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[tayler-environment]

Final Climate Change Practicum Report

During this Spring semester, I have continued my Fordham University-sponsored work with both the USG Sustainability Committee and the Social Innovation Collaboratory’s Climate Impact Initiative. This semester also brought me to the end of my internship with Solve Climate by 2030. I am incredibly grateful that I had the chance to pursue goals that I am passionate about with so many amazing people this year, and I am so proud of what we all have accomplished together. 

I continued to meet with the USG Sustainability Committee every Wednesday (or whenever my team saw fit) in order to discuss Fordham’s sustainable and unsustainable practices. This semester, however, I was much more narrowly focused on finishing the composting proposal draft. After our normal weekly meetings, the VP of Sustainability Maggie Tattersfield would send a message to everyone involved with the composting project asking when we could meet to discuss this issue specifically. During these meetings, it was often me, Maggie, and two other people collaborating on the proposal and writing it in real-time. This proposal is the result of a collaboration between the USG Sustainability Committee and the Climate Impact Initiative. During my Thursday meetings with the Climate Impact Initiative, we discussed the composting proposal as well. My role in writing the proposal was to research and report potential machines that we could install in the dining hall to process our food scraps into usable compost. I calculated an approximation of how many pounds of food waste we produce daily based on data collected in 2016. The 2016 data was presented to me in cubic yards. In order to convert the data into a potential weight, I emailed Great Forest, the sustainability consulting firm that Fordham hired to assess the University’s current practices. Fordham’s representative got back to me and suggested that Fordham conduct a more up-to-date waste management audit, but provided me with a document produced by the EPA that listed conversions from size to weight according to the substance being measured. Based on the conversions I made, I found that Fordham students and faculty discard around 2,455.94 pounds of food waste daily. During my research of composting processors, I found a spreadsheet that listed the name of the processor followed by a product description, the company website, and the processor’s daily capacity for compost. I compared this spreadsheet to what I discovered about Fordham’s approximate food waste weight and determined that there were four machines on the list that would be able to tackle over 2,000 pounds of compost. These machines are now all listed as options on the proposal. The document will be completed in the coming week and I am incredibly proud to have been a part of changing the Fordham world.   

This semester also brought me to the end of an incredible internship. As I mentioned in my previous practicum report, I worked for Solve Climate by 2030, a Bard College-sponsored social media campaign whose goal was to make climate a class. We strived to convince students to ask their teachers and professors of all subjects to take one hour of class time to talk about climate change and how it affects their discipline. The Solve Climate by 2030 website even provided educators with climate lesson plans for all subjects. There was even a lesson plan to teach about climate change in a dance class. Social media was the means of spreading the word of the campaign, so we needed a lot of interns. During week one, there were 400 interns working on the project. By the end of the last week, there were only 100 interns. I am proud to have contributed so meaningfully that I was chosen to remain. All of the campaigning and advertising of our message was not only to bring the topic of climate into the classroom. During the beginning of April, Solve Climate by 2030 hosted a series of webinars at colleges and universities around the world with speeches given by reputable environmental experts from around the world. Our goal was to get 100,000 students to attend one of the webinars. We advocated that when students ask their teachers to make climate a class, that they assign watching one of the webinars as homework. 

We did not quite reach our goal of 100,000 students in attendance, but we did manage to spread our message around the world and made some meaningful connections with other climate-concerned groups. The successes and failures of this year’s campaign will inform next year. 

On a more personal level, through this internship, I got the opportunity to work closely with young climate activists from all over the world. The internship was remote as a result of Covid-19, but I think that the experience was enhanced because of this circumstance. The group was comprised not only of local minds but of international minds. We were able to translate our message into multiple languages in order to appeal to a wider audience. The experience was overall incredible. 

I am proud of the work I have done this year both locally and globally. I sincerely hope that I will be able to see change occur as a result of my efforts to make Fordham a more sustainable place to live and work. If I do not see change, however, I will be sure to push harder, because I plan to be involved with Fordham sustainability until the day I graduate.

[tayler-environment]

What We Don’t Consume, We Pollute

It is true that water can be a vessel for toxins to enter your body, but clean water is inarguably the most important commodity that we have on this planet. Why is it that food consumption makes such a difference when it comes to calculating a person’s water intake? My water footprint, aka the amount of water that I personally use or consume, is 595 cubic meters per year. I am incredibly relieved to find out that this number is far less than the global average of 1,243 cubic meters per year, however, the number still seems very large. What I believe puts my footprint below the average are my diet choices. I have been a vegetarian for around 14 years. However, I do consume dairy, and the production of animal-sourced foods uses up the greatest amount of water in comparison to plant-based foods. Not only do animals need to drink water, but the massive amounts of food they eat need to be grown using water. All of this water usage put into creating animal products ends up producing very little yield. A cow can only produce so much milk and only has so much meat on its body. Still, however, farms use thousands of tons of water in order to keep the animals alive. 

Not only do humans directly and indirectly consume an incredible amount of clean water, we pollute the water that we cannot consume. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a huge gyre in the middle of the pacific ocean that catches millions of tonnes of plastic in its currents. Some even call it the ‘garbage island’. On Midway Island, also located in the middle of the pacific ocean, Albatross populations are threatened by the plastic they are consuming from the patch. I mentioned the movie Albatross that describes the plight of these birds living on Midway Island, in a previous post. Their carcasses lay on the beach decaying, while the plastic bottle caps and scraps in their stomachs remain unbroken down. Eventually, the albatross’s body will disappear, but the plastic in its stomach will remain. The movie successfully captures this disturbing yet poetic sight. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch solidifies claims that say human effects on the earth’s water and marine life are devastating. The fact that so much human trash has made it to a place that is so far out of the normal human reach is both astonishing and horrifying. We think that our plastics just go away because we cannot see them anymore. One trip to Midway Island and this idea is sure to be rocked out of your brain. 

A map of the currents that have swept our garbage into gyres so gigantic that they have their own name. 

If every human were to switch to a plant-based diet, many of our environmental issues would decrease. We would have to adjust to the changes this would make in the economy, but our water consumption would decrease drastically along with our land use. Everyday solutions to saving water, however, include shortening your showers, reducing the amount of water in your toilet, turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth, and re-wearing your clothes so that you have to do laundry less frequently. 

It is possible to clean up the garbage patch. It would require heavy funding and manpower, but it is possible. The reason we have not stepped up to this plate yet is that not many people know the extent of the plastic pollution issue, and some people are unaware that the Patch even exists. Spreading awareness and igniting rage over the issue is the first step towards funding a cleanup.

