This is a neat coalition that offers tips on how to make our everyday lives greener (more eco-friendly) without giving up too much on the comfort side. You can also sign up to have suggestions emailed to you everyday.
Many people imagine future Hawaii to be a developed, polluted mess. Is it possible that our islands could be any better in 25 years? This is an optimistic view on steps that may be taken forward, and also possible consequences of what we have done.
With a soft crash, the cheerful waves glided up the warm sand, just barely tickling the tips of my toes with cool foamy fingers. I picked up a crushed Coke can that had washed up and put it into my half-filled Safeway bag. Scattered along the beach were the students of my first grade class, on a litter pickup. Public schools contribute to Hawaii’s litter pick-up day by sending students out to a beach. Far ahead, I could see a team of fifth graders combing down the shore in our direction.
“Don’t wander too far!” I called to the children ahead, motioning the ones trailing behind to catch up. Hearing a pair of light footsteps behind me, I turned around.
“Look!” Running up were Myra Sanchez-Moy and Leahi Smith-Kuroda. Many families had started using hyphenated last names.
“Hey, girls,” I said. “What’s up?” Leahi held up a plastic Arrowhead bottle, still full of drinkable water. I glanced at Myra, who deftly drew one hand across the other and shook one finger in the air- sign language for “somebody.” She finished her sentence, an exasperated look on her face.
Somebody left this on the beach. I nodded.
“Why not give the water that’s left to a palm tree?” I suggested, signing as I spoke. “Remember, half the world doesn’t have enough water- we’re lucky.” I waved them to continue ahead of me down the beach.
Conservation efforts are now emphasized more in Hawai’i than on the Mainland- with water saving toilets, sinks, and shower heads in buildings and public beaches. Families that can afford it even use desalinated water.
The energy initiative is another milestone in sustainability. After gasoline rose to $10 a gallon, efforts to find alternative fuel sources doubled. Some car dealers sell solar-powered cars. Those who can’t afford them drive hybrids or take the public lightrail, a fast and economical contribution to the city.
“Trash can!” Litter bags full to bursting, the kids streamed toward the large green bin.
“Toss the cans and bottles over here for recycling,” I reminded, pointing to the right of the trash can. “Or save it to recycle later on. By recycling one beer bottle, you can save enough energy-”
“-to run a lightbulb for four hours!” finished the class together. I smiled.
“Yes, and you get 20 cents if you drop them off too.” Over the years,
HI 5 had changed to HI 20. Furthermore, public trash cans are now accompanied by recycling bins wherever you go.
With the litter dumped away, I checked my watch and shouted, “Lunch! Will you all come help me carry the food from the bus?” The children hurried after me, excited at the prospect of lunch. We formed a human chain leading to a palm tree on the sand. Down the line went Hau’ula greens, pineapple, tuna sandwiches and juicy, ripe mango slices . I remembered with a shudder the cafeteria food of my childhood, and marveled at the healthy improvements that had been made over the years- the fresh fruit, whole-wheat bread, and cheese that didn’t come in plastic-wrapped squares. Since “locally grown” had become another effort to sustainability, the cafeteria lunches at many schools had improved.
After every child had a lunch, I took a sandwich and a few slices of mango for myself and sat down. I caught snatches of animated conversation here and there and saw several pineapple cuts fall onto the sand as kids laughed with their mouths full. I watched the wind bristle the leaves in the palm tree above and was glad. You can never tell the future, but I predicted that for these children, it was bright.
www.climatecrisis.net
Click on the Take Action tab to calculate how much carbon dioxide you produce & find out what you can do to produce less.
This site is also the home of the movie An Inconvenient Truth viewing in select theaters. The movie opened on May 24.
http://www.ejnet.org/landfills/
This website is an informative website where anyone can read about landfills. Anything you want to know about landfills, you can find here. There are many other links to other websites about landfills, for students at schools and for people who are interested to learn about in all of the United States. With facts, answers to problems, and a lot of links, this site is the best possible website for Landfill resources.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/
"Official Energy Statistics From the U.S. Government"
Comprehensive government website from the Department of Energy.
