This post is a part of the Manitou Initiative series of articles.
For the sake of understanding the basic terrain of the really big sustainability problems, I think that it makes sense to lump together all of the pollution outside of greenhouse gases, so that the really big problems are: biodiversity and ecosystem loss, global climate change, and 'other' pollution. This is certainly a vast oversimplification, but a useful one. I say this because biodiversity loss and climate change are 'existential' threats, meaning that if we don't get these problems under control, we threaten the very future of humanity on the planet. In comparison, most of the other sorts of pollution that we create and are exposed to aren't a threat to humanity as a whole, even though they cause massive health problems and increased mortality to those who are most exposed. Every major pollution pathway ought to be improved to reduce the damage to human health and to the living environment, but with these essays' focus on sustainability we will mostly address the biodiversity and climate change effects of pollution.
A massive amount of the pollution that we produce is the byproducts of industrial processes and energy production. We want to build and drive cars, construct and heat homes, make medicines, kill weeds, and so on. Unfortunately all of this activity can produce substances that are toxic to human health, causing everything from lung disease to cancer, neurological problems to heart attacks. Many of these pollutants can be and often are cleaned up so that people are not exposed to them, but others are released into the air, water and earth.
Much of air pollution comes from burning, fossil fuels and wood for their energy, and the cooking involved in industrial processes to separate or refine the products that we need. The greatest threats from air pollution appear when people breathe this contaminated air. Being in the proximity of factories, or in the middle of cities that have smog problems, or poorly vented indoor cooking fires in developing countries, all contribute to increased mortality. Recent estimates of the effect of air pollution show that around 9 million extra deaths occur every year due to air pollution, mostly in the developing world. And for each death, there are many more who experience serious negative health outcomes. Cutting the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, would make enormous strides for human health as well as reducing the release of greenhouse gases.
Water pollution is often caused by the dumping of wastes into waterways. Water is a great means of transporting wastes, whether they be from factories, or mines, or even human sewage. The problem comes when these wastes aren't remediated, neutralizing and removing the toxic parts before letting that water enter rivers, lakes and the oceans. Other wastes, known as non-point sources, fall into waterways after being distributed over a large area of land. Rain carries fertilizers and pesticides from farm fields, or oil and other chemicals from roadways, and puts those materials into streams and rivers. Slowing the movement of water over land, having healthy wetlands and vegetation along shores, all help to keep wastes from entering the water. Water pollution causes massive problems to human health, including the spread of disease from untreated sewage, or illness of all kinds from toxic chemicals that may get into the water we drink and use.
Finally there is the pollution of solid wastes, also known as garbage. It turns out that from a sustainability standpoint, non-toxic garbage isn't a grave concern. We are in no danger of running out of places to dig big holes in the ground where we can stack up and bury our discarded stuff. Throwing away so much material may be wasteful, which carries a significant impact in itself, but the disposal doesn't pose such large risks. The problems of physical wastes more often come when toxic materials leach into the surrounding soil and groundwater, or otherwise escape from a landfill. There are some particular problems that come from wastes like plastics, which are now accumulating but not breaking down out in the oceans, but these problems make for more localized threats to wildlife. There is much to be done to divert wastes from landfills, composting all the organic and food wastes, recycling more of the plastics and metals, and so on, but garbage is relatively far down the list as a sustainability concern.
Mostly I wanted to include this short essay to acknowledge all of the wastes that we produce that aren't directly tied to the big problems of climate change and biodiversity loss. Very early in any discussion of environmentally sound behavior the topics of these other sorts of pollution are going to come up. Very often the same solutions can address all of these problems at once. For instance, increasing the efficiency of our energy and resource use means less greenhouse gas emissions, less disturbance of ecosystems, and less production of other forms of pollution.
Saturday 30 December 2017
Thursday 14 December 2017
What can a person actually do to live sustainably? An introduction.
This post is a part of the Manitou Initiative series of articles.
