First, what is sustainability? Sustainability is the capacity to maintain a certain state indefinitely. (Wikipedia) Basically, you must do this in a manner in which you do not disturb nature, the object must not pollute, and it must be able to be reused indefinetly. Why is sustainability so important you may ask. Well my friend because if society does not put forth the effort to keep earth in it's most natural state we will run out of nonrenewable resources and be in turmoil. The two things I think are most important to be sustainable in are energy and agriculture. In order for our country, as well as our world, to function we need both efficient, eco friendly energy and agriculture for a bountiful future.
Energy is being energy efficient, while not hurting the resource for future generations; this embodies only energy sources that will be around as long as the human race is around. Sustainable energy sources are all renewable. Nuclear power is not included because it produces a hazardous waste. Sustainable energy is divided into three generations. The first generation, at the end of the 19th century, emerged from the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century. In the first generation, people used resources such as Geothermal Energy which can be produced twenty four hours, but is limited to the areas of the world that are home to geysers or hot springs such as Yellowstone National Park or Iceland. Geothermal energy is very cheap, seeing as there are no costs to purchase the fuel just fund the plant. Hydroelectric Power, in the first generation, is produced by waters energy and or force. During the industrial revolution it was used to power textile mills, sawmills etc. Now it’s used to power home by hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power supplies roughly nineteen percent of the world’s electricity. The second Generation, used sustainable sources such as solar heating. Solar heating, uses the sun to heat water or a space. Pumps push the heated air and or water from the solar panel to the source. The third generation, the most recent, deals with ocean energy, photovoltaic and wind power. The reason ocean energy would be most helpful is because many metropolitan cities are on or near the coast and they require a lot of energy. Ocean energy uses the strength and force of the tides to produce energy. Photovoltaic’s convert solar energy directly into electricity. Photovoltaic would work in sunny regions, any country near the equator, etc. Wind Power is the use of wind to turn turbines that produce electricity. Wind Power accounts for eighteen percent of the energy produced in Denmark. If the USA were to switch to renewable energy resources, North Dakota alone would be able to supply one third of the nation’s energy. (AWEA) Wind Power is more than renewable it’s also quite reliable. It takes hours of wind change to affect the supply of energy being produced. Wind power is composed of “fields” of wind turbines, meaning there are many wind turbines, so if one turbine goes out it matters little because you still have many more to keep generating power while the one turbine is being fixed. Wind power is no louder than a refrigerator running, studies have shown that wind farms at a moderate distance “can increase property value” (AWEA) as well. Buyers most likely assume that they would be helping the environment if they utilized wind power that would be powering their house. So it’s an incentive to buy because they will be helping the environment. All these alternative energy sources are becoming more and more vital to the World. Non renewable resources only last so long. On top of that they are polluting our environment, only furthering the damage that has already been done. The MOST important thing about sustainable energy resources is the ability for them to be used again and again without harming the environment or inhabitants of the environment. As long as nothing is put into water used to power hydroelectricity it’s renewable. Solar energy isn’t going anywhere and neither is geothermal. And there is absolutely NO way that tidal energy will go away at least in the human race’s lifetime. Being energy efficient also has great economic benefits as well. The only money involved in the use of these renewable energy resources is paying for the plant to be built, run and employees salary. Then the consumer is going to have to pay a great deal less, than if it was a non renewable resource that they had to extract from the earth, process, transport to the plant, unload etc. So then how come companies and the government aren’t doing more to fund sustainable energy? Well when it comes to taxes it’s cheaper on the companies to not use sustainable energy. Also most companies look only at how they will be benefited now, not how they would benefit in the long run. Companies go with the cheapest way they can run the company AT THE TIME. Rather than use their thought process, which would show them that yes they would have to spend money now in order to convert the energy plants etc. BUT in the long run they would benefit because the energy company would now have a “free” source of energy, therefore their profits would be much greater than their expenses in the future. Thankfully, there are some organizations that promote sustainable energy, one of them being the Sustainable Energy Coalition, which will now be referred to as the SEC from here on out. The SEC was established in 1992. The group consists of more than sixty national and state businesses, environmental, consumer and energy policy organizations (SEC). The SEC promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy, while trying to decrease federal support of unsafe and environmentally hazardous energy resources. The SEC has a blueprint that I have chosen to include in my essay, because the information is vital to the reader in understanding the SEC’s course of action.
