, because I like the clear ways in which we impact the world, as well as gaining a better understanding of the conflict of creating a sustainable existence under a budget. I felt that this lesson helped me better understand why it is nothing is being done about municipal incinerators for example, or any other issue that faces our environment. End of pipe treatment, while not ideal, may be an effective means of dealing with our problems in the short term. Since finding billions of dollars is not an easy task, I am glad to hear that at least some temporary changes are being done. I feel that my opinion on the matter differs from the rest of the class, who at the time seemed to be aggravated by the situation. Beyond aggravated, my classmates seemed to see no benefit in such means of dealing with our issues. I do agree that simply adding filters does not fully remove an issue from the scope of a factory, but is it not better to add filters now until we have the funds to replace out of date methods? I feel that the class sentiment was widely aggressive towards the end of pipe method, but perhaps it can be viewed as a method that has some merit to it? Needless to say it is unanimously agreed that companies must do something about the issue beyond end of pipe treatments, it is my hope that someone out there is working on it while the metaphorical filters are in place.
One of the latter anecdotes in the lesson struck me the hardest. The issue in places like Guyana of people harming themselves by using mercury to mine gold resonated with me after class. I find it distressing that there are people who do not have the luxury of free higher education, but rather people my age have no choice but to slowly poison themselves with mercury to make a living, so they do not quickly die of starvation.