Word Count: 590

Question: How can the human race go about cleaning up the water that we have polluted? How do we replenish the disproportionate amount of potable water that we have consumed? Can we even replace it?

Works Cited

“Personal Water Footprint.” Home. Accessed May 13, 2021. https://www.waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/personal-water-footprint/. 

Jordan, Chris. Albatross. Accessed April 14, 2021. https://www.albatrossthefilm.com/.

[tayler-environment]

You Become What You Eat

The amount of chemical traces in the average human body is difficult to believe. In a report done by NBC News as the result of a scientific study, one woman found in her body traces of 53 chemicals that can cause cancer, 62 chemicals that are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 55 chemicals that cause birth defects (youtube.com). The levels of these chemicals in her body were considered healthy, but the sheer volume of what was found is an indictment of modernization and what governments will allow of industrialized agriculture and plastic companies. 

According to Miller and Spoolman, some of the chemicals that have been released into the environment can cause cancers, mutations, and birth defects. These chemicals can also affect the immune system, nervous system, and endocrine system. Many of these chemicals are illegal now to use, but past human action has already leaked them into the air, water, and soil. 

It is likely if you are a human concerned about your health, that you have heard about BPA. BPA serves as a hardening agent in certain plastic products, and when ingested, mimics the hormone estrogen. Most abhorrently, BPA has been found in baby bottles. According to a case study in the Miller and Spoolman text, “by 2013, more than 90 published studies by independent laboratories had found a number of significant adverse effects on test animals from exposure to very low levels of BPA. These effects include brain damage, early puberty, decreased sperm quality, certain cancers, heart disease, liver damage, impaired immune function, type 2 diabetes, hyperactivity impaired learning, impotency in males, and obesity in test animals” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 421). This is a very long list of scary conditions. Because BPA is an estrogen mimic, young girls with BPA in their systems are likely to show signs of puberty development much earlier than their BPA-lacking counterparts. In males, as one can see by reading the aforementioned list, the higher estrogen levels as a result of BPA mess with their testosterone-induced functions. In few words, stay away from BPA. 

Acid rain is another threat to human health, and there is not much that we can do as individuals to protect ourselves. Suppose mercury and other toxic gases like sodium dioxide are released into the atmosphere by a factory. These gases condense with water vapor to form acidic clouds, and when it rains, it rains microscopic amounts of mercury and acid. Even if you are able to stay out of the rain forever, the acidic rain runs off into rivers, streams, and lakes, where many of us like to swim or harvest fish to eat. The toxic materials are then either ingested or absorbed into the skin. There is no escape if we do not stop releasing toxins into the atmosphere. 

A graphic pointing to all of the ways unwanted chemicals can infiltrate your body.

Advances in science are the only tool we have in order to know that what we are putting into our bodies is toxic. It was not until fairly recently that we learned about all of the negative effects of BPA being in our children’s baby bottles and lining the insides of our cups. Our only hope against pre-existing harmful chemicals in everyday products and foods is to react to scientific discoveries at the moment that they are released. If we do not listen to science, we will never advance as a whole or improve upon our lives. 

Ending our obsession with consumption and production might also present a solution to reducing the number of toxic chemicals released into the atmosphere. Since this is nearly impossible, however, more strictly regulating production practices and the legal amount of emissions that a corporation or individual factory can produce is the nearest possible solution to the threat of acid rain. 

Word Count:  623

Question: How can we prepare for chemical threats that we don’t even know are dangerous yet?

Works Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021.

SuperbFitness. Body Pollution, Chemical Toxicity. YouTube, 2007. https://youtu.be/0JZPNmkV3zE.

[tayler-environment]

Don’t Soil the Soil

The movie, “Symphony of Soil” explains the importance of different kinds of soils and the critical roles that each type of soil plays in the world’s ecosystems. Rich soil, whether it is rich in minerals or organic matter, has a valuable place in maintaining life on earth. One of the most interesting points that I took away from the film was that peat moss is entirely organic matter and has the ability to preserve organic materials, like the bones of wooly mammoths, for thousands of years. Further, peat moss is incredibly good at trapping and storing carbon. Large beds of peat are called ‘carbon sinks’ for this reason. This example is just one of many examples that show us why preserving our planet’s fertile soil is so important in the fight against climate change. 

A man stands over an excavated section of an Ireland peat bog.

The trapping of carbon prompts the question: ‘can the carbon escape?’ Let’s look at the example of permafrost. Permafrost is the soil in the global far north that holds an incredible amount of carbon. The warming climate threatens the stability of permafrost, and if it were to become unfrozen, the vast amount of carbon would escape into the atmosphere, further propagating the climate issue. In other words, if permafrost thaws, we’re doomed. So yes, trapped carbon can escape. It is within the natural processes of many soils and the ocean to trap carbon, but humans are making this task much more difficult for our ecosystems to accomplish. 

Regular peat moss is not frozen. We can use this resource to fight climate change by protecting existing peat bogs and allowing them to grow. If the climate remains regulated, then permafrost will stay frozen and the countless years of stored carbon will not be released. We can also combat land degradation by revitalizing agricultural soil. These soils are depleted of nutrients because crops and livestock are grown upon them, using up all that the soil has to give. Land farming methods like nutrient cycling, rotating the fields used to grow crops so that overused land can regenerate nutrients, are critical tactics for land conservation. However, even better farming methods for the environment are hydroponics and aquaponics. Hydroponics is soil-less farming that can be done anywhere; you do not need a plot of land. Aquaponics is a similar soil-less system, except instead of adding nutrients to the water, the water that is used is the same water that fish are farmed in. This water is rich in the fecal matter of fish, which works as plant nutrients. Vertical hydroponic farming is a great substitute for conventional farming methods that require vast swaths of land. Vertical farming can also be easily done in cities, allowing urbanites to have more ready access to fresh produce. 

I think that hydroponics is the future of agriculture and that we need to lean into this future if we are to continue being able to live on planet earth. We need to convert farmland into forestland and reach farms skyward. According to the EPA, agricultural practices account for 10% of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions (epa.gov). Both current practices and changes in land use are to blame for these agricultural emissions. Hydroponic farming saves water due to it being constantly reused, and it saves soil because hydroponics does not require soil in order to grow plants. Of course, there is still some level of carbon footprint in hydroponics due to the need to produce materials in order to support a hydroponic system, but the overall environmental benefits outnumber and outweigh those of conventional farming. 

Word count: 591

Question: How can we quickly and effectively reintroduce nutrients to nutrient-depleted soils? 

Works Cited

“Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, April 14, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=and%20Forestry%20sector.-,Emissions%20and%20Trends,by%2012%20percent%20since%201990. 

