Month: February 2022

Sustainability is probably a word you hear all the time, in every sustainable website, class, presentation, and fake corporate ad. Barring the fake corporate ads, every content producer has the right intention. But often the long term sustainable lifestyle teachings are left by the wayside to make room for habits and fun activities that make sustainability easy and empowering. The truth is, real long term sustainability requires more than just habits. It requires a conscious and intentional change of mind. Admittedly, in a more practical sense the best approach to eliminating damage to our planet is to target the big production companies, which is best done by raising awareness about our planet and the need for sustainability.

However, if we’re to really recover from where we are today and keep going, we have to actually change how we go about our lives. Recycling, for example, is a largely misunderstood process, and it could be considerably more efficient if we better understood it. Too much of the recycling we assume dissapears from our record actually ends up in landfills, and for lots of reasons. For one, “wishful recycling,” which is the habit of erring on the side of recycling when deciding where your handful goes, puts unfortunate amounts of unrecyclable material into the system, which means there have to be comprehensive ways of removing it, which is costly and lowers efficiency.

Single stream recycling is somewhat to blame. When recycling was all separated at the household level, recycling was actually very efficient and effective, though it wasn’t very widespread. Nowadays, single stream recycling has made collection and involvement skyrocket, though it as a process is embarrasingly ineffective. Non-recyclables thrown in “just in case they are” comprise about 13 percent of all recyclables. Essentially, for every 10 trucks of completely recyclable material, 1 trucks worth is competely landfill bound. Also, glass is almost entirely not recycled. It’s simply not worth it after separating it from the rest of the recyclables. The best way to fix this is to require separation of recyclables, though immediately the problem with that is that most of people recycle because it’s taboo not to, not because they genuinely believe in the necessity of it. And so if it becomes any more difficult to recycle, it just won’t happen on a large enough scale to make it effective. Another big change we need to make is in the production on greenhouse gas emissions.

Or rather, in reducing it. Like I said, a vast majority of the destruction of our environment comes from a very small minority of the biggest companies. This makes it very easy in theory to reduce emissions, because bigger companies are more eager to improve their social image, and thus are very much subject to social opinons. And yet, the problem has not been solved. The truth is, the market works on interest, and interest is a lot harder to change than intention. Companies will say anything and do anything to get you to buy, and lying works. We must be more diligent in holding big corporate empires responsible. and we must be more diligent in how we think about sustainability. It’s more than a diet, it’s a wholesome way of life.

 

 

wamu.org/story/19/02/12/does-your-recycling-actually-get-recycled-yes-maybe-it-depends/

brightly.eco/why-your-favorite-companies-arent-going-green/#:~:text=The%20two%20most%20common%20reasons,just%20don’t%20hold%20water.

Upon divulging I am a math major to unsuspecting passersby, I am most frequently asked “what do you plan to do with that?”  There typically are two possible reasons behind this:  (1) they know the diversity of mathematics and are actually interested to know how I’ll choose to use it or (2) they think I’ll have to be a teacher.  I will be speaking to the first crowd, not because I plan to use the mathematics of sustainability as a career path, but because it is relevant to understand the mathematics behind the science side of sustainability.

This topic can be further broken down into two different sections: the academic/ research side, as well as the personal side applicable to us all.  The academic side is of greater interest to me, in part for the diversity of topics that can be researched, but I will also try and touch on how to use (very simple) math in your daily life.   The most apparent usage would come in terms of climate change, for which SustainabilityMath is a great resource.  Their compilation of calculus and statistics-based concepts provides an easy introduction to how math is being used to better our planet in climate and social justice.  The CODEE journal publication on differential equations does a good job of highlighting the numerous ways that can be accomplished.  From climate change to technology to political science, the use of differential equations and understanding of how change occurs is being utilized to combat social inequity and sustainability.  In addition to descriptive uses where math models real-world problems, it can also be used to increase efficiency.  A famous problem in optimization is known as the traveling salesman problem (TSP).  Given a series of points, what is the shortest distance an individual can travel in order to reach every location and return back to the starting point.   Companies such as Amazon and UPS have interests in such problems as a cost-saving measure, however are also helping with sustainability as cars on a shorter route save emissions.  Whenever you plug a destination into a map app on your phone, it’s helping save gas as compared to you trying to determine the route on your own.  In addition to these purely academic settings, there is also sustainability in the way we teach math, by focusing less on the numbers and problem solving and more on what it can solve.  A blog by the American Mathematical Society explains both these concepts nicely, in addition to better planning regarding the arrangement of academic events that require travel for their participants.

 

 

A few of you, our lovely readers, may be able to use the aforementioned ideas.  Most will not.  Instead, I pose to you that you can use math in your daily life to increase your sustainability.  Since most people hate math, I am not asking you to sit down and “crunch the numbers.”  Instead, for instance, look at how much you can store of a certain product in your residence to decrease how often you need to go out to get it.  It’s even better if you can go to multiple locations in the same trip instead of driving back and forth from your home, and also more convenient!  In general, anything in your life that uses materials or effort of any sort can be better optimized through sustainability.  While I cannot anticipate all these ways, it isn’t too difficult to sit down and think through it!

