Thursday, June 8, 2017

Letter to the editor

Dear Merri,

This year has taught me so much in terms of sustainability and in terms of life as a whole. At the beginning of the year, I talked about how sustainability is equivalent to respect. This relationship between sustainability and respect still holds true to me, but I have seen how much deeper this relationship goes with the more I learn. Earlier this year, I did not know that sustainability had to do with social issues. These social issues are rooted in disrespect and could be solved by actually respecting people and their opinions. My idea of what sustainability is really hasn't changed, but the greater implications that it has become more evident to me after this sequence.

It has been three years since you have taken this class and I hope that you are doing well and living by our sustainability ethic. There are a couple of things that I set out to do that I hope you are still living by. One is that I hope you aren't using disposable plastic products anymore. If you think you respect the environment and are still using those utensils, then you are wrong. It's not too hard to carry your own utensils so you don't have to waste more plastic than is necessary. Another thing that I hope that you are doing is shopping for what you need and not just for what you want. There are so many things you don't need but buy, which is what is causing so many problems in our world. Don't BUY into that consumeristic lifestyle and be more mindful of your purchases. This counts for food as well and you should not be eating out as much as well. I hope you are respecting all people and all things on earth. That is probably one of the most important things that I hope that you are doing because it is so important for the sustainability of our earth and our people. If you don't respect anything, then you're living a very selfish life and I don't know you anymore. So please respect people and the environment through your actions, words, and ideas.

Lastly, I hope that you are keeping up with this blog. I think it is important for you to keep writing and getting your ideas out there and it will make sticking to your sustainability ethic so much easier. Keep writing and keep loving. It's been real fun.

Sincerely,
Merri


Tuesday, May 30, 2017

I've got to be rank with you

Everything in our lives needs to be ranked so we know where we stand with others. No one ever wants to be last or even in the middle of the pack. Our aims are usually for the best ranking, except when the ranking is for a bad quality. There are so many ranking systems in this world and they are all based on differing criteria.

Even for sustainability ranking, there are many different systems with many different indicators. One system that I looked at was the Global Sustainable Competitive Index. This index looks at several factors when deciding who has the best sustainable competitiveness or sustainable growth. The factors include governance, intellectual capital, social capital, resource management, and natural capital. They rank each nation on each of these factors on how sustainable their practices are and how effective as well. Some nations rank higher on some factors and lower on others. They use the results from the subrankings in the overall rankings.

There are some challenges with these kinds of ranking systems. Not all information for every individual country is available for every person to use, which could make some countries better or worse if that information was available. Another challenge would be to rank countries with similar scores because what small factor would cause one nation to be better than the other if they were nearly identical? Another issue is that it is hard to compare apples to oranges and assign a score when the two aren't even related. They do have systems in place to take care of these challenges, however, they cannot be 100% perfect.

The goals of this ranking system is to show a much more rounded picture of GDP that takes into account social, environmental, and governmental factors that are otherwise left out of GDP calculations and projections. Rather than just focusing on "prosperity," the Global Sustainable Competitive Index looks at the ability of a nation to provide for the needs of its people today without compromising the needs of future generations and allowing growing wealth without depleting natural, social, and intellectual capital. This makes for a more encompassing ranking which shows which nations are using all of their resources and capital wisely.

The ranking system seems mainly holistic, but could potentially be missing several factors that others may deem necessary like air quality or ability to use renewable energies.  I think that the system provides a great approach to ranking nations for sustainability and competitiveness.

In my opinion, the US ranked pretty high considering its focus on growth of wealth above the environment and its people. The US typically likes to believe it is the best nation in the world and that its this huge powerhouse. Whenever a ranking system puts them in the middle of the pack, it puts things into perspective for many Americans. If we were to have been ranked higher on this list, I don't think people would feel the need to care about improving anything in America. But if others were to see the current ranking they may feel inclined to speak up about it. So its good that America is not ranked the best because there is room for improvement.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Parks for All, All for Parks

Urban Ecology is an organization that works with communities in the Bay Area to establish more environmentally friendly and more socially equal urban design. A lot of environmental racism stems from inadequate and unequal distribution of parks and open spaces. The initiative focuses on removing that unequal distribution to make the Bay Area a better place for everyone; not just those who can afford it.

They had one project in Oakland that emphasized working with community members to get people to use underutlized parks. The people in these areas were characterized by poor health, such as asthma and obesity, and sedentary lives. Urban Ecology led many workshops and town meetings to work to get people to use three parks in the area. They wanted to create programs that would entice people to go out and be active, while improving their lives entirely. They set out to create better parks that people would actually use. To do so, they partnered with local organizations such as the East Bay Asian Youth Center. Together they went to work on improving school yards and other playgrounds in the area.

