Shrinking areas are a rather common phenomenon nowadays in the Western world. A low population increase and a transition into a service-oriented society for several decades long, has led to the effect of monofunctional areas losing their talents to multifunctional areas. In the Netherlands this is happening already for some decades with the Randstad area, which sucks up a majority of the bright minds from the more rural area in the Netherlands. Besides talents turning their back to their roots, these areas also have to deal with a boring image. It is not surprising that the general debate in society revolves around the question if public investments should be particularly directed towards the big cities and metropolitan areas such as the Randstad. There seems to be a consensus that investing in shrinking areas is useless. I would like to question this.

Out of the viewpoint of sustainability, concentrating functions and development in certain clusters is to preferred over random proliferation. Few people will doubt that. This has not always happened in the past however. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, there was a culture change due to the emergence of cars, leading to proliferation of families and enterprises over the country. The current trend is completely reverse, both talents and companies are heading en masse to the bigger cities.

The question is: are we to abandon these areas that are suffering under decisions made in the past, or are we to help them? Since sustainability is about offering future generations at least the same life standard as current generations, the stupidest thing to do is to leave out and forget on an entire group.

The root of the problem lies in public investment decisions. When public investment decisions are made, data from analysis that attempt to project long term market behavior is often used. The problem with these analyses is that projecting long term market behavior is often nothing more than simple trend extrapolation. In other words, current trends are extrapolated assuming circumstances will remain more or less equal. I can give plenty of reasons why this never works on the long term, but the most important reason is ‘black swan events’. As Nicholas Taleb describes in his book ‘the black swan’, everyone is guilty of trend extrapolation, we literally all do it, consciously, or unconsciously. This often works very well in the very short term, say 1-3 years, but for anything longer than that it is pretty useless. The black swan events are the ones changing history, the ones that we as humanity every time have to adapt to.

So what is a black swan event? A black swan event is an event with low probability and high to very high impact. A volcanic eruption is an example, as was the 11^th of September 2001. The stock market crash in 1987 is another example, as was the assassination of JFK. However, a black swan event does not necessarily have to happen from one day to another. Most families getting a car in the 1950’s in the USA was a black swan event, as was the massive adoption of internet in the second half of the 1990’s. These events were unforeseeable (especially the latter one), but have changed society and the way we live completely. Due to these black swan events I preach a more careful approach with regards to public investment decisions. I would not cut in the public investments for ‘shrinking regions’ because it then easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Besides, who knows what kind of black swan events might happen over the next decades that change the current perspective completely.

To list a few possible ones:

-The emergence of 3D printing. Entire supply chains will collapse and the power will go back to enterprises that locally produce;

-A rising discrepancy between real estate prices in the big cities and real estate prices on the country side, eventually leading to a bursting bubble of real estate in the big cities;

-Technological developments in transport and mobility such as autonomously driving vehicles. And why couldn’t we raise the maximum speed for special car lanes where cars drive autonomously? This would reduce travel time immensely and allows you to continue working while traveling;

-What about a complete economic meltdown due to the diseased system we are in? Back to basics, where more self-sufficient people on the countryside clearly have an advantage.

I am not preaching that these black swan events will surely occur, but the chance that one of these things occur is reasonable. And if that happens, all trend extrapolation made by so called experts can go directly to the garbage can.

To ensure a sustainable future for everyone, I therefore keep stressing the importance of careful public spending, fairly divided over the different regions of a country. It will save us a lot of regrets in the future.

How much sustainable is a product? What are eco-labels? What are the advantages and disadvantages of eco-labeling system?

During the last thirty years, numerous initiatives have started from both private and public industries in order to define sustainability-related information of products. This was achieved by introducing different kind of symbols like labels and logos in-store and on-pack. They are a form of sustainability measurement directed at consumers, intended to make it easy to take environmental concerns into account when shopping. The information that is provided can be used to influence or inform purchasing decisions.

There are many different eco-labeling schemes and logo in operation around the world, each covering a different range of environmental criteria such as pollution or energy consumption during production. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has identified three broad types of voluntary environmental labels: TypeI, TypeII, and TypeIII.

TypeI labels are self-declarations that have not been independently tested or verified and they indicate voluntary conformance to pre-determined, multi-attribute criteria that identify environmentally preferable products.

TypeII labels may involve a conflict of interest and they focus on single attribute environmental claims such as energy consumption, indoor air quality, or recycled content.

TypeIII labels are founded on independent testing and verification by a certification body. They often referred to as environmental product declarations provide comprehensive product information based on quantitative life cycle assessment.

For eco-labeling system the most important aspect is the truth. The labels have to appear only on products that really meet the standards they advertise. In practice, product manufacturers have to apply to some independent certification authority for a license to display a label, which is granted only if their product meets specific criteria and to invest money for that. Manufacturers have to pay a fee to cover the cost of administering the scheme and are granted permission to use a label under the terms of a legally binding contract.

Eco-labels offer three major benefits for both consumers and industries. Firstly, for consumers, labels are easy-to-recognize, trusted, simple to understand and trustworthy guides for products. Secondly, for manufacturers, eco-labels offer a potential point of difference and a competitive advantage since a lot of customers take environmental performance into account if it still meets the price demand. Finally labels encourage a general raising of environmental performance, even among products that aren't labeled.

The biggest problem with the increasing interest in eco shopping is that manufacturers may be tempted to make exaggerated or misleading claims, which confuse and exploited consumers since the cost of this product is higher. Instead of raising standards, the result is confusion among consumers, a systematic undermining of all eco-friendly products.

In conclusion, I would like to express my considerations. How much these eco-labels cost in both company and customers? Is it profitable for the company to invest in this label in order to be officially sustainably? The government as part of the game, probably it has to be ally by sponsoring money instead of asking for them? Finally, what about customers? Do you think that a lot of people are willing to spend more (maybe twice) in order to be sustainable? Are you part of them?

P.S Some general advice. Trust eco-labels, but be also critical (mainly in price level) and responsible that you can understand them. Don’t look only for the labels but go a little bit deeper for information like the county of origin and production. So, don’t reject automatically unlabeled products because former aren't environmentally friendly probably they are.

E.G

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecolabel

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/eco-labelling.html

http://www.sustainabilitydictionary.com/eco-labels/

This article reflects on the documentary of Jacque Fresco 'Paradise or oblivion' on why I believe this is an utopian idea, that is inspiring, but not feasible.

In the lecture of week 4 our group watched the documentary of Jacque Fresco ‘Paradise or oblivion’. Although I believe this is a refreshing idea, I believe it is an utopian idea that is not feasible.

