When I first began learning about the environment, prevailing sentiment was that whenever something was out of sight, it could be put out of mind. This had led to contamination of each and every resource we had access to as well as some that were out of reach as well. groundwater contamination was running rampant, as was surface water contamination. The lane was being despoiled and the air was being filled with toxic compounds. Sadly, little has changed over the past fifty years. In fact, much of the contamination is getting more insidious and less well regulated. This leaves the burden of awareness and action on individuals. government and most major industries don't care enough to reign in their waste and pollution, but for those who do, there are vast territories to explore and even greater profits awaiting those who take on the challenge of sustainability.
The number one question everyone has is what is sustainability? This sounds simple enough until you realize how utterly divorced from the concept we have become. The best way to understand the concept is to think of four primary system conditions. First, the ecosystem that we rely on for our health and well-being should not be subjected to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust. Secondly, the ecosystem should not be subjected to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society. Third, the ecosystem should not be degraded by physical means. And fourth, human needs have to be met worldwide. Sounds simple, right? It really is, but the media would have us think that these four system conditions are virtually unattainable and that the very consideration of such change is difficult and best left to the experts.
My own path to sustainability has taught me that nothing can be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, even those with below average intelligence can grasp the concepts and find ways of living more lightly on the planet if given half a chance. As we face a future in which resources have been squandered and despoiled, costs continue to escalate wildly. Waste and pollution are working their magic on our culture as you are reading this in ways that have yet to be discovered. The true costs of business as usual have been put on the backs of generations of as yet unborn children who will face even more disease and illness from lack of clean water, air and soil on which to grow the food that they will need to sustain themselves for generations. Ultimately, the responsibility for making positive change happen falls to us. Only those alive today can hope to change the future for the better. Understanding that all of our human activities have impacts on the future is the first step to understanding the idea of sustainability.
People have come to realize that as the price of gasoline has doubled, to keep the same standard of living while using petroleum based fuels, the use of these fuels needs to be cut in half. Similarly, when the cost of heating our homes doubles, we can still have the same standard of living only by turning the thermostat down to halfway between what we felt was comfortable and the outside temperature. Tricky thing when the mercury plummets to below zero for days on end. The second option would be to double the amount of insulation that envelops our homes, but that might be far more difficult than just donning some sweaters. sustainability has the best chance of success when the system conditions are considered during the design and building process. Retrofits are commonly very labor intensive and the marginal difference that can be achieved when trying to refit an existing system can be daunting.
Take, for example, our installation of a "scorched air" solar panel. Basically, it is an insulated box, airtight, except for an inlet and an outlet hole, with glazing on the south facing side. as the sun pours in, it heats the box and the air inside. a fan pushes cooler air in and hot air is then pushed out the other end and ducted into the house. Designing this into the south wall of all new construction that is in climates where winter heating is required makes perfect sense. Adding it onto a home that is 100 years old presents some special challenges. The optimal angle for such a device at my latitude, just south of the 45th parallel is around thirty degrees. Do we need to mandate south facing walls be at this angle for new construction? It would make free heat possible and reduce the costs of adding solar heating in the future, especially if it were not put in from the start. Sustainability requires attention to what is best as opposed to what we have always done. The highest percentage of "solar homes" were built just after the depression hit, because money was tight and sun was usually abundant. adding a few more windows on the south facing walls and leaving a few out of the north side was easy enough, but we have lost that awareness because of our pathetically high standards of living. When the energy crisis of the seventies hit, the tendency was to go overboard and put all the windows to the south causing overheating problems. as with most things, moderation is the key.
The concept of waste is changing. Each and every thing we throw "away" has to go somewhere and be dealt with by someone else. This has true costs and there are some costs that are avoided by pushing the responsibility for paying for them into the future. Developing the next landfill will cost millions, but the cost of that work will fall on future generations, "so why worry?" Well, it is because there is no away and the children that we will leave this society to will not have the vast resources that we have gotten used to to help save them from the inevitable need for more space for their trash. Instead, we need to look at our waste stream as a rich source of energy and materials. Aluminum, as many know is infinitely recycleable and when recycled, uses a fraction of the energy that it takes to refine it from bauxite ore. Recycling aluminum not only reduces the need for mega-mining operations, but conserves energy as well. These are the sorts of specific changes that we need if we are to meet the challenges of creating a sustainable society. Each of us can make great change if we take a little time to think about our impact on the planet and ask serious questions about where the things we use daily come from and ultimately end up.