Another interesting project that they worked on was redesigning BART stations in the Mission District. These BART stations were very uninviting and unsafe, making very few people want to get off at these stops. Urban Ecology worked with local businesses and the community to come up with designs that would improve business and improve the safety of the community. This paired with other revitilization projects in the area have contributed to a rebranding of the district as a whole. The community is more vibrant and welcoming and has increased the productivity of business.

Urban Ecology has definitely taken the people and the environment into account during its projects. These projects are helping to make lives better for everyone in the Bay Area and it is great to see that!

Monday, May 8, 2017

CCL striking a chord

Before today, I had not heard of CCL. At first, I thought we were going to be visited by CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and that would have seriously rocked. But, I'm sure CCL will also manage to strike a chord with us global sustainability kids.

The main policy objectives that CCL addresses are regarding their Carbon Fee and Dividend Policy. This policy is pretty cool. According to their website, CCL claims that it will reduce carbon emissions to 50% of the levels in 1990 and add 2.8 million jobs in the next twenty years. This sounds awesome, but how will they achieve that?

The first part of the plan is to impose a Carbon Fee. The carbon fee would be minimal to start, roughly $15 per ton CO2 equivalent. Each year the fee will go up by atleast $10 per ton, depending on how well they met the goal in the previous year. This kind of incremental building will influence the fossil fuel industry and companies that rely on fossil fuels to run their systems to decrease their dependence. Decreasing the dependence will save them money in the long run and decrease the amount of emissions being released. This will help to foster more support of renewable energy systems, which produce much less or no carbon emissions.

The second part of the plan is to pay dividends to households from the the Carbon Trust. Paying households will allow for lower income families from being left behind with the increases in energy costs due to renewable energies and higher priced fossil fuels. It is interesting to see this sort of social safety net to help foster the decrease in fossil fuel dependency. Rather than just focusing on the environment, which is typically a problem with environmental policy, this idea combines environmentalism with sociocentric ideas that help to alleviate poverty and progress society as a whole.

This plan is pretty interesting as a whole. It will be interesting if they can actually get bipartisan support on these ideas because even though it is economically ideal, it is still not an idea that I feel many republicans will support.

My question for the CCL would be how long they think it will take to get enough bipartisan support to actually make this plan a reality.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Is it God? No, it's David Suzuki

DAVID SUZUKI IS SO COOL.

It had to be said. Not only does David Suzuki denounce Trump and all of this anti-science sentiment, he is also a man with great metaphors and phrases. David Suzuki is the first man I have ever listened to and truly respected every word that he had to say. David feels like one of my best pals and I haven't even met him yet. He speaks so wonderfully and has a lot of logic in reasoning in his arguments, which sadly is a breath of fresh air.

In the video I watch, David Suzuki was confronting the Australia media on how climate change does not stop when the rain comes. Australia's climate is conducive to drought and is not very well suited for an extensive human population. During the last drought, they built desalination plants to provide fresh water to the people so that they could endure the drought. The drought ended with immense amounts of rain, which led people to believe that climate change was no longer an issue and that they had wasted all of their money on these desalination plants that will never be used again. But Australia's climate has historically shown periods of droughts followed by periods of wet years, so it doesn't make sense to believe that they will never have a drought again and will never use their desalination plants again. David Suzuki was asked by the news station if he thought that climate change was rubbish since there was rain. OF COURSE DAVID SUZUKI STILL BELIEVES THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS A BIG DEAL!!!! He goes on to talk about how Australia should be at the forefront of combatting climate change since its one of the places in the world that will be the hardest hit by the implications of increased temperatures and ocean acidification. David relates his experience diving in the Great Barrier Reef in the 80's to the present and he says there is a significant difference. This difference should be enough to convince anyone that things are changing within our climate systems.

David Suzuki draws out that the government in Australia was hands-off which should have fostered a more scientifically driven political scene, however, it led to the opposite where they barely believe anymore. David believes it is the job of the political system to inform people of the claims that science is offering - which 97% of science agrees that climate change is the real deal. Without arguing and defeating the media, David made his point that the spread of information is key to inciting a more environmentally aware world where we work with nature instead of against it. David's most persuasive point was when he said "What will we have to rely on, the  Bible, Quran, or the corporations?" which he said to point out that science is the only objective and logical way to approach these ideas. I don't think that he was trying to denounce religion in this point, but science needs to be spread like these ideas. Without the spread of science, people are going to believe that one instance of rainfall ends droughts forever. We need more Davids in this world!

