Environment – CO2 Issue Zero And Eco Efficiency
In 1994 as part of the Program on Eco-Restructuring for Sustainable Development of the Institute of Advanced Studies, the Initiative for Research on Zero Emission was launched United Nations University .
The “Zero” came in as a result of the convergence of three streams of thought that dominated the world scene in the last 60 years: a developing program, focused on economic growth and expansion of industrial production; the social, experiments for the human well-being either individual and collective and ecological, defending the natural systems and quality of the environment.
The Stockholm and the Rio-92 conferences, consolidated the “Zero” with the crystallization of the ideals of sustainable development, proclaimed at those meetings and the search for the appropriate strategies to promote it.
The “Zero” proclaims a change of paradigms in all economic activities, especially of the industrial processes of production.
It incorporates the principles and strategies of environmental quality as a basis for promoting a new type of sustainable development. “Zero” acquired a distinct mark as a visionary and innovative proposal. It reflected the pragmatic business. Its concept is still evolving the applicability to the management of a sustainable development demonstrated by companies that adopt the strategies of the proposals.
Using the knowledge of biological cycles, which mainly consider all types of life existing on the planet, the concept “Zero” seeks the harmonization of the economic activities with knowledge, generating life progress and quality, satisfying the present needs, without compromising the chances of good environmental conditions for future generations.
The concept “Zero “considers that the ecological and social sustainability are closely linked. The development of a total quality can be interpreted by the implementation of “Zero”, with the use of raw materials and zero waste. This quality reflects promising changes to a continuous environmental improvement.
The premise for the deployment of “Zero” is the change of paradigms, the perception of how to deal with complex problems. The path to be traveled now requires plan economic growth, environmental quality and social development, which is summarized in the concept of sustainable development.
The “Zero” project also has the prerogative to change the paradigms for a clean technology. To diagnose environmental problems and solutions is to raise environmental awareness. This, once again, is reflected in people who must be prepared for alternatives.
Therefore, the process of sustainability Zero Emission also depends on the awareness and determination to mobilize in attitudes environmentally healthy.
As understanding of eco-efficiency is a philosophy that seeks to encourage economic growth making industry to achieve environmental improvements. It is proposed the innovation and therefore growth and competitiveness.
Eco-efficiency is reached through the provision of goods and services at competitive prices, satisfying human needs and contributing to the quality of life, and gradually reduces the ecological impact and intensity of use of resources throughout the life cycle, to reach a level that at least meets the capacity to sustain estimated for the planet Earth.
Briefly it is creating more value with less impact. – Eco-efficiency is not simply limited to encourage efficiency improvements in existing practices and habits, but looks for creativity and innovation in the search for new forms of action.
The efficiency of this process must be achieved by integrating the three pillars of sustainability, economy, ecology and social progress. It’s the true meaning of eco-efficiency for sustainability the companies to be rewarded with profit.
Eco-efficiency is focused on three objectives:
a) Reducing consumption of resources: includes minimizing energy use, materials, water and soil, promoting the recycling and durability of the product.
b) Reducing the impact on nature: includes the minimization of emissions, liquid, waste disposal and dispersion of toxic substances and boost the sustainable use of renewable resources.
c) Improving the value of the product or service: what it means to provide more benefits to customers through the functionality, flexibility and modularity of the product, providing additional services and focusing on selling on needs
Sustainability is correctly identified and can be found in the following four areas:
1) The engineering of processes to reduce resources, pollution, avoid risks, and save costs,
2) The upgrading of sub-products in a creative way in cooperation with companies,
3) Design new products, meeting customers’ needs,
4) Reaching other markets reshaping the demand and supply.
The opportunities of eco-efficiency are not limited to large and international companies. Small and medium enterprises and micro-businesses can also benefit from eco-efficient solutions.
Improve eco-efficiency does not automatically lead to sustainability. The business world cannot achieve alone the eco-efficiency, because it requires close cooperation between the various companies.
The governments rule is an important factor to create these conditions.