The number one question everyone has is what is sustainability? This sounds simple enough until you realize how utterly divorced from the concept we have become. The best way to understand the concept is to think of four primary system conditions. First, the ecosystem that we rely on for our health and well-being should not be subjected to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust. Secondly, the ecosystem should not be subjected to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society. Third, the ecosystem should not be degraded by physical means. And fourth, human needs have to be met worldwide. Sounds simple, right? It really is, but the media would have us think that these four system conditions are virtually unattainable and that the very consideration of such change is difficult and best left to the experts.
My own path to sustainability has taught me that nothing can be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, even those with below average intelligence can grasp the concepts and find ways of living more lightly on the planet if given half a chance. As we face a future in which resources have been squandered and despoiled, costs continue to escalate wildly. Waste and pollution are working their magic on our culture as you are reading this in ways that have yet to be discovered. The true costs of business as usual have been put on the backs of generations of as yet unborn children who will face even more disease and illness from lack of clean water, air and soil on which to grow the food that they will need to sustain themselves for generations. Ultimately, the responsibility for making positive change happen falls to us. Only those alive today can hope to change the future for the better. Understanding that all of our human activities have impacts on the future is the first step to understanding the idea of sustainability.
People have come to realize that as the price of gasoline has doubled, to keep the same standard of living while using petroleum based fuels, the use of these fuels needs to be cut in half. Similarly, when the cost of heating our homes doubles, we can still have the same standard of living only by turning the thermostat down to halfway between what we felt was comfortable and the outside temperature. Tricky thing when the mercury plummets to below zero for days on end. The second option would be to double the amount of insulation that envelops our homes, but that might be far more difficult than just donning some sweaters. sustainability has the best chance of success when the system conditions are considered during the design and building process. Retrofits are commonly very labor intensive and the marginal difference that can be achieved when trying to refit an existing system can be daunting.
Take, for example, our installation of a "scorched air" solar panel. Basically, it is an insulated box, airtight, except for an inlet and an outlet hole, with glazing on the south facing side. as the sun pours in, it heats the box and the air inside. a fan pushes cooler air in and hot air is then pushed out the other end and ducted into the house. Designing this into the south wall of all new construction that is in climates where winter heating is required makes perfect sense. Adding it onto a home that is 100 years old presents some special challenges. The optimal angle for such a device at my latitude, just south of the 45th parallel is around thirty degrees. Do we need to mandate south facing walls be at this angle for new construction? It would make free heat possible and reduce the costs of adding solar heating in the future, especially if it were not put in from the start. Sustainability requires attention to what is best as opposed to what we have always done. The highest percentage of "solar homes" were built just after the depression hit, because money was tight and sun was usually abundant. adding a few more windows on the south facing walls and leaving a few out of the north side was easy enough, but we have lost that awareness because of our pathetically high standards of living. When the energy crisis of the seventies hit, the tendency was to go overboard and put all the windows to the south causing overheating problems. as with most things, moderation is the key.
The concept of waste is changing. Each and every thing we throw "away" has to go somewhere and be dealt with by someone else. This has true costs and there are some costs that are avoided by pushing the responsibility for paying for them into the future. Developing the next landfill will cost millions, but the cost of that work will fall on future generations, "so why worry?" Well, it is because there is no away and the children that we will leave this society to will not have the vast resources that we have gotten used to to help save them from the inevitable need for more space for their trash. Instead, we need to look at our waste stream as a rich source of energy and materials. Aluminum, as many know is infinitely recycleable and when recycled, uses a fraction of the energy that it takes to refine it from bauxite ore. Recycling aluminum not only reduces the need for mega-mining operations, but conserves energy as well. These are the sorts of specific changes that we need if we are to meet the challenges of creating a sustainable society. Each of us can make great change if we take a little time to think about our impact on the planet and ask serious questions about where the things we use daily come from and ultimately end up.
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