Top 5 Environmental Blogs (Except for ISH of Course)

As passionate bloggers, we at ISH wanted to share our five favourite environmental blogs. These websites inspire us and share some of the world’s biggest and most profound environmental innovations.

1.   Treehugger

Treehugger is without a doubt the most well known environmental website out there. Treehugger’s biggest strength is the diversity and experience of its writers with expertise in: architecture, product design, eco-living, science, technology. The Discovery Channel liked them so much that it recently acquired Treehugger for a whooping $10 million. Click here to follow Treehugger on Twitter.

2.   InHabitat

As hinted in their moto, “green design will save the world”, InHabitat focuses primarily on sharing green innovations in the realm of architecture and design that will push us towards a more sustainable future.  Click here to follow InHabitat on Twitter.

3.  Techcrunch- GreenTech

GreenTech is a section of the Techcrunch publication that highlights the world’s biggest green innovations. If you want a quick highlight of what’s happening in the environmental world make sure you check it out! Techcrunch was recently acquired by AOL. You can follow Lora Kolodny, GreenTech writer, on Twitter here.

        4.  GreenOptions

Green Options is different from the three aforementioned website as it focuses on providing YOU with practical tips to live your life sustainably. The blog is dedicated to increasing environmental literacy and education. You can follow Green Option on Twitter here.

        5.  Enviroboys

Run by two Canadian university students, Enviroboys writes about a wide array green topics including: public policy, transportation, water policy and technology. You can follow Enviroboys on Twitter here.

By Trevor S.

Innovative Thinking: Toronto Zoo turns animal poop into power

As a collective group, we at ISH love reading about organizations that are able to turn challenges into solutions. Organizations that lead the pack in creating sustainable solutions have a quintessential role, as they often change industry norms and increase the expected degree of environmental responsibility. Thus, the efforts of one innovative organization often snowball into industry wide improvements.

The Toronto Zoo is an excellent example of an innovative organization that turned a large (and smelly) problem into tremendous opportunity for cost savings and reduced GHG emissions. 

 

The organization is in the process of developing a 500kWbiogas plant that converts animal waste into electricity, heat and fertilizer. This is equivalent to a reduction in GHG emissions of approximately 10,000 tonnes of C0₂: which corresponds to removing 1,800 cars off the road each year!

The plant will be the first of its kind in all of North America and I am hopeful it will inspire other zoos to follow suit. It’s organizations like the Toronto Zoo that take the lead when it comes to sustainability rather than following the pack.

Which organizations do you think truly value sustainability? 

Which superficial organizations do you think have sustainability policies for the sole purpose of greenwashing the public? 

We’d love to hear your thoughts!

By Trevor S. (link contributed by Yan Yu)

The Difference Between Compostable, Biodegradable, and Degradable Packaging

Greenwashing is ubiquitous in the packaged goods sector. Companies will do whatever they can to appear environmentally friendly with  the ultimate goal of driving sales. Thus, it is our responsibility to be educated so we can identify these tactics, and ensure we are buying products that use lower impact energy sources. One area that is gravely misunderstood by the general public is the various forms of packaging and associated environmental impacts. I have summarized the three types of degradable packaging below:

Classification 1: Compostable Packaging

Compostable packaging has three implications: first, 60 to 90 percent of the packaging will break down within 180 days; second, 90 percent of the packaging will break down into pieces that are less than 2mm; and finally, when the product breaks down in a commercial composting facility, it will not leave toxic heavy metals in the soil. 

Classification 2: Biodegradable Packaging

Many individuals are misled by packaging that is “biodegradable” or “degradable”. Biodegradable simply means the packaging must degrade due to the functioning of living microorganisms. However, biodegradability standards do not address the amount of time the material needs to break down nor whether the material leaves toxic residue. Consequently, when biodegradable waste is buried in landfills with an insufficient supply of bacteria, methane GHG emissions are released. Furthermore, “biodegradable” materials can leave behind toxic residues such as heavy metals.

Classification 3: Degradable Packaging

For a plastic to be considered degradable, it must simply be capable of being broken down through chemical reactions in a manmade environment. These plastics are typically oil based.

