population-environment-blog

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12/5 Update

Since keeping my showers under five minutes has been doable (although not enjoyable), I have decided to do some research on Cape Town’s “Day Zero” issue to see how they have managed to push back the day everyone has been dreading by over a year. I thought this is a pretty encouraging story for people who have become hopeless in the fight against climate issues. 

It is sad that it took a potential “Day Zero” for the government to step up and fight the problem, but it does go to show that when public health and safety is on the line, governments and its people are capable of much more than we thought possible. Something I found relevant to my project while researching is the willingness of farmers to divert their water to cities. They sacrificed their crops, and therefore their livelihood, for the greater good of the public. While reading this, it reminded me of Singer and how delighted he must have been by this story. 

In addition, the way the city changed its habits in such a short period of time is pretty remarkable. Of course in these circumstances people are willing to sacrifice more, but it is still very difficult to change the way you have been living forever. 

The droughts occurring in places like Cape Town ultimately come back to issues related to climate change and the consequences of our fossil fuel reliance. It is stories like these that should persuade people to take action.

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12/4 Update

Of my challenges so far, this one has been the most rewarding because it seems that shortening showers, even on a small scale, has a beneficial impact. One person giving up meat isn’t going to change agriculture industry. One person reducing their plastic usage, as mentioned in the first week’s blog, has a very small impact in the grand scheme of emissions issues. Water, on the other hand, is within individual reach to make a difference. Every gallons of water that remains in the water cycle means less depletion of our sources. Every extra gallon saved is a gallon that can help in emergency situations, such as natural disasters. A couple gallons of water for showering doesn’t seem like a big deal but during crises like the Flint water contamination, a couple gallons of clean water would supply people with drinking water.  According to a study from Penn State, if each person decreased their shower time by three minutes, their water consumption would go down by 37% which is pretty dramatic for an individual.

Source:

https://sites.psu.edu/mfsblog/2015/04/30/can-decreasing-shower-time-really-make-a-big-impact/

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12/3 Update

Today I went to the gym and immediately I was aching for a long shower to relieve my soreness. But instead, I went home and put my timer on nearby the shower to observe my remaining minutes as I raced to get clean. Today I thought a lot about my water usage in general, besides for just my showering time. My roommate and I run our pathetic joke of a dishwasher at least three times a week because of its ridiculous capacity for neither of our dirty dishes. I proposed to her, “Why don’t we just hand wash everything?” She looked at me and laughed and said “If you want to, go for it.” 

Not to throw my roommate under the bus, but that is the issue with society right now. Of course I do not want to do more work, but I do want to have a positive impact on the environment. I do want to value water as it should be, and not view it simply as a commodity. It is not really an issue of “want” anymore but an issue of “should.” We should do what we can because there are people desperate for clean water that runs out of the tap at all hours of the day. Just a few weeks ago in my environmental studies class, we watched a documentary about the water crisis and a scene really stuck with me. It was of African women gathered around a hand pump waiting for water to flow. As soon as it did, they all began cheering because they hadn’t seen water flowing in over a day. It was heartbreaking to see people so excited over what is a basic human right. But if us Westerners valued water even half as much as the African women who walk hours a day for it, would we be in such a dilemma?

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12/2 Update

Today I took my first ever timed-shower and it was pretty nerve-wracking. I kept my phone nearby and would have to check frequently to see how much longer I had to enjoy the warmth, which in hindsight, definitely wasted more time. Five minutes to wash my long hair with shampoo and conditioner, washing my face, and washing my body in five minutes is extremely challenging and not super relaxing. I normally treasure my showers and stand in hot water with music playing to decompress at the end of a long day, especially one as crazy as today with missing my connection to get back to Eugene. Being stressed in the shower was not very pleasurable and it really seems like this week’s task is the most uncomfortable and most sacrifice-involving one yet. I did make it out of the shower with seconds to spare but by Friday, I’m not quite sure how this will hold up. 