POLITICS AND SUSTAINABILITY: Dr.David Suzuki 'Are We Going to Rely on the Bible, the Qu'ran or Corporations'? (YOUTUBE)

Monday, April 24, 2017

A Very Merri Life

Objective: To share how I'm applying my degree and trying to making this world a better place.

About a year ago, I was applying to various internships that related to my studies, Earth System Science. To all of the internships I applied to, I received rejections even though I thought I was well qualified for the work. I was extremely bummed because I had nothing to do for the summer to interest me or better my resume. So I coached water polo, hoping to make some money. In July, my neighbor gave some lady he carpooled with to work my information because she was looking for someone to help her get started with her environmental consulting business. I didn't know that this lady was about to call me and give me the best opportunity that I have ever had. 

I started working for my boss lady in July and have tackled many tasks, most of them involving me entering receipts into Quickbooks and budgeting projects. The great thing about my job is that it is just me and the boss lady taking on the world. I get a lot of attention and a lot of experience. Within the first two months of working, I went on a business trip with my boss to New York and New Jersey to do environmental compliance audits for one of our clients. It was crazy how quickly I became so emerged into the business. Two weeks after that first business trip, I went on my second one. Alone. I was needed to go to the Bay Area and do an Exit Inspection and to update the CERS inventory at one of their sites. It's completely insane to me how she even trusted me enough to do that trip alone after only working with her for less than two full months. But she wants me to gain as much experience with her as I can, and I could not be anymore grateful. 

So, I get a lot of opportunities to get work experience and improve upon my skills, but what does this have to do with anything but me? Well...

The work that I do is environmental compliance work. My job is to make sure our clients are in compliance with federal and state environmental regulations. These regulations are sometimes hard to understand or tedious, so many companies hire environmental consultants to perform the work for them. Many consultants are in the game to make money, but money is only a part of it for my company. Every day, we go to work to make sure that companies don't continue to be unaware or ill-advised about their practices. Many people don't like regulations, but these regulations make a humongous difference! People in LA used not be able to see anything because of air pollution. Thanks to the Clean Air Act and other regulations, air pollution dropped significantly. What I work with mostly is the NPDES which stands for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System and it is a program run by the US EPA along with the cooperation of the states. This system provides a way for companies to be held reliable for non-point and direct pollution to our waterways. This program helps to prevent large spills and large non-point pollution events because it is proactive rather than reactive. You have to make sure that you don't have any possible contaminants that could be touched by rainfall on your property or otherwise you get fined big time. Since this program has been in place, our waterways have vastly improved in quality and ecosystem health. There is still a long ways to go with many waterways, but it is awesome to know that what I do every day is contributing making that happen. 

If it weren't for consultants and other environmental people like me, companies would continue to discharge straight to waterways, making everything in life worse. I like to believe that what I do everyday contributes to making the world a little bit better. Honestly, that's always been my goal and I hope that my little bit can reach a huge bit by the time I am done on this earth.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

It's all Berry Interesting...

Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, and a farmer. Berry was born in 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky amidst the turmoil of the Great Depression. Berry grew up on a fifth generation tobacco farm in rural Kentucky. He grew up working on the farm with his family. Berry's mother was  a huge reader, which helped to spark Berry's interest in literature. He went to Millersburg Military Instituted and the University of Kentucky with a BA and MS in English. At UK, he met his wife Tanya Amyx, who he had two children with. After university, Berry went on to become a fellow at Stanford's creative writing program. Berry was recognized as a Guggenheim Fellow and lived in Tuscany for a year working along many great writers. After his time away, he worked as a professor at NYU for two years before returning back to Kentucky to work as a farmer. While on the farm, Berry wrote many novels, poems, short stories, and essays. Berry's first novel, Nathan Coulter, a book about a young boy coming of age, was published in 1960. Most of Berry's work reflected the ideal that one's work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place. Berry felt akin to people who showed their connection to their home through their works, like Henry Thoreau and his good pal Harry Caudil. Some of Barry's major themes included the ingenuity of nature, respect for locals and local knowledge, and a deep Christian appreciation for our obligations to each other. Barry was also wary of technology and how it would ultimately destroy our connection with nature.

Berry's farmer life definitely helped him to develop his ideas for his literary works as well as form his ideas on life. Berry was an activist for the peace and the environment, writing letters and articles for papers against the Vietnam War and the installation of a nuclear power plant in Indiana. Berry also wrote activist papers to the Bush administration after 9/11 and how they should handle National Security. Berry continues to write today about how the world is at risk to modernization. Berry also continues to join in on protests for the environment and even cut ties with the University of Kentucky in order to continue to protest the coal industry. Berry is very true to himself which makes his writing very interesting and more convincing than most other writers of any time period.

