This space is created for the benefit of the students registered in Eco 296U at Pace, Pleasantville NY.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
UNEP Video Clip
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As wonderful capitalism is, I believe it’s truly the root of a lot of the pushback we see in our society today regarding green economics and sustainability. Capitalism sits at the heart of innovation, and innovation is driven by the desire to not only ease day to day lives/activities but to increase capital and gain a cutting edge over competitors. While all of this is great, we sometime forget how our actions are affecting the environment around us, we just see the numbers and value behind the innovation but not its carbon footprint. As Sander mentions, we cannot wait for Science to give us the go on how to curb and shrink the problem but rather we should move at the speed of innovation and figure out how we can reduce our carbon footprints and encourage green economics by changing mindsets. There is pushback against green economics as mindsets believe it to be too burdensome, expensive and not very efficient. But as Sander says, we need to study the dynamics of innovation and construct green economics using those dynamics, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Sehrish, Usually I will not be able to respond to each of the comments posted but I wanted to take this opportunity to say that your point is very well taken. I do believe that ultimately we need to make a total break from capitalism if we are to resolve all the ecological problems that the global community is facing. Simply these problems cannot be resolved with more growth, the traditional and most fundamental idea upon which capitalism is built. Simply stated the solution is SSE ( Steady State Economics) as presented and popularized by Herman Daly.
I was happy when I heard the speaker in the the video say, "Sustainability is about changing mindsets". It is a common train of though for people to assume that sustainability is simply about finding ways to make bio-fuels, generate solar energy, generate wind energy, and moving economies towards being greener in terms of eliminating poverty. However, the actual focus of sustainability should be changing the way people think. How did we as the human race arrive at the troubles we face in the modern world as far as food & energy security? It was the wasteful and care-free lifestyles pf governments, corporations, and individuals. We allowed ourselves to replace the word innovation with profitable. We stopped caring about the consequences of our lifestyle, and instead focused on what was cheaper and more comfortable for us. What I do not understand however, is how exactly you convince people to abandon the methods that have allowed them to live so comfortably for so long? How do you convince a corporation whose sole-purpose is to make the largest possible profit that they need to change their ways before it is too late? I suppose these are the questions that need to be answered before we move on to a better world. There is no taking back the damage we have already done. However, maybe it is possible to be innovative in how to prevent the next cycle of repercussions.
Geordi, I do not believe we can convince corporations the change their ways. I do believe that if we want to change we have to first change ourselves, we have to look for cleaner alternatives and convince others to follow in our foot steps. This would be a good start I believe.
I think both Sehrish and Geordi make good points. Indeed, capitalism controls the direction of innovation and it is our fault for choosing to be cheap and comfortable rather than eco-friendly. But capitalism may not be entirely a bad thing. Although it is true that capitalism tends to result in innovations for faster, cheaper and newer products, it can sometimes result in the sustainable direction. In October, a small British company was able to make gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapor (article link below). The article states both the global impact this innovation makes on the price of gasoline and the environment. Take a moment to really let this information sink in: CAPITALISM has resulted in INNOVATION with the POTENTIAL to help the Earth. I think this is proof we CAN be sustainable as long as we move innovation in the right direction and the current business trend for sustainability and "going green" has resulted in this technological breakthrough. Whether they want to admit it or not, this kind of technology is worth a lot of money and I'm sure there are plenty of investors ready to bid if it was ever put up on auction. In conclusion, YES, it's okay to create and innovate for the goal of capitalism but if we could maintain a clear focus for sustainability (ie, change mindsets), if we could REALLY motivate others to strive for both money and the environment, then we can really get the kind of green future we're hoping for.
