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How can you learn to live more sustainably, without giving up your lifestyle, and why should you care? We often hear the terms sustainability and sustainable development, but how much do we really understand about what they mean? Is sustainability just climate change in a different package? What's the difference between global warming and climate change? And, most importantly, what can be done about it? As well as explaining some of the most pressing problems, this book answers these questions and looks at how we are progressing. While many of these problems can seem overwhelming when viewed in isolation, many of the answers are, in fact, connected. Quite often the adoption of one solution will solve more than one problem at a time. Crucially, this book also explains that the individual has real power. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problems the world is facing, yet in truth, each one of us has a significant contribution to make in all aspects of our lives

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Sustainability

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Publié par	MarshallCavendish
Date de parution	01 août 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789814398916
Langue	English

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THE ANSWERS:
SUSTAINABILITY
By Zo Robinson
Jeremy Kourdi is the Series Editor of The Answers series. He is a former vice-president of The Economist Group and is the author of 25 business books.
Cover design: Cover Kitchen
Copyright 2012 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd Published in 2012 by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
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www.marshallcavendish.com/genref
Other Marshall Cavendish offices: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited
The right of Zo Robinson to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the publisher. The author and publisher have used their best efforts in preparing this book and disclaim liability arising directly and indirectly from the use and application of this book. All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain necessary copyright permissions. Any omissions or errors are unintentional and will, if brought to the attention of the publisher, be corrected in future printings.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978-981-4398-91-6
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Mackays
Contents
Preface
PART I UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES
1 Introduction
2 Climate Change
3 Economic Growth
4 Poverty and the Developing World
5 Food Production, Distribution and Waste
PART II FINDING THE ANSWERS
6 Introduction
7 Individuals
8 Groups
9 Governments
10 Technology
11 Food
12 Economic
PART III SHAPING THE FUTURE
13 Introduction
14 Climate Change - Case Study
15 Armchair Activism - Case Study
16 Transition Towns and CRAGs - Case Study
17 Cap and Trade - Case Study
18 Renewable Energy - Case Study
19 Supermarkets - Case Study
About the Author
Preface
We hear the terms sustainability and sustainable development a lot these days, but do we really understand what they mean? Is sustainability just climate change in a different package? What s the difference between global warming and climate change? And, most importantly, what can I do about it?
This book aims to answer these questions. I will introduce some of the problems we are facing, my opinion on the answers to some of these problems and then have a look at how we are progressing. These problems can seem quite overwhelming when separated out from each other in this way, but it s important to remember that the answers to each problem are not necessarily independent from each other. Quite often the adoption of one solution will solve more than one problem at a time.
What I want to demonstrate more than anything else is that the individual has real power. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problems the world is facing and to feel hopeless about our own contribution to the answers. Each one of us has a significant contribution to make to the world in all aspects of our lives. We are surrounded by people who depend on us and on whom we depend. In our own small worlds, we are the most important people in the world to our children and to our parents. If we can accept that we are important in these contexts, then it should be easier for us to accept our importance on a larger scale.
I hope that this book will help you understand sustainability and empower you to change the way you live your life at home and at work, and help you feel that your power as an individual is not to be dismissed as insignificant. As ethical living specialist Lucy Seigle once quoted, the environmentalist s favourite saying goes, If you think you re too small to make a difference, you ve obviously never shared a sleeping bag with a mosquito!
Zo Robinson
1 INTRODUCTION
In truth, sustainability as a concept encompasses many parts. Part climate change, part development, part ethics and part social justice, sustainability really is an over-reaching concept. It was defined by the UN on 20 March 1987: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Although this definition is not universally accepted, it does get the general idea across rather succinctly.
Sustainability consists of three pillars: environmental, social and economic. The reconciliation of these three pillars is the ultimate goal of sustainable development. But sustainability is also a call to action and therefore a political process. The Earth Charter speaks of a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.
So sustainability is a way of developing and providing the answers to the problems created by the current economic and social status quo. It s also a way to solve the environmental problems created by the current systems.
The current state of the world reflects the need for a different way of providing for ourselves. Some of us have too much, while many of us don t have enough. There is a global disparity that places the rich in control of the development and distribution of the world s resources. It has been shown that a developing country actually becomes poorer after oil is discovered there. The amount of money the oil industry generates for Nigeria is 50 cents per day for each of the country s 130 million people, of which 54% live below the poverty line of 1.25 a day.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability and climate change are concepts that are interlinked and interdependent. In order for us to move towards a truly sustainable way of life, we will have to solve the climate crisis we are facing. At the same time, sustainability and sustainable development do present us with real life, workable solutions to the bigger problems we face on all levels. We can do things differently on a personal level as well as locally, nationally, internationally and globally. Sustainability is not just about the effects of our current lifestyles on the climate, but also about the effects on the world s economies and societies.
We can t wait for the world s politicians to lead the way on this one. We need to show them that sustainable development is what we want and get on with creating the changes required to bring that about. We will need government policy around the world to reflect what we want if we are to bring about lasting change, but if we wait for them to stop arguing and lead the way we will have waited too long. Time is of the essence!
ARE CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING THE SAME THING?
Global warming is a term that has been around for a long time. It has been used to explain the melting of the ice caps and Arctic ice and to explain the terrible droughts in the developing world. But global warming and climate change are not interchangeable terms. Global warming is a component of climate change. Climate change is a further reaching term that encompasses all weather-related effects of the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Global warming is widely accepted to be taking place. We need to limit the global temperature increase to prevent runaway climate change from happening. The current level of CO in the atmosphere is 388 parts per million and the consensus among climate scientists is that we need to reduce this to 350 parts per million. Renowned climate scientist James Lovelock is quoted as saying that the last time CO2 reached 450 parts per million, there were alligators at the North Pole! So it s important to understand that global warming is one element of climate change.
WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?
The Earth s climate has changed dramatically many times. There was a period when there were crocodiles in the Antarctic and a period when the planet was encased in ice. Climate change is not really anything new. The current debate about climate change really is about whether or not the recent changes are man-made or not. As we have evolved, we feel we have become the masters of our environment. We expect that we will have long lives and that we are invincible.
It is true that we are now releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a greater rate than we ever have done before. The industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th Centuries brought about the burning of fossil fuels. During the 18th Century, global CO2 emissions were around 3 to 7 million tonnes per year. During the early 19th Century, CO2 emissions steadily rose reaching 54 million tonnes per year by 1850. Currently we are emitting over 8,000 million tonnes per year.
Recent events that are not necessarily linked to climate change, such as hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami, have shown us the full force of the elements in sweeping away whole towns and everything in them. Although these events were not directly caused by climate change, it had a role in the severity of the impacts caused.
HURRICANE KATRINA
The hurricane that hit land in New Orleans in August 2005 had a devastating impact on everything in its path. Hurricanes are not caused by climate change. They are a weather event. However, the warming of the oceans has affected the severity of hurricanes.
As they pass over the oceans, hurricanes are affected by the temperature of the