 

 

https://sustainabilitymath.org/

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1048&context=codee

Sustainable Mathematics

On the first day of my intro sustainability class this semester, my professor told us how the class may depress us and that if we need to talk about it, she’s always here for us. “We’ll get through this together,” she assured us. This is a part of sustainability we often neglect: the mental toll it can take on us. Ecological grief is “similar to other forms of grief” as Aviva Fialkow writes in her article “Eco-grief: How to cope with the emotional impacts of climate change” (University of Calgary, 2021). These feelings of sadness often arise after forest fires, extreme weather events, pollution, and other forms of environmental degradation (University of Calgary, 2021). There is a similar form of mental distress when it comes to climate known as “eco-anxiety.” There is a bit of a debate on if these phenomena matter or not, with some talking about how there are more important health issues relating to climate change such as heat-related stress or the health consequences of floods and droughts (The BMJ Opinion, 2021). Research on the mental health side of environmental health is fairly new but the evidence collected thus far suggests that the problems associated are very serious. One American study highlights the growing stress associated with climate as a large number of people ages 27 to 45 reported “growing concerns about raising children during a climate apocalypse” (The BMJ Opinion, 2021). I often see jokes on TikTok that the most effective form of birth control is environmental science classes. Turns out, there is some truth in that. One survey conducted in 2020 found that “one in four cited climate change as a factor in why they do not currently have children” (The New York Times, 2021). There is a growing number of people who feel that it is unethical to give birth to children due to the growing concern about climate change. 

People feel shame when they grab an extra bag at the store, sadness when they think of the future, and anxious whenever a news report about how we’ve passed the point of no return. So that raises the question: what can we do about it? Aiva Fialkow offers a few different coping mechanisms. One is that we have to focus on what we have control over and not what we don’t (University of Calgary, 2021). For example, I work at Publix and we have a policy that we have to give customers bags no matter what. It bugs me to no end when I have to bag an order in plastic and then paper. But that isn’t something I have control over: my company makes the rules and as an employee, I have to follow the rules so I shouldn’t feel bad about it. Fialkow also suggests “finding solace in natural spaces” (University of Calgary, 2021). Many people find that tending to a garden or going on a hike not only helps them feel better about their eco-anxiety but also contributes to their well-being overall. As we continue to try to solve the issues of our planet, we need to make sure we aren’t neglecting our feelings so we can effectively reduce damage to the Earth. 

 

https://ucalgary.ca/news/eco-grief-how-cope-emotional-impacts-climate-change

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/10/06/the-climate-crisis-and-the-rise-of-eco-anxiety/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/20/style/breed-children-climate-change.html

Now that February has begun and cemented the continuation of winter, the Winter Olympics have also begun. Being an event on the world stage with competitors and viewers from every country of the world, the Olympics are a great place to involve new sustainable practices to help set a global standard. Many of the competitions presented in the Olympics are consistently practiced around the world and the sustainable practices for these sports in Olympics can help the way those sports are practiced around the world. In addition, the Olympics are practiced every 2 years, causing a lot of travel and carbon emissions every 2 years in order to present the athletes for their events. Setting a sustainable standard can make the frequent Olympics become a much more sustainable event.

First and foremost, the Olympics themselves have put out a lot of information on how they are being sustainable. The Olympics set forth their own precedent before the Winter Games in Beijing were ever commenced. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) set the goal that every single one of the subsequent Olympic games should all be at the very least carbon neutral. Beijing 2022, according to the IOC, has been and will be carbon neutral. In order to accomplish this, the IOC has made a few executive decisions and changes. First, the summer Olympic games were hosted in Beijing in 2008, meaning that there are still resources and venues that were constructed for the 2008 games that can are being reused for the 2022 games.

Besides reusing the venues that already were standing, both the existing venues and all new venues are being powered entirely by renewable energy. This is the first time that the Olympics have used renewable energy to power their venues. The two main sources of energy for the games are created through solar and wind cultivation. The solar and wind energy is being cultivated at another city outside of Beijing and then transferred to the city through the “Zhangbei flexible direct current grid project.” Outside of providing power to the venues, this energy is used to power 10% of all of Beijing’s electricity.

One aspect about the winter games is that venues and events usually need to be kept cold or at a certain level for snow or ice. This task is usually not easy to accomplish and to achieve the desired temperature usually causes a significant amount of carbon emissions. Beijing is using natural CO2 refrigeration systems in order to maintain the temperature of the venues, cutting down carbon emissions to nearly zero.

 

While Beijing and more specifically, the IOC, is doing a great job at keeping the games this year as sustainable as they can possible achieve currently, there is a larger threat at play. It is estimated that with current carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions that by the end of the century there will not potentially be a Winter Olympic Games anymore. 21 cities have hosted the Olympic games in the past, but by the end of the century, only 1 of those 21 cities is estimated to still be able to host the event. Keeping the games sustainable is important to continue having the event, but more change still needs to come. Unless the world collectively can begin to reduce the emissions being made, the world might lose one of the greatest unifying events of the modern age.

 

Works Cited

Chan, Candice Choi and Kelvin. “Explainer: Olympics Show Complexity of Sustainability Claims.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 11 Feb. 2022, https://phys.org/news/2022-02-olympics-complexity-sustainability.html.

Ioc. “Beijing 2022 Sustainability – All You Need to Know – Olympic News.” International Olympic Committee, IOC, 31 Jan. 2022, https://olympics.com/ioc/news/beijing-2022-sustainability-all-you-need-to-know.

Person, and Steve Keating. “Climate Change Will Limit Choice for Winter Games Hosts, Says Study.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 19 Jan. 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/climate-change-will-limit-choice-winter-games-hosts-says-study-2022-01-18/.