Symphony of the Soil. Kanopy. Lily Films, 2013. https://www.kanopy.com/product/symphony-soil-2.

[tayler-environment]

The Tale of the Whale Should Guide the Future

Considering that most of the news today surrounding humanity’s environmental impacts and the changing climate is negative, it is nice to hear good news. Miller and Spoolman frame the species approach initiative, ‘save the whales’, as a success story… so far. The world’s history with whaling has deeply hurt whale populations. However, they are bouncing back. “The population of the endangered blue whale has increased from about 1,000 in the mid-1920s to 15,000 today, with 2,000 of them living in California coastal waters” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 243). These are inspiring numbers for conservationists. If we can help the blue whale population to increase by this much in a mere 100 years, then I am hopeful that we can protect other endangered species in a similar manner. Especially when we are concerning ourselves with animals that have shorter gestation periods, this repopulation process will be much quicker. 

Whales are not overly threatened by habitat loss. Their main opponents are commercial shipping lanes and whaling. These are tough opponents, but there is no way for humans to take away the ocean. Bringing back whale populations is mostly a matter of rerouting ships and ending the hunt for whales. For many other species, the issue is much more complex. Their entire habitats and food webs are changing as species enter and exit the environment, making human efforts at repopulation much more difficult to achieve. Ocean acidification, as I mentioned in my second blog post, threatens coral reefs because the warming acidic water bleaches and kills corals. Without coral reefs, it is nearly impossible for many species of reef fish to survive. In order to repopulate reef fish, one would need to repopulate coral reefs. This complex intertwining of issues is what threatens many endangered and threatened species. 

The trailer for the movie Albatross shows scary images of dead birds that died with stomachs filled with plastic (Albatross, 1:14). Plastic is another human creation endangering marine and coastal species populations. Humans lessening their impacts on environments is the basic solution to most environmental problems. Without reversing the effects of ocean acidification, there can be no successful repopulation efforts of many species, more specifically, corals. Regrowing coral reefs using modern technology is possible. Artificial reefs provide temporary homes for reef fish. Artificially placing baby corals into threatened reefs helps to strengthen the ecosystem and bring back the native marine life. 

As stated previously, moving major shipping lanes that overlap with whale migration patterns can help more whales to survive human effects annually. Also, scaling back our fishing practices would be helpful in controlling overfishing and reducing bycatch. Overfishing threatens many popular-to-eat fish species, degrading natural capital. In 1992 for example, Newfoundland’s cod fishery collapsed due to overfishing. 

A graph showing the cod population of Newfoundland in the years since 1850. 

Fishing methods like trawling and purse-seine fishing often scoop up more species out of the ocean than intended. These unintentional entanglements are called ‘bycatch’ and can include different species of fish, turtles, dolphins, and even smaller whales. In most cases, bycatch is killed along with the rest of the catch and is then discarded into the ocean. This practice is not only a depletion of natural capital, it shows a grave disrespect for it. Treating animals as worthless is going to end up coming back to bite the human race. Stopping these harmful fishing methods and setting up marine protected areas are essential ideas that would help to maintain healthy and biodiverse marine ecosystems. 

Word count: 584

Question: How can one work to resolve problems as grand as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and ocean acidification? How can we break down the greater fight against these evils into smaller, more manageable tasks? 

Works Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021.

Jordan, Chris. Albatross. Accessed April 14, 2021. https://www.albatrossthefilm.com/. 

[tayler-environment]

Humans’ Way or the Highway

In order to combat other species’ extinction as a result of human action and our growing human population, it is critical that we push to grow the population of near-extinct species and revitalize their ecosystems. These approaches are called the species approach and the ecosystem approach, respectively. 

The species approach, as outlined in Miller and Spoolman, includes efforts that focus on maintaining the presence of a single species in our world, and hopefully being able to increase its population in the wild. For example, “India has done more than any country to protect its remaining highly endangered tiger population” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 191). This is a species-specific initiative that aims to rejuvenate the tiger population. Species approaches exist not only for the sake of the love people may have for a certain kind of animal, many of the species we are trying to protect and save play crucial roles in their ecosystem’s food web. Continuing with the tiger example, tigers are apex predators. Without their presence controlling the populations of lower species on the food chain, their prey would dominate the ecosystem, causing the prey’s food sources to dwindle. “According to the Living Planet Index created by the London Zoological Society and the World Wildlife Federation, populations of wild animals have decreased by an average of more than fifty percent over the past forty years” (dailymotion.com). Population sizes of species in a given food web rise and fall naturally, but human intervention has pushed some of these populations to the brink of extinction, and this is the effect that we must combat. 

The ecosystem approach offers a broader perspective on species and habitat restoration. The belief for this approach is that if we restore habitats and ecosystems to their former glory (before the intervention of human activity), they can become healthy again and species that are on the brink of extinction might repopulate the environment naturally. Deforestation is arguably the greatest threat to terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. If we do not reforest depleted areas, there will be dire consequences that affect both nonhuman and human life forms.

A graphic that lists reasons why a species might go extinct. Most of these causes are either created or propagated by humans. 

Species-specific initiatives like ‘save the turtles’ or India’s tiger protection laws are important steps that need to be taken in order to preserve wild biodiversity. However, some animals simply can no longer survive in the wild. Whether it is for natural reasons or that human effects have pushed the species too far, some of these animals exist now only in zoos. For example, the white rhinoceros is extinct in the wild. Rehabilitation zoos (not zoos for simply human entertainment) provide a great last-ditch location for the last beings of a species to live out their lives. Here they are safe from predators and poachers. 

I mentioned previously that reforestation is an incredibly important initiative for the revitalization of ecosystems. In addition to reforesting deforested lands, we must protect as much untouched domain as possible from human impact, whether that be by law or simply by local practice. We have to mend what we have injured, and protect what we have yet to harm. Humans cannot afford to degrade natural capital any further, or we risk the planet becoming uninhabitable. In the United States, the establishment of National and State Parks as protected wildlife areas is wonderfully important to maintain. Overall, it is promising that efforts to repopulate endangered species and revitalize their ecosystems exist, however, we need to increase the pressure on these initiatives and expand them if we are going to see real change. 

Word count: 567

Question: What could ever prompt a person to illegally kill an endangered animal?

Works Cited 

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021.

Global Wildlife Population Declined By 50% In Last 40 Years - Video Dailymotion. Dailymotion. Dailymotion, 2014. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26ybub.

