From Sustainable

How to connect to the cycles and achieve intelligent systems

After taking a look at how natural systems are different from the industry of yesterday and today, we will now take a look at three areas that are connected to meeting our basic needs. In each of them it is actually not difficult to become sustainable - theoretically. The water is moving in a big cycle as we already learned as school children. The sun provides more energy than we can possibly need and there are still other renewable sources (geothermal, tidal, water and biomass - the last two also powered by the sun). And food eternally grows on the fields if only we plant, look after and harvest it. The practical issues we have to deal with when trying to get a sustainable supply of water, food and energy are the topic of this week. I will not give you long readings, because you will have to do quite some research into your local water, food and energy situation (as you can see from the questions). So take your time to find out what is happening in your community and country.

Main Readings

• The Jal Biradari Declaration on Water from India, 2003
• Dos and Don'ts of the Human Right to Water
• Conventional Sanitation vs. Ecological Sanitation
• Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the General introduction to the Energy topic from the last YAC Sustainable Development Course

Questions

Please click on the "discussion" tab above to read and answer the questions!

Contents 1 Further ideas and materials for self-study 1.1 Water 1.1.1 general 1.1.2 ecological sanitation 1.1.3 access to water 1.1.4 saving water 1.2 Food 1.3 Energy 1.3.1 renewables in general 1.3.2 strategies 1.3.3 decentralization 1.3.4 energy efficiency 1.3.5 oil 1.3.6 biomass 1.3.7 dams 1.3.8 green electricity

Further ideas and materials for self-study

Water

Sustainable solutions to the water crisis:

• water-saving techniques, reuse, eco-sanitation, restoring of forests, SODIS (for quantity)
• eco-sanitation, industry (for pollution)
• economic/public policies, no to privatization (for access)

general

• A short introduction to the global water crisis (video 5 min)
• Reflections on the Global Water Situation or "Why worry about water?" by William J. Cosgrove, president of the World Water Council
• Take a look at the contents of this Positive News&Youth Views magazine Edition on Water If you would like to read one of the articles, let us know - Eric is a friend and has shared his materials with us even before publishing them.
• Walking on water. (click on "Enjoy 7 Stories from the ZERI Rainbow Collection" and then on "Walking on Water", the story to the extreme left)
• Water, Drop of Life (video 10 min) by the United Nations International Decade for Action, Water for Life, 2005-2015
• Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS)
• Links and documents on the Human Right to Water
• Did you like the ecological footprint? - Check out the water footprint!
• A classified list of good links to water related sites by UNESCO
• Groundwater world wide under pressure

ecological sanitation

• How about simply shitting in a bucket and planting flowers on it afterwards? Do you like this model? Would you use it for yourself?
• Detailed report on ecological sanitation by the Swedish cooperation agency SIDA with interesting examples from around the world.
• A whole online course on ecological sanitation. (login with ID:ecosandemo and PW:1234)

access to water

• World Bank vision on the topic of Access to Safe Water - Bolivia case - There are exercises together with this case study. Please try them out. How do you like this way of working online? How does it compare to our course?

• King Customer? - A critical analysis of the World Bank Policies on Water by WEED (World Economy, Ecology and Development)

• United Nations: The Human Right to Water

saving water

• "Sustainable Washing" - A site dedicated entirely to promoting water- and energy-conserving washing behaviour. You can calculate online how much time, water, energy and money you spend every year for washing clothes and dishes.

Food

Sustainable solutions to the food crisis:

• promoting labor-intensive, organic agriculture
• permaculture
• food sovereignty before free trade
• maintaining crop diversity

• Agriculture - A small collection of facts and concepts about the extremely vast and important topic.
• The Meatrix - about industrial meat production and its alternatives
• Foodwatch (a German NGO)

Energy

Sustainable solutions to the energy crisis:

• energy efficiency
• low-tech plus high-tech decentralized renewable energies
• including externalities of fossil fuels in accounting of prices
• consumer-driven green electricity

renewables in general

• Renewables 2004 Conference in Bonn, Germany and the Conference Issue Paper

• Practical Action - a good website for exploring the various uses of renewable energy in the South for poverty alleviation. Based on the work of E.F. Schumacher.

• International Energy Agency on Renewables

strategies

• The Energy Blueprint by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council - a hopeful scenario on our energy future

• A great example of an energy autarchy strategy for a region in Austria: Model Region Güssing

• Energy Security (video 6 min) - Caroline Lucas talks about the energy options confronting us. She discusses her preference for clean renewable energy and why she thinks nuclear power has little future. She remarks on the many win-win policies that could precipitate a rapid shift towards efficient and sustainable energy supply, but acknowledges a lack in the political will required to bring this change about. She talks about the new production and consumption patterns that need to be encouraged, expressing doubt that economic growth can be sustained globally at 3% per annum.

decentralization

• Small Is Beautiful by E.F.Schumacher

• Decentralized Energy (video 18 min) by Greenpeace UK

• News related to decentralised energy on the Greenpeace website

energy efficiency

• Factor 4 asserts that energy efficiency is good for the environment and for business profits
• Save energy when cooking with a cooking box

oil

• Nigeria and Oil: one of the worst examples of poor corporate citizenship by oil companies operating in the South

• The Future of Oil (video 6 min) - Dr. Campbell discusses the decline of global oil and gas production and talks about the likely impacts oil depletion will have on geopolitics. He addresses some of the solutions that may help defuse the situation. Advances in energy efficiency, in particular, offer many opportunities to this effect. He then talks about renewable systems such as wind turbines and tidal power and ends by suggesting what the individual can do to help accelerate the transition to energy sustainability.

• Peak Oil: Next Steps (video 6 min) - Matt Simmons reflects on the reasons why the world consumes 85 million barrels of oil a day and points to ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption over time. First and foremost, we must alter the way in which people and goods are transported. We can do this by encouraging workers to commute less and by disincentivising long distance trucking. Next we must re-localize our food economy. Finally, he says, we must radically change the way the global economic system has been built.

biomass

• Replacing Fossil Fuels through Biomass Globally? by Helmut Burkhardt

• Bioenergy in China (powerpoint presentation) (Question: If you compare this to Helmut Burkhardt's view, what would you say about this option in China?)

dams

• The World Commission on Dams, an initiative by the World Bank, developed criteria for socially and environmentally acceptable ways of building dams.

green electricity

• The European Green Electricity Network
• Ökostrom-Wechsel-Party (in German): making a party to convince people of switching to renewable energy, which is very easy in Germany.
• Cool spot about wind energy