Furman Greenbelt Sustainable Living Community

Environmental Disasters and the Disadvantaged

As Hurricane Harvey inundated regions of the southern United States with more than 40cm of rain, Hurricane Irma and Jose trailed behind just weeks later, striking Florida and coastal North Carolina. It has now been reported that Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 Hurricane, is positioned to run through Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos and the Dominican Republic. On top of this exceedingly strong hurricane season, wildfires in Oregon, earthquakes in Mexico, mudslides in Sierra Lione and Colombia, and flooding across South East Asia, have wreaked destruction on a global level. While natural disasters are difficult to predict, their occurrence remains inevitable, demanding heightened attention for disaster relief.

While there are many factors that affect the degree of destruction brought by a natural disaster, poverty remains the central determining variable.  The Brookings Institute identifies this pattern by first pointing out a 1989 earthquake that struck San Francisco at a level of 7.1 on the Richter scale, causing 21 casualties and leaving 1,200 people homeless. By contrast, the Spitak earthquake that famously ravaged Armenia in 1988 killed some 50,000 people and left over 500,000 homeless, yet the disaster only registered a 6.9 on the Richter scale. It remains clear that the poor and marginalized are at a disproportionately higher risk–– particularly in natural disasters.

Nonetheless, while disaster relief programs aim to aid these very populations, evidence overwhelming demonstrates that natural disasters exacerbate these social inequities. Preferential treatment in times of natural disasters may appear in subtle forms, such as providing greater access to aid in safer communities than in at-risk areas. At the same time, overt discrimination also takes place often during natural disasters. Red Cross notes how Dalits in the Hindu caste system were institutionally forbidden from accessing water after the destruction of a major tsunami and how gender-based violence saw a 536% increase in rape cases after Hurricane Katrina.  The issue of social injustice in times of national disaster remains evident, but the role a sustainably-minded individual can play to curb this trend is still a difficult topic to address.

The Importance of Social Participation

One of the most important measures to prevent against discrimination in access to disaster relief aid is to elevate the voices of those disadvantaged. While it might seem like an organizational task to institute overreaching policies for including the opinions of marginalized persons, the individual plays a crucial role in this process as well. Social participation– in the forms of social media involvement and engagement in topical discussions–are two easy ways to help understand complex environmental issues.

Social participation is also crucial for bringing attention to these problems, when those around you may not be aware, and for sharing the opinions of those most deeply affect. In particular, social media is a great tool for discovering how people from various backgrounds are impacted by almost any given issue. Meanwhile, group discussion, whether shared between friends, in a classroom setting, or at the work place, is a necessary action to discover ways you can do to help within your own communities. As natural disasters continue to transpire at alarming rates, it has never been more important for individuals to begin making a commit to center the conversation on helping those most in need. In short, social participation is not just a political point or some humanitarian gesture, but an essential and basic expression of empathy.

-Matt Martin

Sustainability practice in tennis is something that doesn’t really cross many tennis player’s minds, but it really should. When you start to think how many tennis balls we open from a new can, hit as hard as we can with lots of crazy spin, then decide they are not bouncing quite how we want (trust me we are very picky when it comes to what makes the ball good enough) and then replace them. This cycle starts again. Using a basket of balls for practice, which is made up of 24 cans, then 4 balls per can, means we are playing with 96 balls. This is then changed weekly, with a whole new set of balls. So just in this one semester we are using about 1536 tennis balls… and the tennis season hasn’t even begun yet!

Seems like a waste really, so where do all these tennis balls go? If they went in the trash that would be a waste but these tennis balls are then recycled. Some are distributed to the club team, for them to have free and decent balls. The rest are distributed to local schools for children to enjoy and play with.

I know what you’re thinking now though, where do they go after that? Well when they’ve reached the stage of flat and fluffy balls, they can no longer be used for tennis. These tennis balls are then commonly used as dog toys, or more innovatively they are used as decoration. Such as on the outside of trash cans at some local clubs (but not inside the trash can) or as props for tennis scoring, where they don’t need to bounce anymore only required to look like the size of a tennis ball and hopefully still be slightly yellow.

Sadly there will be waste where many balls are put in the trash and not recycled. This is inevitable in our society but I think people are trying harder. The materials in these tennis balls are not easily broken down but there may come a time where the biodegradable tennis ball is invented.

Try picturing the tennis centre at Furman to have every chair like the one pictured below, well stop because we haven’t quite reached that impressive level of being that sustainable. Hopefully, in the near future though I could have some influence in making that happen… not sure they look particularly comfortable though but definitely sustainable.

