Alanna's ePortfolio

As we all know, climate change is a very relevant, current issue. It is being caused largely by emissions being given off by the burning of fossil fuels. In the past century, global temperatures have risen an unprecedented amount, and global sea levels have subsequently followed suit. As the threats posed by climate change become ever more visible, and begin to affect us in the present, more and more efforts are being made to curb this alteration of atmospheric chemistry. On the large scale, governments are legislating in favor of things like emission quotas and cap-and-trade policies, and are making attempts to phase out nonrenewable energy in favor of renewables. On a small scale, individuals are opting for more environmentally friendly cars, lighting fixtures, and greener alternatives in their daily lives. While these things are beginning to put a dent in the amount of emissions reduced annually, they are not enough. In order to truly make an impact on the fight against climate change, we need to target the very companies that are responsible for producing the majority of all harmful emissions. These companies, members of the fossil fuel industry, are the drivers behind global climate change. In order to curb climate change and protect the earth for future generations, we need to hit them where it hurts: their bank accounts.

In order to do this, we need to take action at the university level. There are over 4,000 universities and colleges, both public and private in the United States. Between them, there are over 17 million students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs combined. These numbers equate to a whole bunch of power in the hands of colleges and universities across the country in terms of the amount of influence they possess.

Locations of Divestment Campaigns Across the Country

Almost all of these institutions are currently invested, even at a very minimal level, in the fossil fuel industry because it is such a lucrative field to be invested in. In order to send the message to the fossil fuel industry that they need to clean up their act, it is necessary for universities and colleges to start to reduce their financial dependence on these environmentally harmful companies. To do this, they must divest.

Divestment is essentially the opposite of investment. It refers to the reallocation of funds out of fossil fuel investments and into alternative funds, both sustainable and/or unrelated. The divestment headquarters, Gofossilfree.com, has facilitated the development of divestment campaigns all across the world. Many cities, churches, and academic institutions have already committed to divestment.

In order to be prompted to divest, an institution must have committed students that are passionate enough about the issue to put in the work that it takes in order to grow a movement to the point where it can be effective. Obviously, divestment is much easier to accomplish at small institutions with condensed media outlets and a board of trustees that is forcibly transparent due to the small number of students attending the school. Schools that fall into this category like College of the Atlantic and Green Mountain College have already committed to divestment. As of now, there are only 11 colleges and universities officially committed to divest.

In order to divest a school like Penn State, much more time and effort would be required. Considering just how non-progressive our current board of trustees is, it would be almost impossible to convince them without adequate student support and encouragement.

Enter Fossil Free Penn State. Currently, FFPSU is embarking on a divestment movement right here at Penn State University. With the support of students, faculty, clubs, and community organizations, we hope to convince the board of trustees to relinquish their hold on fossil fuel investments in order to curb global warming and preserve the world as we know it. If you’re interested, check out our Facebook page, and if you feel so inclined, sign the Fossil Free PSU petition, urging the University to divest. Also check out this sweet video explaining divestment!

Bangladesh

Coming from someone who cares deeply about the environment, climate change is troubling. Recently, however, I came across an article dealing with climate change that was actually disturbing. This article describes the devastating effects that climate change will have specifically on the nation of Bangladesh. By the year 2100, water levels surrounding Bangladesh are predicted to rise 13 feet, four times the global average. Being that this country is located smack in the middle of the Ganges Delta, and funnels into the Bay of Bengal, these waters will immediately affect the settlements and cities located in costal regions and areas in close proximity to rivers (so basically most of the country). Many of these communities are informal housing settlements (slums) that harbor dense populations of very poor people that will not be able to afford to voluntarily relocate. In particular, the capital city, Dhaka, is very low lying, and has around 5 million slum inhabitants that will be in serious risk of losing their homes in the near future. Between 18 and 30 million people total are expected to be displaced in the next forty years due to these rising water levels. If that’s not bleak, I don’t know what is.

What makes this article particularly disturbing to me, however, is when you consider all of these facts and figures in context of the larger climate change situation.   Bangladesh as a nation produces only .3% of total global emissions that are contributing to climate change. Developed nations like China (23%), the USA (19%), India (6%), and Russia (6%) make up the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report published by the EPA.  So, while developing countries that contribute very little in the way of GHG emissions are being threatened with serious weather and flooding in the near future, developed countries at the root of the problem continue to emit exorbitant amounts of gasses into the atmosphere. Globally, this trend continues to increase. Also, typically these developed nations are in locations that are at less of a risk of being effected by the immediate impacts of climate change, and those that are at slightly higher risks than others are financially sound enough to build provisionary flood walls, dams, etc. This gap in risk factors also contributes to the perpetuation of high GHG emissions in developed countries.