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A photo I took at Sahalie Falls on my way back from the Redmond Airport today. Interesting to think that we are in the middle of a increasing water crisis when you see a beautiful waterfall like this. 

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Week 12/2 - 12/6

Water— the new oil.

Time and time again, I have heard “water is a basic human right,” and I believe that to be true. What I don’t believe to be true is that we treat it that way. With today’s water crisis, both in terms of scarcity and cleanliness, I have chosen to make my challenge for this week to limit my showers to 5 minutes max/day. With places like Cape Town planning for Day Zero and countries like India creating ice stupas to supply villages with clean water, many fear that water may become the cause of wars in the future.

In developing nations, clean water has become almost non-existent. Open defecation due to lack of infrastructure has left rivers and lakes filled with pathogens and many nations are experiencing longer and more frequent droughts from climate change. In developed nations who have the infrastructure, the problem is how fast can the water table recharge itself? This is caused by our lack of appreciation for water as it seems to be a never-ending resource. This is why I want to make water conservation a key part of my life this week by being more aware of how much I use for drinking, washing my hands, doing laundry, doing the dishes, etc. But more importantly, I am allowing myself 5 minutes a day for a shower.

The average shower flows at a rate of 2.1 gallons per minute, which means that my typical 15-30 minute showers require 31.5 to 63 gallons of water a day. (Home Water Works). By allowing myself 5 minutes to shower, I will reduce the number of gallons I use from showering alone to 10.5 gallons. On average, a person in the United States showers for 8.2 minutes, which requires 17.22 gallons of water each day. On average, a person showers 6 days/week which equals 103.32 gallons of water a week or 5,372.64 gallons a year. Multiplied by the current U.S. population, the United States uses an average of 1.9 trillion gallons of water a year just for showering. If this number was reduced to 5 minutes, we would use 1 trillion gallons a year, which is still a lot, but it is 900 billion less. This water saving could be crucial for our longevity and the surplus could even be stored for emergencies or given to other nations in need.

Sources:

https://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/showers

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Wow, if this holiday wasn’t bad enough already for celebrating the genocide of Native Americans. 

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11/28 Update

It is Thanksgiving and I love using it as an excuse to see my family (even if they are stubborn about my living room environmental education seminars), but ever since I discovered that the Pilgrims were not quite who my history books told me they were, I have had a vendetta against this holiday. The statistics in class about Turkeys especially shocked me and it Is extremely relevant to my challenge for this week. I have been thinking about the environmental costs of turkeys during this week and decided to do some research. The carbon footprint of a 16-pound turkey, according to Carnegie Mellon, creates a total of 34.2 pounds of CO2 (Emanuelli). In 2016, 736 million pounds of turkey were consumed on Thanksgiving, meaning that approximately 25 billion pounds of CO2 are produced on this day alone (National Turkey Federation).

Anyways, my family contributed even worse to carbon emissions this year as they ate brisket, and as we know, cows are way worse than turkeys in terms of carbon production. I cheated and ruined my challenge for tonight and ate the scallops. The packaging said they were wild caught which makes me feel a bit better. My boyfriend, who’s parents are from Eugene, had a small turkey and a “tofurkey” (tofu turkey) this year and I introduced the idea to my mom who said “ew” and laughed in my face. To her defense, I don’t think I’d ever purchase fake turkey “meat,” even if I stick with this lifestyle.

Sources:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/thanksgiving-dinner-ecological-impact_l_5db07ef7e4b0d5b78944bc6e

https://www.eatturkey.org/history-and-trivia/

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11/27 Update

Vegetarianism is in full force and so are the jokes from my older brothers who do not understand environmentalism. To most of my family, climate change seems like a distant issue that we will not be around to see. Maybe that is true for many upper class Americans but it shocks me hearing these things from them because we live in South Florida, 45 minutes from Miami and 20 minutes from the beach. I made a comment in support of my lifestyle choices about how our home will be underwater and was quickly rebutted with a comment about how we will not be alive for that. Even if that is true, it is our children or grandchildren who will experience it. I have grown up around climate deniers and have witnessed people open their car doors at a stop light to empty their trash onto the road. Florida is polar-opposite from Eugene and whenever I go back home I am reminded of the absence of care exhibited by friends, neighbors, and unfortunately my family (despite efforts to educate them).