[tayler-environment]

Infinite Expansion is Impossible

In my previous post, I talked about environmentally conscious companies and the impossibility of ‘green capitalism’. There are many environmental issues that lend themselves to a society focused on the accumulation of capital above all else. As outlined in the video, The Impossible Hamster, constant economic growth is not only unsustainable, it is completely illogical. A hamster during its adolescence doubles its weight every day. If nature had not set a limit on how much the hamster could grow, a one-year-old hamster would weigh nine billion tons, eating as much corn as the world produces annually, in a single day. The video goes on to ask a very important question: if nature has decided that it unreasonable to allow all things to continue to grow forever, then how can anyone expect the economy to grow forever? (New Economics Foundation 2010). Infinite growth of any entity is impossible, however, we are currently facing an overpopulation issue that does not seem to want to slow down. Two of the main drivers of environmental issues within economic systems are population growth and consumption growth generally, but especially in cities. As the human population increases, a large portion of this population will move to urban areas. The more people that exist, the more we will collectively consume. 

A graph that displays the nature of exponential growth along with growth alternatives. 

If you take the time to sit for a moment on worldometers.info and watch the world population growth, you can see just how easily we will reach a population of 8 billion people in the next few years. This population growth will result in an unorganized and impoverished urban sprawl if this influx in human capital is not planned for; especially considering the fact that most population growth is occurring in developing countries. It is essential for both developed and developing cities to make preemptive plans for new residents. New York city’s 2007 PlaNYC is a good example of such a preparatory plan. PlaNYC was Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative “to prepare the city for one million more residents, strengthen the economy, combat climate change, and enhance the quality of life for all New Yorkers” (Wikipedia 2021). Significant progress has been made towards the goals of this plan since 2007. 

Urban planners have an incredible amount of power in shaping the quality of life within their respective cities. They are the ones to decide whether or not to spend the money required to implement green infrastructure. It is critical that cities do their best to incorporate bike and walking lanes on roads, easy access to public transportation from all parts of the city, sustainably built and maintained buildings, and a robust waste management system complete with compost and recycling emphases. These innovations will help cities to better welcome their new residents and growing populations. 

The most humane and effective methods of slowing the population increase so that we can have time to properly plan for more humans are easy access to birth control and widespread sex education. These factors have been proven effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies, thus reducing the potential for unintended population growth. Further, closing the wage gap and advancing women in the workplace can motivate more women to focus on their careers rather than starting a family. Since the pressure has historically been put on women to reproduce, it is necessary to offer women appealing alternatives and to encourage them to take these opportunities. As a result of already existing efforts, many working women decide against having children for the sake of their careers. Any and all of these solutions would aid in minimizing the negative environmental effects of overpopulation and fast urbanization. 

 Word Count: 611

Question: Will the human population ever reach numbers where it might be necessary to forcibly reduce the population? Is there any humane way to go about this? 

Works Cited

Foundation, New Economics. “The Impossible Hamster.” Vimeo, May 22, 2020. https://vimeo.com/8947526. 

“PlaNYC.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, March 20, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlaNYC.

[tayler-environment]

Climate Change Practicum

USG Sustainability Committee

Climate Impact Initiative

Solve Climate by 2030 Internship

I have worked extensively this semester both within the Fordham community and on an international scale to mitigate the effects of climate change. Within Fordham University I am a member of the United Student Government (USG) Sustainability Committee, and the Social Innovation Collaboratory’s Climate Impact Initiative. Beyond Fordham, I am working with a team of over 200 interns to bring climate education into every classroom with the Bard College sponsored initiative, Solve Climate by 2030. I am very proud of the work that I have done. 

Each week, I work for about two hours with the USG Sustainability Committee. We are currently drafting a proposal to implement a composting program on campus. We are investigating both on-site and off-site options, but off-site composting would be the most cost efficient and convenient. This project is being completed in collaboration with a few compost advocates from the Climate Impact Initiative. It has been exciting to be a part of the collaboration between these two groups, seeing as they both were working on composting plans independently before joining forces. 

One aspect of my work with the USG Sustainability Committee that has been taking up a particularly large amount of time is my campaign to run for VP of Sustainability. If elected to this role, I would be a key point person for sustainability on the Rose Hill campus. Most broadly, my responsibilities would include chairing the Sustainability Committee and being an active member of the USG Executive Board. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity and hope that I will be able to serve the Fordham community in this role. 

Due to the pandemic, all meetings of these clubs and of my internship are virtual, but that does not stop any of us from enacting change. The pandemic has especially not stopped the Solve Climate by 2030 interns. Our goal, by means of a social media campaign, is to bring the topic of climate into every classroom worldwide. Of course, this will likely not happen this year. Our current goal is to have 100,000 students in attendance at one of our virtual webinars about climate to take place on April 7th. To do this, we are asking educators to make climate change the topic of a one-hour class session and to assign attendance at their local webinar as that night’s homework. I have put in about five hours per week into this project, reaching out to students and faculty at both Fordham and at my high school, and generating weekly social media analytics reports that show the progress of the campaign in comparison to weeks past. 

I do not think that I have ever been as proud as I am this semester of the work that I am doing on behalf of the environment. Because of the knowledge and experience I have gained through this work, I know that I will continue to be able to say that I am proud of what I do in the future. 

[tayler-environment]

Economics is Unnatural

My previous post highlights actions that are environmentally unethical. One way that people and groups can be held accountable for their actions against the environment is to hold them legally accountable. I am a firm believer that polluting entities should be held legally accountable for their actions, and that not even the most profitable of companies are above the law. As a result, I have been drawn to pursue a career in environmental law. I am interested in how policy reform and upholding environmental laws can reduce the effects of climate change.

It is impossible to think about climate policies without considering the big polluting businesses that environmental policies most ardently affect, and in the same breath to consider the economic context under which these businesses are operating. Beginning at the bottom of the chain, the biggest issue that I take with the modern study of economics is its failure to include natural capital into cost/benefit analyses. I mentioned this intentional ignorance in my last post as evidence of the environmental unethicality in modern economic analysis. As stated in an article titled, The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital, “ecosystem services are not fully ‘captured’ in commercial markets or adequately quantified in terms comparable with economic services and manufactured capital” (Costanza, d’Arge, de Groot, Farber, Grasso, Hannon, Limburg 1997, 253). In the eyes of a modern economist, the Earth has an infinite amount of resources because these resources are free of charge. In reality, these resources are in no way ‘free’. We may not be paying for them with dollars, but we are paying for them with numbers of years that humans are able to live on Earth. If we keep exploiting resources faster than they can regenerate, and, in the words of Miller and Spoolman, ‘borrowing renewable resources from future generations” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 592), we will soon run out of resources entirely. Humanity as a whole is currently using an amount of renewable energy equivalent to what 1.5 Earths could provide (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 592). This is not only unsustainable, it is irresponsible. 