Denmark <3’s Wind Energy

With this in mind, many developing countries are feeling more of a responsibility to mitigate their own emissions levels. Germany is one of the forerunners on progressive climate change mitigation.  They’re doing something called the “Energiewende,” or energy turnaround. The German government has taken an aggressive stance on reducing fossil fuels and investing in alternative energy sources, particularly solar and wind power. Currently, Germany gets 25% of its power from green energy, and has set a target level of 80% to hopefully be achieved by the year 2050. Similarly, Denmark is also über progressive, and has over half of the entire country’s power coming form wind energy. Their ambitious energy goal is to have 100% of power be provided by renewables by the year 2050. Even China, the largest producer of greenhouse gasses per capita is making a point to dedicate government funds to research and development of efficient green technology. In February, the government established a $1.65 billion fund to reduce fossil fuels in its most polluted cities.  All over the world, governments of developed countries are stepping up to do their part to try and mitigate a global issue that they have had the biggest part in causing.

In addition to reforming their own policies and practices, governments of developed countries have also taken to imposing development strategies on developing countries. These policies are often questionable and irrelevant in the eyes of the targeted countries. One of the biggest questions surrounding the issue of developing countries and climate change is this: Should developed countries be allowed to tell developing countries how they should develop, when they themselves released dirty emissions all throughout each of their respective industrial revolutions and beyond? To what extend do we as developed nations have any say on the development practices in these newly industrializing countries? And, is it possible for developing nations to actually fully develop and raise their standard of living without going through the traditional hydroelectric-àcoal-àoil-ànatural gas progression that almost all currently industrialized nations have had to get through before they began exploring renewable energy?

In the quest for sustainable energy, there are many possibilities. Some of the more commonly known options- solar energy, hydropower, and wind energy- have been proven successful on small scales, and are the focus of researchers hoping to make these things profitable and feasible on the large scale. Meanwhile, global consumption of fossil fuels continues, specifically with the rising popularity of natural gas. Obviously, there are many negative implications that come along with such a pervasive use of fossil fuels. With that in mind, fairly recent developments have been made to produce a cleaner, greener, fuel alternative. This renewable alternative in question is biofuel: a fuel source derived completely from organic material, usually sugar, starch, or oilseed crops. These crops are converted to bioalcohols (usually ethanol) through complex fermentation processes, and can them be blended with traditional fuels to produce a mixture that is up to 85% ethanol.

The benefits of increasing ethanol production are numerous. Proponents of the new fuel source claim that, by increasing the supply of biofuels in the global market, you would also be consequently decreasing the demand for fossil fuels, since biofuels would ideally be a cheaper, more environmentally friendly alternative. They are also a sustainable resource, meaning that in theory, the production and use of biofuels could be continued indefinitely.

The United States is currently taking steps to encourage production and use of biofuels. As a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, there are now a minimum of 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels blended with gasoline each year. Additionally, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set a standard that is increasing biofuel production to 36 billion gallons a year by the year 2022.

However, biofuels are not all butterflies and rainbows. Research has shown that these “greener” alternative are actually not saving that much in the way of carbon emissions, and in fact may be contributing to global emissions much more than we originally thought. Because biofuels must be grown, their production is consuming insane amounts of land and water. This increased demand for land has resulted in many virgin tracts and reserve land spaces being plowed under to make fields for the corn or soy. Since all of these previously untouched pieces of land were huge carbon sinks, they are releasing exorbitant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere upon being plowed up. Biofuels also require large amounts of water to be produced, and are contributing to the depletion of aquifers via their irrigation needs. Furthermore, their farming intensive nature means that biofuels contribute notably to local water pollution as well.

As I was doing research for this post, I stumbled on an article published by CNN News that explores different perspectives on biofuels coming from an economist, a scientist, and an environmental campaigner. A few things stuck out to me, the first being biofuel effects on food prices. It’s no secret that food prices have been steadily rising over the past few years, and the similar increase in biofuel popularity may have something to do with this. Since both the supply and the demand for corn products and the like have gone up, the price has inevitably shifted upward as well.  While this is great for farmers (who are actually typically subsidized in their ethanol production anyway), this is not so great for your average human.

This graph features the rising food prices in the United States. Notice the steep increase right around the time that biofuels started gaining popularity.

The increase in biofuel production and consumption has largely marginalized poor communities from having access to healthy, cheap food. While the economist in the article, Keith Wiebe, does say that biofuels are not the only factor contributing to this phenomenon, they are playing a large role.

