As we have discussed throughout the semester, sustainability is a paramount task that our earth needs to reach. The degradation of our forestry’s, fisheries, water supply, and other natural resources is reason enough. However, for some those things a trivial and not important. These are the types of people who care more about their pocket books than what they are doing to the earth. To reach these people and get them involved we have to create profitability from sustainability. Today I would like to propose a few options that would motivate these individuals and corporations to get involved. First, is the topics of green growth, in which I can show them how growing their companies with green initiatives is better (financially speaking) than business as usual practices. Next is the Iowa wind industry, this state is the nation’s leaders in wind energy and are showing great potential for the future. Another topic I would like to focus on is more on a global scale and centralized in the developing world. How stable electricity can not only improve quality of life but can also increase household income dramatically. And finally there is the discussion we need to have about policy and where it falls into place among all of this. How the government needs to act in order to benefit the poor and all who reside above them.
Green growth is growth that is environmentally sustainable. It is efficient in its use of natural resources, clean in that it minimizes pollution and environmental impacts, and resilient in that it accounts for natural hazards and the role of environmental management in preventing physical hazards and excessive commodity price volatility. Green growth is a tool to achieve sustainable development, not a competing paradig...
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...p stores as well as medium regional chains. The thing that doesn’t seem to be discussed much is how much money would be save from lower taxes. The city of Evanston has a street cleanup budget of nearly five million dollars a year. If even 20% of that was absorbed by the lack of plastic bags being littered about, that would give each citizen on the city money back. It really seems like a win-win for everybody involved. Neither of these topics even touch on the damage that plastics cause to the earth (but I’ll leave that for another paper).
So as you can see, the savings and redistribution of wealth provided by sustainable measures has profound impact on all parties involved. Though it matters which option a given community chooses to use, it doesn’t matter why. The only good choice is to take action and move to a greener world. If Iowa can do it, why can’t everyone?
“The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling to 46 years, human have been here 4 hours, the industrial revolution began 1 minute ago, and in that time, we’ve destroyed more than half the world’s forests.” - Unknown. One major environmental problem in our world is deforestation - what is that, you ask? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, deforestation is the action or process of clearing of forests. Some consequences of this include a large contribution to global warming and climate change (about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year), loss of biodiversity especially in tropical rainforests, and the extinction of many known or yet to be discovered species. But, through some Debt-for-Nature Swaps, leaving forests
A bowl of mix greens with fresh cut cucumber and grape tomatoes. Dressed with a fire roasted red pepper vinaigrette. It make a nice basic salad, but it stands on it one as a nice mean starter or lite lunch. What goes in to the growing of all the produce? We start in this world as hunter and gatherers. We did that for hundreds of thousands years. Then we learn how to grow and harvest our own food. Letting us work less to get more food and beginning one of humanities first huge population growth. That was not the last time we change the way we got our food. In the Second World War we discovered from weapon research how to make more effective fertilizers leading to more boatful harvest. Without that discovered the world could have not gotten to its huge population of over seven billion people. Now what is the next advancement in the agriculture going to be?
I chose to look into General Electric for this project because they are an energy supplier and multi-national company. Energy providers have a reputation as a money hungry companies that care about the bottom line more than people and the planet. It is easy for a person to assume that a corporation of GE’s size, money would be its only concern. What I learned was that GE has a public image problem more than a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) problem. The company has been working to make the people of the planet more Earth friendly by creating technology that has higher efficiency with fewer emissions and lower resource demands. GE has a well-established strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility. As a result of CSR the company has reaped profit benefits as well as a perceptibly better company image. It was with great expectation that I chose GE in the hopes to find an area that a global energy supplier would need improvement. I found that GE is within the top-10 of companies that demonstrate CSR. GE shares this distinguishment with other companies such as Patagonia, Nike and General Motors. Besides continuing the course they have started, GE could further add to their repertoire by providing roadmaps for other companies to follow in order to be a business with demonstrable CSR.
Getting involved in political affiliations, or voting for candidates that support sustainability is another solution. We can also support companies that prac...
The world in which we live in at the moment has become poisonous. It has been poisoned by the human species’ daily survival activities. Humans around the world have taken for granted the daily impact that we have on the natural world. It all boil down to each and every breath that we take. Each and every breath that we exhale releases poisonous chemicals into the atmosphere. Until when our existence becomes absent, the world will remain poisoned.
