Assignment 2- Part 2

Assignment 2 part 2

Sustainability Metrics

This week in our sustainable Development module we discussed how the Earth has a limited amount of resources as well as having a limited amount of space for use by its inhabitants. In our lecture on Friday we spoke of how each person on the planet is entitled to an equal share of global resources. We discussed how for our survival the planet must be broken down into sections as only 22% of the Earth’s surface is considered to be useful for thinks such as food production,  growing forests for CO2 absorption and building infrastructure on. This is quiet understandable since out of 67% of the Earth which is covered by water, only 2% of this is productive. Furthermore, another 11% of the surface of the Earth is covered by desert and ice.

The Earth is broken into five sections. The first is made up of forest and ocean specifically used for the absorption of CO2 caused by fossil fuel usage. The second is resigned for building infrastructure on.

The third is for storage of waste created by us. The fourth is for production of food for the populations of people on the planet and the fifth is for the production of timber and fibre, which will be used for energy and clothes making. There is no area set aside for biodiversity which shows how limited space is. Also I imagine, this will also have an effect on the planet in some way. One would wonder if this system is realistic and even possible. It is also stressed that each section is for one specific use only. For example, the forests which will be used for CO2 absorption cannot also be used for timber production.

It is clear that the space to carry out all the things that humans find essential is quite limited. Therefore the global resources of the planet can be measured by area, with the unit of the global hectare (gha). It is estimated that for the survival of the current population, each person is entitled to 1.8gha each. However, at present the average European requires 4.8gha and the average American requires a colossal 9.6gha. Obviously Europeans and Americans will have to reduce this immediately or else there will be significant problems in the short future. Also, to take the rising population into account, the global hectare per person will be reduced further.

The Sahara desert will become more important also as a huge reservoir of water in the form of aquifers was found underground.

During early human civilization the Sahara was a fertile grassland. Ancient Egypt could not have developed as it did if it were not for this fact. Lake Chad, now full of mud, was once a freshwater inland sea with many rivers flowing into it. It would empty its waters into the Atlantic, into the Bay of Benin. The countries of the Sahara are trying to tap into these aquifers, trying to make the desert bloom, but the examples of desert irrigation in the West point to the dangers of aquifer depletion and salinization of the land. The waters of the Sahara most not be wasted. It is projected that the Saraha desert will once again become a fertile grassland.

Production and Consumption

It is true to say that we are living in a consumer world. Just look around you, every car, every bicycle, every television, every radio, almost everything in vision has been purchased by people. Walk into any shop, what do you see? Shelves stacked to capacity with different products, some which could be described as utterly useless, but never the less, still being produced and consumed.

Is consumption in proportion from person to person, nation to nation? After this week’s lectures, I can answer no to this question quite confidently. The wealthiest 20% of the worlds population consume 76.6% of the worlds consumption, while the poorest 20% consume only 1.5%. This is a ridiculous statistic but yet is it hard to believe? If you were to visit some of the worlds poorest countries, you would soon see the other side of the coin. On a visit to South Africa with my school, we toured through some of Cape Towns poorest ghettos under security. I was horrified at the sights that I witnessed.

Many and most were bare foot, and wearing rags. Housing was ridiculous, some living in nothing more than shacks (Image above).The experience definitely made me change my thinking towards what should make one happy in life. After all does owning the best car or best clothes really make you happy?

I stilled haven’t even started to talk about the effects on the environment that our over-consumption has been causing and with the world’s population forecast to increase further and the poorer countries becoming more wealthy, this problem is only set to continue and get worse. From harvesting of raw materials to packaging and transport, each product you purchase uses a massive amount of energy. Even worse most products are not bio-degradable and this increases further to waste clotting up and polluting the environment. It is clear something has to give and eventually it will. Unless change happens immediately our world will be over run with waste and polluted to the high heavens.

Recently, recycling, reusing and reducing our waste has become a big thing here in Ireland. This is the solution to the problem along with a reduction in production of unessential products. However, at the moment we are still not doing enough and we will have to continue while increasing our use of the three Rs. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!!!!

Corporate Social Responsibilities

For week 9 of our Sustainable Development module we discussed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is a movement in which responsibility is put on companies to put interest in the society around them, rather than just their profit. Businesses now must take employees, stakeholders and the environment into consideration. One may question if there is a need for this movement but after researching the topic recently, I believe without a doubt there is.

Countries such as China, where the government haven’t employed many regulations on companies, have seen devastating conditions for some employees and severely reckless behaviour towards the environment in many businesses that have set up there. These countries are seen as havens for multinational companies who seek cheap labour and lackadaisical monitoring of environmental conditions. Businesses purposely set up those countries so that they don’t have to abide by CSR and so that they can make maximum profit.

The recent controversy involving Apple was due to this precise reason. Foxconn is a multinational electronics manufacturing company headquartered in Taiwan, who was producing goods such as the iPad, iPod and the iPhone for Apple. Foxconn has been involved in several controversies, mostly relating to how it manages employees in China, where it is the largest private-sector employer. Concerns increased in early 2012 due to factual accounts of working conditions at Foxconn. In 2012, the Fair Labour Association was hired by Apple to audit working conditions at Foxconn. Their findings were horrific.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1826771/foxconn-gets-the-itreatment

Last year, it was found that 14 employees of Foxconn committed suicide due to the harsh conditions they were forced to work in. Foxconn as a prevention installed suicide prevention netting at many factories. It is terrifying that they reacted in this way rather than doing the moral thing and improving conditions. Also, Foxconn forced its employees to sign a legally binding contract guaranteeing that family of employees would not sue Foxconn as a result of unexpected death, suicide or self-injury.