- It can implement a policy that foster economic growth and encourage the reduction of resource use and prevent pollution with incentives for eco-innovation.
- It can use various incentives to support initiatives for the advancement of eco-efficiency – rewarding business-leaders.
The existence of sustainability through eco-efficiency is also necessary for the transformation of the consumer society. The premise is the implementation of the new way of thinking which must consider all factors involved directly or indirectly from the activities that lead to the development.
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Author: Artur Victoria
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Improving the World for Future Generations
I have chosen to become aware of global warming, recycling, fuel efficiency, organic fibres, sweat shops and fair trade. I have made small steps such as: recycling, buying organic foods and products and buying fair trade clothing and accessories. I do not drive a car, but my partner does.
You and I do not need to be righteous, world saving “hippies”, in order to make a difference. If you and I can take these little steps together we can contribute to saving and changing the world. We can prevent global warming and cruel treatment in the case of slave labour. You may only be one person in a world full of over 6 billion people but you make a difference. You have an influence on others who will be affected by your views and who will admire your actions and outlook
Right now we have a very huge global warming scare going on. Thank God the documentary, staring Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth” came out revealed the actual effects of global warming and how climates are drastically changing and becoming warmer. We are making our habitat unliveable for future generations.
As a mother this is a very important topic for me because I want my son to have a wonderful and enjoyable life and I don’t want him to have to worry about dying at a young age due to the effects of global warming. Any and every step counts. From recycling, to buying organic, to riding a bicycle or driving a fuel efficient car. I personally recycled, walk and try to buy organic as much as I possibly can. I also buy clothing made of natural fibre that grows naturally without the use of pesticides.
You can make a difference. Lets change the world together!
Author: Pam Mitchell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Take Little Steps to Be Environmentally Conscious
Couple of years, I made up my mind to shop natural and practice and an eco-living lifestyle. It took me a while to convince my family members to support my decision but that didn’t deter me at all.
If you are starting to be environmentally conscious, you may want to go slow. Little steps build up until you are in a full run panting toward the finish line of an eco conscious life. The first baby step for many people is to start growing as much of their food as they have land to grow. Purchasing seed for vegetables is extremely cheap but will pay off big as you can and freeze tons of food for later months.
That gas guzzler sitting in the driveway is another small step you could make. Chances are you have already thought about getting a hybrid to take advantage of the government cash back offers and to reduce your carbon footprint that much more. If you can afford to take this step, there is no time like right now.
Of course, the greatest renewable resource you could possibly buy into is the sun. If you have aspirations of someday being the proud owner of a completely solar powered home, right now is the time to check into the cost for your home and start saving up. It may not happen tomorrow, but it can realistically happen in time. I have read of many people who convert their homes to be more environmentally friendly and creativity certainly takes center stage.
Even something tiny like switching to more conservative light bulbs is a good first step. Just commit to stepping toward eco-living a little more each year and eventually you will see great progress in how you live. Remember, no one can afford to just go out and purchase everything that is needed to be self-sufficient right off the bat. It takes time, but that is no excuse to do nothing at all.
Author: Nancy Clay
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The Extreme Green Solutions
I love when I hear of some of the ideas people have to save the earth. It reminds me of a scene in the movie Brewster’s Millions, where a man is pitching Richard Pryor an idea to put engines in huge icebergs and drive them to the Middle East to cut down on the price of ice water. I love that scene now more than ever, because art has become the reality.
To get an idea of what I mean, one idea on the table requires the use of jumbo jets and military artillery to shoot one million metric tons of microparticles into the stratosphere. This brainchild is supposed to reflect some of the sunlight entering our atmosphere, thus reducing the effects of global warming. Now get me if I’m wrong, but I thought going green was about reducing the amount of trash we put in our air.
