For the ITN report as broadcast on The Newshour…

When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they will confront a 181-page draft negotiation text, 2,000 bracketed passages still in dispute, and just 11 days in which to come to some sort of consensus. To power them through these discussions, Denmark has promised a smorgasbord of ecologically minded fare: All water will be tap (not bottled), tea and coffee will be fair trade, and the food menu will be no less than 65 percent organic.

Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, this last provision is troubling, but not because anyone really cares about the provenance of Ban Ki-Moon’s turnip greens. Rather, it suggests a willful and dangerous ignorance about the tenuous state of global agriculture, and the prospects for feeding 9 billion people while also addressing biodiversity loss, water shortage, and, yes, climate change. Organic foods are enjoying skyrocketing popularity in the US and Europe, as are their ill-defined sidekicks, “natural,” “whole,” and “real” foods. Yet popular notions that these foods—and the agriculture that begets them—are at once better for people and for the planet turn out to be largely devoid of experimental support. Worse still, “organophilia” tends to go hand-in-hand with technophobic skepticism towards the very sorts of scientific approaches most likely to supercharge an ailing food system while leaving our planet intact.

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By placing conditions on access to European markets, REACH has set what may become a de facto global standard. The influx of chemical information expected under REACH, as well as the potential for countries outside Europe to become markets for toxic substances prohibited in the EU, presents other regions with an opportunity, and imperative, to retool their chemicals policies.

In the fall of 2009, the Obama Administration unveiled principles for U.S. chemicals policy reform, proposing that chemical producers be required to submit sufficient hazard, exposure, and use data for EPA to determine that chemicals meet a health-based safety standard (21). The principles further acknowledge the EPA’s need for authority to act on priority chemicals, reducing risks they pose to sensitive subpopulations. These principles could influence development of TSCA reform. If implemented, they could improve EPA’s ability to protect public health and the environment, while also providing the necessary incentive to move the chemicals market toward green chemistry, with the ultimate goal of placing the U.S. chemical industry on a more sustainable footing.

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Core Distinctions between Chemicals Policies of the United States (TSCA) and the European Union (REACH)

]]> http://onsustainability.com/2009/11/30/comparing-us-and-eu-chemicals-policies/feed/ http://onsustainability.com/2009/11/30/eco-alchemy-in-alberta/ http://onsustainability.com/2009/11/30/eco-alchemy-in-alberta/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:52:09 +0000 homer http://onsustainability.mu.commongroundpublishing.com/?p=2055

Bitu-man. A scarecrow in a "tailings pond" helps keep birds out of toxic mine water. CREDIT: MAGNUM PHOTOS

From Sam Kean in Science for 20 November 2009:

Environmental law says that tar sands companies must restore tailings ponds and pit mines back to “equivalent land capability,” but that phrase is contentious. Ecologists and environmentalists would prefer that every square meter of disturbed boreal forest or wetland be restored to its original state. In practice, companies can perform a sort of eco-alchemy: Pit mines can be converted to either new land, like a forest, or a lake, while tailings ponds can become either a lake or new land. Each transformation has its own challenges and controversies.

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The final issue of Volume 5 of The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability is now available.

Volume 5, Number 6 contains:

• Social Disharmony and Global Destruction by Ray M. Golding and Lynton G.F. Giles.
• Ecological Footprint, Environmental Sustainability, and Biodiversity Conservation: A Cross-Cultural Analysis by Ebenezer Aka.
• The Social Sustainability of Community Based Ecotourism in Southern Africa by Kevin Mearns and Victoria Edwards.
• The Sustainability of a Small Town: Will Fishing and Tourism be Enough? by Toni-Anne Carroll.
• A Preliminary Study on the Connection Between Creative Life Industry and Local Resources: A Case Study of Shin-gang Town in Chia-yi County by Chenglin Wu and Shyh-Huei Hwang.
• Sustainable Tourism Development through Community Based Strategies: The Case of Chamarel by Gowtam Raj Chintaram, Ramesh Durbarry and Thomas Baum.
• Sustainability of Small Businesses in Regional South Australia: Interaction with Customers and Suppliers by Nina Evans and Janet Sawyer.

• A Changing Worldview: The Role of Religious Values and Ethics in the Sustainability Debate by Shamim Samani.
• The Power of Belonging and Identity in Cultural Tourism: A Resource for Mature Tourism Destinations for Image Re-creation by Chantal Marie Portillo Stephens.
• Blogging Sustainability: The Environment Online by Mary Theberge.
• The Feasibility Study on Land Suitability Using GIS Tools by Nagini Sabbineni, Kiran Mai Cherukuri and Sundari Golamudi.
• The ‘Futures Game’: A Scenario Game Workshop Package to Engage Futures Thinking by David Beurle, Michael O’Connor and James Fisher.
• High Performance Working and Wellbeing: Sustainability of Human Resources by Diane Keeble-Ramsay and Andrew Armitage.
• Artisinal Mining in Tanzania: An Example of Sustainability? by Edelgard Mahant and Parkash Mahant.
• Securing Water for Environmental Purposes: Establishing Pilot Programs by Sharon B. Megdal, Joanna Bate and Andrew Schwarz.
• Sustainable Futures: Building Capacity for Social, Cultural and Environmental Futures in Preservice Teachers by Coral Cara.
• Economics and Sustainability: Targeting Demand Instead of Supply by Abbas Ameli.
• The Sustainability of Regional South Australia: Attracting and Retaining Skilled Employees in Small Business by Janet Sawyer and Nina Evans.
• Thirdscapes. Ecological Planning and Human Reconciliation in Borderlands by Anna Katharina Grichting.
• Design Factors and Energy Cost of Restaurant Operations in a North-Central Region of the USA by Hyung-Chan Kim and Joyce H. Hwang.