Thankfully, due to pressure, Foxconn have promised to improve their working conditions immediately.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/us-apple-foxconn-idUSBRE82S19720120330

However, there are countless other companies who have not yet been investigated fully and who’s employees are still suffering at the hands of their lenient government regulations and monitoring. We can only hope that the rest of the world recognise this and decide to react against this atrocious treatment.

Law and the Environment

In an ideal world, all people would take the moral high ground and do what they know is responsible and just. Unfortunately this is not the case and people choose to do what they find the easiest and most profiting for themselves. Hundreds of years ago people didn’t realise the damage they were causing to the environment as the technology and research of the time was not what it is today. However, at present, most people are aware of the very real problem that is climate change. This has been caused by the mistreatment of the environment. Although, people are aware of this they still continue to do what is comfortable. For example, buy that big petrol guzzling jeep rather than the small energy efficient car. It is a sad truth but  it is one that governments must face. If Ireland wants to develop sustainable, laws regarding the treatment of the environment are a necessity.

I’m sure you all have heard of the strict regulations that our country must adhere to as a member state of the European Union and all the controversy this has caused recently. The government are trying desperately to cut down on CO2 emissions and convert our energy reliance from fossil fuels to green energy such as wind, solar and wave energy.

I believe without the push our country has received from the EU, we still would not be making a sufficient effort. Some people feel that Ireland should drop out of the EU and believe that we have given away our independence that we fought so hard for. They are annoyed by all these new laws that they must adhere to and feel its unfair for them to have to listen to some group of politicians in Brussels. An example is the outrage of many rural residence who are being told to stop cutting turf on their bogs. They are outraged that they are being stopped from doing what was a tradition to their people.

However, I think it is time for the people of Ireland to realise that these laws are for our good and are not to punish us but to help us. All countries must do there part to try and prevent the inevitable devastation of our planet if we continue as we have been doing. I hope that people soon come to this realisation as it was the EU who helped our country develop into what it is today. I heard no complaints from the irish population during the celtic tiger but the help the EU gave to us years ago seems to be forgotten at present.

Economics and the Environment

What should the priority of governments in todays world be? Developed countries are starting to say the environment should be the top priority, however this was not always so. Most of the present days developed countries got to where they are today by abusing the environment and exploiting its natural resources to their own benefit, improving their infrastructure and building their industries. At one stage, the environment didn’t come into the equation and no thought was put into protecting it.

However, now it has become a political issue and is no longer seen as unimportant. Developed countries are desperately trying to find ways of continuing with economic success without destroying the earth.

On the contrary, developing countries also want a slice of the cake and desire too to have successful economies and improve the standard of living for their people. They do not have the means to do this while taking the environment into consideration and feel for their people the environment isn’t the top priority. They want to develop their countries as other countries have done in the past and feel its unfair for them to have to do it differently as it will be much more difficult. Can developed countries blame them for this? In my opinion they cannot. Therefore, they have to aid these countries and help them to improve their situations without destroying the environment further.

What would be the best method of helping out the developing countries? Would it be to fork them over lumps of money? I don’t believe so. Most developed countries cant even prevent themselves from going bankrupt and would be unable to contribute funds. Furthermore, would developed countries be able to trust the developing countries to put this money to good use?

Therefore, a solution needs to be found. Developed countries must make it possible for developing countries to develop sustainable. I feel the best method would be rewarding these countries, giving them incentives to develop in a way which doesn’t effect the environment and add to the current climate change situation. Maybe providing them with green technology or educating them in methods of environmentally friendly development would be the most suitable solution.

At the end of the day, developing countries cannot be allowed to sacrifice the environment for their economic success. Developed countries most find a way to aid these countries to develop sustainable as it would be unfair to punish these countries for committing the same crimes as they themselves have done in the past.

Food

To survive humans need food. There is no alternative. Humans eat to live. However, I believe it has gone to the stage where a lot of us live to eat. What I mean by this is that we eat and waste far more food than we need and this is not only damaging to our health but damaging to the environment as well.

I’m not trying to say that every person is overweight and eating far too much but it is clear from just looking around you that people have started to over indulge. Obesity is starting to become an issue in the world, especially in the states. Studies show that  35.7% of adults and 17% of children and adolescents are obese in the U.S.. This is quite shocking when there are millions of people starving to death in Africa and other third world regions.

Furthermore it is said that there is twice the amount of food being produced in the world than is needed to support the current population. Clearly, a huge amount of food is being wasted somewhere. It is projected that our population will continue to increase rapidly and what does this say about future production of food. One must see the importance of eliminating or at least cutting down on food wastage. This will be essential in coming years if the world desires to develop sustainably.

On the other hand, I bet that 90 percent of the world’s population doesn’t consider where their food comes from or all the energy wasted on producing it and transporting it. Fertilisers, pesticides and many other chemicals are pumped into the earths soils in a bid to enhance food production to meet the needs of our wasteful population.

Millions of livestock, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are breed and butchered, to satisfy peoples ever-growing needs to experiment with their food. Energy usage, from producing the food to transporting it, is colossal. It is said that people in the U.S. use more oil per person to produce their food than to run their car on a constant basses. This puts into perspective, the unbelievable amount of energy required to feed the world.

A solution to these problems would be for people to start growing their own food and reduce their reliance on meat and exotic fruits which cannot be grown in most climates.

However, are people willing to put in that extra effort? Only time will tell because I feel people will be forced to answer this question shortly or suffer the consequences.