I agree with Victoria that we are too quick to blame Capitalism for the lack of a 'green economy'. Sure, right now it could potentially be a detriment, but the economic model is not the issue. Take solar panels as an example; in the past few years production and sales of them have exploded, this is due to recent technological innovation and the ability for companies to mass produce them. Compared to just a year or two ago, I now see solar 'roofs' being installed in parking lots all over the tri-state area, my town now has panels on just about every single telephone pole, and even the local church dropped $340,000 last year to cover it's roof in solar panels. In this case, government subsidies and loans have helped spur the growth of the market, but by and large it is the capitalist mindset, the hunt for profits, that enabled such growth. I read an interesting article in Forbes magazine relating to this, and companies are actually overproducing solar panels, thus creating large inventory/surplus. We all know that a large surplus will help to further drive down costs to consumers, but the key point here is that corporations are on board with solar, they see profit in it. Thus they are pushing the efficiency of the technology and fueling innovation. Corporations are building brand new factories and betting a substantial amount of money on solar's success. The article below states that solar sales may jump up as much as 75% in 2012. The cynic in me knows that these corporations will do whatever they can to boost sales since they are now so invested, but in this case they're selling renewable energy, so in regards to 'green' products those capitalist tactics are just fine with me.
There is another benefit to capitalism. Once or twice a year people line up to buy the latest and 'greatest' Apple product; the iPhone uses antiquated technology and it is not the top phone in any category (aside from maybe sales figures), when Apple releases a new version the list of improvements is miniscule, and the phones are massively overpriced. Yet there are lines at stores and countless news reports when a 'new' model is announced and consequently released. Consumers then go on to buy iPods and iPads which are essentially the same product, and those too are constantly updated so consumers will go out and repurchase. Furthermore, a few decades ago some genius was selling ROCKS to people and calling them 'pets'.
Mr. Van Der Leeuw claims that innovation and a change in mindset are key to creating a green economy, and I wholeheartedly agree with him; what we need to do is make sustainability and green living as popular and as 'necessary' as owning that latest iPhone.
I believe that green economics and sustainability has been capitalized. Many companies are using initiatives and products such as “go green” and “eco friendly” in order to make profit, as opposed creating an eco-friendly environment. This behavior from companies creates lack of faith in the movement. In my opinion, when I see a company saying its bottled water is eco friendly because it uses less plastic, I believe that the company is simply interested in saving money on the bottles, as oppose to saving the environment. This could also be used as a marketing strategy to influence people to buy these bottles, because consumers may actually believe that the company is making an attempt to save the environment. Government can either be the most helpful for the eco-friendly movement or the most unhelpful. Brazil’s Government has made laws that will preserve national parks. American Government has made laws or invested money in order to produce go green products and create more jobs. Obama has lauded his administration for increasing fuel efficiency standards for cars for the first time in decades, and added the government fleet by buying 17,600 American-made fuel-efficient cars and trucks. This goes into 150 billion budget for go-green initiatives. I believe that the government should create an incentive plan for businesses to become more eco-friendly. The link below speaks more about Obama’s plan. I do agree with Sehrish, that capitalism is pushing back our society today regarding green economics and sustainability. I also agree with Sanders statement that because society didn’t take the early warning signs we landed in to trouble. Thus, we shouldn’t wait for science to get its calculations right we should act now.
That is a good point about the plastic bottles. Companies using plastic bottles and claiming they are saving the environment are probably saving money and at the same time jumping on the "going green" bandwagon. I do not think if they had to invest more money into going green they would take part.
Individuals as well as companies are usually afraid of change. When transitioning your lifestyle or company to be more sustainable there is a cost. That cost may be comfort and ease of use or you may need to invest money initially in order to save money later. That’s scary for some. If every company in the US had at least one sustainable practice in some section of their business model we would be on the right track. As Sander mentioned in the video, we ignored the early warning signs. Ideally we would have been able to ease our society in a sustainable mindset to make the transition easier. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where we need to act quickly to prevent further damage. Also, as many of you were saying, capitalism certainly contributes to the issue. In order to be truly successful in creating a sustainable future we are going to need to make a cultural shift; not just in the US but globally. The UN is and needs to be a vital part in promoting sustainable practice. I have seen clip after clip of various politicians saying “What can we do? China and India are not going to stop growing, producing, and polluting.” As poor of an argument this is for the US to sit and do nothing there is a glimmer of truth in what they are saying. Each country’s government can only (for the most part) influence their own country. There is no doubt that government needs to take action and respond but I Think there also needs to be a bigger non-governmental effort. This needs to be a global effort.
