If the Ice Melts

Sea levels may not reach this point for another 5,000 years, but it's still terrifying to visualize the loss of such massive tracts of land. Not to mention the other catastrophic weather events that will come with average global temperatures rising to 80 degrees. Say goodbye to our coral reefs, large portions of plant and animal species, and many great cities and countries. Appreciate the fact that you live at a time where these treasures still exist, and many of the worst consequences of climate change are beyond your lifetime.

To read more about the melting ice caps, this video was found here.
Here are a few images taken from National Geographic's Interactive Map.



Here is a more detailed video showing images of some of the major cities around the world and how they will be affected by the anticipated 60 meter sea level rise after the planet's ice melts. This video is a lot longer, but it sure gets the point across.

Simple Steps to Reduce Your Footprint

Climate change is a global problem that ultimately requires a global solution. No matter how environmentally-minded you may be, tackling such an immensely complex issue on an individual level can be seen as rather daunting. However, an article from The New York Times offers some relief. Titled "What You Can Do About Climate Change," this article offers a simple 7-step guideline to reducing your carbon footprint.

1) "You're better off eating vegetables from Argentina than red meat from a local farm." This step focuses on the importance of reducing your meat consumption, as the production of red meat and dairy is significantly carbon-intensive. A study is cited that found "a typical household that replaces 30 percent of its calories from red meat and dairy with a combination of chicken, fish and eggs will save more carbon than a household that ate entirely local food for a full year."

2) "Take the bus." This suggestion states that "If you drive to work alone every day, your commuting alone eats up more than your entire carbon budget for the year." Switching to public transportation, or even active transportation such as biking, would significantly improve your footprint.

3) "Eat everything in your refrigerator." With the amount of food that is wasted (about 40%), diverting your food from the landfill will reduce methane output from decomposition, as well as the amount of food that needs to be produced. Making meal plans and shopping lists will help reduce the amount of food you waste, and also save you money!

4) "Flying is bad, but driving can be worse." Flying economy is preferred to flying first class since first class seats take up more space and leads to more flights for the same amount of passengers. On the other hand, taking a seat on a plane is less detrimental than driving cross-country.

5) "Cats and dogs are not a problem." Contrary to common belief, pets do not contribute to climate change. Even though their diets are primarily meat, they are eating the meat that is "unfit for human consumption," which would have been disposed of anyway.

6) "Replace your gas guzzler if you want, but don't buy a second car." When you buy a second car, you are "encouraging the manufacturing of all those raw materials and metals." A better option would be to trade your car for a one with better gas mileage.

7) "Buy less stuff, waste less stuff." Here the article discusses the impact of consumer goods. In short, it is important to only buy what you need, and recycling what you can. This will reduce the amount of goods that need to be produced and the amount of trash that goes into landfills.

These 7 tips will help anyone reduce their contribution to climate change. Because it is difficult to change your habits, I suggest that you tackle them one at a time. It's easy to feel overwhelmed or insignificant in your efforts. But I assure you, living a less carbon-intensive lifestyle, aside from contributing to the greater good, will also save money and improve your health. These are improvements that I believe everybody should find worthwhile.

The ROI of CSR

To continue on the topic of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices within businesses, I would like to discuss the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A particular GreenBiz article by Ellen Weinreb titled "The ROI of CSR: How one company generated a $600 million return," demonstrates the incredible advantages that effective CSR management adds to all three aspects of a company's triple bottom line.

People
Companies with CSR programs experience lower turnover rates along with increased productivity and performance from their employees. Workers who feel good about their organization's values are more willing to go "above and beyond" to produce more high-quality work.

Planet
CSR programs can also benefit the planet, as demonstrated by IBM. IBM's Corporate Service Program "enables employees to share their professional skills with a company in a developing country." This program is not only attractive to talented individuals, but also increases retention rates while providing needed services to developing countries.