Hannah Ferrett

Picture yourself walking around Furman’s iconic lake. Those that frequent the lake, will recognize many familiar sites. One of those being families and children clustered around the waters edge, throwing crumbling handfuls of bread to eager waiting waterfowl. Little do they know, they are harming these birds that they feed.

Just as children love sugar, ducks love bread. And why wouldn’t they? It’s an easy food source they don’t even have to work for. However, bread and other processed wheat products are lacking in essential nutrients ducks natural food source contain. Many ducks, like mallards, the most common on our lake, are divers that eat dark green plant material found on the lake floor. As a child, my mother drilled into my head that more colorful foods have higher nutrient counts. So, instead of ducks eating a diet of dark greens rich in vitamins, they’re eating overly processed white bread.

This leads to a condition known as angel wing, which can actually be seen in several ducks on the lake. As they are over consuming processed foods, ducks are not getting their key nutrients, and their bones actually start to warp. This leads to some funky looking wings, and the birds can be severely incapacitated and no longer able to fly.

An additional side effect of the ducks horrible bread diet is their gut bacteria is altered. They cannot properly digest it, and they over produce the bacteria ecology, which they then excrete into the water.

Instead of feeding birds bread or cereal, instead try something less processed. Easy switches can be to whole oats which have more nutrients, seeds (especially reduced sodium ones or preferable all natural mixes) or even split grapes. Some ducks, such as ruddy ducks, prefer a diet of fish. A really enthusiastic duck lover could try and feed these birds sardines, if they really wanted to. – Julia Clements

From the Maillot Jaune to the Lanterne Rouge, cycling presents the constant challenge of who can suffer the most.  Cycling greats such as Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault were notorious for their ability to suffer the most. In many ways, cycling can be a microcosm to understanding key competencies in sustainability just as Merckx and Hinault understood how to succeed in cycling.

From a systems perspective, a cyclist performs a reinforcing feedback loop without even realizing it. The simple action of pushing the pedals in a cyclical motion allows them to move from point A to point B. What’s so intriguing about this is that the rate of the feedback loop is either dictated by the cyclist or by the road itself. As an avid cyclist, I am constantly presented with this challenge of riding on the flats or suffering up the mountainside. There have been plenty of times where I could not make it to the summit, but one thing I have understood through all these failures are lessons that have made me stronger.

Cycling can also be described under as normative competency in sustainability. My grandmother was an avid cyclist and she sent me a letter of some lessons she learned on her ride across the country. One example of her trip were the many stories of Americans who helped her along the way. One story was about how, “A Minnesota couple brought us warm cookies in the evening, fed us breakfast the next morning, and later gave us a ride to the train station during a storm. [or a] farm family allowed us to camp in their yard, provided us with lots of scrumptious fresh vegetable, and insisted that we use their shower.” These small acts of kindness that my grandmother experienced exemplify the idea of understanding the values of others. In order to solve many of the ‘wicked’ problems sustainability scientists deal with, we must pay attention to the culture of others.

Sustainability competencies and their similarities to cycling show our connection to the world. We are reliant on one another to push the goals of sustainability forward, but just as in cycling, we are reliant on ourselves in order to succeed. – Austin Powell

 

Meeting Tour de France Winner Bradley Wiggins in the 2010 TDF

(P.S I was stupid and forgot to write down which date I had for blog post, but I think it was this week??? So sorry if it isn’t. I am moronic sometimes.)

Blood and Guts and Chocolate Cake

We all know our food production system in America is quite honestly a disgusting disaster. What I mean is we get what we want to eat, yes. We are, after all, a nation in the throes of an obesity epidemic. But in order to provide all of that meat, all of those juicy, McDonalds hamburgers, all of that finely crafted Gorgonzola cheeses, we needed to engender a monster. And so, America’s agricultural system was born. The CAFO.

Primarily, we utilize CAFOs/AFOs to raise our animals for slaughter. You can think of a CAFO as a large prison, where the cells are tiny, dirty, and beyond crowded. The animals are literally prisoners, sometimes beaten, sometimes driven to cannibalism, and sometimes unable to move for weeks at a time. Their waste trickles down to manure lagoons that occasionally experience major disaster, spewing tons of raw manure into run offs and further polluting water sources. The odor from these lagoons lowers property values, and the pollution causes health problems such as asthma that affects nearby towns, which are generally of the lower class and or poverty stricken. Besides the typical respiratory problems, the pollution also contributes to the spread of disease and pathogens. The large amount of antibiotics being pumped into our animals to keep them somehow somewhat healthy in the pure hell they reside in is affecting us by building up our antibodies to a swathe of antibiotics.