Likewise, another brainchild is the suggestion we send sixty thousand shiny spacecrafts into space and put them into orbit. This will result in the reflection of sunlight just the same as the microparticles mentioned earlier. If put into action, it will only cost about one hundred billion dollars a year and thus mark the Universe’s largest salvage yard. I’m not sure we were going for that record, but we would definitely have a few extra parts if Han Solo should come flying through.
The most hilarious suggestion of all pertains to the amount of methane production in cattle flatulence, which one cow fart has about the same amount of greenhouse emissions as a long country drive in a gas guzzling hog. So, a reasonable idea was offered to start influencing farmers to put more garlic in their cow’s diet. I’d go for that. With my beef pre-seasoned, who wouldn’t? But, some other brainchild came up with an even better idea.
If we made every cow carry around its own fart tank, we could greatly reduce methane emissions which are right up there with carbon dioxide. The tank is attached with a tube through the cow’s stomach so that the methane goes right into the tank. Then, what do they do at the end of the day? Is there a storage idea for the gas or a use some mad scientist might have?
These are some extreme ideas and I really had fun reading through them. But, they lack focus on the problem at hand. There is nothing that can be fixed in one year or a couple of years that took us decades and centuries to produce. The reverse of the earth’s damage begins at the home with a commitment to recycle and reduce the amount of consumption of unrecyclable resources. Then, the next move is to the community to provide for greener industrial measures and convenient conservation solutions.
If each community provided local industries with assistance in finding more conservative methods for meeting consumer needs, we could greatly reduce the waste and discover viable solutions for disposal. If each community started to provide its residents with effective recycling incentives, it would cut down on the need for more and more landfills while significantly enhancing further community involvement. Finally, if each individual did one thing every day to recycle or conserve, it would reverse the massive strain being placed on our environment. It wouldn’t be too little too late. It would be just what the world needs.
Author: Jessica Brylan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Environment – The Problem
Facing a crisis is widespread civilization.
The search for a new paradigm of coexistence of a relationship with the Earth as pact of society to respect and preserve everything that exists has life. We must again have hope of solution, and only from this change makes sense to start thinking of alternatives. The symptoms of this crisis are reflected in all directions:
- Children are used as production workers for the world market; flagellates by many countries suffer the misery, with disease and hunger;
- The industry puts the fate of excluding the elderly pensioners and unemployed and the disregard of the culture of solidarity is powered by neoliberals praised the privatization of property, lack of hope for the establishment of societies culturally alienated and uprooted, living in hopes of miracle cures, the loss of a culture of sensitivity,
- Kindness, excess exposure to violence shown by the media without shame or scruple,
- The lack of morality policy, the acceptance of corruption, the illicit enrichment of politicians, - the lack of outrage and action of revolt, the carelessness with biodiversity, billions of years in knowledge accumulated by the development may disappear between our fingers, the disaffection of our Earth,
- The neglect in safeguarding their wealth and natural beauty, contaminated soil, water poisoned, dense air of pollution, destruction of native forests with all the home of the beings that inhabit.
A principle of self grows and tends to dominate the human mind as it seemed a normal way of thinking, capable of undermining the balance physical-chemical and ecological devastation to the planet’s biosphere, risking all sorts of living of the world.
Life is dated some millions or billions of years of evolutionary development, threatened by the more modern and ultimate creation. This lack of which it does not identify its sources or more are recognized with the elements that formed. (Lomborg, 2002)
According to Sachs (1993), the world population tends to double their number by the end of the twentieth century, therefore, is essential equitable development of human society to reduce social differences.
Because those who benefit from the unequal sharing of resources on a global scale have to cede a portion of the green space they occupy those who need.
Over years of destruction, environmental degradation and extraction of finite resources in an economic and developmental progress in accumulating wealth and unequal speed, causing climate change, threatening the habitability of the planet and the survival of the species with companies of double speed, e.g. uneven, creating real companies of apartheid.