Profit
CSR programs are also capable of saving a company significant amounts of money. By implementing their Corporate Service Program, IBM "cites a $600 million return on its $200 million investment." Beyond that, "[f]or each employee that is retained, companies can save up to 90 to 200 percent of that employee’s salary." Investing in CSR programs are clearly worthwhile!

Weinreb's article also talks about a report by IO Sustainability and Babson College called ProjectROI. This report "provides hard evidence of the financial and business returns of CSR investments and, more important, discusses the company practices that can unleash them." I encourage you to go check out the key practices and findings!

A Genetically Modified Dilemma

On Thursday, the United States approved the sale of genetically engineered Atlantic salmon. The salmon was essentially given a gene from Pacific salmon for faster growth, as well as a gene from the "eel-like ocean pout" to sustain year-round growth. Although the salmon is claimed to be nutritionally equivalent to conventional farm-raised salmon, and that there is no evidence of the modified fish being a risk to human and environmental health, there is still some controversy coming from environmentalists. Beyond that, many grocery chains such as Kroger Corp, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods refuse to sell modified salmon in their stores.


Personally, I had never really obtained a strong opinion one way or the other in terms of genetically modified food. Whether it's because of a lack of exposure to news and media about the topic, not enough research on my own part, or simply a lack of interest, I'm not sure. In this particular case, however, from the information I have, I could more easily make an argument in favor of the genetically modified salmon. As an environmentalist, optimism for such a thing feels like betrayal. However, my reasoning has a lot to do with overfishing. We are fishing at an unsustainable rate and fish populations are dwindling rapidly. In the book Ocean of Life, Callum Roberts dedicates a chapter to this particular issue. He states that, "fishers land just 6 percent of what they did 120 years ago. Put another way, fishers today have to work seventeen times harder to get the same catch as people did in the nineteenth century. The simple reason for this stark contrast between past and present is that there are fewer fish in the sea." Furthermore:

A universal rule of fishing is that when you exploit a population, the average size of the animals gets smaller. Most fishing methods are size-selective, which is to say that they catch animals whose bodies or mouths are larger than the size of a mesh or a hook. Even hand-gathered fish and shellfish are susceptible, as people tend to pick out the largest and juiciest ones first. Over time, therefore, fishing alters the balance between young and old in a population.

Evolution works to maximize the number of descendants that an animal leaves behind. Where the risk of death from fishing increases as an animal grows, evolution favors those that grow slowly, mature younger and smaller, and reproduce earlier.

Young fish produce many fewer eggs than large-bodied animals, and many industrial fisheries are now so intensive that few animals survive more than a couple of years beyond the age of maturity. Together this means that there are fewer eggs and larvae to perpetuate future generations. In some cases the amount of young produced today is a hundred or even a thousand times less than in the past, putting the survival of species, and the fisheries dependent on them, at grave risk. 

I'm optimistic that as long as the genetically modified salmon are well-managed and maintained, perhaps this could be a temporary solution to the tragedy of overfishing. Although I would much rather see improved fishing practices and stronger fishing regulations, I cannot deny that genetically modified salmon may help save other more natural populations of the fish until we get such regulation established.

Sources:

• http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/20/us-aquabounty-technologies-fda-idUSKCN0T826T20151120#iicoWuzrKuxhH5oU.97 
• The Ocean of Life by Callum Roberts

Trending: Sustainability Within Business

Businesses today have a tendency to avoid the topic sustainability, claiming that it is not their responsibility, that it will negatively effect their bottom line, or that their investors don't care. Yet there is overwhelming evidence to refute all of these claims.

First of all, the WRI and the UNEP Finance Initiative have created a "discussion framework for investors to weigh exposure to the risks of climate change." This framework allows investors to "evaluate a company based on climate-risk factors not directly related to physical risk." Historically, investors may have only cared about a company's book value when evaluating whether or not to invest. But the reality is that investors today care about a lot more, and now they have the framework to analyze company practices based on intangibles such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns - the Triple Bottom Line. Although this tool is designed for investors, it can also be used by businesses to perform their own risk-assessment and analyses. So why not get a leg-up? To start auditing your own performance means avoiding the loss of your investors to more ESG-conscious competitors. More information can be found in this article, "If Your Investors are Assessing Your Climate Risk, Shouldn't You Be?"