Berry has formed the Berry Center in Kentucky "for the purpose of bringing focus, knowledge and cohesiveness to the work of changing our ruinous industrial agriculture system into a system and culture that uses nature as the standard, accepts no permanent damage to the ecosphere, and takes into consideration human health in local communities." (Wikipedia). Much of Berry's activism has been in the form of protest or through written work. He has had to face many different administrations with various ecological agendas. No matter the issue, he stuck true to his beliefs and fought for them before his own concern. The fact that Berry shows so much concern for the issues he fights against makes his writing hold more grip in the literary world. It was definitely interesting to learn this about him before reading through his essay about wildlife preservation.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Where to start?

There are many topics in this world that I would love to write about for ten weeks in my global sustainability seminar. There are so many things wrong with the world that I want to fix and explore, but I can only choose three at the moment. So here we go.

Some interesting topics include the following:

BEE-utiful World:
 It would BEE neat to explore how climate change and human interactions are affecting pollinating species across the world and what can be done to help preserve their numbers. As temperatures increase, geographic ranges of plants are changing. It would be interesting to see how they are responding.

Google Time!
Wow. Bees and other pollinators are at extreme risk due to climate change. This is mostly due to the fact that climate change can mess up the time-syncing between pollinators and plants. If plants are blooming too early for honeybees and other pollinators to reproduce at, then those plants cannot be pollinated and the honeybees get overwhelmed or just can't harvest enough to keep their clan going. Obviously pesticides are also an issue because they are killing bees and other pollinators even if its not its intended purpose. There are so many deep issues with these guys.

GMO-OMG:
 Another topic could be delving into how using GMO's can actually be sustainable and improve lives. All crops today are GMOs, whether they were created in a lab or out in the field. GMOs can be designed to use less space to grow, use less water, and produce more food which would help to solve population growth problems along with many other problems.

Google Time!
GMO's, like I said before, are prevalent in all parts of the world through the process of natural selection and actual bioengineering. But most of the GMO's out there focus on duplicating DNA or inserting DNA from other plants, which isn't that dangerous. The real danger GMO's pose is the loss of biodiversity and the inability of the poorer farmer to be able to compete with big brands. But GMO's can be engineered to use less water, which would drastically reduce the amount of water being used in agriculture. As a number one user of water, it would be awesome if they were able to reduce water intake per pound of food.

State of the Environment:
 It would be interesting to look at how governments around the world are presenting the idea of sustainability and what they are doing to actually reduce their environmental impacts. There are many countries that are working towards combatting climate change while others are ignoring it. *cough cough* the united states president *cough cough*.

Google Time!
There is so much going on in our world with our new president. This guy doesn't believe that the world is getting hotter because of us. If he looked back when he was a young fella, he would have remembered that he was not able to see a clear skyline in any city because of all of the pollution. Administering regulations in the US has lead to better air quality than ever. Around the world, countries are taking large steps in the way of sustainability and improving their environment. Germany implements more solar panels than the US with much less area and much less sun. Sweden has the lowest carbon emissions and uses the most renewable energy in the world! There are countries that are doing it right and there are countries not doing enough. It would be cool to explore that.

After all of this exploring, I'm still uncertain which topic to choose because there are so many different ways to go with each of them. If I were to choose one though, I would choose the GMO's because I feel like there is a lot of good literature available that will help me in my search to find out how GMO's can relate to sustainability.


Saturday, March 4, 2017

Let's Save the World

This past week I went to a seminar on water resources and conflict-resolution. After the seminar, I was talking with some people who had attended the seminar and we all said what we were doing and what we wanted to do in our futures. I told them that I wanted to save the world. A tall task, but something that can be achieved with an accumulation of small actions. There was a teacher in middle school that had said that you should try to leave the world in a better state than when you entered it. I have carried this notion with me since hearing it and I have based my life around this.

My current life is pretty comfortable. With this excess in comfort comes an excess in resource consumption. Over the last couple of months, I have been trying to lessen my impact on this earth. Frankly, it's really hard. Nonetheless, I continue to bring consciousness into my daily actions and decisions so that I can be a better friend to mother nature. I have been putting in the effort to reduce the number of times a week that I eat out and I nearly always bring a reusable cup when I get my coffee in the mornings. Also, I have increased the amount of composting that occurs in my household, which we use to grow the plants in our garden. Whenever I can, I try to carpool with people so that the emissions between us are reduced. I'm a speedy showerer and I try to beat my record each shower. When I go out to eat, I usually order a vegetarian meal instead of meat or I avoid red meat since its more expensive and resource intensive. At this point in my life, I am proud of my accomplishments and I hope to always improve upon them so that I can inspire others to make similar changes.