The sustainability movement from the grassroots to the global level has been both enriched and hobbled by the many different versions of sustainability articulated in scholarly and popular writings, town hall forums, and international conferences. The latest expression of this cacophony is evidenced in the emergence of “green-talk” and the growing substitution of varieties of “greenness” for sustainability and sustainable development in everyday and media parlance. This critical essay seeks to accomplish two things: draw out the differences between the green label and sustainability, and situate this debate within a hierarchical sustainability rubric that allows us to meaningfully offer gradations on the sustainability continuum. In so doing, we seek to illuminate the stakes involved in this conceptual debate and provide clarity about what these putative variations on sustainability imply for both theory and practice. In an age of mounting finite resource scarcities, rapid climate change, and continuing global population growth, combined with the growing clamor for Western-style economic development, the sustainability movement is not going to go away. Sadly, the meaning of sustainability and sustainable development remains highly contested and subject to ongoing and fierce dispute. This state of affairs is evidenced by the growing shift away from the language of sustainability and its variants to the increasingly popular, and easier to swallow, term green.

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From Leslie Kaufman at The New York Times:

At Yellowstone National Park, the clear soda cups and white utensils are not your typical cafe-counter garbage. Made of plant-based plastics, they dissolve magically when heated for more than a few minutes.

At Ecco, a popular restaurant in Atlanta, waiters no longer scrape food scraps into the trash bin. Uneaten morsels are dumped into five-gallon pails and taken to a compost heap out back.

And at eight of its North American plants, Honda is recycling so diligently that the factories have gotten rid of their trash Dumpsters altogether.

Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as “zero waste” is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.

The movement is simple in concept if not always in execution: Produce less waste. Shun polystyrene foam containers or any other packaging that is not biodegradable. Recycle or compost whatever you can.

Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere.

More…

Seed magazine interviews William Kamkwamba, the young engineer who built a windmill from scrap in his native Malawi, and eventually brought power to his entire village…

From the blustery plains of Texas to the Danish island of Samsø, wind power—and the giant, bladed towers that generate it—is all the rage in a warming world searching for cleaner sources of energy. Fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba had never heard of windmills, or climate change, for that matter, when he stumbled across a photograph one day and it changed his life forever.

Now 22, Kamkwamba has become something of an international DIY celebrity: He’s spoken at the World Economic Forum, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and at TED Global—twice. He’s chatted with Al Gore, Bono, and Larry Page. A documentary about his life is currently in the works. But Kamkwamba’s story isn’t really about stardom: It’s about the grit, resourcefulness, and audacity of a young engineer who built a windmill from scrap in his native Malawi and brought power to his home—and eventually lit up every house in the village. It’s told in brilliant detail in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (out now from William Morrow), co-authored with journalist Bryan Mealer. Seed editor Maywa Montenegro spoke with Kamkwamba while he was in New York City kicking off a US book tour. More…

Congratulations to Diane Costello and Brian Bishop, the winners of the International Award for Excellence in the area of environmental, cultural, economic and social sustainability for their paper Community Sustainability and Social Justice: Whose Vision?

Abstract: Government policies in Australia rely heavily on local communities developing their social capital networks to solve complex social, economic and environmental problems. This study explored a regional community’s experiences with promoting social, environmental and economic strategies to facilitate community development within the sustainability paradigm. Applying multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks this study contributes a contextual view of a complex adaptive system. It is argued that the power differentials in governance relations and inclusivity of stake-holders in developing community visions is overlooked by decision makers. Furthermore that locational disadvantage and political isolation are also key considerations.

If you have read the paper you may wish to add a review.

Congratulations to all of the International Award for Excellence finalists:

• Geoffrey Beattie and Laura Sale: Explicit and Implicit Attitudes to Low and High Carbon Footprint Products
• Sue Cornforth: Ethical Thinking and Environmental Responsibility: A Contradiction in Terms
• Paul Derby: The Role of Anthropology in the Global Sustainability Movement: Maintaining the Small While Transforming the Large
• Rachael Dixey and Mary Green: Sustainability of the Health Care Workforce in Africa: A Way Forward in Zambia
• Che Zuriana Muhammad Jamil, Lynn Hodgkinson and Eifiona Thomas Lane: The Effect of Management Control System on Hotel Environmental Performance
• Keson Loke: Towards a Perpetual Congruence Theory for Sustainability of International Business: A Conceptual Framework
• Julie Matthews, Tim Smith and Robert Mangoyana: The Conquest of the Peri-Urban: Sustainability and Postcolonialism
• Kevin Morrison and James Albers: Authentic Sustainability: How the Reasons for Implementation Affect its Success
• Poomalay Poinen, Chandradeo Bokhoree, Kailash Balnac and Romeela Mohee: Evaluating and Forecasting Future Energy Consumption Patterns for a Sustainable Hotel Sector in Mauritius
• Christopher Warburton: Sustainable Development as Efficiency and Equity