Jacque Fresco states that scarcity of resources is the foundation of social inequality and instability. In his utopian vision, where money does no longer exist, there is an abundance of resources so anyone is able to meet their needs. But is an abundance of resources possible, when the global population keeps rising? Does abundance in resources mean we will consume less when wealth expressed in money has been eliminated? Or will we consume more than we already do, compared to the average global consumption rate when everything is available?

My first problem with Jacque Fresco’s story is that I do not believe that eliminating wealth expression in monetary value leads to consuming only what you need. For example, people buy more food than they need which goes to waste in the refrigerator. This is even food we paid for. What happens if it is free? The strongest motivation is self-interest, people and even nature seek ways to cut corners so they can individually excel. Jacque Fresco could argue that this is incorporated in our culture, but what if it is natures ‘nature’ to be like this because we have a survival instinct?

My second problem is that Jacque Fresco states he wants to build new cities which completely rely on renewable energy systems. But to build renewable energy systems you need metals. The online course ‘Wheel of metals: Urban mines for a circular economy’ states that to transfer to a system of 80% of renewable energy in 2050 we need 50.000 times more of CdTe and other elements which are essential for these technologies. It is not possible to scale up to this amount seen the metal elements usage. Renewable energy technologies have to be reinvented and based on more common available materials.

Metals are dwindling in quality and quantity since ore grades are deteriorating and easy accessible ores are becoming scares. We have to put in more effort to obtain the same amount of metals, making it economically inefficient at one point. Even in a world without money, it means you have to use more resources to obtain resources that have less high quality. In short, it is inefficient.

Even if you would not extract metals for technology out of the ground, but from urban mines through using metals in existing constructions there are still many problems. For a circular economy you need materials that do not down-cycle. At the moment you always lose some and in practice circular economy for metals is not possible yet. Material engineers have always been focused on maximizing performance, not on maximizing recyclability. It is expected that it will take a century for alloys to be redesigned for a circular economy, where elements do not influence each other when being recaptured. Although the aluminum industry states that aluminum is suitable for recycling, for a circular economy you actually want each element in alloys back, which is hard since elements that are mixed together now often share the same properties.

In short, the utopian of Jacque Fresco relies on technology and renewable energy systems that need resources which are not abundant at the moment. Technologies and materials need to be reinvented so we can close loops. Off course, you also have the bio cycle which contains renewable resources. If we believe in Blue Economy there are renewable resources available we do not perceive as resources yet. But even if they become visible how do we use the land to cultivate these when we need the land to grow food for a rising population.

In my eyes the first step would therefore be to control population size and for society to consume less. This is possible by creating sharing systems, reusing or refurbishing. By extending the lifespan, we not only consume less energy, but we also give material science the time to come up with materials which are suitable for a circular economy. Maybe for people to consume less you even need a threat for scarcity. Why would you consume less if everything is abundance? 

There is one in every crowd.

Awareness of ecological problems and bad impact on our environment is a hot topic today. Sustainable approach towards how we live is essential in order to maintain our needs and life quality. However, sometimes I have a feeling that there are too many words and nothing behind them. Once, one of my friends told me, that if you want to get support from the government, or any other organization, you just have to mention something about sustainability, without providing any figures or data. According to him, “sustainability” is just a magic word to attract people, nothing more. I am not sure if this really works this way, but I should agree with him to the point, that sometimes term “sustainable” is used too widely without any meaning behind it. Therefore I decided to look deeper into this problem, and, to my big surprise, found those, who are sceptic about sustainable movement.

On the Internet I have found an article written by Paul Treanor (1). I do not know who he is and what he does, however it was still interesting to read his thoughts about sustainability. He claims himself to be "…against sustainability on all definitions." According to his experience, environmentalist and supporters of sustainability movement “do not even recognize the possibility of objection” and sustainability itself is another ideology of radical-conservatism.

Kathia Castro Laszlo, Ph.D student at Saybrook University claims that: “Sustainability as usual isn’t good enough”, because” Good intentions such as moving “beyond petroleum” made it into corporate slogans, but when it comes down to practical commitments, responsible action is less attractive than double profits.(2)” She thinks, that unless we rethink our approach towards sustainability and focus on our true relationships with world and nature, the impact of any environmental movement will not be good enough. She provides the quote from John Elkington(3), who is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development: “We must now raise our collective sights from technologies and business models (important though they are) to psychological, social, and even civilizational change.”

And what if they are right? What if sustainability is just another utopian idea that will never come true? I questioned myself, if what we do now towards sustainability continues, when do we become sustainable? When would be the end of this environmental race in order to save the world we are living in? I would say never, because such an approach, most likely, will have to be part of our daily life to achieve set goals. But are we ready for this?

1. http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/sustainability.html
2. http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/05/sustainability-as-usual-isnt-good-enough/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Elkington

The tragedy of the commons is a social dilemma when collective interests conflict with private interests. Even if it is clear that overfishing and exhausting the ocean is not in anyone's long-term interest, multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource like fish. Is it possible to maximize our fish catch and profits while keeping the oceans alive? When confronted with the dilemma and have to act like we were last Thursday, we do not behave differently than other people do, although assuming that we’re very well informed about its consequences. I’ve played the Harvest or Fish game several times, but was latently expecting that sustainability engineers would behave different. So, I was a little bit disappointed and at the same time proud at the ones who at least tried to manage.

Nevertheless, biking home after a long day of work, the question was raised again how to deal with such dilemma: Should we fight the system or be the change we wish to see? Do we push for transformation within existing institutions … or … should we design our own lives from different attitude, action, discourse and relationship that might someday form the basis of a new society? Sometimes I opt for the first and at other moments for the latter, experiencing that it’s a true dilemma with no best option. It is know that people use different strategies to manage dilemma’s and uncertainty like enlisting experts; using make-believe; creating confusion or even imposing rules. Without solving the dilemma they outsource or postpone issues to be addressed, apparently reduce problems, bypass the dilemma, or increase its effects sooner or later. And that still palls on me as an engineer, trained to solve real life problems. 

In my column of week two I already wrote a bit about context. The column was about the importance of community based research preliminary to sustainable transformation. The made-to-measure scenario that I wrote about takes a sustainable technology as starting point. The technology is then modified to fit the environment. The other approach investigates the local context and searches for sustainable solutions that fit. I called this the haute couture solution, because it takes the context as starting point.

I plead for good research to the context. There is no ad-hoc need for sustainable transformation, which means that there is time to do such thorough research. This, I think, is advisable to prevent failures during the transformation.

But this raises many questions to me about the context itself. What is the context? When doing research, it is impossible to map the entire situation since reality is infinitively complex. Therefore the researcher has to set her/himself boundaries. To what extend does a factor influence the object of research? This I find very difficult in the research about Texel. The theme about food comprises a lot of aspects. So I need to make a selection to be able to say anything useful. Therefore the context is a selection of aspects of reality. It is a construct of the researcher.