When thinking about solving the problems of sustainability, or any other complex global issue for that matter, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, even helpless. The problems are so large that one wonders whether one person can even have an impact. Don't despair, there is much that you can do. I recommend that you focus on things that you are passionate about, those that you can stick with over time, and those that can make the biggest impact. Don't tie yourself up in knots of guilt, or make changes to your life that are going to make you miserable, as that isn't going to be productive. What we really need to do is to rally the support of whole societies, and one of the ways of doing that is to show naysayers that with sustainability you can 'have your cake and eat it too'. This doesn't mean that we can all live in mansions and drive massive gas guzzling cars, but we could all have homes that are wonderful to live in with readily available transport to get everywhere we need to go. We also need to accept that moving humanity to a sustainable trajectory takes time, with the results taking years or even decades. I personally am putting together a 15 year sustainability plan for my family (to be linked once fully written up).
Just as we must admit that it will be a long road, we are also all at different places upon that path. Someone who is just thinking about sustainability for the first time might be able to dramatically reduce their personal footprint by making those changes that constitute the 'low hanging fruit'. For someone who has already taken many steps to reduce their own impact, their goal could instead be to convince others to improve their own practices, be it friends and family, or the businesses and government that provide us with our goods and services. People also have different means to act. If you are a renter who works long hours just to make ends meet, it may be harder to make major changes to your behavior than for someone with more time and resources at their disposal. The important thing is that each of us who cares about sustainability and the future of our world acts, and does what they can.
The details to follow about the scope of what must be done are daunting, so I want to mention just a few promising trends. Though we are currently using too much land and releasing too many greenhouse gases, there are technologies coming available that will help to solve many of the problems that earlier technologies have caused. For instance, in the realm of energy wind and solar are now the cheapest form of energy generation in some places, and both are growing exponentially while starting to displace fossil fuel use. New agricultural technology, such as 'precision farming', increases yields while reducing inputs and pollution. Technology can and will do some of the heavy lifting for us, but we still need a culture that will adopt the best of technologies and practices as quickly as possible.
Where are we now? Where do we need to get to?
To understand the basic numbers of sustainability, it helps to describe them at the level of the individual - you, or any person living a modern lifestyle in a rich country. The easiest way to do this is to start with the total amounts of emissions, energy and land use, and then divide that by the number of people (I've done a version of this for my own family's energy use here). This is then the average amount that is used on behalf of each person in a society. Roughly one third of that energy is personal consumption, from building and heating our homes, to driving our cars, to our food, clothes, and electronics. Another third is each person's portion of the energy used by businesses and organizations that provide us with goods and services - a part of the energy to keep the lights on at your hospital is being used on your behalf. Finally, everything that governments do is (at least in theory) on behalf of its citizens, so of all of the energy used to maintain roads or armies or the IRS, a chunk of that is for each and every one of us. We can then compare those numbers with the estimates that ecologists and other scientists can give us about what sorts of levels are actually sustainable. The gap between the status quo and the sustainable level shows us the work we need to do. There are three things that I want you to consider, total energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and land use (we'll leave aside other resources such as water for the time-being).
Total energy use isn't actually something that we need to worry about for its own sake. If we had infinite clean energy, every person could use as much as they want. However, we don't live in this magical world, and there are greenhouse gas, pollution, and land use costs to all the energy that we use. Tracking energy use is relatively straightforward to do and is very linked to greenhouse gases and land use, and there are good records for it. In the US, the total consumption of energy per capita is about 230 kilowatt hours (kWh) per day. Each person's share is about 8 times as much energy as a typical house consumes in a day. Using energy much more wisely and efficiently could allow us, over time, to reduce this total by a factor of 3 or 4 times, down to perhaps 60 kWh per person per day.
Greenhouse gas production is tightly linked to total energy use, especially considering how much of our energy currently comes from fossil fuels. In 2017, the American per capita production of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) is about 16 tons. The overall global average is 4 tons. The 2015 Paris Climate Accord, agreed upon by virtually every nation in the world, seeks to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. To accomplish this requires that we reduce global per capita emissions down to less than 2 tons CO2e per person. This means that we need to figure out how to reduce our emissions in rich countries down to 1/8, or 12%, of their current level. There is an enormous amount of work to do here.