This video captures the difference between compostable, biodegradable and degradable succinctly.


By Trevor S.

Experiences with Sustainability in China (May 2011)

Just returned from my trip to China. While I was there, it was interesting to see China's progress in environmental sustainability on so many different areas:

Green lawns/public spaces - signs everywhere reminding people to be more "civilized" (a term used by the Chinese): not littering, not trampling on grass, not smoking too much (China is obsessed with smoking), and protecting the environment in general.
But these signs aren't enforced. So many people (not most) still litter. On Huang Shan, a mountain that's basically a Chinese national icon, I was appalled to see just how many plastic-bottles were littered about the landscape, and some people even still smoked in the non-smoking trails!
Better enforcement of more "civilized" behaviors, and punishment for those who are "uncivilized" (fines, etc) are definitely needed to reduce incidences of littering, smoking in non-smoking places, etc. But since they aren't being done, China obviously doesn't think they are a national priority... or the authorities may have just given up trying.

Solar panels. Specifically, solar thermal hot water heating.
I don't think I saw many solar electricity panels in China - they were mostly small ones located on streetlights. But I did see millions of solar thermal hot-water heaters. They're plastered on the roofs of almost all Chinese apartment buildings. And even my grandparents who live in poorer, rural China has one - it helps heat their shower-water to 100+ degrees, especially during the summer, and all for free! (photo to the left: a solar-thermal panel on a rural-Chinese hut!)
Solar is of course dependent on the availability of sunlight, and for many areas of China this may not be feasible. But in Southern China, where sunlight is abundant (esp since it's in a drought right now), solar thermal does seem like an excellent idea for hot-water heating... but it's costs of production would also have to be evaluated. Complicated!

Drought in Southern China (2011):
Southern China, where both my grandparents live, is in its worst period of drought since 1950. Some 34million people are affected - i.e. almost the entire population of Canada! Crops, aquatic animals, etc are all suffering, and it's contributing to rising food prices (esp rice) across China. The river in front of my grandparents' rural house, once so high that it reached the levees on either side of the river, now flows about 20 meters away from the levees on either side. The tributaries of the Yangtze river that flows through my other grandparents' city are just as low, and even canals are drying up! Not good! Wonder how much of this drought is due to seasonal variation, how much is due to dams upstream, and how much is due to climate change??
(Photo: Drought on the farm-fields surrounding my grandfather's rural chinese town)

Eco-art: turning waste into art.
The 798 Modern Art Gallery in Beijing is truly a work of Eco-art on many levels. The gallery grounds/building is itself located inside a shut-down arms factory, thus reusing the land and the building material. The smokestacks scattered across the grounds serve now as piece of art as well. Within individual art exhibitions themselves, many artists have decided to use recycled materials to create art. One masterpiece involved tens or hundreds of rear-view mirrors arranged in a hemisphere around an old, worn-out school chair. It looks fantastic, and to me it's the perfect piece of art for the nostalgic student! (Photo: artistic statue in front of the many formerly-functional smokestacks in this re-used factory)




Transportation:
One saddening thing that I noted in China is that people are switching from old-fashioned bicycles to motorized bikes and scooters. Not only could this raise emissions caused by transportation and increase the demand for resources/energy needed to make more scooters, etc, this may also reduce public health as exercise levels on a bicycle decline. Could this be a reflection of people getting lazier? Or is this a response to cities getting bigger, forcing people to now commute longer distances to work and thus requiring a motorized vehicle? (Photo: crowded transportation in Zhenjiang, China)

Encouragingly, China is also making advances into mass public transport at a tremendous pace.
Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, and many other big cities now have state of the art metro systems (Beijing's has been expanded and renovated, with 13 different lines!). Xi'an, the former capital of ancient China where the Terracota soldiers are, will be getting it's new metro system in 2012!