So, if context is a construct made by me, then it is also formed by the context of myself. That’s why I state that the context starts here, with you and me. But is my research still objective and scientific when it is influenced by my personal interests, preferences and feelings?

I think the research is not objective anymore, but this does not have to be a problem. The important thing, however, is the awareness of oneself to be able to diagnose the personal influence. By being aware of your own preferences or even prejudices, you can assess the validity of the research. Analysing your own context can be a good way to start evaluating your perspective and growing awareness of it. 

Do you like a piece of meat for dinner? I do! A delicious and tender piece of beef or crispy fried chicken, I like it. And with me many others.

 World meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years and farmed animals now outnumber people by more than three to one. In other words, livestock are being bred into existence faster than the human population. Growing production of animal products contributes to malnourishment in the developing world, global warming, widespread pollution, deforestation, land degradation, water scarcity and species extinction.  All livestock over the world produce together as much CO₂ as all the traffic in the world. The more animals we raise for food, the more crops are needed to feed them. The planet is not capable of feeding both increasing human and farmed animal populations.

 The amount of meat we eat together may be something to worry about. Maybe we should eat less or no meat at all. But as a meat eater I hope it will still be possible to eat meat in the further, without destroying the planet. So my question is, is it possible to keep eating meat in a sustainable way.

 According to one of the fattening farms in America is the only way mass production of cows on a special diet. A diet totally against my natural cows image. The cows don’t eat grass anymore, but live on bare ground and get a diet of corn, growth hormones and antibiotics. In this animal unfriendly cows are turning in to robot machines. I do not think this is the solution. Shouldn’t be there another way?

Traditional a farmer and environmental activist from England thinks there is.  He explains, on the basis of a graph that there is a way that we can eat meat without it doing enormous damage to the environment. We just shouldn’t eat such enormous amounts. He explains that if we do not eat too much we actually produce the food for free. Cows and sheep indeed put grass, something edible into something edible. But how much meat would be allowed to eat in order to get to this point? You might think that amount would be very little. But it is not that bad. In this eco-friendly way we would able to eat 40 tons of beef, 110 tons of pork and 40 tons of other meat  around the world. This equates to 40 kilo per person per year. This means you’re able to eat 110 grams of meat every day.

 So let’s try it all together, 110 grams of meat per day and ensure together that the planet will live another day.

Interesting documentary about meat production

“[…] every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Someone I knew once showed me Carl Sagan speaking about the Pale Blue Dot. I can’t remember the context or why he showed it to me, but I remember that the movie made me feel so calm. So accepting. Whatever nonsensical problems I was going over in my head, or whatever I thought was so important in that moment, just went away. This is what’s important. We are all important, and we are the only ones on this planet. It seems pointless for us not to work together, when we’re surrounded in such a vastness that we don’t know so little about.

Changing perspective this way is crucial. At least to me. When everyday life becomes too important and when I fuss about the little things, that’s when I need to go outside and just look up. As a kid I remember going outside on cold winter evenings when all stars where visible. I would search for the star constellations that I had learnt in school, and I would wonder what was going on out there, out I the vast darkness. It also gave me so much perspective. Feeling tiny in relation to the universe is scary in a way, but also comforting. Does it really matter what everyone thought of my sweater that day, or what grade I got on my test? Not really, there are things that matter so much more. And the only way to see them is by zooming out.

Of course we cannot think about everything in relation to the vastness of university all the time, our lives need to be zoomed in. We need to eat, breathe, feel and all the logistical and highly prosaic activities that happen everyday. Otherwise we would go crazy. But zooming out once in a while to put events in relation to each other makes it all so much clearer. We are important. Are planet is all we have at the moment. We need to cherish it and we need to cherish each other.

“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Quotes from Carl Sagan 

During Christmas holidays people tend to become a lot more careless about the environment and the way they use the products.  A lot of electricity is being wasted, much more food is being cooked and eventually thrown away and a lot of gifts are exchanged without paying any attention on their usefulness or whether they satisfy any sustainability parameter (materials, batteries, end-of-life, etc.).

To begin with, one of the most important sources of waste of energy is the Christmas lights. In the past, the ‘best’ house was the one with the most decorative lights. Nowadays, the electricity bill has extremely risen and electricity itself is the largest factor of spending the natural resources. Few simple things that can be done to celebrate Christmas and feel happy, but at the same time be careful with the waste of energy, are the reduction of outdoor lighting and the use of LED lights for the decorations. LED lights use up to 95% less energy than the traditional ones. Furthermore, all lights should be turned off when it is bedtime, as nobody is up any more. A timer can be used for that reason in order to avoid forgetting them on. [1], [2]

In addition to this, we can also buy a live Christmas tree in order to avoid using plastic trees made out of petroleum products (PVC). Even though some may believe that by using plastic trees we save the life of a tree and we can use it for many years, that is not completely true. A plastic tree contains a lot of embodied energy to be manufactured and shipped and at the end of its life it will end up to landfills, where its plastic content will last forever. On the other hand, the live tree grows on tree farms and is replanted regularly. What is more, one can replant the tree to larger pots or eventually to the garden when it gets too big. Thus, it can be used for years. If there is not much space, then it can be used for the fireplaces and the mulch for gardening. Having a live Christmas tree in the house gives the smell of Christmas and is the most sustainable way of celebrating. [1]

Some more alternatives for a sustainable Christmas tree are shown in the pictures:

1. How to have a ‘green’ Christmas: http://eartheasy.com/give_sustainchristmas.htm

2. 10 Tips for a Sustainable Christmas: http://denmark.dk/en/meet-the-danes/traditions/the-christmas-month/10-tips-for-a-sustainable-christmas/

In the movie of Jacque Fresco it was stated that many products break down, fail or need to be replaced (just) after the warranty is ended. In secondary school a teacher explained this to the class and since then it has been sin my mind. It is true that many products are designed not to last long, unless you make it expensive. The main reasons are obvious: profits. Consumers replacing products is more profitable for a company than to release high quality, and thus expensive, products.

But there may be at least one positive aspect of this, in my opinion. Well not completely, which I'll explain, but there is something. I'm talking about innovation. Since most products (let's take a lawnmower for example) don't last 30 years, consumers buy a new one every 10 years on average [1]. After this they'll buy a new one, probably a new model.

But this new one is most probably be more efficient. It'll cost less energy to run, be more ergonomic and does the job more effective. This is because the technology in this lawnmower is way more advanced than 10 years ago. Breakthroughs, acceptance of new technologies (and its legal approval), and competition will lead to better products than before. And since the lawnmower isn't designed for 30 years, but 10 it will be replaced by a more efficient one. The old, less efficient one, won't be used and in the current society most likely to be thrown away. 