In terms of land use, we need to have space for ourselves and to grow our agricultural and timber products, while at the same time leaving room for all of the non-human species that we share the planet with. With the human population closing in on 8 billion, there are only 5 acres per person of total land area. Humanity has now pushed into just about every nook and cranny of the planet, so we need to be good stewards of what we use. Of all that land, about 1/3 is uninhabitable desert and glacier, 1/3 is agricultural, 1/4 is forest, leaving 1/10 for everything else. Urban areas use about 1/100 of all land. Humanity is already using almost all of the prime territory for agriculture, and there is very little frontier left to grow into, especially since we want to preserve what natural spaces we have left. On top of that the world's population is still growing, expected to reach 10 billion by the end of the century. Put all together, we need to reduce our impacts so that we can provide for the needs of each person on less than 2 acres of land, an area the size of two football fields. This area needs to provide all of each person's food, as well as many of the other products that they use, wood, paper, leather, cotton, and so on. Optimally we would be cutting in half the amount of land that we are using to provide for each person's needs.
What can we do about it?
I'll go much more in depth on each of the following topics in further posts (each header will receive at least one post), but there are really three types of actions that a person can take that can improve sustainability, which are: reduce our own consumption of goods and services, take direct actions that improve sustainability, and to work to encourage others to do the same.
Personal consumption
-Housing and home energy use
-Food and diet
-Transport
-The stuff that we buy and own
-The services that we use
Personal direct action to improve sustainability
Personal clean energy production - such as rooftop solar
Career and work that directly promotes sustainability
Land stewardship
Improving the sustainability of others' actions
Influence others in your life on their sustainability practices
Volunteer with or donate to charities or non-profits that promote sustainability
Advocacy with governments and/or businesses to improve their sustainability practices
When thinking about solving the problems of sustainability, or any other complex global issue for that matter, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, even helpless. The problems are so large that one wonders whether one person can even have an impact. Don't despair, there is much that you can do. I recommend that you focus on things that you are passionate about, those that you can stick with over time, and those that can make the biggest impact. Don't tie yourself up in knots of guilt, or make changes to your life that are going to make you miserable, as that isn't going to be productive. What we really need to do is to rally the support of whole societies, and one of the ways of doing that is to show naysayers that with sustainability you can 'have your cake and eat it too'. This doesn't mean that we can all live in mansions and drive massive gas guzzling cars, but we could all have homes that are wonderful to live in with readily available transport to get everywhere we need to go. We also need to accept that moving humanity to a sustainable trajectory takes time, with the results taking years or even decades. I personally am putting together a 15 year sustainability plan for my family (to be linked once fully written up).
Just as we must admit that it will be a long road, we are also all at different places upon that path. Someone who is just thinking about sustainability for the first time might be able to dramatically reduce their personal footprint by making those changes that constitute the 'low hanging fruit'. For someone who has already taken many steps to reduce their own impact, their goal could instead be to convince others to improve their own practices, be it friends and family, or the businesses and government that provide us with our goods and services. People also have different means to act. If you are a renter who works long hours just to make ends meet, it may be harder to make major changes to your behavior than for someone with more time and resources at their disposal. The important thing is that each of us who cares about sustainability and the future of our world acts, and does what they can.
The details to follow about the scope of what must be done are daunting, so I want to mention just a few promising trends. Though we are currently using too much land and releasing too many greenhouse gases, there are technologies coming available that will help to solve many of the problems that earlier technologies have caused. For instance, in the realm of energy wind and solar are now the cheapest form of energy generation in some places, and both are growing exponentially while starting to displace fossil fuel use. New agricultural technology, such as 'precision farming', increases yields while reducing inputs and pollution. Technology can and will do some of the heavy lifting for us, but we still need a culture that will adopt the best of technologies and practices as quickly as possible.