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11/26 Update

Day two of vegetarianism going strong. I have not slipped up yet, which I guess is not saying much considering it’s only Tuesday, but I am still proud of myself. In Eugene, there are tofu options everywhere and I grocery shopped wisely. The most challenging part of the day was my flight back home to Florida because I landed in Chicago around dinner time. Vegetarian friendly options at the airport consist of pizza or pasta. This was not ideal because I am trying to eat healthy on top of eating no meat. I ended up finding a Jamba Juice and had a protein smoothie for dinner, which was fine with me. I was surrounded by deep-dish pizza restaurants and grab-and-go’s and “Chicago dog” options where there is no such thing as a vegetarian hot dog, like there is in Eugene. When I finally made it to Florida after a nine hour travel day, I got in the car and was told turkey was not happening this year because Thanksgiving was just going to be my immediate family and that my brothers wanted brisket. Knowing I wouldn’t eat it, my mom was kind enough the purchase scallops for me to cook on Thanksgiving evening. I sort of panicked because my family thinks I’m this crazy liberal hippy and my brothers make fun of me saying I’m a tree-hugger. Long story short, I told my mom I couldn’t eat that and she threw a fit telling me she couldn’t return the seafood and that she refuses to make some “weird tofu dish” for me. I felt bad, and well, scallops it is.

[population-environment-blog]

This graph from BBC is very interesting to me. I’m surprised that health is the second leading factor driving people to not eat meat or consider not eating meat. I thought that environment would be a bigger reason. 

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11/25 Update

Grocery shopping yesterday for this week’s meal prep was definitely an intimidating experience. Most of my dinner meal preps revolve around seafood because of its high protein, healthy and easy to cook. I went online to find vegetarian dishes and found a healthy and delicious sounding sun-dried tomato pasta that was pretty cheap to make. Not buying any salmon or shrimp this week saved me money for sure, which was exciting to see. I’ve always been worried about going vegetarian because of the fear that I’d end up eating worse than I typically do and buying more pizza, mac n cheese, etc. I thought that by not eating eggs in the morning or any animal-based protein for dinner would make me hungrier at night than usually but I feel satisfied with what I’ve eaten today. It also feels good to know that I didn’t consume any animal today that was once living. I still ate animal products and going vegan would be a way more challenging task for me. So far so good on this vegetarian journey. 

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Week Two: 11/25 - 11/29

You’re welcome turkey, I will be eating none of you. 

As this week is Thanksgiving, I have decided that I should really challenge myself and become a full-blown vegetarian for the week. Currently, I am a pescatarian who cheats now and then with turkey or chicken. It’s been about three years since I’ve eaten beef and I’ve never eaten pork. Seafood is a pretty major part of my life, as I have resorted to shrimp and salmon because it is easy to make and healthy. 

Becoming a vegetarian is important for the environment because raising livestock requires many resources such as grazing land and feed. Overgrazing of livestock in a region of land leads to soil erosion, loss of vegetative species, and ultimately a food shortage for the animals (Conservative Energy Future). Animal feed also negatively effects the environment because about 1/3 of all grain production is used for animal feed. These grains are grown using fertilizer which can runoff into bodies of water and require the burning of fossil fuels to produce (Climate Nexus). Instead of using the grain to feed the animals and waiting for them to be raised and then slaughtered, these high-energy crops could be directly fed to people. All types of livestock are responsible for high amounts of runoff from the manure concentrated on farm land. Disposing of manure is a difficult task and often times when it is stored, it can cause runoff into bodies of water, which causes eutrophication and can harm animals and humans who drink from it. 