Fortunately, there are a plethora of businesses that conduct themselves sustainably. Wikipedia states that the collective group of sustainable businesses is often called ‘green capitalism’ (Wikipedia 2021). I object to the notion that such a concept exists. Capitalism is inherently unsustainable. A capitalist’s primary focus is to accumulate capital. To do so, these owners of capital “appropriate the surplus product generated by the direct producers/workers, leading to the accumulation of capital by the owners” (Magdoff and Foster 2011, 38). Essentially, efforts to accumulate capital are for the sole purpose of accumulating more capital. Capitalism cannot operate sustainably because capitalists will never pursue a less profitable option, even if that option could save the planet. I believe that companies themselves have the ability to offset their carbon footprints, but one cannot claim that capitalism can ever be ‘green’ if the proponents of capitalism refuse to cease accumulation. If a capitalist system were ever to favor more sustainable practices over accumulation, the system would no longer be considered capitalist. Capitalism is inherently unsustainable. 

To remedy the lack of consideration for natural capital in economics, American economists simply need to consider it. The proposition is easy to make, however, to change the whole system of economics to include the ‘new’ environmental cost would alter societies drastically. The prices of everything unsustainably sourced would change, resulting in collective anger and ushering in a whole new era of politics. This is not feasible for American society. Instead, economists should start integrating natural capital into the conversation slowly, first by considering it within the broader context of all economics in its own hypothetical arena. Simply knowing how the manufacture of certain products affects the environment might sway consumers towards more sustainable purchasing trends. This allows for demand to influence supply, instead of forcing the supply to change in contrast with demand. In other words, we should let the consumer change economic trends by providing them accurate information instead of allowing economists to incorporate the cost of natural capital into the cost/benefit analysis themselves. 

To solve the issue of humanity using the renewable resources of 1.5 Earths, we each individually need to take it upon ourselves to live more sustainably in day-to-day life. Even if your house gets electricity from renewable sources, this does not mean you can leave the lights on all day long. Whether the energy being used is renewable or not, overuse is detrimental. The overuse of unclean energies directly pollutes the environment, and the overuse of cleaner energies results in an inability to replenish them. The cycle is vicious, but ultimately, practicing conservation will help to alleviate the strain that we are currently putting on our planet.

A chart that details specifically how the environment and the economy are interdependent. 

Word Count: 799

Question: In order to appeal to those minds who are primarily fiscally conscious, would it be possible to assign an approximate dollar amount to certain elements of natural capital? Can natural capital be accurately compared with manufactured capital when presented on the same economic graph? 

Works Cited

Robert Costanza, Ralph d'Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, et al. “The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” articles. Nature, May 15, 1997. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RRERLVGVvV2dZSWM/view. 

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021. 

“Sustainable Business.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, February 21, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_business#Sustainable_Businesses. 

Magdoff, Fred, and John Bellamy Foster. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: a Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2011.

[tayler-environment]

Climate Change is a Moral Failure

When discussing morality, climate change is not often the first ethical problem to come to mind. Usually, simple actions and inactions are the subject of moral study. However, climate change is intrinsically linked within the context of ethicality due to the fact that it is the result of human action. The reading that I found most insightful this week was What is Education For? By David Orr. Early on, he highlights a particularly interesting point that Elie Wiesel makes about today’s education and its lack of humanity. “In Wiesel’s words: ‘It emphasized theories instead of values, concepts rather than human beings, abstraction rather than consciousness, answers instead of questions, ideology and efficiency rather than conscience’”(Orr 2011). The education that Wiesel is talking about is what we are providing to our future leaders. Orr points out the example that when teaching economics, for instance, we consider the value of the wheat taken from the field, but we do not consider the value of the soil that has been destroyed as a result of farming on that land. There is a clear lack of environmental awareness in today’s economic and educational systems. 

A question is still left unanswered, however: what does environmental ethicality look like? To answer this question, we can turn to a case study by Richard Louv called the Children and Nature Movement. He writes that as we progress into the 21st century, children are spending less and less time outside and in the woods. He points to Riverside Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where in the 1970s the park was a cesspool of pollution. The undesirability of the park brought drugs and crime into the area. Due to efforts to clean up the park, one can now find urban children playing in the grass and learning about ecosystems first-hand (Louv 2016). Crime has also gone down since the park’s beautification. This cannot be a coincidence. The ethicality of cleaning the park points to philosopher John Stewart Mill’s utilitarian theory: that the only thing that matters in determining an action’s ethicality is the amount of happiness the outcome of that action brings. In the case of Riverside Park, utilitarians would say that cleaning the park was the right thing to do because it drove out crime and increased the overall happiness of residents and visitors. Regarding the example of Fordham in my previous post, the administration’s decision to move away from the sustainable practices of the past in favor of cheaper, more environmentally harmful methods of operation, is unethical. Conducting oneself in an unsustainable manner brings about the greatest amount of unhappiness and suffering, not only now, but for generations to come. 

A bridge crossing over a bike trail in a newly beautified Riverside Park. 

As for solutions to create more environmentally and ethically motivated minds, an initiative I’m currently interning with called Solve Climate by 2030 is aiming to #MakeClimateAClass. Solve Climate by 2030 is a Bard College sponsored initiative which seeks an end to the climate crisis. We recognize the incredible lack of awareness and education surrounding environmental justice/injustice and climate change, and are actively campaigning to bridge this gap. I think that initiatives like this one are an incredibly important step to remedying the environmental education disparity. Not only am I campaigning for our cause on social media with this internship, we are organizing a concert series and putting together a weekly newsletter for interested parties. Our main goal via online outreach is to get students everywhere to ask their teachers to make climate a one-hour class session (no matter the subject). To help teachers, we are also hosting a number of power dialogue webinars surrounding climate issues on April 7th, and are striving to have 100,000 students in attendance worldwide. Organized activism like this is incredibly important for making people aware that climate change can, has, and will affect their lives no matter the field of study they choose to pursue. I think that Orr would be proud of the work of Solve Climate by 2030. 

Word count: 665

Question: How can we distinguish what actions might or might not negatively impact the environment down the line of consequences? Is it possible to truly live completely sustainably?

Works Cited

“What Is Education For?” Context Institute. Context Institute, September 15, 2011. https://www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/. 

Louv, Richard. “Last Child in the Woods - Overview - Richard Louv.” Richard Louv Blog Full Posts Atom 10. Richard Louv, 2016. http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/.