I believe that small changes can make a huge difference. Dr. Brower and Dr. Leon suggest some wonderful small steps to leading a more sustainable lifestyle. We have touched upon each of these items in our capstone series. There are several actions that I can personally control in my life like eating less meat, eating organic, and using sustainable transportation. When it comes to items regarding where I live, unfortunately, I do not have much if any control. Living at home with a family that has established ways makes it hard to make changes, especially when I'm not home that much to discuss these issues with them. Fortunately, everyone except for me lives close to school or work. While I'm in school, I have to live at home to reduce costs and because I don't work enough to make money to sustain living on my own quite yet. But, the changes that I can try to make for my contribution to my household can make some great changes in the world.

In my opinion, even the smallest action can have an impact. It's like the butterfly effect; if you change one tiny thing in history, the future can change. I feel like the same thing can happen when you make lifestyle changes. No one should ever get discouraged if they are making a small change. If you get change at the grocery store and you save it in a piggy bank, eventually you will have enough money to make another purchase. You can use your 'change' to treat earth the way it should be. If you start by making small changes, making larger changes won't be as difficult. Sweeping changes are still necessary if we want to make the largest possible difference on this earth, but we can't just force people to make major changes without preparing for them or even understanding why they should do them. As I reach the end of the capstone sequence, I realize that there are many small changes that I have made in my life. While I move on from this experience, I am going to be working on making larger changes that will hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Getting off of the Grid

The current electrical grid system is being challenged by the idea of fuel cells. Fuel cells convert chemical energy to electrical energy through various chemical reactions. There are many benefits to installing and implementing these fuel cells. Environmentally, fuel cells are much better than the current electrical grid because they emit far fewer criteria pollutants and create very little noise. The fact that they do not emit many emissions, let alone far fewer criteria pollutants is very impressive. With nearly no noise created by fuel cells, power plants or even individual cells for homes could be located closer to cities and communities, which reduce the distance that the energy would have to travel to be utilized. Fuel cells are also relatively efficient in producing energy, roughly between 30 and 60% efficient when used without other fuel systems. When paired with a gas turbine, efficiency increases to over 70%. When the byproduct of heat is reentered into the system, efficiency of the fuel cell can reach 85%. Fuel cells release heat as a byproduct, which can be used in different processes that include boilers, domestic hot water, space heating loops, swimming pools, and absorption cooling thermal loads. Fuel cells are also much more reliable than the current methods for energy production. They are less subject to interruptions, such as storms or power failures. Power plants with fuel cells can produce the same quality of energy as contemporary energy systems. They are easy to permit and do not require air permits since there are nearly no emissions. Fuel cells are very modular and operate at constant efficiencies. Overall, fuel cells look pretty darn good.

However, there are some downsides to using fuel cells as a main source of energy. Fuel cells are very expensive and require large initial investments to use. A lot of work is going into decreasing these costs to make the fuel cell more competitive with other energy sources. Fuel cells also heavily rely on hydrogen as its main input which is obtained from natural gas and other fossil fuels. By allowing more fuels to be used to run these cells will allow for costs to go down and for less dependence on just one kind of fuel that might not always be available. Integrating the fuel cells into our current grid system is a major challenge for researchers and promoters. The grid is very established and changing it will cost a lot of money. Also, fuel infrastructure and human infrastructure has to change to be able to handle and supply this kind of energy. The government will also have some issues trying to figure out how to regulate fuel cells so that they are safe and produced properly.

It's crazy to think that UCI is the leader of fuel cell research and other outstanding sustainability research. We are the first school with hydrogen fuel cell buses that emit no carbon emissions. We are also the only school to offer a graduate course on fuel cells. It's also great that Orange County is stepping up its game and investing and implementing fuel cells to reduce emissions. Orange County is a leader in air quality standards and strive to reduce emissions to preserve the air.

A question I have is how long can one fuel cell last?

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Saving the extra mile

This past week we discussed transportation and its implications on sustainability. As a commuter, I already know that what I'm doing is completely unsustainable and this discussion session made me feel really bad about my current habits. But there are other ways to reduce my transportation footprint than just not driving my car. It would be really difficult for me to be able to get to school, work, and water polo without using my car since I don't live close to any of these places. So finding alternative methods to reduce my impacts was really helpful.

