Those of you who received our February newsletter will have a discount code for 20% off when you buy online. If you are not already registered you can sign up for future newsletters here.
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Massive Misuse of Fresh Water: Why isn’t the Problem Being Addressed?
By Arjen Y. Hoekstra, author of The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society
Water pollution is normal. In China and Bangladesh it happens that the colour of the river shows which dye is being used in the clothes manufacturing industry. In the US, atrazine concentrations in groundwater reach beyond acceptable levels due to overuse of the pesticide in agriculture. Overconsumption of water is normal as well. In several places on Earth, groundwater levels drop at alarming levels, in some cases, like in Yemen, by one metre per year. Several rivers run dry before they flow into the sea; think of the Yellow River in China or the Colorado in the US.
For many of us, freshwater scarcity is something that occurs ‘elsewhere’. The problems, however, are closer to us than we may think. Our daily consumer goods are often imported from water-scarce places. The water consumption and pollution in remote places is ours. Take the UK, for instance. About 75% of the water footprint of UK consumers lies abroad. It’s in our own interest to make water use sustainable, not only nearby, but also elsewhere, because we depend on it.
The problems are not of today. Nevertheless, we haven’t found ways yet to properly address them. In my new book The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society, I propose three principles of wise water use and allocation. First, it will be vital that governments agree on water footprint caps for all river basins in the world, in order to ensure sustainable water use within each basin. A water footprint cap sets a maximum to the water volume that can be allocated to the various human purposes, accounting for environmental water needs. It also sets a maximum to pollution given the assimilation capacity of the basin. The total volume of ‘water footprint permits’ to specific users in a basin should remain below the maximum sustainable level. Water use in itself is not the problem, but not returning the water or not returning it clean is the problem. The water footprint measures exactly that: the consumptive water use and the volume of water polluted.
Second, we need to establish water footprint benchmarks for the most important water-intensive products, for example for food and beverage products, cotton, flowers and biofuels. The benchmark for a product will depend on the maximum reasonable water consumption in each step of the product’s supply chain. In this way, producers that use water, governments that allocate water and manufacturers, retailers and final consumers in the lower end of the supply chain, share information about what are ‘reasonable water footprints’ for various process steps and end products. When granting certain water footprint permits to specific users, it makes sense for governments to take into account the relevant water footprint benchmarks for the different users. Furthermore, governments should force companies to create greater product transparency, so that we will know what’s on our plate.
Third, we need to ensure equitable water use across communities. We need some common understanding of what makes the water footprint of a community of consumers fair or reasonably acceptable, given the limited maximum sustainable water footprint per global citizen. Consumers in the US and Southern Europe use nearly two times more water than the global average. We need a political debate at the international level about fair sharing of the world’s freshwater resources. Given UN population projections, the average water footprint per capita will have to decrease from 1,385 cubic metres in 2000 to 835 cubic metres in 2100 if we want to make sure that the water footprint of humanity as a whole will not increase over the coming century. If we assume an equal water footprint share for all global citizens, the challenge for countries like China and India is to reduce the current water footprint per capita level by about 22.5 per cent over the coming century. For a country like the USA, it means a reduction of the average water footprint per capita by about 70 per cent. Improved technologies alone will not be sufficient to reach this goal. We need to reconsider our consumption pattern as well. Taking a shorter shower will not be sufficient. Eating less meat, one of the big water users in our diet, will be a more effective step.
Summarizing, there are many river basins in the world in which our water footprint needs to be reduced substantially. That can be achieved by setting a water footprint cap per river basin, setting water footprint reductions targets for specific products and by changing consumption patterns so that they become less water intensive.
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The SIngapore Water Story, by Cecilia Tortajada, Yugal Joshi and Asit K. Biswas, is being launched at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore on World Water Day (22nd March 2013). For more information on this title please refer here.
Arjen Y. Hoekstra, author of new book The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society has written a special blog post for World Water Day. Read it now on Facebook or here on the Routledge website.
You can also access our journal articles along the themes of Water Education; Water Equality; Water Innovation; Water Policies and schemes; Water Quality; and Water Use FREE until the 31st March 2013 here.
For more information on World Water Day and information on how to take part please refer here.
]]>Every year in the January issue, Choice publishes a list of Outstanding Academic Titles that were reviewed during the previous calendar year. This prestigious list reflects the best in scholarly titles reviewed by Choice and brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community. Routledge would like to extend our congratulations to both Erich Hoyt, author of Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises and to John Roff and Mark Zacharias, authors of Marine Conservation Ecology. Please click here for the Choice review of Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises and here for the review of Marine Conservation Ecology.