I feel as though society hasn't felt the need and demand to change yet, and this in itself is the problem. The video mentions how innovation is continuous because consumers and society have increased demands as time changes, well i believe we should stop demanding so much as individuals and look at the health of the earth first and make decisions from there. I agree with Leah's point as well. To add on to that, the economy relies on these huge corporations and organizations so much, like BP, EXXON, Mcdonalds that if the government were to ask large corporations to take the smarter and healthier alternative to business practice they would see decreased revenue, increased unemployment due to lack of profits, and inevitably a decrease in national GDP. It seems as though our economy is to far along the road to switch to a healthier practice. One way i see a viable alternative is if we all as individuals demand it from the government and large corporations to change their unhealthy practices, or else we wont buy there products.
I think we in society do need to change, I do agree with you that society has not felt a need to change. Do you think the government should put more restrictions on certain things to help society start to change. Things in the next few years all taxi's in NYC have to be hybrid or more fuel efficient. I think cars should have to become more fuel efficient and companies should be held to standard to increase fuel milage dramatically every few years.
There is an old Aboriginal saying:” The more we know, the more we want.” Consumer demand is changing or will be right to say is increasing drastically as our society is growing into a dynamic and very advanced technological and corpored world. Many products from being luxury once become necessity in our everyday life, and yes the more we learn and see the more we demand. As Sander mentioned in the video we are reached the point where ignoring the early signs brought us to catastrophic situations. Waiting on science to come with an alternative is not doing us a favor. I agree with many of posts on this video; we can just wait on our government or other governments decisions. Every individual has to be involved and demand healthier and better lifestyle.
In the video, Sander mentions that we would be better off heeding warnings to disaster rather than waiting for science to prove the negative effects of our lifestyle. It is important to possess enough foresight to prevent catastrophe, or else humankind truly is as foolish as mythological tales dictate. In a time when an over dependence on technology's ability to fix all our problems, the paradigm implies that humans are too knowledgeable to fail. The irony of this idea is that if we're so knowledgeable, we should have the foresight to avoid ecological disaster.
The other students have been speaking of innovation and capitalism as sources of environmental degradation. While I strongly agree that much of capitalism's ideals have caused damage to the Earth of gigantic proportions, it is mainly due to capitalism's emphasis on decrease production cost in order to increase overall financial gain. If consumers deeply valued transparency in the market, with each product revealing the quality of materials, the treatment of the workers, and the overall impact of each product on the environment, then consumers could choose the most ethical products. If companies noticed that consumers did not want to purchase items that are environmentally compromising, then they would halt unethical production immediately. Unfortunately, many people will almost always choose the cheapest option, even if it is made in a sweatshop. It is up to socially active consumers to show companies that there certainly is a market in sustainable and ethical production.
The world today has a lot of capitalism to a point where I do not believe we can reverse it. People are always out looking for the best deal or how they can get something for a better price. I do not know many people who are concerned about the environment when it comes to their money. I also think these big companies are using "green products" that help our environment to their advantage in Marketing. Things that are environment friendly are all over everything I see when I am shopping for food and even when I am buying a text book, the site lets me know how many trees I am saving by renting instead of buying. Another problem I see is some of the vehicles that are being made today concentrate on fuel milage. Previous research that I have done shows the overall car is more harmful to the environment, these hybrid cars are produced with batteries that do not have a proper disposal process and you can not recycle them in an efficient manor.
Sander has very good points in the short video. We need to act sooner than later as humans and can't wait for scientist to tell us what we should do to solve these problems. We as humans can be more cautious with what we do and try to encourage others to follow becoming more green. I am personally not the biggest fan of capitalism, I believe supporting local business is a good start. I live close to a lot of different farms and farmers markets that provide vegetables and even meats. I also have made a diesel truck run off only biofuels that comes from local restaurants in my area.
