Zoe's Green (idealy not brick) Road to Sustainability

At the beginning of the quarter, I calculated my ecological footprint and these are the results that I got: If everyone in the entire world lived the same way as I did, it would take 4.1 planet Earths to sustain everyone. This is not a good thing! I constructed some goals to attempt to reduce this number. My goals were: I will start a compost bin in my apartment with my two roommates so that our food waste isn't just thrown in the trash but instead can be carried on into a cyclical system of putting the food back just where it came from in the first place.  On the first day of class, the alliteration of Meatless Monday really stuck with me so once a week, every Monday, I will stay away from any meat at all seeing as that is where a fair amount of my impact is rooted. The food that I choose to purchase is more frequently than not something that's a little more on the convenient side rather than the eco-conscious side. With that being said my final goal for the quarter wi...

This is a very important week for not only our country but also the entire world in regards to the Paris Climate Agreement. Donald Trump has announced that he is going to be the vital decision of whether or not the United States is going to remain in participation or pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. After his first international trip came to a close, Trump found himself in many discussions with different countries' leaders heavily urging him to stay in accordance with the agreement that 195 countries around the world have signed on with. There were multiple different options of where to go from here presented to Trump including putting the decision on whether to withdraw from the agreement to a vote in the Senate. There are a lot of different ways this decision's direction could take but the general consensus is that the United States will more likely than not be the first nation in the world to withdraw itself from the effort to reduce emissions and slow down the glo...

It is no secret that coral reefs around the globe are at a very high risk of being damaged and/or destroyed due to rapid climate change and overfishing. In an article that can be found here , there are efforts being made to find areas of the ocean where reefs and the species that are found in them can take refuge and revitalize themselves regardless of the inevitable climate change that is happening. This is a picture of the reefs of Northern Mozambique. Source: http://www.scubamozambique.com/images/content/images/colourfulreef1.jpg In this specific article, the ocean of Northern Mozambique have been found to be able to support systems that are in need of a place to thrive due to their original home being altered by either rising ocean temperatures or over fishing. The waters in this area are cool enough for the species to live but also have enough light that the plants need to thrive. There is a lot of environmental variability in this area as long as the populations of diff...

My current event for this week can be found here . Businesses are starting to lessen their dependencies on petroleum and fossil fuel based plastic products and moving to the same products that are made out of plants. There is so much excess amounts of different plant parts that are thrown away or composted when they actually have a lot more use to them than rotting in the ground. Not only does this cut down on waste in landfills but it also cuts down significantly on the oil that is used for products that will also eventually end up in a landfill. There are less toxic chemicals used in these plant based products so people are starting to feel a lot better about the products they are using because the ingredients are coming straight from out of the ground instead of all the chemical processing that comes with the oil based products. The plant based products that are being produced aren't limited to the products that you would expect such as bags or laundry detergents, there ar...

We are halfway through the quarter so it is time to give you an update on how my goals to reduce my ecological footprint are going. Here is a little refresher of what the goals are that I committed to at the start of the quarter are: I will start a compost bin in my apartment with my two roommates so that our food waste isn't just thrown in the trash but instead can be carried on into a cyclical system of putting the food back just where it came from in the first place.  On the first day of class, the alliteration of Meatless Monday really stuck with me so once a week, every Monday, I will stay away from any meat at all seeing as that is where a fair amount of my impact is rooted. The food that I choose to purchase is more frequently than not something that's a little more on the convenient side rather than the eco-conscious side. With that being said my final goal for the quarter will be to visit the farmer's market or the co-op to purchase locally grown produce and me...

In class this week, we have been talking about the necessary push for large corporations to integrate sustainability into the core of their businesses. We watched an interesting TedTalk that talked about this pressing need to change the way we do things. The big pivot, as compared to in Andrew Winston’s TedTalk titled “The big pivot”, is the moment when a person with a serious health risk realizes that a substantial lifestyle change needs to happen or something as drastic as death could result if no change is immediately taken. It’s the moment when the talk of change stops and the action takes over. For us as a human race as a whole, and in this case specifically large corporations, we need to have that moment where we stop talking about how bad things are going to get if we don’t do something about it and actually start making actions towards improving the state of our planet. There are three mega challenges that Winston ties with this crucial need for corporations to cre...