Suitable mainly for middle or high school students. Mostly data, so a good resource for research projects, of facts to support a written or spoken argument on the topic of energy in the United States or as an international economic and political force, or just to get a general feel for the topic by browsing through statistics. Special reports and analyses along with data, as well as a very cool feature, "Ask an expert."
Also, a page for younger children that is colorful, easy to read and navigate, and very comprehensive. Direct link to kid's page at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/
Mostly data tables and graphs. Kid's page is more accessible, but if you want reports and numbers to back up a paper you're writing, go to the EIA site.
The URL is: http://www.epa.gov/garbage/reduce.htm
This gives great information about managing our waste by thinking and recycling. It gives many different ways and ideas to reduce, reuse and recycle!
http://yucky.discovery.com/flash/worm/pg000223.html
An explaination of what worm bins are and intrusctions on how to create you very own worm bin.
www.opala.org
An in-depth overview of what is currently going on in Hawaii for waste management.
url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradation
This Wikipedia website has good information for anyone's use. With information of definitions, statistics, charts, and many links to other pages this website has most of the things needed to learn about landfills and biodegrading objects. The thing I like about the website is that is has a chart of things that biodegrade or that don't, and how long it takes the things to biodegrade. This can help students nation wide learn about biodegrading and help teachers take an extra step to help educate students through more active ways.
Here's a brief essay re-framing the issue of sustainability as a challenge to all of us...
- RBS
The Next Green Revolution
How technology is leading environmentalism out of the anti-business, anti-consumer wilderness.
By Alex Nikolai Steffen
For decades, environmentalists have warned of a coming climate crisis. Their alarms went unheeded, and last year we reaped an early harvest: a singularly ferocious hurricane season, record snowfall in New England, the worst-ever wildfires in Alaska, arctic glaciers at their lowest ebb in millennia, catastrophic drought in Brazil, devastating floods in India - portents of global warming's destructive potential.
Green-minded activists failed to move the broader public not because they were wrong about the problems, but because the solutions they offered were unappealing to most people. They called for tightening belts and curbing appetites, turning down the thermostat and living lower on the food chain. They rejected technology, business, and prosperity in favor of returning to a simpler way of life. No wonder the movement got so little traction. Asking people in the world's wealthiest, most advanced societies to turn their backs on the very forces that drove such abundance is naive at best.
With climate change hard upon us, a new green movement is taking shape, one that embraces environmentalism's concerns but rejects its worn-out answers. Technology can be a font of endlessly creative solutions. Business can be a vehicle for change. Prosperity can help us build the kind of world we want. Scientific exploration, innovative design, and cultural evolution are the most powerful tools we have. Entrepreneurial zeal and market forces, guided by sustainable policies, can propel the world into a bright green future.
Americans trash the planet not because we're evil, but because the industrial systems we've devised leave no other choice. Our ranch houses and high-rises, factories and farms, freeways and power plants were conceived before we had a clue how the planet works. They're primitive inventions designed by people who didn't fully grasp the consequences of their actions.
Consider the unmitigated ecological disaster that is the automobile. Every time you turn on the ignition, you're enmeshed in a system whose known outcomes include a polluted atmosphere, oil-slicked seas, and desert wars. As comprehension of the stakes has grown, though, a market has emerged for a more sensible alternative. Today you can drive a Toyota Prius that burns far less gasoline than a conventional car. Tomorrow we might see vehicles that consume no fossil fuels and emit no greenhouse gases. Combine cars like that with smarter urban growth and we're well on our way to sustainable transportation.