Two points from Sanders that I would like to focus on are " we have to work with the trend" and that "innovation is driven by demand". When it comes down to the core, all businesses exist to make money and environmentally and socially responsible decisions are often more costly than systems that are all ready in use. We live in a great time when "green" is trendy and consumers have concern for where their products come from and how they got there. As Sanders said, we have to work with this trend and use it to the advantage of the world. I believe that the only way businesses are going to work with this trend to the fullest extent is if there is a demand. Governments should provide this demand from the companies in their city, state, or country to create innovations to produce sustainably. In the past, many companies have just left the U.S. when new laws are put into place that they have trouble conforming to or they have to invest capital into. Tax breaks, incentives, and rewards must be given to companies for being responsible, which already exist in many places, and those who are not should be reprimanded in some way by law. Though at first, the government may have to bear the cost of incentives, I believe over time, it would just become the normal for businesses and the government would have to do more of monitoring than enforcing. I know NYC is working very hard to put some laws into effect using passive solar energy to light and heat office buildings. It should be interesting to see how they play out in the future. Ultimately, I believe the government has to push companies to demand more from them without scaring them abroad, which is a difficult game to play.
Definitely when we look at environmental issues, it is important to get a holistic view of issues. I look at world issues in a very culturally diverse way. What are ways that we can look at issues, and will other people see them the same way? we did not look at the problems that were being introduced since the 1970s. Of course, people are growing increasingly aware. A lot of the propaganda for this issue focuses on how humans have realized to late that global environmental degradation is a major issue. This is not true, we still have time to save what is left of our resources, and heal the environment. However, are chances are being lost yearly. Revolutionizing the idea of a greener world, and introducing it into people's life as a part of culture is important, however, we need to be careful as to how this changes people's lives. If one does believe they are enlightening a less educated group of people, we need to take into consideration as to how much will the educators influence the lives of others.
Scientist Sander Van Der Leeuw states that if we first would of followed the first warnings of climate change, we would of been better off than we are today. He talks about how humans innovate innovate when demand is driven. Our history shows when our backs are against the wall, we will change. As of now, transitioning to a green economy is quite an impossible task. The demand to get our economy back on track and for energy independence outweighs the demand for sustainable development. Capitalism is based on capital goods and the means of production for profit. In order to revise our current system, we must change our current mindsets. If Americans change their thinking and take responsibility for their actions on degrading the environment and extracting non-renewable sources, we can transition to a sustainable economy. In order for this to happen, the public needs to make this more of a priority in order to facilitate change in our governments and corporations.
In this video the speaker makes the strong points that we need to be visionary and sustainability is about mindsets. There are many ideas and new technologies and innovations involved with sustainable living, new ways to generate energy, to find fuels, to renew resources; when the real issue is changing the way we think. There is no chance of sustainability if we only change and update our technologies and leave our mindsets and mode of thinking the way it is. It is our wasteful ways and the idea we have that the earth is full of never-ending resources, that have lead us into this deep pit of environmental degradation. But, changing mindsets is a much, much harder task then finding new technologies or creating new energy sources, especially when it comes to minds behind huge corporations and economically driven companies. Many environmentalists go to the idea that it is the government that needs to make the change, the idea that it is all about taxing and giving out restrictions. While these are great ideas and can definitely help the environment, in order to make actual moves toward sustainability we would need to change our whole economic model. Our current model boasts that growth is the answer, and growth is good, when in fact growth is not the resolution. This brings up the ideas of Daly and the SSE, that we need a complete break from capitalism and the foundations of current economic model in order to solve any problems or take any real steps towards sustainable living
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As wonderful capitalism is, I believe it’s truly the root of a lot of the pushback we see in our society today regarding green economics and sustainability. Capitalism sits at the heart of innovation, and innovation is driven by the desire to not only ease day to day lives/activities but to increase capital and gain a cutting edge over competitors. While all of this is great, we sometime forget how our actions are affecting the environment around us, we just see the numbers and value behind the innovation but not its carbon footprint. As Sander mentions, we cannot wait for Science to give us the go on how to curb and shrink the problem but rather we should move at the speed of innovation and figure out how we can reduce our carbon footprints and encourage green economics by changing mindsets. There is pushback against green economics as mindsets believe it to be too burdensome, expensive and not very efficient. But as Sander says, we need to study the dynamics of innovation and construct green economics using those dynamics, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.