We have created a money making machine, one capable of supplying Americans with the endless amount of eggs, meat, cheese, and milk we desire. But at what cost?

To be sustainable, can we reduce our meat consumption? Can we forgo that delicious bit of goat cheese and instead gradually rid ourselves of animal products? Or maybe we simply could start buying from local farms, where we know the animals have been tended to well and with love. It has to start somewhere. Avoid the McDonald’s and the Burger King and instead head to a local farmer and purchase a portion of a steer there, and make your own steaks, your own burgers.

It is, after all, a step in the right direction, although the wrong path calls to us in its siren song of convenience. It is possible, I promise.

-Camiell Foulger

WORKS CITED

“CAFO vs. Free Range.” CAFOs vs. Free Range, Organic Consumers Association, www.organicconsumers.org/categories/cafos-vs-free-range.

Gurian-Sherman, Doug. CAFOs Uncovered: the Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008.

Unbelievable photographs of the devastation in East Texas have been plastering our screens for over a week now.  Hurricane Harvey is leaving his legacy with record-breaking rain, multiple landfalls, and mindboggling flooding.  It is no doubt one of the worst storms I’ve lived to see, and could be one of the worst in our knowledgeable history.  But before we dismiss this catastrophe as just another natural disaster, we should examine the reason behind the severity of the wide-spread destruction.

          

Before and after pictures of Houston

Houston, where much of the record flooding is taking place, is the United States fourth largest city, home to more than 6 million people in the entire metropolis area.  The founders were looking for a place of opportunity for government and commerce, and the confluence of the White Oak Bayou and the Buffalo Bayou seemed perfect in 1836, until there were 16 major floods in the next 100 years.  This prompted major flood control, which not only helped keep the town together, but also catalyzed major growth.  And with major growth comes less and less pervious space for water to be absorbed.

Since 2001, there have been three 500-year floods in the Houston area.  Now to be fair, if there was no Houston infrastructure and the area was left to be its natural prairie/marsh self, there would still be 500-year floods where the land would be far beyond its capacity to absorb large amounts of water.  However, the increasing flood intensity cannot be ignored.  Houston and many other cities are known for spontaneous and fast development, including major sprawl.  This culture of unlimited development butts heads with nature, and the effects are not trivial.  On top of the increased impervious areas, storms will continue to intensify due to climate change, and coastal cities will experience more powerful storm surges.

While we need to focus on immediate needs and bring people to safety, the situation begs the question of how development will respond to lessen the impacts of inevitable future flooding.  If large cities are home to some of our largest problems, I believe they can produce some of our best solutions.  Our cities aren’t getting any smaller, so we need to think creatively about how to be more resilient.  For example, cities like Houston can encourage increasing and preserving natural prairies, creating green spaces, and restricting development in flood plains.  Even our home of Greenville should exercise caution and thoughtfulness as our population continues to grow and production facilities increase.  We need to become more adaptable and forward thinking because nature is not stopping anytime soon.

View of Greenville’s downtown Falls Park

What do you think Greenville can do to become more resilient?

-Hannah Dailey

 

Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the DH, a few students showed the estimated statistics of how much food waste Furman University produces during lunch. I originally showed up to support my roommate, Celia, who was one of the students involved; however, after looking at the numbers, I really began thinking about how much waste I personally produce. I do not go out and buy food only to let it rot in the refrigerator, but I know that I probably do take too many plates of food in the DH. Of course my intention is not bad, usually I just cannot decide or think I am really hungry, but that does not justify the amount of food that I do waste. It is time to be more conscientious. Here are some solutions that I plan to use in order to fix the problem. Take less food. There is no point in taking three plates of food when I probably will not eat it all.  More food is available, if the first plate was not enough. With that being said, take time eating. As I learned from the presentation, it takes twenty minutes for a person’s stomach to realize that it is full. Therefore, it is best to eat slowly so that I do not grab more food that I will not eat. I know that changing my habits alone will probably not have that much of an impact, but I am hoping that his blog post will inspire someone as Celia’s presentation inspired me.

– Felicity Williams

My greenbelt experience would not have been complete without the Furman farm, which happened to be right in my backyard (while I was living in the Greenbelt). The Furman farm grows produce for the dining hall on campus and has student employees who work on the farm. My experience with the Furman farm involved a volunteering opportunity that was provides to me because I was a resident of the greenbelt. When I volunteered I picked vegetables such as okra and tomatoes, both of which are grown organically. The harvesting process was enlightening, I was able to learn which plants were ready for harvest and which weren’t depending on the size, shape, and color of the vegetable. Overall, this experience gave me an appreciation for where my food comes from and the hard work that goes into preparing it. 