This brings me to the downside. Despite newer products are more efficient in the job they do than old ones, the disposal of the old ones is usually all but efficient. Since products are replaced more often, more products are required and thus the production of all these products is costs more resources. This is a major downside. While reuseability and recycleability are increasing, there are major improvements to achieve in this field. If the resources used in older products can and will be recycled this will ease the dependency on resources, while still being able to use the new more efficient products.

In the end, what bothers me are two things. The lack of corporate interest (because usually higher costs) in the reuse of the valuable resources of disposed products and the one sided view of most people to these kind of practices. I can only hope it will work out in the end.

[1] http://homeguides.sfgate.com/long-should-lawnmower-last-88324.html

In November of this year Dutch newspapers reported on a research conducted by the NLVOW, an organisation that defends the interests of people living in the vicinity of windmills. The research critiqued the fact that a lot of relative young windmills are currently being replaced. The problem is that these windmills are too old to qualify for SDE+ subsidies, although they are still functioning correctly. Most of these windmills will be able to run for over 10-15 years from now. 

A lot of farmers and energy companies choose to replace their windmills with newer models and sell the old ones on the second-hand market. The NLVOW criticises these companies because they think this will undermine the public support for windmills. According to them this has nothing to do with sustainability but all about gaining double subsidies. They also claim that this will decrease the chance of people living in the vicinity of windmills benefitting financially from the windmills. Considering the fact that this organisation defends the interest of these people, this last statement could well be their real incentive. 

The news lead to questions being asked in Dutch parliament by CDA (a christian democratic party) member of parliament Agnes Mulder. Minister Kamp (economic affairs) responded that these newer windmills have a higher efficiency and therefore are able to generate more electricity. Nonetheless, the regulations will be adapted and from 2015 it will no longer be financially attractive to replace these windmills with newer ones.

In a first review of this case I completely agreed with the NLVOW that this was absolutely ridiculous. While researching this column however, my thoughts have changed somehow and I realised that this story has two sides to it. 

From a entrepreneurial perspective it is more than logic to replace these windmills when they no longer qualify for subsidies. This is something the NLVOW admits as well. But as stated before, these windmills often don’t end up on the scrapheap but are sold in the second-hand market. In this way, firms or farmers with less financial capabilities are now able to buy a windmill for a lower price that they can use for 10-15 years. This makes wind energy more lucrative for a larger amount of entrepreneurs. Strangely enough, by using this loophole the amount of wind energy can actually be increased. I personally also strongly belief that renewable energy can only be successful by making it more attractive to firms than energy from non-renewable sources. 

Sources: http://nlvow.nl/missie/

http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/kamerstukken/2014/11/07/beantwoording-kamervragen-over-vervanging-windturbines/beantwoording-kamervragen-over-vervanging-windturbines.pdf

http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/nog-goede-windmolens-worden-vervangen-vanwege-subsidiestop~a3791781/

FACTS ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY

“It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.” Chaos Theory

The Index for a Sustainable Society (ISS) is an index that integrates the most important aspects of quality of life and sustainability of a society. In fact, it indicates how sustainable a society behaves. For instance, on 2006 the Netherlands took the 12th place on the ISS score list with 6.2. And it was established that a sustainable society is a society that meets the needs of the present generation, and it does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, where each individual has the opportunity to develop himself in freedom, within a well-balanced society and in harmony with its surroundings. Regarding these aspects, this article pointed some facts that pretend to make people aware about sustainability and how to improve our current society.

Regarding Water

• Running tap water for two minutes is equivalent to 3-5 gallons of water.
• A 5-minute shower is equivalent to 20-35 gallons of water.                    
• A full bath is equivalent to approximately 60 gallons of water.
• An automatic dishwasher uses less hot water than doing dishes by hand.
• An energy-smart clothes washer can save more water in one year than one person drinks in an entire lifetime.

Regarding Energy

• It is better to use laptops instead of desktops. They use more than 50% less energy and require less resources and energy to produce.
• People can maximize the heating and cooling efficiency by keeping blinds and curtains open during the day and closing them at nights to insulate the windows.
• Desks and chairs can be arranged next to windows to reduce the need for artificial lighting during the day.
• Every time people open the refrigerator door, up to 30 percent of the cold air can escape.     
• A heavy coat of dust on a light bulb can block up to half of the light.
• When people turn on an incandescent light bulb, only 10% of the electricity used is turned into light. The other 90% is wasted as heat.
• A compact fluorescent light bulb uses 75 percent less energy than a regular bulb and it can last up to four years.
• Some new refrigerators are energy-smart they use less electricity than a light bulb.

Waste Materials and Recycle

• Every ton of recycled paper saves almost 400 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill and seventeen trees.
• In order to produce a ton of paper 17 trees are required approximately.
• In order to reduce the amount of paper used it is important to print and copy double-sided.
• People can get cash back by recycling their old electronics such as cell phones, computers, mp3 or batteries.
• It is recommended to use rechargeable batteries. Otherwise, it is important to dispose of batteries properly because they contain toxic chemicals.
• Plastic shopping bags create unnecessary waste. It is better to use reusable bags.

   (PointParckUniversity, 2014) (NYU, 2014) (ISS, 2006)

Bibliography

ISS. (2006). The Netherlands,a sustainable society? The Index for a Sustainable Society .

NYU. (2014). Fast Facts. Retrieved 12 9, 2014, from New York University: http://www.nyu.edu/sustainability/about.sustainability/fast.facts.php

PointParckUniversity. (2014). Individuals impact our environment... every day, every action. Retrieved 12 9, 2014, from Point Parck University: http://www.pointpark.edu/About/AdminDepts/ProcurementandBusinessServices/Sustainability/FunFacts

This is the title of the promotion research by Daphne Geelen that is laying on my desk. I am wondering what to write for the weekly column, what is interesting to share with you? Who will read my article? Do I want to change people with what I write? It is not easy to change people we have learned this week (and from own experience we already know this). For a more sustainable or balanced world there are a lot of people who have to change. This is also the subject of the promotion research with the subtitle 'An exploration for products and services to support changes in household energy management'. 

It is an very interesting topic I think. A support for housholds in the energy transition. Taking into account services and products with regard to smart appliances, smart meters, energy monitoring and control systems. These are technical systems. And technical systems itself does not change people. What motivates the people to make a change? It is money? 'Dynamic pricing and contracting' is the title of chapter 2.4.5 which can be a motivation for people to change. Is it status? Some people are motivated by status, it is now cool to have an electric car (in some groups) or to have energy panels on your roof. But it can also work the other way, when energy saving is not popular, putting your thermosthat to 18 degrees in stead of 20 and wear a warm coat or jacket. 