[tayler-environment]

Manahatta to Manhattan

The Manahatta project, (not to be confused with the Manhattan project), sought to create a 3D map of what the island of Manhattan might have looked like when Henry Hudson first arrived at the island. In the YouTube video, The Manahatta Project, Dr. Eric W. Sanderson says that if Manhattan looked like it did 400 years ago today, “we would think of it as a National Park; it would be the Yosemite or the Yellowstone of the East Coast” (Sanderson 2009, 1:16). The ecological history of Manhattan surprises me, and ultimately makes me almost wish that Manahatta still existed as it did 400 years ago. This is incredibly interesting, especially in the context of Big History (Wikipedia 2021). It is incredible to see how much has changed over 15 billion years, let alone how much has changed on one island in only 400 years. It is also very interesting to see how quickly humanity was willing to trade ecological beauty for a concrete jungle. Before the push for environmental and climate awareness, we were a species solely set on conquering nature. I believe that many of us still desire to conquer nature and view themselves as greater than their environment, but at least now we have conservation and preservation advocates.  

A side-by-side comparison of what Manhattan looks like today and what it is estimated to have looked like 400 years ago. 

The ecological history of New York City is not restricted to Manhattan, however. Further north, in the Bronx, Fordham University has experienced environmental changes since its founding. Most notably, until about 1907, an on-campus farm sustained the lives of Fordham students and faculty. In the early days of the University, when money was harder to come by, one of the ways in which the administration curbed costs was to produce all of their own food on-site. According to a quote from the Fordham Magazine, “this was a working farm from colonial times all the way down to about 1907 or so” (Gosier 2016). The University also housed livestock, a fish pond, and boasted a larger campus than the one that exists today; it sprawled all the way from Fordham’s current location to banks of the Bronx River. 

I find all of this history incredibly important. The Manahatta Project shows people what lies, or used to lie, under the current urban landscape. This is imperative for environmental degradation awareness. Had the city never been built, we would likely have another National Park in its place. The history of Fordham University is personal for me, because it shows me that my school, that currently does not do well with minimizing their emissions and has a mediocre waste management system, was once a very ‘green’ place. This information gives me hope that the school can revert back to its old ways, maybe not quite to the level of simplicity exhibited in Fordham’s most early days, but the school definitely has the capacity to support much more sustainable practices. 

Some things that Fordham already does to decrease its carbon footprint is utilizing solar panels, using biodiesel fuel in its inter-campus vans, and composting in the dining hall kitchens. However, we can do MUCH more. Composting in the residential halls is one idea that is currently being pushed for by student sustainability leaders. Also, Fordham is being pushed to use 100% renewable energy by 2050. I think that this date is far too distant considering the fast rate at which the climate is changing, however, every small step that the administration takes to curb its climate impact in pursuit of this goal is necessary and impactful. There is also an initiative on campus to get facilities management to stop using pesticides and herbicides on campus. These chemicals can leak into the groundwater, causing illness in animals and humans. It is critical that we conserve the wild land that we still have, and keep the non-wild land as unpillaged as possible. If humans as a collective do not start living more sustainably, we will very soon run out of resources. 

Word Count: 636

Question: What other methods could student leaders use to convince the Fordham administration to reconnect with its early sustainable roots?

Works Cited

Gosier, Chris. “On-Campus Farm Nourished Fordham in Its Early Years.” Fordham Newsroom. Fordham Magazine, October 28, 2016. https://news.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/on-campus-farm-nourished-fordham-in-its-early-years/. 

“Big History.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, March 27, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History. 

WCSMedia. “The Mannahatta Project.” YouTube. YouTube, June 5, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKNEu_8t65s. 

[tayler-environment]

Coal and Climate Change

As mentioned in the previous post, coal is a nonrenewable energy source that climate activists are advocating to phase out of use worldwide. “AUSTRALIANS FOR COAL What is your investment dollar doing?” is one of the most perfect pieces of climate satire I have seen in a long time. At first, I thought that it would be a groundbreaking video depicting a few coal company executives finally denouncing coal as an energy resource. I was wrong, but I was not entirely unhappy that I was wrong. The dark humor embedded in the coal company’s “f*ck you” campaign describes perfectly the response of many coal companies to climate change mitigation efforts. Essentially, to please their shareholders while also staying true to their morals as humans, these coal executives just say “fuck you” and pretend their morals don’t exist. The way in which this is presented is, in a good way, misleading and quite funny. I am also completely convinced that the woman is a robot. Link: https://youtu.be/tqXzAUaTUSc (Nikolakopoulos 2014). 

On the flip side, the “Coal Power'' ad, although upbeat, is frightening. This ad frames the use of coal as distinctly American, appealing to American citizens’ deep rooted nationalism to bolster their cause. The ad describes coal as our main power source and shows clips of people happily using electricity derived from coal. The only allusion to coal’s impact on the climate, however, is at the end when the words: “Clean Coal. America’s Power” appear on the screen. This to me, is an oxymoron. Coal is arguably the dirtiest source of energy. Burning coal is one of the primary causes of human-induced climate change. There is nothing clean about coal, making this ad incredibly, in a bad way, misleading. Link: https://youtu.be/a8vLDxenusE (know1intrinsic 2008). 

We already know that coal and other nonrenewable energies are causing the climate to change. But how is it changing, and what are the effects? 

A graph of the annual average mass of three glaciers from 1955 - 2015. 

A graph showing the upward trend of global temperatures since 1880. 

In the book, graphs similar to the ones above display trends of warming temperatures year after year. This quick and radical change will have the following effects as listed in Miller and Spoolman: 

Increased melting of ice and snow

Increased methane emissions from thawing permafrost

Flooding in low-lying coastal cities from a rise in sea levels

Increased ocean acidification

More severe and prolonged drought

More intense and longer-lasting heat waves

More destructive storms and flooding

Forest loss and increased forest fires

Species extinction

Changes in where we can grow food

Spread of infectious tropical diseases

Increased photochemical smog in some areas

Economic disruption

Each and every one of these effects is already beginning to take place (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 480). 

Climate change is a pretty tough issue to think about, let alone fix. It is especially difficult for the old to imagine the effects of today’s actions years into the future. For the young, however, I think that this concept is easier to grasp. My generation is already living with the effects of climate change, and has grown up being educated on the subject. It is much easier for us to imagine how and why the situation can get worse. My hope for the planet lies in my generation and those that will come after me. I don’t think that the older generations will act on behalf of the young anytime soon, because they have a much lower stake in this issue than we do. I have heard so often that the climate crisis is the crisis of my generation. For the elderly who are solely concerned with self preservation, caring for the environment may not even be a thought because they will not live to feel the effects of their inactions. 

