Sustainability in Action: What’s wrong with this picture?

Sustainable design practices impact many of the routine things that we do. Things like southern alignment of a building on a lot, the selection of windows and building materials, waste water and rainwater runoff from sites, and how we plant our gardens or crops for improved growth without damaging the ecosystem.


The work being done here is an example of an effort that promotes increased, not decreased, use of electricity due to the complexity of the flow path from the pump.

The team is putting three 90* turns in the pump’s flow path through its piping run. This drastic change in direction increases the load on the system and makes the pump motor work harder, using more electricity and increasing the heat (due to resistance) exposure experienced by the motor, which will reduce its life-cycle.


A less resistive flow path for pump discharge lines will allow designers to use smaller motors for their systems, again reducing the electricity used to accomplish the desired work. Long curves and softly angled paths, instead of 90* turns that create a ‘head’, are much more in line with sustainability of resources.

The savings gained by these reductions, even on small systems, adds up. And on big systems where gradually angled flow paths reduce or eliminate significant back pressure the savings are able to reduce or even erase the costs involved in system upgrades.

Earth Charter

There is an Earth Charter that was Launched onto the World Stage in the year 2000 as a United Nations initiative, but it was carried forward and completed by a global civil society initiative.

It is a declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action.

The Earth Charter is centrally concerned with the transition to sustainable ways of living and sustainable human development. Ecological integrity is one major theme. However, the Earth Charter recognizes that the goals of ecological protection, the eradication of poverty, equitable economic development, respect for human rights, democracy, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. It provides, therefore, a new, inclusive, integrated ethical framework to guide the transition to a sustainable future.

The Earth Charter is a product of a decade-long, worldwide, cross cultural dialogue on common goals and shared values. The Earth Charter was finalized and then launched as a people’s charter in 2000 by the Earth Charter Commission, an independent international entity.
The drafting of the Earth Charter involved the most inclusive and participatory process ever associated with the creation of an international declaration. This process is the primary source of its legitimacy as a guiding ethical framework. The legitimacy of the document has been further enhanced by its endorsement by over 4,500 organizations, including many governments and international organizations.
In the light of this legitimacy, an increasing number of international lawyers recognize that the Earth Charter is acquiring

Universal Responsibility

To realize these aspirations, we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for

the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.

Read the Earth Charter at http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/Read-the-Charter.html.

Fixing the Right Price

When a farmer fertilizes his corps with a high nitrogen fertilizer he pays for the chemicals, the tools to apply them, and the fuel for his tractor to pull the rig. But are there any other expenses that should be assigned to the farm to cover the costs of his process?

What about the run off that occurs when it rains, or the irrigation process kicks in? The fertilizer saturates the soil, and some of it becomes water born and runs off of the land and into the stream...flows down through the descending bed and ends up in the lake or river. This increased nitrate promotes algae blooms, kills fish, over burdens the next stream or river it runs to. The county or state then reacts to the algae, tries to save the fish by reducing the quantity of algae in the water...taking hours in labor, and money for equipment and preparations.

That is just one example of an economic Externality experienced by one typical event that occurs in America today.

And what about herbicides and pesticides? They promote general destruction of plants and animals while being promoted to address only limited infestations of specific plants and insects...and often these chemical tools just don't work. Again, an Externality... collateral damage coming from the production side of agriculture, and not answering the important questions of who should be held accountable for these pollution events and the issues that they raise.

There are just as many...no, there are more situations that need tending when it comes to Externalities. Water, Air, Desertification, CO2 release, Methane production from cattle and Dairy Herds...the list truly does go on. Most of this external impact is not covered by the producers (industry or agriculture) as it is difficult to equate these costs...so instead they are coming out of our taxes for cleanup...and never paid for by those who are generating the pollution.

We need to act on this...find a way to Tax or assign accurate charges on these events and attach them to the right organizations so that they will either pay for the cleanup or change their processes so that there is less pollution, and they save money due to their paying less in penalty charges.

It is time that we begin crafting policy in the United States that will allow us to properly fix the right price on these environmental externalities. The industries causing this pollution, and profiting from their manufacturing... profiting even more so because they are not being held accountable for the damage they are doing to air, water and land that they impact, need to be held accountable. Yes, their prices will go up, but that is appropriate as they are causing this pollution and should be the ones who act to correct these problems.

Fix the Right Price and the economy will properly align with the tennants of Sustainability.