This week we also did a serious game, where each team was a fisher company that at the end needs to catch the most fish, taking into account the amount of fish in the sea, which is not known exactly. Serious gaming is a way to activate people and learn things from different perspectives. In the research this also comes back in the 'Energy Battle: Exploring the use of a gmae to stimulate energy saving'. The main conclusion regarding to the Energy Battle (Daphne Geelen, p.59):

- The Energy Battle can be seen as a service to motivate changes, with an energy meter and a website with energy feedback

- To engage end users in behavioral changes concerning their houshold energy management, the combination of feedback and competition in the Energy Battle was successful, mostly in the short term. There were indications of minor habit changes.

- The feedback from the website offered end users the opportunity to assess their electricity consumption levels and undertake action to lower their consumption, whilst the competition with other households provided an incentive to save energy (form of social comparison). The actual behavioral changes appear to also have contributed to participants'prpensity for energy saving, with knowledge, know-how and changes in habitual behavior.

Other subjects in the study are about 'A smart grid in practice: PowerMatching City' and about the future socio-technical system 'social interactions within the community of smart grid households'. She not only focusses on the technical part of products and services to support changes in househoold energy management, but also the future social system. Although these are designs/thoughts about the future it is good that they are taken into account.

I find it an interesting subject. I dont think people are changed by this column, I also wonder how many people will read this. But maybe I have changed myself a little by writing this and browsing through the promotion research. Who knows.

This week’s column supposed to be a follow-up of my previous column. In this previous column I wondered in which subsystem the built environment is addressed because I believe there’s a huge potential for multiple subsystems here. Because of my own interest in sustainable innovations in the built environment I wanted to share some ideas regarding the design for Texel.

As I explained in my previous column a self-sustaining system for the island of Texel will probably be technically plausible and feasible. However our design doesn’t have to convince the “Tesselaars” that it will work; instead we have to convince them to actually adapt these techniques. I begin to find out more and more that this is the real challenge, so let’s elaborate on that aspect for now.

It is obvious that the current building stock on Texel should be improved in terms of energy efficiency. I think most of the Tesselaars would also agree on this, and energy-reducing measures can easily be applied without significantly changing the appearance of the houses. This is also an important feature in the willingness of people to adapt changes according to what Han Brezet said during our introduction lecture. The only question here would remain who’s going to fund these measures, but this just a matter of money and can therefore be solved somehow. 

Production of renewable energy is a different story. We already know that big windmill facilities on the island lack public support because they would disrupt the natural ambiance of the island. Neither can we expect from every house owner that they are willing to pave their roofs with PV-panels to generate renewable energy. Although inventive solutions such as PV-integrated roof tiles or PV-films integrated in glass also have minimum impact on the appearance we might not even need those.

This week I read an interesting article of a PV-panel project on the campus of the TU Delft. The university is planning to cover most the roof surface of its buildings with PV-panels. The interesting part here is that TU employees and citizens can also take part in the investment. This means that people are able to have their own PV-panel(s) without having them on their own roof. 

The energy company of Texel (Texel Energie) already has an initiative in which Tesselaars can have their own PV-panels on behalf of the company, but they have to be the owner of the house or holiday accommodation the panels are placed on. Therefore I think community owned renewable energy can also be a solution for Texel since the PV-panels don’t have to be installed on own property. Such a system might give a boost in the adaptation of PV-solutions on the island. Imagine community owned PV-panels on rooftops of farms, public buildings, floating in the sea or maybe even integrated in the infrastructure.

This concept of community owned renewable energy offers numerous possibilities and is therefore very interesting for our design. Besides applicable for energy solutions, this concept could also be applied on water systems, waste systems, food production and everything else you can imagine.

- Jesper 

Many people are already recycling materials like plastic, glass, paper etc., but not many are recycling food. Food scraps account for a big part of the landfilled waste and therefore it accounts also for a big part of co2 emissions. In U.S. for example, scrap food accounts for 20 % of greenhouse gasses emissions. By starting composting you would save a big part of waste food to be landfilled or just destroyed by incineration.

Composting is a practice by which you can recycle your food. It turns your scrap food (vegetables, meat, fruits, etc.) into a very nutritious compost that can be used as fertilizer. The compost can be used in organic farming, and you can also fertilize your own garden. Cities like San Francisco and lately a test in a New York’s quarter have started this new trend that would save tons of waste to be landfilled. The idea is also helping in reducing the population of city’s cockroaches, because the scrap food will be stored at home, in airtight bins, until collection day, instead of street bins.

Composting is very simple: what you need to do is collect the scrap food in specific bins (you can make one by following the directions on this website: http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/vermicomposting)
When the organic material is stored in this bin, thanks to the help of worms and other bacteria, it will break down into humus. In this link you can find all the types of waste food you can process to become compost: http://studioclairehornn.nl/140-things-you-can-compost/

I think that if you have a garden in your house, or even a small balcony, it might me a good idea to start recycling your scrap food by composting. In a previous column I wrote about waste food and the importance of being careful of what we buy and what we eat. Well, if we consider also composting, we can actually become champions of sustainability.

Bibliography

Why Compost?, Aly Miller, 2013, consulted on December 15, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/food-politic/why-compost_b_3567964.html

Vermicomposting, Organic gardening, consulted on December 21, 2014, http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/vermicomposting

140 things you can compost, Studio Claire Hornn, consulted on December 15, 2014, http://studioclairehornn.nl/140-things-you-can-compost/

I am not an idealist, but I like idealistic thoughts. However, idealistic thoughts have a tendency to turn into unrealistic unicorns rather soon. These thoughts came to me after watching the video of this weeks’ lecture: The Venus Project.

What is the difference between the two and what makes something an unrealistic unicorn? What If I look at myself? I consider myself a realist and I have a tendency to push things that seem farfetched into the corner of the unrealistic unicorns. Does that mean that these things are unrealistic unicorns? Well, I guess this is not the case. For myself, I can illustrate this with two examples.

The first example is the start-up Fastned I wrote about last week. A few weeks before, I discussed the same start-up with a friend of me during the corporate entrepreneurship course.  We discussed the viability of Electronic Vehicles (EVs) and I remember that our conclusion was that Fastned is really dependent on the growth of EVs and for the company to succeed, it faced the classic chicken and egg problem; their charging stations are only profitable if there are enough EVs on the road with a need for charging, but on the other hand people are not inclined to buy an EV if they cannot charge their vehicles while being on the road. A few weeks ago, we decided that is was unrealistic that Fastned was going to win.

But a few weeks ago I visited a talk of Fastned founder Michiel, which was very exciting. He explained their vision on the chicken and egg problem; according to them it is all about location, location, location and as explained last week this was what they pursued by building a charging station on every suitable highway location in The Netherlands. After the talk of Michiel I was very excited on the company and I even considered buying some shares. However, only last week my friend and I decided that Fastned was an unrealistic project!