I think that an increased volume of climate education is the first step towards building sustainable societies. The elderly are correct in saying that children are the future, so we should shape these future minds to be incredibly climate conscious. The topic of climate change can apply to any discipline because it affects all disciplines. For example, climate change can apply to a Spanish class through its effects on Spanish sh speaking countries. It also can apply to a psychology class through examining the thought process of climate deniers and studying climate anxiety. I think that climate education as pertaining to every subject is a key component in the solution to climate change. 

On a more immediate scale, in order to minimize the effects of our already changing climate, major corporations need to commit to being carbon neutral. Corporations are responsible for a hefty percent of atmospheric emissions. A way to incentivize these corporations to change their ways is to implement a carbon tax. Essentially, the more carbon output that a company produces, the more that company pays in taxes. In a society that is propelled by money and an interest in the economy above all else, I think that this proposed solution is one of the most effective that we can conceive. Large corporations will not cease harmful practices on their own. 

Word count: 865

Question: Will actions taken today be successful at stopping the direct effects of climate change, or is it too late?

Works Cited

Nikolakopoulos, Yannis. “AUSTRALIANS FOR COAL. What Is Your Investment Dollar Doing?” YouTube. YouTube, February 28, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqXzAUaTUSc. 

know1intrinsic. “Coal Power.” YouTube. YouTube, February 21, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8vLDxenusE. 

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021.

[tayler-environment]

In the Next 50 Years

The time is now to transition from nonrenewable energy sources to renewable ones. Coal, oil, and natural gas can not be our long term energy solutions if we are to continue being able to live on this planet. The Miller and Spoolman text offers a list of five actions we must take to transition to the use of renewable energy sources over the next 50 years. I believe that this list is key to understand, and it links chapters 15 and 16 nicely. It is entirely possible to transition to renewable energy over the next 50 years by:

1. “Improving  energy efficiency and reducing energy waste;

2. decreasing our dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels; 

3. relying more on a mix of renewable energy from the sun, wind, the earth’s interior heat (geothermal energy), and hydropower to produce most of the world’s electricity;

4. developing modern smart electrical grids to distribute electricity produced from renewable and nonrenewable energy sources; and

5. shifting to much greater dependence on electric cars, buses, scooters, and other vehicles with batteries that are recharged by electricity produced by solar cells and wind turbines” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 377).

Completing all of these tasks seems like a big ask. However, the long term consequences of not forming these habits will be much more dire than the immediate consequences of such a radical energy shift. Coastal cities will flood, wildfires will burn more fiercely, natural disasters will worsen, and the ocean will become so acidic that much of the marine life we know and love (and love to eat) will die. To me, the decision to switch is a no-brainer. 

I am pleased to find that in chapter 15, Miller and Spoolman list nuclear fission energy alongside coal and oil in the category of nonrenewable energies. Far too frequently I have read about nuclear energy being the cleaner form of energy, and we should invest more money into this enterprise. I am very concerned about expanding our reliance on nuclear power. My fear of another Chernobyl situation aside, I think that nuclear’s biggest environmental obstacle is the waste it produces. I’m talking about the countless barrels of radioactive waste. These wastes need to be disposed of and controlled for thousands of years after their production. The idea of today’s waste still posing a threat to humans one thousand years into the future boggles my mind. When I hear about the longevity of the items we discard, even common plastic bottles, I am shocked that more people aren’t as shocked as I am. I fail to understand how people have become so desensitized to waste and its impact on future generations. How can someone just throw plastic bottles out of their car window?

A test site for radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. 

An obvious solution to the issue of mass waste production in general, is to reduce the amount of waste we produce by using less and reusing what little that we do use. However, there is no escaping the waste that is produced as a result of utilizing nuclear energy. Therefore, in order to reduce the amount of hazardous material that we pass on to future generations, we should divest from using nuclear power altogether and switch to completely renewable sources. 

I am not claiming that nuclear waste is the greatest danger that our environment is currently facing. The greatest dangers come from the byproducts of coal and oil energy use. Coal and oil are dirty energies from the moment mines and wells are dug, to the moment these materials are burned. We must divest from using these pollution behemoths before taking any other action, or we risk further effects of climate change and ocean acidification. In bringing up the dangers of nuclear waste, I am simply bringing attention to a factor that I feel is too often overlooked when one chooses to include nuclear energy in conversations about future energy consumption and resources. I don’t believe that there are any ethical sources of energy other than those which are renewable, sustainable, and have the least negative impact on our environment.

Word count: 673

Question: How can one justify America’s marriage to coal as a resource for energy? It has been proven that there are more jobs to be had in sustainable energy. Do you think that it is an issue of not wanting to change, or of a lack of information? 

Works Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021.

[tayler-environment]

Ocean Acidification

The Core Case Study at the end of Chapter 8 in the Miller and Spoolman text considers the effect of ocean acidification on coral reefs. The increasing acidity of ocean water is beginning to bleach and kill coral reefs, and causing marine species to perish across the globe. This impacts coastal communities by depleting their supply of seafood and for many, their means of income. All of the natural capital that the ocean possesses is being attacked by this change in pH. Ocean acidification has been an issue that I have been concerned about for a long time, and I agree with the scientists mentioned by Miller and Spoolman who believe that ocean acidification may pose an even greater threat to human existence than climate change. However, the two go hand-in-hand, as they are both the result of greenhouse gases and pollution being absorbed into our environments. We must tackle these issues as a massive and frightening whole. 

Many of the chapters for today’s reading focus on biodiversity. Net primary productivity (NPP), is “the rate at which producers use photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy minus the rate at which they use some of this stored chemical energy through aerobic respiration” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 53). An ecosystem with a high NPP also must have a high level of biodiversity. Before reading Chapter 3 of Miller and Spoolman, I had always considered coral reefs to be the most efficient ecosystems in terms of their NPP. On page 55 the authors provide an interesting graphic that changed my perspective. 

Graph that charts the average NPP of specific ecosystem types to the nearest hundred. 

This graph documents the average NPP of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. What I found surprising and quite interesting was that estuaries are by far the most efficient ecosystems in terms of their NPP. This fact hit home for me because I grew up living next to an estuary. As I have gotten older, the water has changed. There is more algae in the springtime than ever before and the nitrogen levels in the water, the result of a polluted watershed, are rising. Eutrophication has killed off many of the species of fish and crab that once made the bay their home. This is incredibly upsetting as it is, but now that I know how important estuaries are, my passion to push for more sustainable practices in my community has strengthened. 