The second, and biggest thing that stuck out to me in the article was the idea of “backing false solutions” as stated by the environmentalist, Deepak Rughani. He made the point that while biofuels may be a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, simply replacing the latter with the former is not a solution. He says that governments legislating in favor of fossil fuels are considering themselves in the green, so to speak, as they have made clear progress. In reality, however, they’re just putting a Band-Aid over the problem. In order to really make real progress, governments and individuals need to make an effort to actually reduce the demand for fossil fuels and biofuels alike. As it stands, backing these “false-solutions” is stalling investment in real renewable energies like wind, solar, wave, and geothermal.

So, RCL, you decide. Should the US continue to invest in biofuel production, or should we work on curbing emissions and environmental consequences of energy consumption in other ways?

Water. We drink it. We shower in it. We cook with it. We cannot live without it. Specifically, we cannot live without a supply of clean, accessible water. Luckily, the United States is remarkably well suited with our water systems, there being 155,000 separate public water systems total across the country. This being said, many Americans take our seemingly unlimited supply of clean drinking water for granted. In light of recent events though, many people across the country are not so fortunate.

West Virginia Residents advised not to drink the water in light of the recent chemical spill.

Recently, there have been multiple environmental disasters that are responsible for polluting natural waterways and manmade water systems alike. On January 9, 2014,  a large amount of the harmful chemical methylcyclohexanemethanol (or MCHM, for short) was released from a coal treatment plant run by Freedom Industries into the Elk River in West Virginia. Since this spill occurred upriver of West Virginia American Water, the water treatment and distribution center responsible for supplying water to many surrounding counties, upwards of 300,000 West Virginia residents found themselves without drinkable water following the spill. West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency, and many residents did not have access to clean, running water for an entire week. While public health authorities deemed the water safe to drink again, many local physicians are still advising otherwise. A federal grand jury is now looking into this spill, considering their investigation to be part of a criminal investigation.

A picture of the coal ash spilled on the Dan River, NC.

One week ago, a similar disaster occurred in North Carolina. Duke Energy reported that anywhere from “50,000 to 82,000 tons of coal ash and up to 27 million gallons of water were released from a pond at its retired power plant… and into the Dan River, and were still flowing.” It took a total of six days to plug the broken pipe responsible for the leak.

While this disaster does not yet look to have the profound effect on the drinking water in the surrounding counties that the spill in Elk River did, it still released tons of harmful chemicals, including lead, iron, chromium, and arsenic, into the Dan and other connected waterways. There is no telling what long term effects a spill of this magnitude will have on the ecology of the surrounding waterways, or even how long such a spill could take to clean up.

In an MSNBC news clip titled, “Can We Trust Our Water Systems,” news anchors and experts address the Elk River spill and water system issues in particular. A big point that they make the time has come to improve our nation’s water infrastructure. The EPA estimates a total of $188 billion necessary to revise the infrastructure of the US in the next five years. While this number is staggering, these projects would create jobs, and are necessary to maintain the health and prosperity of the United States. By combating water infrastructure issues proactively, we could avoid many instances of water contamination and risks to drinking water safety.

Additionally, by fixing many of the problems that we have with our current water infrastructure, we would be greatly improving the quality of life experienced by the poorest people nationwide. It is no secret that chemical spills and other disasters like these disproportionately affect low-income people neighborhoods and areas. For example, West Virginia is currently the third poorest state in the United States, and has been experiencing water quality and pollution issues caused largely in part by the coal industry for the past 100 years. No one has done anything about it though, because the resident don’t have the means to fix the problems while still continuing to gross a profit in the coal industry, and legislatures are too blinded by these profits and unmotivated by the economic standing of low income West Virginia residents to initiate change. This problem is not isolated to West Virginia. Low-income areas across the United States are experiencing the worst of all environmental disasters and conditions, whether that be in the form of toxic waste dumping, landfill placement, or air and water quality issues.

So, what can be done? How are we supposed to improve our infrastructure and facilities so that disasters like those that occurred on the Elk and Dan Rivers are not allowed to happen again? What can we do to resolve the circular problem of environmental injustice and inequality? The simple answer is to demand better. We, as voters, must demand more from our congresspeople in terms of improving environmental conditions for those in low-income communities. We must be the voice to save the masses. Additionally, we must prompt legislators to put stricter regulations and restrictions on corporations that could be prone to disasters like those mentioned above. By mandating improvement for their systems, we could decrease the likelihood of these disasters happening in the first place. Only when we are able to strike the three-way balance between environmental justice, financial feasibility, and legislative responsiveness will the future of water systems, and quality of life for all peoples in the United States look bright.