-Miles Hauser

We have more eyes than two

To see more than Earth’s view.

But like the sky’s hue

Our perspectives are so blended

That our vision is unlimited

Until the ego comes by

To taint the pool that is you.

Greed, Impatience, Anger, Fear,

All projections of the mind

To help you stay here.

 

It’s sad,

The ego is too short-sighted to see

That you only switch gears

At the stop of your heartbeat.

So when life seems to flee

& Your ego tells you to chase,

Just remember that your days are only numbered inside your mental space.

-Jacque Evangelister

Ever since Henry Ford revolutionized the car-making process with his assembly line manufacture in the 1910s, the automobile industry has been one of the key components of the U.S. economy. Environmentalist, Clive Ponting, points out that the motorization of America was not a fully organic process, because in 1936 “General Motors, Standard Oil of California and the tire company Firestone formed a new company called National City Lines whose purpose was to buy up alternative transport systems and close them down.” Railroads across the country began to shut down despite the fact that car transport consumes six times the energy per passenger mile and the infrastructure uses four times the land area compared to rail. Unlike citizens of other industrialized nations, Americans were increasingly forced to travel by bus or by car as roads expanded and railroad tracks ceased to be built during the 20th century.

Through an analysis of 26 cities from 1960-2000, Australian researchers at the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute have determined that cities “should be supporting the investment in quality rail transit systems and building up urban densities around them, rather than increasing road capacity” if they are “seeking to limit car dependence.” America has been entrenched in a car-dominated society for decades; consequently, shifts in automobile transportation preferences and breakthrough innovations in driving technology are the only alternatives to improving public transportation through expensive rail systems. Though an America with a modern high-speed rail system would be the most efficient and environmentally friendly form of transportation infrastructure, it simply is not feasible given America’s size, lack of government support, and path dependence on automobiles. Under ideal conditions in which “electric vehicle capital costs, battery costs, and maintenance costs are at the low end of predictions, and fossil fuel prices rise to the high end of predictions, a rapid shift to electric vehicles may cost no more than continued use of internal combustion engines,” according to researchers at the Tinbergen Institute and Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets. While America cannot compete with the efficiency of rail travel, it can come close to being on par with rail travel’s environmental impact if investment in renewable energy continues to flow.

The federal government should react to shifts in transportation culture by enacting legislation that requires automakers to synchronize their autonomous vehicles into fleets and platooning systems that improve fuel efficiency, traffic flow, and travel times. Many Americans have a strong connection to their cars, and it will be difficult for Americans to wean themselves off the feeling of independence that automobiles provide. Trends do indicate however, that access is replacing ownership among drivers, and soon the market for automobile ownership will be replaced by a market for ridesharing services. In the new market, journalist Clive Thompson argues that it will be much easier for “a fleet of robot cars to go electric than it is for individual car owners to do so,” thereby indicating that governments should closely monitor how autonomous vehicle companies will work with one another to improve efficiency on the road. A future with start-up assist systems could make traffic congestion near an accident much more efficient by forcing all cars to accelerate at the same time. Platooning, or reducing “headways between vehicles in a string without compromising safety” takes start-up assist to the macro level. The platooning approach to traffic will allow more cars to fit on the road, allow those cars to travel at higher speeds, and improve fuel economies as a result of reduced drag and momentum loss. Made possible through the exchange of braking and acceleration data, simulations have shown significant traffic flow improvements from this use of autonomous driving technology. Perhaps self-driving vehicles will eliminate deaths caused by drunk driving and other reckless behavior as they are adopted as the primary form of transportation.

Community organizers, city planners, and sustainability activists must continue to push for greater governmental support in public transportation infrastructure and aid in the transition to autonomous and electric vehicles as climate change concerns rise. Significant steps must be demanded such as introducing car emissions standards that evolve over time, reducing or removing taxes on the import of electric vehicles, and providing electric vehicles with access to restricted transit lanes. These initiatives in conjunction with fleets, platooning, new parking efficiency, and ideals of car-free cities will change America’s attitudes toward automobile transportation and improve air quality. If the private sector and government entities work together, they can create an American transportation system that is still reliant on cars, yet significantly closer in efficiency and reduced carbon emissions of Japanese and European rail-based transportation systems.

-Owen