#wedblog2015

[hellogulo]

Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume With Care.

                                                                                                      © merdeka.com

Jakarta - Indonesia.

       When I was a child, I lived in a village with 300 neighbors where many goats and oxen were herded and they passed in front of my house every morning and afternoon. They did not forget to leave the dirt in the front yard of my home. I wanted to experience a better life by studying and living in a capital city, Jakarta. Gratefully, I am here. I meet a lot of unique people, wonder fascinating skyscrapers, experience culture blend and taste delicious foods. I found them in One City. Those things make me fall in love with Jakarta.

“I see One City today but I believe that it happens in One Planet.”

       Jakarta is a home to the 15 million residents by 2015 according to the Indonesia Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS). The longer I stay here, the more pressing challenges I find to solve. In the morning on my way to work by train, I almost missed the third train because I could not get on the train. It had been full, no space to enter. When I was in the train, I used to scrutinize the long queue of cars and motorcycles waiting for the green traffic light. And then I got off the train, I started walking to the office. Many beggars sit across the street, hoping the mercy of the pedestrians. Cheerful kids played their guitar and sang songs to catch our attention while holding a small box expectantly to be filled with some money. I arrived in the office and watched the severe flood in some areas of Jakarta. After that, lunch came. My friends ordered a lot of foods; steamed rice, baked fish, vegetables, pizza, gorengan (fried foods) and many more. All of us had been full. Many foods remained. Then we threw away the leftovers to the trash bin. I wished that we would buy more foods if we could not eat them up. It was 5 pm and it meant time to go home. The street was so crowded. Vehicle emission made me cough. As usual, I had to queue for the train. On my way home, I saw a mother and a baby sleeping well. No blankets. Only a food wrapper and a bottle of water were available just next to them. I gulped. I arrived at home with a lot of lessons to learn. I went to the bed and turned off the light. I could not close my eyes. I saw One City today but I believed that it happened in One Planet.

                                                                                                ©  Tiffany Berkowitz

       The population of Indonesia is estimated at 300 billions by the end of 2015 by BPS. It is equivalent to 3.49% of the total world population. Indonesia ranks number 4 in the list of countries by population. Known as an agricultural country, Indonesia still needs to import many essential food items such as rice from Thailand, soybean from India, peanut from Australia, etc. Indonesia must boost its food production, press the number of population or control the population consumption?

                                                                                                       © USDA

       Most of Indonesians eat rice three times a day. How many kg of rice does someone need a day? a month and a year? and what about 300 billion Indonesians? The graphic above proves us that we must control the way we eat. The high consumption of our lifestyle will affect our future. The food production pattern is unbalanced with the demand. We need more rice fields to plant rice, fertilizer to enrich the soil and favorable climate to grow the seeds.

“Many people out there are starving…”

       Perhaps you and I sometimes buy more foods and leave the remains. But many people out there struggle too hard to be able to eat for one time a day. We can go to restaurants, eat delicious foods, take pictures of the foods and upload them to social media. But many people out there are starving because they have not eaten today or even in the last two days.

                                                                       © The University of Texas at Austin

The World.

       The increasing number of population in the world has never been controlled for recent years. Around seven billion people need to eat. While now, the food production must be truly improved to feed us. Many harvests fail, climate changes and agricultural lands convert into housing. Nowadays, the conversion of the use of agricultural land to residential and industrial is common. Almost every country in the world has serious problems with this conversion. We lack of farming land to grow plants for our sustainable consumption. The demand for food is rising each year but the land to produce the foods is decreasing. How could we provide foods for these 7 billion people? and even for 9,6 billion people by 2050 if our current consumption and production patterns remain the same? There will be more and more people who do not have foods and starve to death. Additional to that, the data from World Wildlife Fund says that forest conversion involves removing natural forests to meet other land needs, such as plantations, agriculture, pasture for cattle settlements and mining. This process is usually irreversible. Conversion of forests -from South America’s tropical forests to Russia’s temperate forest- to meet worldwide demand for consumer products is leading to deforestation and a range of ecological and social impacts.

“Around seven billion people need to eat”.  

       Today, 15% of the world population living in high-income countries is responsible for 56% of world consumption, while 40% of the poorest people, who live in low-income countries, is responsible for only 11% of consumption worldwide. While most people consume more today -thanks to the expansion of the world economy in the 90′s and rising living standards in many countries-the average consumption of an African family is 20% smaller than it was 25 years ago. It is projected that world population will reach about 8 billion people in 2025 and 9.3 billion by 2050. This increasing population combined with improved living standards, particularly in developing countries, will an enormous strain on the distribution of land, water, energy and other natural resources.

                                                                                                        © ecoosfera

One Action for One Planet.

       We must start to act a better way of our lifestyle for a healthy future. Let us start to eat responsibly from ourselves.

Support Local. Shorter distance requires less transport fuels and less chemicals need to keep food fresh.

Eat less meat. Meat production is very resources-intensive.

Eat sustainable fish. many wild fish stocks are at the risk of disappearing entirely.

Choose organic. Less use of fertilizers and pesticides protects the environment and our health!

Avoid packaging. Packaging requires energy and resources just to end up in the trash.

       There are many better ways for us to solve on of these big global challenges. From the way we consume and the plastics resulted from the foods wraps we buy. Here is a sample video of innovative way about food wraps and plastics that will change our perspectives about them.

                                                                                 © United Nations University

       We are the only one that can solve this challenge. Because we are the first generation to feel the impact of unsustainable consumption and the last generation that can do something about it.