- “promote energy-saving technologies in all sectors of the economy - including energy-efficient buildings, appliances, lighting, vehicles, and industrial processes as well as COGENERATION, District Energy, and FUEL CELLS;
- promote environmentally-responsible applications of the cross-section of RENEWABLE ENERGY technologies including BIOFUELS, BIOMASS, GEOTHERMAL, HYDROPOWER, OCEAN, SOLAR, WIND, and renewably-based hydrogen;
- reduce GREENHOUSE GAS emissions to a level consistent with a world-wide goal of global climate stabilization (e.g., curbing U.S. CO2 emissions by 60-80% from current levels by no later than mid-century);
- eliminate U.S. energy imports (i.e., Oil and Natural Gas - now 58% and 15% respectively), while reducing overall use of oil, Coal, and natural gas; and
- phase out the current generation of nuclear power and not construct new reactors in their place.”
-Courtesy of the sustainablenergycoalition.org
Sustainable Agriculture is the ability to produce food indefinitely without causing any damage to the environment. Biophysical is the long terms effects of soil processes and how they affect the environment. Meaning over processing also known as tillage, leads to erosion. On farms you must select species of plants that will work best on your land that will be also be sustainable; if possible pick plants that are disease resistance. It is very important for farms to be diverse. If a farm is only planting one crop, and the crop is lost, the farm may go bankrupt or suffer severe losses the affect their ability to reproduce the following year. But if the farm is growing a number of different crops the likeliness of all the crops failing is slim to none. Crop rotation is another important practice on farms to maintain sustainability. Crop Rotation is used to suppress weeds, pests and pathogens without the use of pesticides or chemicals. If the farmer uses a cover crop it will keep the top soil intact and retain the soils moisture. After harvesting, the nutrients usually nitrogen need to be replenished, but by a renewable resource. Some renewable resources of nitrogen are human or animal waste, planting legumes that form symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria, or genetically fixing crops to form symbiosis with nitrogen, this is one example of crop rotation. On sustainable ranches you must have a grazing management program, without one farmers’ are likely to cause soil erosion. Grazing programs are operated by only having so many animals to an acre; this is determined by the forage and landscape. Forage animals should be rotated from pasture to pasture where the opportunity to overgraze is taken out of the equation. Animal selection is very important to sustainable ranching. You must consider the terrain the animal will be put into and which animal will be the most hardy under the conditions. If you keep the animals fed well there should be no reason to spend money on outside forage. All crops need sun and air to grow, but they also need nutrients from the soil to grow. This replenishes nitrogen and doesn’t strip soil of nutrients. Environmental health is the stewardship of natural and human resources. Stewardship of human resources includes taking social responsibilities, consumer health and safety as well as the need for rural communities. You must maintain stewardship to the land in order to maintain sustainability. Making the transition to sustainable agriculture is a process. (UofC) It takes steps and money. But in the long run after you spend money your increase in profit will outgrow your expenses. Therefore making you economically sound. For the most optimum use of sustainability is the combination of farming and ranching together. Utilize flat land for row crops while using hilly or sloped land for grazing animals. Plant a crop, harvest it. Let the animals consume forage left over from harvest, the animals fertilize the land in the process by shedding manure, then your soil is fertile again and the farmer can plant a different crop, where he then is implementing crop rotation. The goal of sustainable agriculture is to develop efficient biological systems which require little to no material input. The University of California feels that tax modifications could be made for agriculture providers that implemented sustainable practices, making it an incentive for farmers and ranchers to switch to sustainable programs. Agriculture consumers play a major role in creating a sustainable food system. Through their purchases they tell producers what they want and are willing to buy. If the perspective of consumers is broadened to be aware of environment quality and resource use when making shopping decisions farmers would have no choice but to switch to sustainable strategies. If you’re confused this would be compared to the bus boycotts by colored people during segregation.
Sustainable cities are dedicated to reducing input resources in the city as well as reducing the output of waste. A sustainable city are relatively self sufficient. This is very hard to achieve but cities can be partially sustainable. If everyone walked to work instead of drove there would be relatively no pollution from vehicles. Utilizing energy conservation devices and systems would reduce the amount of energy used. It would increase the financial capital and environmental value of the city. The energy bills would also decline. In the building of house if contractors used better insulation, and used a certain type of model there would be less energy used to heat or air condition houses.
The bottom line here is something has to be done to improve our environment. Earth’s inhabitants have deteriorated earth slowly, but it’s becoming an increasingly bigger problem. All the citizens hear daily is how gas is going up and the stock markets going down. WE’RE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES! The people of earth have gotten greedy and lost sight of what’s really important, our future generations. If we deplete all of earth’s non renewable resources what are all the future generations going to do. So we need to stop being so self centered and absorbed, worry about the future of your family. Give back what you’ve taken! Support sustainable agriculture, energy and cities. All the practices of discussed throughout my paper are attainable. They just require more awareness, research and compassion. It’s up to us the people of earth to make it a better environment for ourselves and our future generations.
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