Where are we now? Where do we need to get to?
To understand the basic numbers of sustainability, it helps to describe them at the level of the individual - you, or any person living a modern lifestyle in a rich country. The easiest way to do this is to start with the total amounts of emissions, energy and land use, and then divide that by the number of people (I've done a version of this for my own family's energy use here). This is then the average amount that is used on behalf of each person in a society. Roughly one third of that energy is personal consumption, from building and heating our homes, to driving our cars, to our food, clothes, and electronics. Another third is each person's portion of the energy used by businesses and organizations that provide us with goods and services - a part of the energy to keep the lights on at your hospital is being used on your behalf. Finally, everything that governments do is (at least in theory) on behalf of its citizens, so of all of the energy used to maintain roads or armies or the IRS, a chunk of that is for each and every one of us. We can then compare those numbers with the estimates that ecologists and other scientists can give us about what sorts of levels are actually sustainable. The gap between the status quo and the sustainable level shows us the work we need to do. There are three things that I want you to consider, total energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and land use (we'll leave aside other resources such as water for the time-being).
Total energy use isn't actually something that we need to worry about for its own sake. If we had infinite clean energy, every person could use as much as they want. However, we don't live in this magical world, and there are greenhouse gas, pollution, and land use costs to all the energy that we use. Tracking energy use is relatively straightforward to do and is very linked to greenhouse gases and land use, and there are good records for it. In the US, the total consumption of energy per capita is about 230 kilowatt hours (kWh) per day. Each person's share is about 8 times as much energy as a typical house consumes in a day. Using energy much more wisely and efficiently could allow us, over time, to reduce this total by a factor of 3 or 4 times, down to perhaps 60 kWh per person per day.
Greenhouse gas production is tightly linked to total energy use, especially considering how much of our energy currently comes from fossil fuels. In 2017, the American per capita production of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) is about 16 tons. The overall global average is 4 tons. The 2015 Paris Climate Accord, agreed upon by virtually every nation in the world, seeks to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. To accomplish this requires that we reduce global per capita emissions down to less than 2 tons CO2e per person. This means that we need to figure out how to reduce our emissions in rich countries down to 1/8, or 12%, of their current level. There is an enormous amount of work to do here.
In terms of land use, we need to have space for ourselves and to grow our agricultural and timber products, while at the same time leaving room for all of the non-human species that we share the planet with. With the human population closing in on 8 billion, there are only 5 acres per person of total land area. Humanity has now pushed into just about every nook and cranny of the planet, so we need to be good stewards of what we use. Of all that land, about 1/3 is uninhabitable desert and glacier, 1/3 is agricultural, 1/4 is forest, leaving 1/10 for everything else. Urban areas use about 1/100 of all land. Humanity is already using almost all of the prime territory for agriculture, and there is very little frontier left to grow into, especially since we want to preserve what natural spaces we have left. On top of that the world's population is still growing, expected to reach 10 billion by the end of the century. Put all together, we need to reduce our impacts so that we can provide for the needs of each person on less than 2 acres of land, an area the size of two football fields. This area needs to provide all of each person's food, as well as many of the other products that they use, wood, paper, leather, cotton, and so on. Optimally we would be cutting in half the amount of land that we are using to provide for each person's needs.
What can we do about it?
I'll go much more in depth on each of the following topics in further posts (each header will receive at least one post), but there are really three types of actions that a person can take that can improve sustainability, which are: reduce our own consumption of goods and services, take direct actions that improve sustainability, and to work to encourage others to do the same.
Personal consumption
-Housing and home energy use
-Food and diet
-Transport
-The stuff that we buy and own
-The services that we use
Personal direct action to improve sustainability
Personal clean energy production - such as rooftop solar
Career and work that directly promotes sustainability
Land stewardship
Improving the sustainability of others' actions
Influence others in your life on their sustainability practices
Volunteer with or donate to charities or non-profits that promote sustainability
Advocacy with governments and/or businesses to improve their sustainability practices
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