You don't change the world by hiding in the woods, wearing a hair shirt, or buying indulgences in the form of save the earth bumper stickers. You do it by articulating a vision for the future and pursuing it with all the ingenuity humanity can muster. Indeed, being green at the start of the 21st century requires a wholehearted commitment to upgrading civilization. Four key principles can guide the way:
Renewable energy is plentiful energy. Burning fossil fuels is a filthy habit, and the supply won't last forever. Fortunately, a growing number of renewable alternatives promise clean, inexhaustible power: wind turbines, solar arrays, wave-power flotillas, small hydroelectric generators, geothermal systems, even bioengineered algae that turn waste into hydrogen. The challenge is to scale up these technologies to deliver power in industrial quantities - exactly the kind of challenge brilliant businesspeople love.
Efficiency creates value. The number one US industrial product is waste. Waste is worse than stupid; it's costly, which is why we're seeing businesspeople in every sector getting a jump on the competition by consuming less water, power, and materials. What's true for industry is true at home, too: Think well-insulated houses full of natural light, cars that sip instead of guzzle, appliances that pay for themselves in energy savings.
Cities beat suburbs. Manhattanites use less energy than most people in North America. Sprawl eats land and snarls traffic. Building homes close together is a more efficient use of space and infrastructure. It also encourages walking, promotes public transit, and fosters community.
Quality is wealth. More is not better. Better is better. You don't need a bigger house; you need a different floor plan. You don't need more stuff; you need stuff you'll actually use. Ecofriendly designs and nontoxic materials already exist, and there's plenty of room for innovation. You may pay more for things like long-lasting, energy-efficient LED lightbulbs, but they'll save real money over the long term.
Redesigning civilization along these lines would bring a quality of life few of us can imagine. That's because a fully functioning ecology is tantamount to tangible wealth. Clean air and water, a diversity of animal and plant species, soil and mineral resources, and predictable weather are annuities that will pay dividends for as long as the human race survives - and may even extend our stay on Earth.
It may seem impossibly far away, but on days when the smog blows off, you can already see it: a society built on radically green design, sustainable energy, and closed-loop cities; a civilization afloat on a cloud of efficient, nontoxic, recyclable technology. That's a future we can live with.
Alex Nikolai Steffen (alex@worldchanging.com) runs Worldchanging.com and edited the book Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.
From the May 2006 issue of Wired - http://www.wired.com/wired/
Frpm : Scholastic Science World: pp.22-24. April 17, 2006, Emily Costello.
In its "Earth day" publication, Science World features the Case Middle School as being an earth-friendly, "green" complex. It cites the following features of Case: 1) 25% of construction materials are recycled materials: supporting steel rods made from recycled cans and automobile parts, and student lockers made of recycled milk containers; 2) the architecture of the buildings maximinizes tradewind cooling, 3) its airconditioning is powered by an ice plant which generates at night, the needed energy to aircondition the buildings during the day, 4) the photovoltaic cells on the rooftop which generate energy for computers and lights, 5) the water conserving system of using rainfall and spring water to water the grounds.
Global Issues Gateway (gig)
Gig provides global learning resources for those investigating issues arising from increasing porous geographic and cultural borders. It has departments such as Culture, Ethics, Economics, Politics, Science and more. Science section has interesting ideas related to sustainability. Because it is not all based on US information, it has multiple perspectives and has the potential to allow sythesizing of information. You may find ideas in here for the specific areas of food, energy, transportation, waste management and food.
http://www.gig.org/index.php
Would you like to calculate the impact of the paper used at a school or business? You can find out the many ways it impacts the environment. This website does the calculation for you if you give it the basic information. There is also information about waste prevention, reccling, green purchasing, electronic stewardship and more. It is a site provided by the EPA, and USPS.
www.ofee.gov/recycled/calculat.htm
Report to governor and Legislature with recommendations for the Sustainability of Hawai`i to 2050. Copy on file in Cooke Library. See Susan Clark.
Many ecological problems look so complex, it's hard to know where to start. It seems like we need to change everything before we can change anything. But sometimes, a single change is what it takes to turn a problem around. As we learn how ecosystems work, we're seeing how change in one part of a system can catalyze change in the whole system. We're tapping the inborn powers of nature and human societies to heal themselves.