China also has a high-speed rail system, with two classes of high-speed rail trains: D and G. D-trains are fast, over 200km/h, but G-trains are even faster, over 300km/h. I took a G-train from Zhenjiang to Nanjing, and the once hour-long trip was reduced to a meager 15 minutes!
China has invested over 4 trillion Yuan into these trains sine 2008, and they certainly are good at increasing rail capacity and reducing travel times - possibly leading to more efficient, productive workers. (Photo: high-speed rail in Shanghai Hongqiao train station, one of the hundreds of new train stations recently built across China just to accommodate high-speed rail)

Some definite advantages of high-speed rail over road and air transport is that, if designed properly, high-speed rail can 1) reduce land usage per passenger, 2) use less energy per passenger per kilometer, 3) accommodate more passengers than can airplanes or busses over defined travel corridors between cities.

Sadly, Beijing has cancelled it's production of huge Straddling Busses due to safety reasons :(


Population:
It's impossible to go to China and NOT talk about the effects of population on the Chinese and world environment, and the ability of China to sustain its rate of growth and energy use into the future. But there's also massive social issues that the government has to manange: 30 million bachelors are expected by 2030 (according to the Chinese govn't), and people have began stealing male babies to sell to parents who want them, and girls from rural china to bachelors! The population is on its way to declining though thanks to the 1-child policy: the UN projects an increase from 1.3 billion (now) to 1.5 billion people in China by 2025, but then declining to 1.4 billion by 2050. Good for survival with limited resources, but social problems? We'll see! (photo: travelers in Shanghai's Hongqiao train station! and this is not so crowded!)

Important Information on Biofuels

When most people hear the words "biofuel" they generally think of an eco-friendly and renewable fuel source. As a result of the significant increase in demand, biofuels are severely threatening the stability of crops. Here are some additional pieces of information you should know about biofuels.

• In the States, currently a huge percentage of their corn grown goes to biofuel, which, as I'm sure you know has driven up the price of corn and corn products.

• What is interesting, which this article mentioned, is using cellulosic ethanol (aka making trees into fuel).

• This technology is relatively new and there are two potential ways of processing the trees both of which are mostly still in the research and development stages and are not currently contributing hugely to biofuel production. 

• Cellulosic ethanol is a better option than starch-based ethanol because it does not compete with the agriculture sector for land and other resources.

• There is just a lot of money needed to expand and develop these technologies, and the government is hesitant to supply this money, as fossil fuels are still "relatively cheap".

• I think there is great potential here and with "plantations" of C4 plants such as switchgrass and miscanthus, which have high energy potentials and can be grown on marginal land (thus not competing with the best crop land). 

• ·Further research should be emphasized to expand these sectors, with less of a reliance on other biofuel crops that inhibit food production... more food should be grown in urban environments anyway! (Perfect world!)

Do you think the benefits of biofuels outweigh the cons? Check out this article by the BBC on the unethical nature of biofuels.

(From Marlaina M) 

Canadian Healthcare: Thoughts about party platforms on major issues

I'm currently finishing up the health economics class that Queen's university offers, which is designed to help students better understand how healthcare systems function and how they can be improved from an economics (read: least biased) perspective. Since my exam is in 2 days and I'm pretty well studied up for it, and also since it's the Canadian general election, I'm going to give my new-found knowledge a try and analyze some of the platforms that the three major Canadian political parties have regarding major issues in the Canadian healthcare system.

Issue 1: Regarding the status of the 1984 Canada Health Act:

• As expected, all the parties supported the universal, public-funding of healthcare Canada. Canadians are very proud of our iconic, egalitarian system and it would be political suicide to “scrap” or even to “amend” it. What the platforms didn’t clearly mention is that one pillar of the Health Act, “public administration”, is ambiguous. Administration could mean “insurance/funding of care” AND/OR “provision/delivery of care”. The two are very different. Right now, Canada has a publically-funded system with pseudo-privately delivered care. Delivery is “pseudo-private” because all the hospitals/clinics in Canada are heavily government-regulated, and there is no competition, which from an economics point of view, is inefficient and doesn’t generate high-quality care. Many changes to the Canada Health Act can be made to make our system better while preserving our national values of equality, universality, comprehensiveness, and yes, even public administration (insurance). Senator Kirby detailed has one such proposal: the introduction of so-called “internal markets” in healthcare delivery to create competition amongst publically-funded private providers, as well as a national wait-times guarantee. His ideas, and many others, deserves debate, or at least consideration, especially in a system that obviously can be improved.