While seafood has less environmental consequences than livestock, it still is not the most sustainable way to eat. Farmed seafood requires more energy than livestock because of power needed to circulate water (University of Washington). While there is the option to eat only wild-caught animals, there are times where that may not be an option, like at a restaurant, and I often forget to ask for the source of capture. Wild-caught is also an issue because many industrial fishing companies use long-lines, which generates bycatch. Bycatch can be responsible for an upset in species population, which can have consequences on the food pyramid. 

This week will be tough as my family will eat pretty much anything besides pork. My parents are supportive of my mostly pescatarian lifestyle, but cooking for myself is on me since poultry is normally what’s on the dinner table. I am not sure how they will react to absolutely no seafood consumption and I predict I will be made fun of (they think I’m the hippie who moved to Oregon to hike). Vegetarian options at restaurants where I’m from in South Florida shouldn’t be too difficult, but it will definitely be more of a challenge than Eugene. While I know that my personal decision to give up meat (even if it was for the rest of my life) will barely have an impact, I am determined to challenge myself and if everyone had this mindset, maybe things would change. 

Sources:

https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-overgrazing.php

https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/vegetarian-or-omnivore-the-environmental-implications-of-diet/2014/03/10/648fdbe8-a495-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html

https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/06/11/choice-matters-the-environmental-costs-of-producing-meat-seafood/

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Here’s a photo that I took while living on a sailboat a few summers ago in the British Virgin Islands- A much simpler time when my biggest worries were what critters I’d see while scuba diving. 

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11/22 Update

Today was my last day of minimizing my single-use consumption, at least for the purpose of this project. I am definitely going to carry the ideas I’ve thought about over the last five days with me, but overall I’m feeling even more discouraged than before. I use more plastic and paper and cardboard than I realized before and I’m pretty sure that at this point, minimizing my usage isn’t even going to matter. Social media and various campaigns and celebrities who tell us to use metal straws are tackling the wrong problem. While grassroots work can be possibly the most effective tool, it’s not going to change anything for the fate of our environment if we continue to center plastic as the root of our problems like it seems so many activists are doing. 

Despite my feelings of irrelevance, I still continued to uphold my commitment for today. It was going really well until my roommate decided to have pizza and ice cream night with her work friends (of course I didn’t turn down the invite). This meant, two tubs of ice cream cartons, three cardboard pizza boxes, plastic spoons, paper bowls, (we don’t have enough silverware for more than four people) and so much packaging for toppings. Throwing this all away at the end of the night made me feel really horrible but I wouldn’t have given up anything. It was really fun and after yesterday’s article, I have made the decision that I am not going to turn down things that contribute to my happiness, like an ice cream/pizza party, if it accounts for such a small part of ocean waste and carbon emissions. I will find a more productive means to sacrifice for the good of nature. 

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11/21 Update

I don’t have much to report today so I decided to do some research on the philosophy behind single-use plastics and our ethical responsibility as humans to minimize the amount of waste we produce. I came across a Forbes article online called “Plastic Isn’t The Enemy, Our Single-Use Mindset Is.” The author discusses an aspect of the current environmental movement that bugs me, which is the role of turtles as a symbol for waste. While getting people to stop using there plastic straws through a viral video of a turtle with a straw up its nose stirs anger in the public, it does not address the biggest issue: plastic is not specifically causing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it is us humans who fulfill ourselves by contributing to the capitalist nature of Western society. According to William MacAskill, if every individual eliminated plastic bags from our lives forever, it would only effect 0.4% of the world’s carbon emissions. Even more alarming is that if we did the same thing for plastic straws, our ocean’s trash would only be reduced by 0.03%.

This information practically slams my entire final project because my individual sacrifice, if you can even call it that, is meaningless. What is even harder for me to deal with is the fact that if we eliminated plastic, we’d be deeply hurting developing nations that rely on it for things like malaria nets. So in fact, it is not what materials we use but how cycle them through. A shift to more stress on reuse could fix the problem. Instead of dumping materials, we could keep them in the cycle for much longer. So here I am questioning my life’s path. Will regulation and policy actually help? Or are we in desperate need of environmental engineers who can reshape the cycle of our products?