ReplyDeleteSehrish,
ReplyDeleteUsually I will not be able to respond to each of the comments posted but I wanted to take this opportunity to say that your point is very well taken. I do believe that ultimately we need to make a total break from capitalism if we are to resolve all the ecological problems that the global community is facing. Simply these problems cannot be resolved with more growth, the traditional and most fundamental idea upon which capitalism is built. Simply stated the solution is SSE ( Steady State Economics) as presented and popularized by Herman Daly.
I was happy when I heard the speaker in the the video say, "Sustainability is about changing mindsets". It is a common train of though for people to assume that sustainability is simply about finding ways to make bio-fuels, generate solar energy, generate wind energy, and moving economies towards being greener in terms of eliminating poverty. However, the actual focus of sustainability should be changing the way people think. How did we as the human race arrive at the troubles we face in the modern world as far as food & energy security? It was the wasteful and care-free lifestyles pf governments, corporations, and individuals. We allowed ourselves to replace the word innovation with profitable. We stopped caring about the consequences of our lifestyle, and instead focused on what was cheaper and more comfortable for us. What I do not understand however, is how exactly you convince people to abandon the methods that have allowed them to live so comfortably for so long? How do you convince a corporation whose sole-purpose is to make the largest possible profit that they need to change their ways before it is too late? I suppose these are the questions that need to be answered before we move on to a better world. There is no taking back the damage we have already done. However, maybe it is possible to be innovative in how to prevent the next cycle of repercussions.
ReplyDeleteGeordi, I do not believe we can convince corporations the change their ways. I do believe that if we want to change we have to first change ourselves, we have to look for cleaner alternatives and convince others to follow in our foot steps. This would be a good start I believe.
DeleteI think both Sehrish and Geordi make good points. Indeed, capitalism controls the direction of innovation and it is our fault for choosing to be cheap and comfortable rather than eco-friendly. But capitalism may not be entirely a bad thing. Although it is true that capitalism tends to result in innovations for faster, cheaper and newer products, it can sometimes result in the sustainable direction. In October, a small British company was able to make gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapor (article link below). The article states both the global impact this innovation makes on the price of gasoline and the environment. Take a moment to really let this information sink in: CAPITALISM has resulted in INNOVATION with the POTENTIAL to help the Earth. I think this is proof we CAN be sustainable as long as we move innovation in the right direction and the current business trend for sustainability and "going green" has resulted in this technological breakthrough. Whether they want to admit it or not, this kind of technology is worth a lot of money and I'm sure there are plenty of investors ready to bid if it was ever put up on auction. In conclusion, YES, it's okay to create and innovate for the goal of capitalism but if we could maintain a clear focus for sustainability (ie, change mindsets), if we could REALLY motivate others to strive for both money and the environment, then we can really get the kind of green future we're hoping for.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-pioneering-scientists-turn-fresh-air-into-petrol-in-massive-boost-in-fight-against-energy-crisis-8217382.html
I agree with Victoria that we are too quick to blame Capitalism for the lack of a 'green economy'. Sure, right now it could potentially be a detriment, but the economic model is not the issue. Take solar panels as an example; in the past few years production and sales of them have exploded, this is due to recent technological innovation and the ability for companies to mass produce them. Compared to just a year or two ago, I now see solar 'roofs' being installed in parking lots all over the tri-state area, my town now has panels on just about every single telephone pole, and even the local church dropped $340,000 last year to cover it's roof in solar panels. In this case, government subsidies and loans have helped spur the growth of the market, but by and large it is the capitalist mindset, the hunt for profits, that enabled such growth. I read an interesting article in Forbes magazine relating to this, and companies are actually overproducing solar panels, thus creating large inventory/surplus. We all know that a large surplus will help to further drive down costs to consumers, but the key point here is that corporations are on board with solar, they see profit in it. Thus they are pushing the efficiency of the technology and fueling innovation. Corporations are building brand new factories and betting a substantial amount of money on solar's success. The article below states that solar sales may jump up as much as 75% in 2012. The cynic in me knows that these corporations will do whatever they can to boost sales since they are now so invested, but in this case they're selling renewable energy, so in regards to 'green' products those capitalist tactics are just fine with me.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2012/06/27/report-solar-panel-production-will-far-exceed-demand-beyond-2012/