This week I decided to cut bananas from my diet because they travel a long ways to end up on my kitchen counter. Typically, I would eat one banana a day because they are the ultimate on-the-go snack and/or meal. So instead of grabbing a banana, I grabbed grapes in the morning before I left for work each morning. The grapes were grown in California, which means that they traveled far fewer miles to enter into my fridge than the bananas did to reach my counter. Grapes taste just as good as bananas, so the switch was definitely easy. Unfortunately, it takes a lot more grapes to fill me up than it would for one banana to. But I would like to think it is still better for me to eat the grapes than the bananas because of the less amounts of transport required and less packaging changes. However, grapes actually require packaging when you buy them from the store while bananas usually just have stickers. The grapes packaging is recyclable though, so maybe it is still okay and I would assume it undergoes fewer package changes. This switch was not too difficult for me to do and I feel like it made a difference.

On Friday, I arranged a carpool with my friend to school and to work. What made this carpool pretty supreme was that my friend's car is electric, making my impact even smaller! It's tough to give up your car for a day and be totally reliant on somebody else and be able to be flexible with their schedule. Fortunately for me, my friend and I have about the same schedule for work and school. This made it easier on both of us to actually go through with this. I chose to carpool with my friend because it made a lot of sense for me to initiate it since we both go to the same places and since I live on her route to and from school. To be honest, I think that this was more difficult for my friend than for me because she had to remember to pick me up. Usually she just drives to school without having to get off the freeway, but on Friday, she had to remember to get off at my street! This was a great way for me to reduce my driving impact because it took little effort on my part and allowed me to not emit much or any green house gases from my vehicle. It makes a lot of sense to carpool with someone who has an electric car because the benefits are just endless.

This week was not as challenging as I thought it would be. I'm glad I made some good life changes that I hope to continue to implement into my life as the days go on.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

(R)Evolving Respect

In the Fall, I had written a post about my sustainability ethic. In that post I talked about how I equate sustainability with respect. Today, I still believe that the roots of sustainability are in the principles of respect. As I said before, sustainability is respecting resources, respecting current generations, and respecting future generations. My thoughts on this have not wavered very much and if they have, they have wavered to expand my ideas on how very important respect is to preserving the earth.

Each week of the sustainability capstone series has introduced me to new topics that have broadened my view and knowledge about sustainability. Sustainability is more than just making resources last and improving the environment. Sustainability is about how we can make the world a better place for all that inhabit it. This entails social justice as well as environmental justice, which all chalk down to respect. We have to respect the issues that other parts of the world endure while respecting the resources that we drain with our comparatively lavish lifestyles here in California. We have to respect that people need to survive before they can worry about preserving fish populations and that we need to respect the fact that they might not want to follow the rules that are created by developed countries that form guidelines on how developing countries should develop. It's crazy how interconnected throughout policy that sustainability is. Almost every topic in the political and environmental realm can be weaved into the quilt that is sustainability.

I still struggle every day to meet my sustainability ethic because it is difficult to always remember to live up to it when I am so busy and don't know what I had for lunch that day. But, I have definitely stepped up my game since fall quarter, making small changes in my life that I hope will have some impacts on the earth and the people that I interact with. Since fall quarter, I have reduced my consumption of fast food, thus reducing the amount of unnecessary packaging and other food wastes. I have also increased my composting efforts on a family wide basis in my home. Instead of getting plastic cups for my iced coffee, I have started bringing a reusable cup to Dunkin Donuts when I get my coffee in the morning. Also, I have reduced the amount of times a week that I go there, saving gas and money. I tried cutting meat from my diet, but I have had a rough couple of weeks emotionally and it was hard to make a transition as significant as this. As my life starts to settle down, I will do my best to get back on track. Although I have lots of flaws and struggles, I am more aware of what I am doing wrong or that is against my morals, which is a large part of being able to make more sustainable choices in my life. I'm still working on it, but I have definitely improved upon my ethic since the fall.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Leading the Shirtless

Being a leader is hard and is often a role that I fall into, despite being opposed to doing so. But sometimes, you have to stand up and be that leader that others need. Usually, I become a leader in familiar environments where I know the people or I know the situation. I think it would be increasingly difficult if I was trying to be a leader where I knew nothing and knew no one. *cough cough Mr. President*

Since I have some experience with being a leader, whether it had been as team captain for water polo or a group leader for a project, I should be able to apply my experience to some new topics that I have been learning about. Sustainability is starting to gain a good amount of ground these days because of brave leaders and first followers. I aspire to join the movements that others have started in the sustainability field, but first, I feel that it is important for me to understand what I am doing before I try to inspire others to do the same. Some of the qualities that I feel that I would need to gain before becoming a great leader in the sustainability world include being bold, unafraid of criticism, friendly, accepting of contrasting ideals, calm, and courageous. To be a leader, you most definitely have to be bold because you are trying to make a statement and bolding makes your statement stand out and makes it worth reading. You must also be unafraid of criticism because in order to lead a successful movement, you should be able to accept criticisms to create the most alluring and successful movements. Being friendly is just good for life and for making a safe space for others to feel welcome which will help to grow our movement. To me, the hardest thing about being a leader is to accept that not everyone will have the same ideals as you and you can't  change everyone. Sometimes you have to accept that they have those ideals and you can't fight them on it. Any strong leader is calm, cool, and collected and acts on rationality opposed to on sole emotions. In the political atmosphere today, it is hard to find a calm person who uses rationality along with their emotions to lead their follows. And in the words of Rachel Green, "You gotta have courage." An ideal leader will embrace all of these aspects.