Let me know if you are interested in attending the conference on April 22 to hear Dr. Marten or other science speakers that day.
The Luke Center has a paper copy (in Spanish or in English) "Your Life, Your World, Your Choices" which is a resource collection of brochures, pamphlets, cds, etc. containing helpful information about environmental sustainability.
For example, it has urls such as http://www.electronicsrecycling.org/Pages/ContentPage.aspx?ContentCategory1Id=532&ContentCategory2Id=768
Which contain information such as "research shows that 9 out of 10 electronic devices are passed on to secondary users (e.g, not put in the landfill) and tells us how to find organizations which help us recycle these electronic gadgets in our city and state."
Transportation efficiencies and options applied in Japan.
http://www.wm.com/ is a site for the company Waste Management Inc. WMI is a company that is wisely depositing it's trash collected.
Leading provider of comprehensive waste and enviromental services in North America.
http://www.graduationpledge.org/
This site suggests that a school organize a pledge given by students as they graduate to be a force for sustainability in the world. We could develop something like this as part of the Punahou education.
This doesn't have current numbers on energy use for food transportation, but it does tell how much we've increased. in enrgy use for food, and suprising ratios between how much energy is used for shipped food, compared to local food. This website stresses the impportance of local food production for true sustainability. I think that should be our priority for sustainable food, because it helps with the energy, waste, and helps our local economy. It may not be economically sustainable for us n the beginning, but because punahou is so big, we can probably increase the market demand for local food a lot more, which will make it cheaper, because more people will get into the industry, and we will be helping others to become more sustainable.
The site was started by a man named Len Abrams who, from what I can gather, is a civil engineer from South Africa. His biography included many notes about his schooling and accomplishments. According to the website, "The Water Page has grown out of The African Water Page. The African Water Page was established in Johannesburg, South Africa by Len Abrams in December 1996. The page was run by Len Abrams as a spare-time activity for four years. It grew into a position where, by March 2001, the site was receiving 171 000 server requests a month. All of the relevant content of the African Water Page has been incorporated into The Water Page."
"The mission of The Water Page is -
o To provide a quality service to the public and the water sector at local, national and international levels, through which sustainable water resources protection, development and utilisation is promoted.
o To provide independent and critical comment on and analysis of water issues.
o To specifically promote sound water resources management and water related public health issues (water supply and sanitation) in developing countries."
Here is the message sent out to the contributors, outlining the organization and vision for this site:
Sustainability Fellows,
Below is a template for submitting information to our website. Please search the web and find a resource for your initiative and submit it to your sub group page during spring break or by March 29th. We want to test out this model to see if it works. Submit you sample to the Message Board section of your subgroup. I tried it and my effort is below for your information.
Questions you ask so you can submit information:
TITLE? (What is this about?)
DESCRIPTION? [put this in the "Entry Body" field] (Briefly tell what this is about)
WHO?
(Who wrote it? Are they credible? google them. What else have they
written? Is their a sponsoring organization that is reliable?)
WHAT?
(What kind of a site is it? .com.edu.,.gov, .org?...What is the
purpose
of the site? Are the facts accurate? Check them with outside sources.)
WHERE?
(where did they get their info? IS there a bibliography or a works
cited page somewhere? Are there links for further research?)
WHEN?
(When was the page created? When was it last updated? The best sites
are updated regularly.)
WHY?
(Why is this site better than other sites or other information
sources?
Do I need it? Is there something better available?)
YOU? (What is your name and the date you submitted this info)
Result that I submitted to the Food Group:
Title: Track Your Food Intake
Description: On My Pyrimid Tracker you can assess your food intake, physical activity and food calories/energy balance. Learn about your individual healthy food choices.
Who: U.S. Department of Agriculture
What: Government Agency
Where: I don’t know
When: Updated weekly
Why: Government standard for good food selection.
Submitted by Carole Iacovelli, March 14, 2006