Issue 2: Regarding the rising cost of pharmaceuticals:

• The Conservative platform of throwing money at provinces (for them to figure things out) is not the answer to the problem. According to health economics (and common sense) concepts, throwing money at many healthcare problems, including pharmacare, will actually only awaken “latent demand”: those patients that are teetering at-the-margin between whether or not to buy those drugs. Such “marginal patients”, seeing a drop in drug prices because of the injection of funds, can of course buy more drugs, but this is only a short-term solution and does little to solve the root issues of the problem (with are likely related to both supply and demand for drugs).
• In contrast to the Conservative plan, the NDP plan is actually evidence-based. They plan to create “a universal prescription-medications insurance plan” may actually work to decrease drug costs in the long-term. It makes economic sense. Pooling together all the individual drug insurance plans into one national plan will create a demand-pool that exerts considerable influence on the willingness-to-pay (the price) of drugs – you can think of it as a reverse-monopoly (what economics call a monopsony). Because of this huge bulk-purchase, drug prices can be bid down.

Issue 3: How to reduce wait times without hiring more MDs/Nurses:

• At the risk of sounding like another Conservative-basher, we actually learned in our health econ class that “continuing to increase funding for health care to record levels”, the Conservative platform, is not the solution. (In fact, that’s actually the problem! The system now needs record-high funds to be maintained!) Again, I refer to the principle of latent demand: increased funding to increase health system capacity will only reduce waits in the short-run. When “marginal patients” (those deterred by long wait times but can afford to wait a little) see wait times temporarily decreasing, they will join the new shorter wait lists, which will lengthen the wait list again, leaving wait times relatively unchanged in the long-run.
• In terms of the other two parties’ goals: both of them promote improved and increased home-care, which can potentially reduce costs because we know that hospitals are the single-biggest money-hogs in the health system (page 31 of this 2010 CIHI report).
• The Liberals mention that the increasing the rural health work force is critical, but they fail to mention specifics of how they will actually implement this other than increasing broadband expansion. In fact, a wide range of methods can be implemented, from training young doctors in rural regions to providing employment opportunities in rural regions for spouses and educational opportunities for kids, all of which have been shown to raise the number of doctors willing to work in rural areas (although doing so would take more time and effort).
• None of the parties even dare to mention the fundamental reason behind wait times, according to health economics principles.
• The fundamental reason is collective choice in a publically-funded system. That’s why you see excessive wait times in all countries with publically-funded health systems. Essentially, collective choice means that, with regards to a public pool of goods, people are less willing to contribute to it, but more willing to take from it for individual benefit. In terms of the healthcare system in Canada, people are less willing to contribute to total health system capacity (supply), since not many people really want to pay higher taxes (taxes fund our health system). However, since healthcare services are free at the point of service, Canadians are keen to claim more health services individually (greater demand). At the population level, then, the total demand for healthcare would be much greater than total supply, resulting in excess demand that causes waits.
• Unless the parties are willing to look at ways of reducing public healthcare demand (for instance, via a parallel private supplementary health insurance system, or better yet, via prevention) while maintaining or increasing public healthcare capacity/supply (by inducing competition between providers with “internal markets”, etc), the thorn of long waits will always stick in our sides.

Issue 4: Clearly defining what is “medically necessary” to determine what should be covered by public insurance, and what could be covered by private insurance:

• At this point I don’t have the expertise to comment on this issue, but I would like to point out that both the Liberals and the NDP say that this definition must be made with “scientific evidence” and “objective clinical evaluation”, whereas the Conservative response was to “work with the provinces and territories to renew the Health Accord and to continue reducing wait times”…a blatant, albeit clever, dodge of the question.

Okay, enough for now - I'm going to go study for my other exams. What are your thoughts?