Sachs notes that the vision is:
a) The transition to a socially equitable development and respectful of nature depends on the answers brought to the crisis of institutions which in varying degrees, affects the three groups of countries: the Eastern, the South and the North and the international system;
b) The future of developing countries depend on their ability to find effective settings of public and private sectors in order to regulate relations between the social and economic, on the one hand, and on the other, between the economic sphere and nature;
c) The prosperity, the North appears as a model, but not feasible to extend the entire planet, the amount of resources that society demands of consumption and the amount of waste it produces and disposal in nature, so your question is required for strategies transition to a more sustainable development on a planetary scale;
d) Economic growth is necessary but in no way sufficient to ensure the development, growth can support the development or real problem of poor development, which refers to the qualitative criteria. You can think about the technique of extensive growth for the intensive growth, e.g., we must oppose the idea of a civilization is the fair share of the take;
e) the needs are tangible and intangible, is ethical, political, social, cultural and economic, ensuring income, improving purchasing power, access to a parcel of arable land, or a social program of distribution;
f) the industrial civilization in the north and their replicas in the south are characterized by the enormous waste of land resources, which entails the destruction of capital nature. This waste, in a way, is a reserve of development, these resources saved through a more rational administration, could finance the social spending or investment, alongside highlighting renewable resources. The needs are to refocus the science and techniques to the priorities of development, within the rules of prudence ecological, recent biotechnological progress to develop a modern industrial civilization in the production of an increasingly wide range of industrial products interacting with the many losses environment;
g) from examples of successful eco development, we generalize this approach and establish, through an experiment on a larger scale, production systems designed along the lines of natural ecosystems and that meet the three fundamental principles: social equity, ecological prudence and economic efficiency.
Also for Sachs (1993), the primary task is to define global responsibilities of different groups of countries in establishing and driving the strategies of transition to the eco development. The greater effort must be made by the North, with a commitment to search for a sustainable development on a global scale, measured by three parameters: reduction of consumption of fossil fuels, changes in lifestyle wasted, wish to establish a mechanism that ensures a positive net flow of financial and technical resources from North to South, not the commercial viability of access to science and technology to developing countries.
Deep Ecology
The Deep Ecology proposed by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1973 serves as a response to the dominant view on the use of natural resources.
Arne Naess falls in the tradition of ecological-philosophical thought of Henry Thoreau, in Walden proposed, and Aldo Leopold, in his Ethics of the Earth.
Called Deep Ecology by showing a clear distinction against the dominant paradigm. And that all issues arising from the destruction are directly related to human development.
First, the desire to assume a more comfortable life pointed the obsolescence of cream man said “modern” in its ambitions to unravel the science that the drunk to the point of obscuring the various natural sacrifices dedicated to their discoveries and hide behind of their technologies (BOFF, 2004, p. 22).
Paraphrasing Boff (2004), we can say that it consumes much of nature to create the fastest processor ever seen, or to manufacture a machine that replaces the agricultural work of a thousand men.
The greed of human beings have for that is not content to live with it and sells enough to think that it is the right to do so by hiding the excuses of progress and development, and has more than , meets his state of possession of material goods in exchange for the destruction of the natural, which is beautiful, simple, but diverse.
The rapidly expanding population sum in this framework of greedy humans, who have no control over their proliferation on the area of the planet where you can achieve the natural factors of population control, for it is an act of survival, e.g. man overshadows their longevity, they are able to avoid most of the factors leading to fatalities, although many others before suffering fatal situations. Is therefore an exception to the natural biological control, the human being escapes the rules of nature to balance the number of living persons.
For Boff (2004), is known as its participation in the web of life, as you would ask how independent the puzzle of life here on Earth.
Life on Earth can exist without human beings, but man cannot live without other lives to feed and exchange matter and energy. The relationship between humans and other living beings land denouncing his great folly, to satisfy your obsolescence ultimately lead to extinction several species living or indirectly affect the path to achieve its objectives superfluous.
The contempt in which human beings have considered other forms of life on the planet shows a lack of understanding of thin line that maintains the natural balance, which also suggests that ignores the need for maintaining this balance to perpetuate the living conditions on Earth.
Author: Artur Victoria
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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