There is another benefit to capitalism. Once or twice a year people line up to buy the latest and 'greatest' Apple product; the iPhone uses antiquated technology and it is not the top phone in any category (aside from maybe sales figures), when Apple releases a new version the list of improvements is miniscule, and the phones are massively overpriced. Yet there are lines at stores and countless news reports when a 'new' model is announced and consequently released. Consumers then go on to buy iPods and iPads which are essentially the same product, and those too are constantly updated so consumers will go out and repurchase. Furthermore, a few decades ago some genius was selling ROCKS to people and calling them 'pets'.
Mr. Van Der Leeuw claims that innovation and a change in mindset are key to creating a green economy, and I wholeheartedly agree with him; what we need to do is make sustainability and green living as popular and as 'necessary' as owning that latest iPhone.
I believe that green economics and sustainability has been capitalized. Many companies are using initiatives and products such as “go green” and “eco friendly” in order to make profit, as opposed creating an eco-friendly environment. This behavior from companies creates lack of faith in the movement. In my opinion, when I see a company saying its bottled water is eco friendly because it uses less plastic, I believe that the company is simply interested in saving money on the bottles, as oppose to saving the environment. This could also be used as a marketing strategy to influence people to buy these bottles, because consumers may actually believe that the company is making an attempt to save the environment. Government can either be the most helpful for the eco-friendly movement or the most unhelpful. Brazil’s Government has made laws that will preserve national parks. American Government has made laws or invested money in order to produce go green products and create more jobs. Obama has lauded his administration for increasing fuel efficiency standards for cars for the first time in decades, and added the government fleet by buying 17,600 American-made fuel-efficient cars and trucks. This goes into 150 billion budget for go-green initiatives. I believe that the government should create an incentive plan for businesses to become more eco-friendly. The link below speaks more about Obama’s plan. I do agree with Sehrish, that capitalism is pushing back our society today regarding green economics and sustainability. I also agree with Sanders statement that because society didn’t take the early warning signs we landed in to trouble. Thus, we shouldn’t wait for science to get its calculations right we should act now.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/22/obama-go-green-grow-economy/#ixzz2JKPCZFb2
That is a good point about the plastic bottles. Companies using plastic bottles and claiming they are saving the environment are probably saving money and at the same time jumping on the "going green" bandwagon. I do not think if they had to invest more money into going green they would take part.
DeleteIndividuals as well as companies are usually afraid of change. When transitioning your lifestyle or company to be more sustainable there is a cost. That cost may be comfort and ease of use or you may need to invest money initially in order to save money later. That’s scary for some. If every company in the US had at least one sustainable practice in some section of their business model we would be on the right track. As Sander mentioned in the video, we ignored the early warning signs. Ideally we would have been able to ease our society in a sustainable mindset to make the transition easier. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where we need to act quickly to prevent further damage.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as many of you were saying, capitalism certainly contributes to the issue. In order to be truly successful in creating a sustainable future we are going to need to make a cultural shift; not just in the US but globally. The UN is and needs to be a vital part in promoting sustainable practice. I have seen clip after clip of various politicians saying “What can we do? China and India are not going to stop growing, producing, and polluting.” As poor of an argument this is for the US to sit and do nothing there is a glimmer of truth in what they are saying. Each country’s government can only (for the most part) influence their own country. There is no doubt that government needs to take action and respond but I Think there also needs to be a bigger non-governmental effort. This needs to be a global effort.