What does this little example show? Well, first of all it shows that how a challenge is communicated will largely influence how people think about the possibilities of this challenge to be completed successfully. This is an important lesson for our little Texel project. So what is the difference between an idealistic thought and an unrealistic unicorn? Maybe it is just the way the challenge is explained…

I wonder if the video on the project by The Venus Project could be explained in a different way as well…

I woud like to use this weeks columnn to spread a story I heard las week. Professor Ad van Wijk started his lecture on the e-campus by a story on the simple Dutch doorbell. I think this story encourages to think out of the box and look for sustainability on places you haven't thought of before.

Who ever thinks about the sustainability of a doorbell? I didn't. And of course, a doorbell only uses a small amount of electricity while waiting for someone to ring it. But how often does a bell ring? Twice a day? 5 seconds each time? And the other 86390 seconds it's wasting that small amount of energy, for 7.5 million households. And that's just in the Netherlands!

And the great thing about such small products is that the solution is often small as well. We all know the solar powerd calculators right? Those can be used to power a doorbell that only consumes energy when ringed. This means only 10 seconds of energy usage in stead of 86000!

Since the gains on ordinary items like a doorbell seem so little, they are often forgotten about. We buy A-lable refrigerators and washing machines, but for our doorbell and lots of other stuff such lables don't excist. We shouldn't forget about these small changes which can be applied on a big scale!

So, we know sustainability is important. We know we are depleting the resources and something needs to be done, and we have already begun on our path. We know we should reduce- reuse- recycle as much as possible. But how do we measure one policy is better than the other? 

Recently, I was watching random TED Talk by one Catherine Mohr. In her talk [1] she gives a very simple- but effective- correlation between using a cotton towel for cleaning a small speck as against using a paper towel. She shows with numeric values how it can be rather the simple act can consume so much energy. Ofourse I told to myself, that cotton towel is better, but she explained that when we leave the water running to clean the spec, it consumes a lot more energy than the embodied energy of the paper towel. This is just a small example, but imagine when we blow up the example hundreds of times; to a large scale application like food consumption, building construction, transport etc– to a nation as a whole,   we realize that the implications are much larger and longer lasting.

So, how do we measure sustainability? When you ask Google, the first answer it tries to explain in a simplistic words from Wikipedia: Sustainability measurement is the quantitative basis for the informed management of sustainability.[1] The metrics used for the measurement of sustainability (involving the sustainability of environmental, social and economic domains, both individually and in various combinations) are still evolving: they include indicators, benchmarks, audits, indexes and accounting, as well as assessment, appraisal [2] and other reporting systems. They are applied over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. [3] [4]

Currently the UN has made this analysis of indicators and countries where these are applicable. It is still a working document but most of the data can already be used to determine some key indicators. Analysis was undertaken to identify commonalities among countries both in terms of indicator themes – or broad issues related to sustainable development – and in terms of specific indicators. Based on indicator sets from 22 countries, including two countries outside Europe (Australia and Canada), and two international institutions (European Union and United Nations) these countries include Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, European Union, United Nations.  11 broad indicator themes emerged. The themes are shown in Table 1 , along with the number of national and international indicator sets in which each is found. Note that only themes appearing in 10 or more indicators sets are shown. A further 12 themes were evident, although not as commonly used. [6]

Thus, this measurement is a set of benchmarks and indices that are defined in metrics of environmental factors such as water cycle, carbon cycle, phosphorus cycle, nitrogen cycle sulphur cycle and oxygen cycle.  It further goes into auditing and reporting the “state of environment and eventually into accounting that defines “green accounting”, “sustainable Value” and “sustainability economics”.

Table 1: Most common sustainable development indicator themes in policy-based sets

Considering the same countries/institutions as in Table 1, 27 specific indicators were found to be common to 10 or more national indicator sets (Table 3). The indicators were identified in terms of their broad similarity and not necessarily by the specifics of their expression.

Table 2: Most common sustainable development indicators in policy-based sets

Based on indicators where 10 or more countries/institutions have adopted them.

References

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/catherine_mohr_builds_green?language=en

[2] "Sustainability Accounting in UK Local Government". The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Retrieved 2008-06-18.

[3] Dalal-Clayton, Barry and Sadler, Barry 2009.Sustainability Appraisal. A Sourcebook and Reference Guide to International Experience. London: Earthscan.ISBN 978-1-84407-357-3.

[4] Hak, T. et al. 2007. Sustainability Indicators, SCOPE 67. Island Press, London.

[5] Bell, Simon and Morse, Stephen 2008. Sustainability Indicators. Measuring the Immeasurable? 2nd edn. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-299-6.

[6] United Nations Economic Commission For Europein cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat),  Measuring Sustainable Development, 2009, United Nations, New York and Geneva.

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/broaderprogress/pdf/Measuring_sustainable_development%20(UNECE,OECD,Eurostat).pdf

Lizet column #4

Column 4 - The effects of CO2 oriented policies

There are several sustainable programs introduced in the last decades. These programs have the intention to decrease the pressure on the environment. Examples of some Dutch programs are Lean&Green and GreenFreight. Besides the fact that these programs want to decrease the negative effects on the environment, function these programs as a label for companies that aim for a sustainable image.

Sustainability is very hard to measure because of its complexity. It contains many aspects and not all of these aspects are easy to measure. However, one of these aspects that it is easy to measure and to calculate is the amount of CO2 emission. Therefore, many of these sustainable programs base their sustainable criteria on the reduction of CO2 emission. The method is widely accepted and even used by governmental sustainability programs. The environmental objectives for 2020 that are drafted by the government are mainly focused on the reduction of CO2 (Rijksoverheid, 2014).

The emission of CO2 causes the so-called "greenhouse effect". This results in raising temperatures of the earth, which has a major influence on many ecosystems in the world (Milieu Centraal, 2014). However, the "greenhouse effect" is not the only threat to the current ecosystems on earth. For example, particulate matter (PM) emissions are a main cause for air pollution. High concentrations can result in e.g. smog, which is seriously dangerous for human health. If the PM are inhaled deep into the lungs, it can cause aggravated asthma, nonfatal heart attacks and premature death (EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2014).