For more information on Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles, please click here.
]]>RFF Press, an imprint of Routledge/Taylor & Francis, publishes pioneering research in environmental economics and natural resource policy.
RFF Press publications support the mission of Resources for the Future (RFF), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. RFF conducts independent research on environmental, energy, and natural resource issues and strives to improve environmental and natural resource policymaking worldwide. Since RFF's founding in 1952, the Press has developed a unique reputation for the rigor, balance, accessibility, and policy relevance of its publications.
]]>With a new entry every fortnight, blog posts written by various Earthscan from Routledge authors will be displayed both on the Routledge website and on our Facebook page here. Each post within Facebook will be open to comments so please feel free to voice your thoughts!
The Rise and Rise of Utility-Scale Solar Power
BY PHILIP WOLFE, author of Solar Photovoltaic Projects in the Mainstream Power Market
Solar power has long been seen as a small-scale, expensive and marginal contributor to the world’s electricity supplies. Many might therefore be surprised that utility-scale solar capacity grew by almost 60% in 2012 to over 9,000 megawatts, posting a third consecutive year of record growth (1). This was achieved despite declining subsidies in the major markets, and the recent – probably temporary – weakness in traditional energy costs.
So why has solar power become the fastest-growing energy source, not only for rooftop systems but also mainstream power supply? The main reason is dramatic continuing reduction in costs, which have fallen by half in less than two years.
The long-term trend in the price of traditional energy sources like oil and gas, conversely, is remorselessly upwards. This leads to a crossover – known in the industry as ‘grid parity’ – where solar power costs become cheaper than fossil fuels. Grid parity is much closer than most people realise; it is projected to roll across Europe over the next six years, and it has probably already been reached in locations with good sunlight levels and high energy costs.
The transition from a subsidised to a financially-driven market is broadening the geographic take-up of mainstream solar generation. Europe’s share of global new capacity fell to 50% for the first time in 2012. It is likely to be much lower in 2013, with several massive solar power stations of 300 to 800MW being built in the South-Western United States. Growth in Asia is also dynamic, particularly in India and China, and take-up is accelerating in South America and Africa.
The smart money is already anticipating the viability of utility-scale solar generation. Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy made several acquisitions in the sector in 2012, ending the year as the world’s seventh largest owner of utility-scale solar power stations. Its project pipeline could take it to number one by 2015, based on developments announced to date.
The traditional utilities, by contrast, have mostly been slow entrants to the solar power sector. Only in France and Japan do they control 50% or more of this capacity. About 15% of US and Canadian solar stations are held by utilities, and the percentage in other countries is no more than 5%. This may change once they realise the contribution that solar generation is likely to make. I talked last year to a senior manager at one of California’s largest utilities, who was initially unfamiliar with the term ‘grid parity’. Having explained their reverse auction mechanism for buying both green and traditional ‘brown’ power, he noted with some surprise that solar power was now often offered at prices not dissimilar to fossil-fuelled electricity. “That’s grid parity” I told him.
Solar power has a unique ability to continue down the cost learning curve. The main constituents of solar power plants are the solar cells which convert light into electricity. Like other semiconductors these get ever cheaper as production volumes increase, with a so-called ‘progress ratio’ of 82% – in other words the cost reduces by 82% for every two-fold increase in the cumulative installed capacity.
Combine this with an almost universal fuel source – daylight – and a benign environmental impact and it seems inevitable that solar energy will become the world’s dominant energy source within our lifetime.
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]]>With a new entry every fortnight, blog posts written by various Earthscan from Routledge authors will be displayed both on the Routledge website and on our Facebook page here. Each post within Facebook will be open to comments so please feel free to voice your thoughts!
Human Dependence on Nature
BY HAYDN WASHINGTON, author of Human Dependence on Nature
I think we need to talk about something obvious - that humanity is dependent on Nature to survive. Yet our society largely acts as if this is not so. We ignore or deny that our roots lie in the Earth. Thereby hangs a tale. How do we depend on Nature and why do we deny or ignore this dependency? This is worth digging deeper into.