Being a first follower is incredible. I think it takes more guts than it does to be a leader because you are getting on board with someone who has no following and you are putting yourself completely into the unknown. At least the leader knows what they are doing, or so we hope. A first follower is crucial to getting others to join a cause. Like that shirtless dancing guy's first follower, you have to just embrace the movement and show others that it is ok to accept these ideas. As a very cautious and self aware/self conscious person, I do not think that I have what it takes to be a first follower. Usually, I wait for the approval of my peers before I jump on into the movement. A first follower is a brave soul and I definitely respect them. I have a long ways to go before I gain the confidence in myself to be a first follower. If there's another person being the first follower, I am more likely to join in on the idea. Even the first flow of people to a movement make it easier for me to get on board. As I continue to learn more about the world around me,  I hope to improve my confidence and hopefully take steps closer to the first follower and leader. We will see what I get myself into...

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Mooving Forward

This past weekend I watched Cowspiracy on Netflix and I am questioning everything in my life. This MOOvie hit real close to home because I feel like everything I believe in and support is a complete and UTTER hoax. (I will try to keep my cow puns to a minimum, but no promises). The most interesting and shocking thing in the moovie did not even concern beef; it was about fish! Fish makes up a large majority of tropical nation's diets as well as a good portion of other countries' diets. But fishing in our oceans is unsustainable because no amount of fishing can be supported by the current production. Or at least in the way that fishing is being done today. Most of the fishing that is done today is indiscriminate, meaning that people go out with trawlers and large nets and catch whatever swims into their nets. These nets often catch unwanted fish, including sharks, whales, and dolphins, and these marine organisms often become bykill. Even though sharks, whales, and dolphins are not targeted by fisherman due to international agreements, they still do a whole lot of damage to these populations because they accidentally catch them and are not able to release them before they die. A shocking statistic that the moovie shared was that for every one pound of sustainably caught fish, about five pounds of large marine organisms are also killed. At the rate that fishing is being done, there will be nearly zero fish left in the ocean by 2048. That is insane because the ocean is humongous and most of the fish in the oceans have not even been discovered. This is a crazy problem and is making me reconsider eating fish, even if it says that it was sustainably caught.

Healthy food is not quite the same thing as sustainable food. Eating healthy means getting all of your required nutrients and calories. Eating sustainably means eating food that has small environmental impacts and can support the population for many years to come with minimal environmental degradation. Cowspiracy touched on this indirectly, but nonetheless focused on how cows and other domesticated animals use a lot of resources for a considerably small amount of nutrients. It is not very sustainable to base  your diet on proteins that require a significant amount of resources. It's important to have protein in your diet, but there are other foods that require less inputs that have just as much or more protein than beef. If you think about it, it should be a lot cheaper to live on a sustainable diet because all of the food that you would eat would require less inputs for it to grow. If everyone were to stop eating beef, there would be huge economic losses for people in the agricultural sector. But there does need to be some kind of change that will allow for people to continue to prosper, even while diminishing the amount of cows that they produce. Environmentally, it would be most ideal for the cow industry to die out, but this will never fully happen. People like meat, so it is going to be hard to convince them to stop eating just for the environment. It's definitely going to be hard for me to consider eating meat after that movie, but its also hard for me to not eat meat because it makes up a large part of my diet. What's going to be even more difficult for me to not swallow is less dairy. Dairy uses so much water and grain to produce and is just as bad as eating meat. The vegan doctor in the movie described milk as baby calf growing food because it is designed to make small calves into large cows. We don't necessarily need dairy, it's just one of human's best tasting cultivations.