In some cases the reduction of CO2 aligns with the reduction of other harmful substances for the environment. This is especially the case when the use of CO2 emitting resources is reduced. However, the consumer does not want to change their behaviour because of the resistance of the current ST-regime (Geels, 2004). Let us take the automotive industry as an example. The industry wants to respond to the customer's demand. On the other hand, the government stimulates diesel engine cars with a low CO2 emission to give a subsidy on them. The industry is investing massively in this car segment and produces many cars with a lower CO2 emission. Consumers buy those cars especially because of the financial benefits. The behaviour of the consumers is not altered because there is still the same amount of cars as it used to be. (It could even result in more cars because of the consumers thinking that the cars does almost emit no CO2 gasses, but that is another discussion.) However, the CO2 reduction objectives of the government are achieved because these cars emit less CO2. What not is taken into account are the other harmful substances they emit. These diesel engines emit besides CO2 also NOx. One gram of NO2 is a greenhouse gas that is 296 as harmful as one gram of CO2 (Wikimobi, 2013). If more consumers are buying diesel engine cars, the benefits of a reduced CO2 emission could be eliminated by the emissions of NOx. The overall benefits for the environment are zero or they become even worse.

If the Dutch government actually wants to improve the impact on the environment, they better adjust their policies to the reduction on the movements that cause CO2 emission, instead of the reduction of CO2 itself. This policy requires a different approach and this process of changing people's behaviour is will cause some difficulties.

Bibliography

EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2014, 12 27). Particulate Manner. Retrieved 12 27, 2014 from EPA: www.epa.gov/airquality/particulatematter/health.html

Geels, F. (2004). From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory. Research Policy , 33 (6-7), 897-920.

Milieu Centraal. (2014, 12 20). Broeikaseffect. Retrieved 12 20, 2014 from Milieucentraal: http://www.milieucentraal.nl/thema%27s/thema-1/klimaat-en-milieuproblemen/klimaatverandering/broeikaseffect/

Rijksoverheid. (2014, 12 20). Klimaatverandering. Retrieved 12 20, 2014 from Rijksoverheid: http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/klimaatverandering/stand-van-zaken-klimaatdoelen-2020

Wikimobi. (2013, 01 22). Emissies. Retrieved 12 27, 2014 from Wikimobi: http://wikimobi.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Emissies#CO2.2C_NOx.2C_PM10

Every morning I start my day with a fresh cup of coffee. I wake up with the prospect of having my coffee made of freshly crushed Colombian coffee beans. I pour some water into the machine and let it get hot and steamy. While I put the crushed beans into the piston. I firmly push the coffee together before I put the piston in place. And with one touch on the button the water starts flowing. Just 30 seconds and my coffee can be served. The smell of coffee wakes up the house and marks the beginning of the new day. But then I finish my coffee wash my cup, take out the piston and ready to turn it upside down above the trash I reconsider.. Everyday I throw away this brown substance, a product that travelled all this distance to come to my hand and be drunk as coffee. A product of hard working people on the coffee fields in the mountains of Colombia. What a waste. Could it not be possible to generate something from this? If every day these beans can give me so much energy, it cannot be that this is its sole purpose.

And indeed.. it seems.. it is not. The brown substance; the coffee grounds can in fact be used as a heat source, as energy, as a fuel and as a biomaterial. It can even be a better fuel than wood. As coffee is being drunk excessively all around the globe coffee grounds have a widespread availability and low costs. Now leftovers often end up in landfills or at best it might be used as soil conditioner. Because there is so much coffee available it could easily provide for the total energy demand of, say, a Starbucks factory. It would reduce their waste and increase their sustainable reputation.

Who would not want this to work? As nowadays, it is all about closing cycles and reusing your waste. What would be better then to start your mornings with contributing to a more sustainable society?

Now, YOU, have your own renewable fuel resource, made by YOU.

Awareness by transparency

People don’t know enough about sustainability. They know it is right to save energy so they are willing to use energy saving lightbulbs and electrical cars. This is because those are actions are very obviously energy saving. The problem  is that people have no overview of what really matters and this causes that easy chances are being missed.

An interesting example is fruit and vegetables. We are used to the fact that we can buy any fruit and vegetables at any season of the year. The only difference is that sometimes the orange costs ten cents more than halve a year later. The thing is, people don’t often realize that these extra ten cents probably  mean that the orange came from a faraway country as South-Africa.

A big part of pollution comes from airplanes and cargo ships. If people would pay more attention to where the products they buy come from, the amount of ships and airplanes traveling around could be decreased. Products do not need a fancy label or logo, if it says where it was produced this says a lot about if it is a sustainable choice.

Interesting is that most supermarkets put labels on their fruits and vegetables saying where it comes from.  So what needs to happen is that people start to care about this information. It is nothing but natural to eat whatever the season is offering, but people forgot about this.

I think we don’t have to expect that supermarkets will take this step, if they can sell their South-African oranges, they will keep on doing that.  It has to start with awareness of the costumer.  And this is not only about distance of the source of products but we need also awareness and transparency in waste streams, energy uses of different branches and conditions of eco quality marks. 

One day, while talking to my flat mate about sustainable innovations, we focused our attention on jails. That day I read on the Colombian news about a crisis in the national jail system, where resources are not enough to sustain system’s requirements due to the amount of people sent to jail every year and the limitations of the current facilities, which resulted in overcrowding in all facilities around the country. In our discussion, we realized the complexity of the situation in a country like Colombia, where criminality rates are high, and recidivism is common due to the lack of opportunities or the difficulties that arise when you have a criminal record as part of your CV. Moreover, we were discussing the costs of sustaining such system, as all prisoners costs’ are paid by society through taxes. In addition, detention centers are highly resource dependent micro-cities with considerable amounts of energy and water consumption, and even more of waste generation. In our discussion, we wonder about the rehabilitation possibilities of people immersed in such a system, if there are any, and in the condition of some people that prefers to go to jail as there they have access to constant food and bed.

Truth is that the jail systems represents high costs for the society not just in economic terms but also in social and environmental matters. One of the possible solutions that arose was to charge people with their expenses of going to jail, but, in a country with high criminality rates concentrated in low-income neighborhoods, it does not seem like a feasible or fair solution. After our conversation was finished, I started wondering about what was being done in the world related to generating a transition into a more sustainable jail system as I imagined that this is a problem shared by many countries.  At that point, my doubts could be resumed into a question raised by the International Centre for Prison Studies of the King’s College London: “The United States incarcerates 2.3 million people. The economic, ecological and human costs are extreme. Can jails and prisons save money and the environment while changing lives?”