To further make the business case for sustainability, this article from Triple Pundit describes how "Target Rock found that the 16 High Sustainability Index companies as a group outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 for the ten-year period ending Dec. 31, 2011." The performance is depicted in this graph, where the green line represents the Sustainability Index.



In conclusion, sustainability within businesses is not only growing in popularity, it is becoming an expectation. But there is no reason to be afraid. Many companies such as GE, REI, General Mills, Apple, Starbucks, Walmart, PUMA, Timberland, and even Nike have taken on strong sustainability initiatives and seen improvement to all three areas of their triple bottom line. Sustainability is not a burden, it is an opportunity!

The Plastic Puzzle

In the article "Can the plastics industry create a collaborative model for change?" Doug Woodring discusses the "plastic puzzle." As technology for developing new kinds of plastics and polymers increases, so will the consumption of these plastics, but technology for capturing plastic waste is lagging. The versatility and durability of plastic makes it an easy material to take advantage in product manufacturing, but of the 280 million tons of plastic that are produced annually, only 10 percent of this is recycled. Plastic products are often designed for single-use items and as they are irresponsibly disposed of, the plastic makes its way into our oceans. Woodring argues that "capturing this waste stream presents a significant and untapped business opportunity, as does the redesign of packaging." Every person and business uses plastic, and therefore plastic waste is problem we all face. With such a wide-scale issue at hand, collaboration is needed in solution development. He exemplifies The Plasticity Forum as an admirable collaboration effort by experts to create new models and creative solutions to the plastic puzzle. The World Bank estimates that municipal solid waste will double within the next 15 years, so it is inherent that businesses take measures to prepare. Woodring states that "with joint cooperation between groups that leverage each other's influence and capacities, all parties can benefit, including the communities they operate within, creating a circularity which often has defined our business operations of today."

http://www.greenbiz.com/article/can-plastics-industry-create-collaborative-model-change

Recalculated Ecological Footprint

My original Ecological Footprint was 3.33 Earths. After recalculation, my new Ecological Footprint is 3.29 Earths.

Originally, my Food Footprint was the largest contributor at over 50 global acres. Now that I have chosen to shop at natural food stores and purchase all organic foods, this has been reduced. The largest contributor now is my Carbon Footprint at 45.22 global acres. This footprint is understandable because I am still driving to and from school and work regularly, as well as making monthly trips to Snohomish to visit my family. I do, however, carpool fairly regularly.

My goods and services footprint has always been pretty low. I try not to buy new things unless I really need them, and when I do, I check the thrift shops first.

My housing footprint remains relatively unchanged since I still have the same living arrangement that I had before (in an older rental house that is lacking in efficient appliances, insulation, etc.). My efforts to take shorter showers and unplug electronics when they're not in use don't seem to be making much of a difference on the overall energy and water consumption of my household. This is mostly due to the fact that I have four roommates that are not making the same efforts that I am. However, I feel as though the goals I set for myself have helped change my own habits in favor of sustainability and my persistence with these goals has put sustainability in the minds of my roommates as well. They have all become avid recyclers (probably because they can't handle my look of disgust when I find a can in the trash). No matter their reasoning, it makes me happy to know that people will be more responsible about their decisions if they know that it makes a difference in someone else's life.

In the future, I will continue to unplug, take short showers, shop locally and naturally, and eat less meat. I will also try to inspire my roommates to do the same so that our efforts may show a reduction in the monthly bills. If unplugging means they don't have to pay as much, then they will be able to reap the benefits of conservation efforts and may in turn try other sustainable behaviors.

I'm satisfied to know that small changes in my everyday life were able to reduce my footprint, even if it's only by a fraction of a planet. I'm now inspired to reduce it even more, and will probably continue to check my Ecological Footprint as more changes are made.