I feel as though society hasn't felt the need and demand to change yet, and this in itself is the problem. The video mentions how innovation is continuous because consumers and society have increased demands as time changes, well i believe we should stop demanding so much as individuals and look at the health of the earth first and make decisions from there. I agree with Leah's point as well. To add on to that, the economy relies on these huge corporations and organizations so much, like BP, EXXON, Mcdonalds that if the government were to ask large corporations to take the smarter and healthier alternative to business practice they would see decreased revenue, increased unemployment due to lack of profits, and inevitably a decrease in national GDP. It seems as though our economy is to far along the road to switch to a healthier practice. One way i see a viable alternative is if we all as individuals demand it from the government and large corporations to change their unhealthy practices, or else we wont buy there products.
ReplyDeleteI think we in society do need to change, I do agree with you that society has not felt a need to change. Do you think the government should put more restrictions on certain things to help society start to change. Things in the next few years all taxi's in NYC have to be hybrid or more fuel efficient. I think cars should have to become more fuel efficient and companies should be held to standard to increase fuel milage dramatically every few years.
DeleteThere is an old Aboriginal saying:” The more we know, the more we want.” Consumer demand is changing or will be right to say is increasing drastically as our society is growing into a dynamic and very advanced technological and corpored world. Many products from being luxury once become necessity in our everyday life, and yes the more we learn and see the more we demand. As Sander mentioned in the video we are reached the point where ignoring the early signs brought us to catastrophic situations. Waiting on science to come with an alternative is not doing us a favor. I agree with many of posts on this video; we can just wait on our government or other governments decisions. Every individual has to be involved and demand healthier and better lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteIn the video, Sander mentions that we would be better off heeding warnings to disaster rather than waiting for science to prove the negative effects of our lifestyle. It is important to possess enough foresight to prevent catastrophe, or else humankind truly is as foolish as mythological tales dictate. In a time when an over dependence on technology's ability to fix all our problems, the paradigm implies that humans are too knowledgeable to fail. The irony of this idea is that if we're so knowledgeable, we should have the foresight to avoid ecological disaster.
ReplyDeleteThe other students have been speaking of innovation and capitalism as sources of environmental degradation. While I strongly agree that much of capitalism's ideals have caused damage to the Earth of gigantic proportions, it is mainly due to capitalism's emphasis on decrease production cost in order to increase overall financial gain. If consumers deeply valued transparency in the market, with each product revealing the quality of materials, the treatment of the workers, and the overall impact of each product on the environment, then consumers could choose the most ethical products. If companies noticed that consumers did not want to purchase items that are environmentally compromising, then they would halt unethical production immediately. Unfortunately, many people will almost always choose the cheapest option, even if it is made in a sweatshop. It is up to socially active consumers to show companies that there certainly is a market in sustainable and ethical production.
The world today has a lot of capitalism to a point where I do not believe we can reverse it. People are always out looking for the best deal or how they can get something for a better price. I do not know many people who are concerned about the environment when it comes to their money. I also think these big companies are using "green products" that help our environment to their advantage in Marketing. Things that are environment friendly are all over everything I see when I am shopping for food and even when I am buying a text book, the site lets me know how many trees I am saving by renting instead of buying. Another problem I see is some of the vehicles that are being made today concentrate on fuel milage. Previous research that I have done shows the overall car is more harmful to the environment, these hybrid cars are produced with batteries that do not have a proper disposal process and you can not recycle them in an efficient manor.