       Let us make our voice heard for a better world in the World Environment Day 2015 by posting our status with hashtag #WED2015.

This blog is made to join the World Environment Day 2015 Blog Competition  held by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Thank you for voting.

[simplyconscious]

7 Billion Steps To A Better Future

Living in California I’m lucky to have sunshine and beaches all year round, but that also gives me a front row seat to worsening drought conditions and polluted oceans. Every day I witness the beauty of nature as well as the pitfalls of consumerism and wastefulness. It’s ironic that the people I see enjoying the beaches and the great outdoors (including myself) are the ones contributing to the planet’s continued deterioration. However, this also makes me hopeful because that means those same people can be the ones to save it.

Our population of 7 billion is projected to reach 9 billion in 2050.

For myself and most of my friends, our children and grandchildren will be part of those 2 billion extra people expected to inhabit the Earth. Their future is truly in our hands. Our actions today will determine whether they have access to even the most basic of resources such as water, food, energy and land. If we start shifting our priorities now, one day instead of explaining to them why our society didn’t do something when we had the chance, we’ll be able to tell them about how the 7 billion people on Earth worked together to make it a better place.

So, where do we start?

By simply being conscious. In our society and culture, it is not practical to expect everyone to stop consuming at the drop of a hat. In fact, sustainability is not necessarily about consuming less, but it’s about consuming better.1 We need to make better choices, be aware of what we’re consuming and how we can minimize our environmental impact. 

There is not 1 solution, but 7 billion solutions. 

Everyone is different and depending where you are in the world your environmental needs and concerns could vary greatly. For this reason, each individual needs to figure out how sustainability fits into their lives. When people make the conscious choice to change, the effects are longer lasting because it becomes a part of who we are. By providing people with easy, realistic solutions and helping them form new habits, we will be able to engrain sustainable values and beliefs into our culture for generations to come.

The first step is never easy.

When I started using reusable bags, I would often forget and get frustrated with myself. Then I started keeping a bag in my car, in my purse and by the front door. Soon it became second nature. I still forget occasionally, but it’s important that instead of judging myself, I’m staying aware. As I’ve started incorporating more eco-friendly choices into my life, the easier it has become. You just need to take the first step. If even a portion of the population on Earth made a few small changes, it can make a world of difference.

So to the people enjoying the beaches and the great outdoors, as well as my friends, family and neighbors across the world, let’s take those first steps toward a more sustainable future.

1 Sustainable Consumption and Production and the SDGs – http://www.unep.org/post2015/Portals/50240/Documents/UNEP%20Publications/UNEPBriefingNote2.pdf

This blog post was submitted into the 2015 World Environment Day blogging competition. For more information, visit http://unep.org/wed

[katalin2089-blog-blog]

Sustainable Energy Consumption: From Lifestyle Choices to Practices and Built Environments

Energy consumption is a pressing challenge for societies in the coming decades because the growing population means increasing demand for services worldwide. Buildings alone are responsible for approximately 40% of the world’s annual energy consumption for heating, air conditioning and lighting. As a consequence, improving the energy efficiency of home appliances and systems in developed countries is now an important part of national sustainability agendas.

The way environmental policies have come to think about energy consumption in buildings has been formulated by engineering and economic vocabularies. These define sustainable pathways in terms of individual choice, lifestyle change, purchase of products and services and growing energy literacy. Affluent consumers in developed societies may have a greater responsibility in creating a more environmentally conscious future, but shouldn’t we look for alternatives beyond beliefs, values and attitudes? What other intervention points to sustainability exist apart from ethical responsibility of consumers?

Energy is Invisible

One of the challenges of reducing energy consumption in homes is that householders do not directly consume gas and electricity. They engage in routine domestic practices like cooking, listening to music, doing laundry, ironing, charging devices and so on. Someone’s typical evening routine on a weekday may involve putting the kettle on to make a cup of tea, turning on the TV to listen to the news and switching on the microwave to warm their dinner. Energy is invisible and it is through our everyday practices that we interact with buildings, technologies and devices.

Domestic Practices

Evidence from a growing number of sociological research studies suggests that the way we carry out daily practices is influenced by much more than our environmental values, decisions or morals. Social norms, institutions and the surrounding infrastructure also play a large part in how we do things. When we heat our homes in the winter the way we consume energy is also an outcome of indoor temperature norms that have developed in societies (18-21 °C in the living room and 15-16 °C in the bedrooms in the UK). Achieving these indoor temperatures is equally influenced by regulations, building standards, building materials, design and construction because all these factors determine the energy performance of buildings.

Sensory Experiences

There is a new area of anthropological research that provides insights into how people experience buildings. For instance home-heating practices like opening and closing windows, switching on fan heaters or using radiators are closely connected to the way we sense surface temperatures of walls and floors, humidity levels or occasionally condensation on surfaces and mould. So it is by focusing on the senses of touch, smell, vision or aesthetics of colour, sound and texture that we are getting to know more about how we come to perform our daily (energy consuming) practices. This is particularly helpful in advancing the future design of technologies, systems and buildings.

Collaborative Ways of (Re)defining Sustainability

It is only recently that efforts to connect the social and engineering aspects of buildings to home energy consumption have started to grow. New innovative methodologies are starting to fill the knowledge gap of why environmental movements have so often failed to convince people to consume less energy. Collaboration across environmental policy, industry and academia is key in the future of sustainability. It is through mutual learning that taken for granted assumptions about energy consumption in environmental policies can be filtered and replaced. It’s time to step out of our comfort zones and learn a whole new vocabulary about how people use energy.

http://unep.org/wed