Then I focused my attention in the US, were the problem statement was addressed and I found that many counties were already trying to answer such questions, and it is being done through Sustainable Jails Projects.  An example from the Multnomah County in Oregon has the following mission:

“To provide excellent stewardship of public funds by saving money, conserving natural resources, and reducing recidivism rates by incorporating informed, sustainable decision-making and practices into Multnomah County jail facilities, operations, and programming”

The project addresses all my main concerns about the jail system by integrating the three E’s of sustainability: Economy (by reducing costs), Environment (by reducing jail’s ecological footprint) and Equity (by opening new opportunities for interns and focusing on locally produced food). Moreover, eight goals must be achieved in the next 15 years for the project to be considered successful: set the standard for sustainability in county jails, increase the sheriff’s office sustainability education, outreach and employee awareness, reduce factors leading to recidivism by connecting inmates to sustainability, reduce energy use, reduce water use, reduce generation of waste and increase recycling efforts, support the local food system, and reduce use of toxic materials. Furthermore, for me it is valuable how this project has being able to connect the three E’s in order to create a wider long-term impact through the goals and actions related to each goal.

Multnomah sheriff office's project has already represented savings of around US$400.000 to the county and have thrived a sustainable spirit among the workers of the sheriff office. Furthermore, I consider highly valuable the vision of such projects to connect interns with sustainability lifestyles and educate them for green jobs that support sustainable ideas around the country. On the other hand, the adaptation of a likewise initiative in Colombia would not be easy, but the results already obtained open the door from bringing new proposals to the table that could increase the well-being of interns and turn the Colombian system into a sustainable one. In addition, it opens the door for the system to take advantage of our natural resources and national inventive spirit to provide a proper environment for rehabilitation while decreasing its negative impact for society and the environment.

Reference

Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (2012). Sustainable jail project. Retrieved from: http://www.mcso.us/profiles/pdf/sustainablejailplan.pdf

There is a huge inequality in the world that we know. Where we are blessed by the many chances and opportunities we get, whilst others are severely limited in their opportunities. Well, how does this relate to sustainability?

We all strive for equal living chances in the world. If we then take a look at our current ecological footprint, and multiply this style of living according to the number of inhabitants of planet earth, we can see that the current ecological basis will never be able to suffice. If everybody on earth had the same ecological footprint as the average North-American, we would need 4.1 planet earth's just to supply everyone with this life quality.

(http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2012-10/daily-infographic-if-everyone-lived-american-how-many-earths-would-we-need)

If we all keep striving for equality and maintaining the current living standard, then we should drastically improve our ecological footprints. How can we do this? First, must be willing to change the focus of our economic development and world capitalism. Production and consumption are key in this change. "The challenge is to improve the overall environmental performance of products throughout their life-cycle, to boost the demand for better products and production technologies and to help consumers in making informed choices."

(http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/escp_en.htm)

Even with lowered ecological footprints, we can seriously doubt if mankind can be entirely sustainable with the amount of human inhabitants the world has now. Therefore, the second change, would be to focus on the reduction (preventing growth) of the human population. China, for example, enforced a one child policy. Aside from the many problems that this induced, the fault here is that population growth does not only relate to the amount of births. It also has to do with how much the babies are spaced apart.

If every woman has a child on her 20th birthday, in a 100 years, there will be five babies. With increasing life expectancy, this means that the population will grow anyway, even with this one-child policy. Delaying the age at with a woman gives birth however, does seem to be a more effective way of controlling population. If a woman chooses to give birth on her 25th birthday, it means that in a 100 years, 4 babies would be born. Effectively, this would mean that one person could have one extra baby, whilst not affecting the population growth directly. 

When people talk about living on an island I always imagine it is like living in a small village. Everyone knows each other, the postman comes in for a cup of coffee when he deliveres your mail. I imagine this is all true for Texel. But then, because you live on an island, there is the added difficulty of being stuck on it. When you live in a small village, you go to the nearest city to do groceries, go to school or party. The Texelaars, and especially the youth, cannot do this whenever they like, because the nearest city is 'on the other side', i.e. On the mainland. The earliest boat leaves at 6:00, the latest goes at 21:00. Between those times you cannot leave the island, or get on it. If you work at the 'overkant', you can never work later than 20:00. If you study on the other side and you want to go home on Friday, you have to be in Den Helder around 20:00, otherwise you'll miss the boat. Cheap flights at Schiphol always leave very early, earlier than you can ever get there from Texel. For an ambulance to get to the hospital at night, the ferry has to go especially for them. Living in a small village on an island brings with it a lot of difficulties, especially for the youth. I think I understand why young people leave the island to go study and don't come back. 

The discussions of evolution vs. creationism have been going on for a few centuries. However, they have become extremely impassioned off – late. There are 2 factions, atheists and theists who support evolution and creationism respectively.

Atheists are of the opinion that evolution has been the way mankind and other beings have come into existence. Everything had risen from one cell. 4 billion years ago (estimated age of the Earth) there was a one celled organism which due to mutations and necessity to survive had evolved slowly into a two – celled organism. To survive the harsh environmental conditions the cells kept evolving and changing. Gradually this gave rise to the different species under multiple phyla; arthropoda, mollusca, chordata etc.

Theists are of the opinion which questions the above stated phenomenon. They state that, first, there is no concrete proof about evolution, and it has been so slow it cannot be traced back. Next, they state that even if there is proof, who put that one – celled organism 4 billion years ago? Was it there by chance? Or was there a part played by a higher power (Eg: God).

Atheists say that the universe is infinitely massive, so our occurrence is a random chance which is very much possible. So on the global scale our actions are insignificant. However, theists propose that there must be justice for what has been done on Earth (in the afterlife). They feel it is just not fair that bad people can get away with what they’re doing, they must suffer the consequences in afterlife. And who gets to judge right or wrong? God.

After having a long discussion with a few friends about this topic recently, I would like to share my views on it. I have a hard time deciding which side to take. For me Science and God can co – exist, each governing their realm. My views are not governed by which argument is stronger rather, which is weaker and sounds more improbable.

In essence, my morality compels me to be in agreement with the theists about their views on justice and afterlife. I cannot accept that people doing evil things can just pass away without facing consequences for their actions. However, when I look at from a brutal and rationalistic standpoint if the universe is so massive and we are here by chance, how does it matter what you do? Doing good things and living an unfulfilling life is not worth when you can live like a cutthroat for a more fulfilling life (life with more wealth and materialistic pleasures). Even so, I feel the choice here (for me) is to go with my morals and hence I do believe that there will be consequences.

Tracking back to the point mentioned above about evolution over the course of a billion years. I choose to believe that it is not possible for a one – celled organism (on Earth) to have evolved so much that it could become multiple beings ranging from dinosaurs to fish to monkeys to humans etc. because even today scientists are discovering bacteria and protozoa (typical single celled organisms) on planets like Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which were formed along with the Earth. Even after so many years they haven’t evolved? It seems as though the premise ‘Evolution from a one – celled organism’ is wrong.

The fact that a higher power put them on Earth falls in line with my thinking and my views. However, science is ever changing and ever improving. I am hoping that there will be answers to these question soon. So until another argument comes by which has more substantial evidence rather than circumstantial evidence I will side with the theist ideals.