I found a case study that analyzes twelve years of data surveying changes in 166 Australian estuaries. What they found was disturbing. The data shows that “the changes measured are an order of magnitude faster than predicted by global ocean and atmospheric models, indicating that existing global models may not be useful to predict change in estuaries” (Scanes, Scanes, and Ross 2020). The damage being done to our oceans is substantial and it is not happening slowly. I believe that understanding the magnitude and the rate of the change that is happening within our oceans is key to stopping or reversing ocean acidification’s effects. 

An incredibly interesting example of taking initiative against ocean acidification is the manual reforestation of coral reefs. Reefs that have been bleached and killed are being repopulated by farmed corals in many parts of the world. This is an incredible idea that promotes awareness of ocean acidification and also aides in rebuilding a broken habitat. Communities surrounding successful reefs involved with these kinds of initiatives will see an increase in tourism and biodiversity in their areas. Additionally, initiatives to replant damaged eelgrass beds are incredibly encouraging. In estuaries, baby sea creatures use eelgrass to hide from predators while they grow. Replanting eelgrass helps marine species bounce back from population decrease more quickly. However, these ideas are not attacking the cause of the problem, they are only responding to the effects. Decreasing global emissions is one way to prevent the cause of ocean acidification and to prevent climate change as a whole. I think that it is great that decreasing emissions has such a widespread effect, however, I also believe that ocean acidification deserves more attention of its own. 

Word count: 686

Question: How do we better protect estuaries and other highly productive ecosystems from human-induced destruction? 

Works Cited

Scanes, E., Scanes, P.R. & Ross, P.M. Climate change rapidly warms and acidifies Australian estuaries. Nat Commun 11, 1803 (2020). 

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021.

[tayler-environment]

The Ecosystem as an Economy

In the most recent years of the anthropocene, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in population and climate temperature. Figure 1.12 in Miller and Spoolman’s Living in the Environment graphs the striking exponential nature of human population growth over the past 200 years. The textbook’s figure looks similar to the figure below. 

A graph of the human population that begins with the year 1800 and projects to the year 2100.

My aim is not to say that overpopulation is the cause of our climate’s change. “The average American consumes about 30 times the amount of resources that the average Indian consumes and 100 times the amount consumed by the average person in the world’s poorest countries” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 15). The unequal distribution of resources asserts that climate change is not necessarily a population issue, it is a lifestyle issue. The way that the average American is living is not going to safeguard the resources necessary to sustain future generations. I myself unfortunately am living in a way that, if everyone were to live as I do, would require 2.6 Earths to sustain the population (Ecological Footprint Calculator 2021).

“An environmentally sustainable society protects natural capital and lives on its income. Such a society would meet the current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their basic resource needs” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 19). This is the goal that every society must have if we are to prolong the time that humans can exist on this planet. Living on what is readily and already available to us is key to maintaining a sustainable lifestyle. The textbook gives the example of winning a million dollar lottery. By investing your capital (making what you already have work harder for you), you can earn 10% interest every year. Therefore, spending $100,000 per year is within the bounds of maintaining a sustainable lifestyle. You will never run out of money, aka resources. Living completely sustainably is not the reality for most folks. In this example, most people are spending, say $110,000 per year after winning the same lottery. These people use what they have once and then it’s gone. Living in this way, the money that you had won in the lottery will be gone in as little as 18 years. This was the part of our readings that I found most important. Not only does this example accurately illustrate how people are depleting the world of its natural capital, but it reaches across disciplines to engage an audience that may more easily understand the economical language for resource distribution and depletion rather than the ecological language. To gain a further understanding of humans involvement with climate change, one can look to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Framework (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). 

As suggested by the Big Ideas at the end of Chapter 1 of Miller and Spoolman, I agree that relying on solar energy and other renewable sources of energy will help ensure a more sustainable future. I also agree, as I have described earlier, that preserving the earth’s natural capital is vital to protecting biodiversity. What I do not agree will work is the institution of full cost pricing. The abstract idea sounds desirable: “[include] environmental and health costs in the market prices of goods and services” (Miller and Spoolman 2021, 20). This is only a good idea to educate consumers about the environmental effects of what they are buying and to deter them from buying high-cost goods. The main effect of implementing full cost pricing will be that low income families can no longer afford their food/necessities. It is typically the lowest quality foods that have the lowest price in stores and the highest environmental cost. This unfortunate fact is the result of environmental racism and environmental capitalism, both of which I will discuss in subsequent posts. These foods are not the high-priced, organic, GMO-free, herbicide-free, palm oil free, ethically harvested materials that are of highest price, highest quality, and lowest environmental impact. Full cost pricing would force low income families to buy less, or buy the foods that they otherwise would not be able to afford, further pushing them into poverty. When it comes to full cost gas prices, not everyone has enough money to purchase a Tesla and forego the increased price of gas. Low income families with cars are not likely to own an electric vehicle, so they would have to pay more, under full cost pricing, to get to work. I think that the idea of full cost pricing has good intentions, but it does not take into account the impact that higher prices on necessities will have on individuals and poor communities. 

Word Count: 797

Question: Is holding Americans to a higher sustainability standard feasible? What circumstances would need to be in place for the human race to convert to using resources at a sustainable rate? 

Works Cited 

“How Many Planets Does It Take to Sustain Your Lifestyle?” Ecological Footprint Calculator. Accessed March 11, 2021. http://www.footprintcalculator.org/result1. 

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Inc, 2021. 

Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis: a Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Washington, D.C: Island Press, 2005. 

[tayler-environment]

About me!

Hello and welcome to my page! My name is Tayler Rogers and I am double majoring in Environmental Studies and Political Science at Fordham University. This blog will serve as a project for Professor van Buren’s Introduction to Environmental Studies course. Here, I will document my thoughts, some interesting facts that I have learned in class and from readings, and propose possible solutions to the environmental issues that I will address. Even if you are not a professor or a student at Fordham, please feel free to take a look at this page to learn more about the climate crisis and all that it has and will continue to affect. 

Before I begin, let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Marietta, Georgia, but was raised in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where my family and I still reside today. Living in a coastal town, I grew up with the shoreline as both my school and recreation ground. I have been blessed with incredible memories and a wealth of first hand knowledge about marine ecosystems. My favorite time of year is when the sun is warm, flowers are blooming, there are leaves on all of the trees, and it is finally acceptable weather again to wear a swimsuit wherever I go. I love spending days on the beach or on the boat with my friends and family, and going on my favorite drive down the coast of Falmouth at sunset. 

After graduating high school, I moved to New York City for college. I am absolutely loving my time in New York, so much that I rarely want to leave. It is so different here from my hometown, and I am glad for the new experiences. I can’t imagine spending my college years anywhere else. This said, I do love being able to go home every once in a while to breathe the fresh air and see the stars again. I truly have the best of both worlds and for that, I thank God.