After watching this moovie, I am seriously reconsidering my diet. I don't feel like I eat a whole ton of meat, but I think I am going to seriously cut down my consumption of meat. Eventually, I'd like to be a vegetarian who enjoys some meat on a rare occasion. Even further down the road, I hope to become a vegan who enjoys cheese every now and again. I don't want to fully cut meat and dairy from my diet because they are delicious. Also, it's unrealistic for me to entirely cut out any food while I'm living at home and not buying my own food. I will be suggesting to my mom to reduce the amount of meat that we have in our house because of the things that I have learned from this moovie. Once I fully mooooove out, I will take serious steps towards becoming full vegetarian and possibly vegan. Until then, I will be focusing on reducing my meat consumption to at least once every two weeks.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Ride into our future

Adonia Lugo is an urban anthropologist who studies the social and environmental impacts of bikes on society. During her research and life, Adonia has influenced communities to increase their reliance on human infrastructure (i.e., walking, riding bikes, etc.). Her main focus has been on advocating for bike transportation in multi-cultural hubs such as in Los Angeles and Seattle. Her advocacy is backed by research and fellow anthropologists who have also been researching similar topics. Adonia has founded and is a member of various groups that promote the idea of biking amongst races and social classes.

One of her ventures is a consulting company for sustainable transportation. Unlike many consulting firms, Bicicultures is run by researchers, professors, and PhD students and/or graduates. Using research, Bicicultures can be hired to provide alternative methods of transportation to local governments, developers, and individuals. One of the most interesting things about Bicicultures is that it was formed by Adonia and two other graduate students. They felt as though what they were researching was not well represented in the literature and wanted to reach out and spread its reach. After starting this initiative, they received inquiries and scientific papers on human infrastructure and sustainable transportation. This place of interconnectedness has really helped them all improve their advocacy and consulting efforts.

Adonia is also an advisory board member of Multicultural Communities for Mobility, which is an organization in Los Angeles that is working with local low-income communities to create bike share programs. These bike share programs are aimed to help mobility through the city so transportation throughout Los Angeles is available to every person, which will increase the ability for people to get to their jobs and social engagements. They also focus on better walkways, bike lanes, and access to all forms of transportation in areas where they are inadequate. Many low income areas are deprived of adequate sidewalks, which is very unsafe and does not promote walking and or bike riding. With the help the Multicultural Communities for Mobility, low income areas can have access to safe transportation methods and will be able to do so in  a sustainable manner.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Tragedy of the Waters

Water is one of the earth's most precious commodities. It is often one of the most abused resources on earth as well. Which doesn't make sense if it is so precious and is the only reason that life can exist. If water means life, then why is preserving and using it responsibly such a huge issue in the sustainability playing field?

Many people don't think about how their water reaches their tap because they don't have to. Water districts in developed societies provide water to their people in managed and mismanaged manners. But municipal water isn't the hugest impairment to sustainable water use. It is in fact, agriculture that uses the largest proportion of water world wide. This makes a good deal of sense since everyone need to eat and all food is dependent on water to grow. Agricultural centers in California and around the US receive huge discounts on the water that they use for their crops and nearly have unlimited access to water. This kind of mentality has led commercial and small farmers to over exploit their resources. In their defense, food is so cheap that they have to grow much more food or grow water intensive cash crops. The agricultural industry is proving to be our generations major Tragedy of the Commons.

We can't stop growing food just because agriculture uses a lot of water. That would be ridiculous. As population continues to rise, more resources are going to be needed to sustain the population. Or at least at our current use and evaluation of resources. Relying on only technical solutions to solve our problems is almost as ridiculous as stopping agriculture. The biggest challenge to the sustainability challenge with water is the fact that people are so set in their ways and would rather find some complex, expensive, scientific way of fixing their problems instead of evaluating what they could do to change their consumption. Like I said earlier, municipal water supply is not a huge proportion of water use. Ideally, the agricultural sector would just start growing less water intensive crops and crops that suit the regions where they are being grown in. That is not going to happen fast enough to help the problems at hand. What would help is changing consumption patterns of the average consumer. Instead of buying almonds grown in Central California, they could buy fresh asparagus from their local farmer's market. There are so many solutions if we really take the time to think about it and try to change our habits. But it's hard and that's why we always desire a technical solution. Unfortunately, the Tragedy of the Commons has struck our water supply and we need to find ways to change society so we do not run out of fresh water.

I think that there are some great and ideas for mutual coercion to help shape our consumption patterns regarding water. Grocery stores could drastically raise the price of water intensive crops compared to crops that require less water. The option of buying food like almonds is still available, but at a much higher price. People will be more likely to purchase lower priced goods especially if they learn that they have a smaller water footprint. This coercive action would reduce consumption of water intensive crops in a sneaky way that will also send messages to water intensive farmers to grow less. And growing less of these foods will continue to make the price rise and make these foods even less appealing. As for municipal use, some water districts are starting use graduated scale for rates for their users. You can use as much water as you want, but you will have to pay a higher price for it. It would be wise for people to not use water so they can save money and the precious resource that is water. Mutual coercion is actually a great idea for water management.

WATER you going to do to help reduce the common tragedy that water supplies face?