Green is good. Political color-coding and branding as of late associates the adjective “green” with nature, with balance, and with a sense of regard toward Earth. Greenpeace, Green Party, Going Green. Owing in part to basic consumer awareness, shifting political winds, and ever-evolving market sensibilities, advertising has grown much greener in the past few decades. However, the idea of green advertising offers a striking contradiction. With the basic philosophy of advertising essentially dirty and “brown,” and with the tenets of pure capitalism fundamentally opposed to a truly ecological society (Corbett 237), the term “green advertising” offers little more than an oxymoron. Though research on marketing trends indicate a decline in pandering
Every year we hear “How are we going to feed the nine?” In case you have lived under a rock, “the nine” is an expression used by farmers and agriculturist to refer to the expected nine billion people who will be living on earth by 2050. Many solutions have been devised in the past century to increase production of animals and plants for food, for the majority of the history of farming people usually practiced subsistence farming. Subsistence farming is when a family only grows enough plants and animals for themselves. Then society moved towards commercial farming, where only a few large farms produce enough food for everyone around and export food to other countries. This corporate and commercial, has been successful until now. Now that there
Plastic or paper, is a choice that people face when going to the grocery stores. Plastic bags are often the choice that is made. A controversial issue in the world today is the use of plastic bags. Plastic bags are used because of the convenience they give, by being able to carry several items at once. However, in the article, “Banning Bans, Not Bags”, Jennifer Schultz claims, “Plastic bags clog up local waterways, litter roadways, and get swallowed up by unsuspecting fish” (6). Plastic bags are used once, then are discarded or, littered all over the place. When they are littered all over they become problems for more than just humans. These plastic bags pose a big hazard for animals on land and in especially the ocean. Humans eat land and
The impact of the development on the environment and its resources should be understood in order to move forward towards a way to make the relationship between development, growth and the environment possible. From here the concept
In recent years, business or green business was no longer an option to become an obligation. Companies started to change their mindset and values to develop new environmental proposals, for example launching second ecological lines.
Humans have been destroying the planet since we were able to stand on two legs. As a society, we need to work to reverse these terrible effects that our existence has on the planet. Sustainability is one way to begin reversing these effects, while still living our daily lives. In 2006, Al Gore presented his documentary, “ An Inconvenient Truth”, as a way to show the world the evidence behind global warming, climate change and the destruction of our planet. This documentary shocked the world. It was clear that changes needed to be made, but the destruction was more intense than previously thought. SInce this revelation in 2006, companies have tried to cut down on their greenhouse emissions, as well as offered sustainable products to their customers. Through a debate of morals and
This essay analyzes the definitions and complex relations among those three concepts; considers both negative and positive effects of economic growth and proposes some solutions for environmental protection.
Everyone has heard a cashier one time or another mumble, “Paper or plastic?” as he put their groceries in a bag, but do shoppers know the effects of each vessel in which they carry their comestibles? There are many issues and benefits to both paper and plastic. The making and recycling of both paper and plastic bags can harm the environment. One must also look at the costs of making each bag. The convenience of each is also something to look at. Many people jump to conclusion that paper bags are better for the environment without knowing the facts. Since plastic bags are preferred by customers and plastic bags actually do not hurt the environment as much as paper ones do, consumers should feel at ease when choosing plastic.
Climate Change and Sustainable Development This research paper is about climate change with the concept of sustainable development, meaning that it will approach the climate change problem in an economical way and try to solve it with the new growth theory. New growth theory argues that innovations, population growth, new technology, and creative destruction are connected to each other and that these connections will solve the climate change problem. The exponential technology growth, improved international private rights and improved use of human capital are some of those key terms that the theory is all about. The most important thing towards the solution is human capital.
Our world is growing! Growing in population that is, but the resources are staying the same. To help with the growing of the population that will be happening in the 21st century, science and agriculture need to work hand-in-hand. They need to stand together to make a break through together, to insure that everyone will have food on their plate. We need to work to have larger yields with the land we have. Some people say that humans need to change their diet, and others say that we should destroy hundreds of acres of wild land.