ReplyDeleteSander has very good points in the short video. We need to act sooner than later as humans and can't wait for scientist to tell us what we should do to solve these problems. We as humans can be more cautious with what we do and try to encourage others to follow becoming more green. I am personally not the biggest fan of capitalism, I believe supporting local business is a good start. I live close to a lot of different farms and farmers markets that provide vegetables and even meats. I also have made a diesel truck run off only biofuels that comes from local restaurants in my area.
Two points from Sanders that I would like to focus on are " we have to work with the trend" and that "innovation is driven by demand". When it comes down to the core, all businesses exist to make money and environmentally and socially responsible decisions are often more costly than systems that are all ready in use. We live in a great time when "green" is trendy and consumers have concern for where their products come from and how they got there. As Sanders said, we have to work with this trend and use it to the advantage of the world. I believe that the only way businesses are going to work with this trend to the fullest extent is if there is a demand. Governments should provide this demand from the companies in their city, state, or country to create innovations to produce sustainably. In the past, many companies have just left the U.S. when new laws are put into place that they have trouble conforming to or they have to invest capital into. Tax breaks, incentives, and rewards must be given to companies for being responsible, which already exist in many places, and those who are not should be reprimanded in some way by law. Though at first, the government may have to bear the cost of incentives, I believe over time, it would just become the normal for businesses and the government would have to do more of monitoring than enforcing. I know NYC is working very hard to put some laws into effect using passive solar energy to light and heat office buildings. It should be interesting to see how they play out in the future. Ultimately, I believe the government has to push companies to demand more from them without scaring them abroad, which is a difficult game to play.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely when we look at environmental issues, it is important to get a holistic view of issues. I look at world issues in a very culturally diverse way. What are ways that we can look at issues, and will other people see them the same way? we did not look at the problems that were being introduced since the 1970s. Of course, people are growing increasingly aware. A lot of the propaganda for this issue focuses on how humans have realized to late that global environmental degradation is a major issue. This is not true, we still have time to save what is left of our resources, and heal the environment. However, are chances are being lost yearly. Revolutionizing the idea of a greener world, and introducing it into people's life as a part of culture is important, however, we need to be careful as to how this changes people's lives. If one does believe they are enlightening a less educated group of people, we need to take into consideration as to how much will the educators influence the lives of others.
ReplyDeleteScientist Sander Van Der Leeuw states that if we first would of followed the first warnings of climate change, we would of been better off than we are today. He talks about how humans innovate innovate when demand is driven. Our history shows when our backs are against the wall, we will change. As of now, transitioning to a green economy is quite an impossible task. The demand to get our economy back on track and for energy independence outweighs the demand for sustainable development. Capitalism is based on capital goods and the means of production for profit. In order to revise our current system, we must change our current mindsets. If Americans change their thinking and take responsibility for their actions on degrading the environment and extracting non-renewable sources, we can transition to a sustainable economy. In order for this to happen, the public needs to make this more of a priority in order to facilitate change in our governments and corporations.
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In this video the speaker makes the strong points that we need to be visionary and sustainability is about mindsets. There are many ideas and new technologies and innovations involved with sustainable living, new ways to generate energy, to find fuels, to renew resources; when the real issue is changing the way we think. There is no chance of sustainability if we only change and update our technologies and leave our mindsets and mode of thinking the way it is. It is our wasteful ways and the idea we have that the earth is full of never-ending resources, that have lead us into this deep pit of environmental degradation. But, changing mindsets is a much, much harder task then finding new technologies or creating new energy sources, especially when it comes to minds behind huge corporations and economically driven companies. Many environmentalists go to the idea that it is the government that needs to make the change, the idea that it is all about taxing and giving out restrictions. While these are great ideas and can definitely help the environment, in order to make actual moves toward sustainability we would need to change our whole economic model. Our current model boasts that growth is the answer, and growth is good, when in fact growth is not the resolution. This brings up the ideas of Daly and the SSE, that we need a complete break from capitalism and the foundations of current economic model in order to solve any problems or take any real steps towards sustainable living
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