The energy that powers our very cells, the nutrients that make up our bodies, the ecosystem services that clean our water and air, these are all provided by the Nature from which we evolved and of which we are a part. Yet this is the same Nature that our numbers and technology are impacting on to such a degree that extinction rates are 1000 times above normal, ecosystems are degrading and collapsing, and we have an ecological footprint of 1.5 Earths. Yet the truth is we only have one Earth.
We depend on Nature in many ways - physical, biological, ecological, psychological and spiritual. Obvious it may be to some of us, yet paradoxically as societies we tend to deny these dependencies. There is a deep, insidious and common tendency to anthropocentrism within our society, a worldview that has been distributed by globalisation. It seems that humanity is running around, effectively yelling ‘Me! Me! Me!’. Yet we are not the only species on Earth, and I argue we have a deep and abiding responsibility to our evolved cousins.
I finish up in my book by playing devil’s advocate and asking ‘Do we have a problem?’. I do this as many people seem happy to delude themselves that everything is ‘just fine’. I think we have to accept the grim reality that we face. However, at the same time, it is not all about ‘doom and gloom’. Fear is actually not a good motivator to action, as people freeze up and turn their minds to other things. So we need to provide a vision of a ‘Great Work’ of Earth repair (as theologian Thomas Berry espoused). We need to provide a framework for solutions to help solve the environmental crisis. Key to all of these however is accepting we have a problem and facing up to it! We can solve the environmental crisis if we accept we have one.
Now I did not write my book written for academics, but for the educated layperson who is interested (and worried) about what we are doing to the world. I try to show how we can break through the denial of our dependency on the Earth, and rather accept and celebrate this, and thus help solve the environmental crisis. We have a dependency, a deep connection and a responsibility to the Nature we share this world with and evolved from. Let’s celebrate our wondrous heritage and make sure future generations will be able to do this too!
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Those of you who received our February newsletter will have a discount code for 20% off when you buy online. If you are not already registered you can sign up for future newsletters here.
With a new entry every fortnight, blog posts written by various Earthscan from Routledge authors will be displayed both on the Routledge website and on our Facebook page here. Each post within Facebook will be open to comments so please feel free to join in with the conversation.
HORSE BURGERS AND HEADLESS CHICKENS
BY JOHN WEBSTER, author of Animal Husbandry Regained: The Place of Farm Animals in Sustainable Agriculture
Our latest food scandal, the discovery of horsemeat in processed foods ranging from burgers to lasagne, has stirred up a media storm; a melange of justified anger and irrational fear, cries for effective action and the hunt for sacrificial scapegoats. The essentials are as follows. It is legal in Europe to shoot and butcher horses for human consumption, although not if they have been treated with certain drugs, including phenylbutazone (“Bute”). There are standards for what may and may not be included in processed foods like sausages and burgers. In the UK this does not include horsemeat - on grounds of culture rather than public health: the horse is our friend. Moreover we have the right to know what we are eating. The illicit substitution of horse for beef in processed meat products is international fraud on a massive scale, the guilty parties should be punished and the strongest measures taken to minimise future risk. The multinational trade in industrialised meat products has undoubtedly increased these risks, which greatly strengthens the case for buying from your local butcher who can guarantee the provenance of his meat. However improved surveillance methods (e.g. DNA-based analysis) have greatly increased our chances of catching the criminals. Many of us will, in the past, have enjoyed a variety of tasty meat dishes in blissful ignorance that they contained remnants of horse.
All this may be taken as read. My concern is with the shriller and sillier suggestions now riding the wave of media concern, These range from advice to eat only “whole” meat, like joints and steaks, to the command that we should all become vegetarian. Viewed in terms of Earthscan or planet husbandry, both are emotional outbursts that shout down reason. The farming of animals for food in the form of meat and dairy products (and clothing and traction and fuel) did not evolve in the last 50 years to provide luxuries for a niche market but has always been an essential element of sustainable mixed agriculture. Traditionally the grazing animals harvested food (like grass) the farmer could not digest from land he did not own, the pigs and chickens scavenged food his family dropped or threw away. The aim was self-sufficiency and sustainability based on the best use of all resources and minimising waste. Modern industrialised agriculture has become unsustainable because of its profligate use of water and fossil fuels and its destruction of soils. Intensive livestock farming, especially the intensive fattening of beef cattle on grain and soya, is the worst example of wasting land, food and other resources that could be put to better purposes. However, food from animals does not have to be wasteful if the animals of today, like the animals of the past, are given food that we choose not to eat or cannot digest: food that is complementary rather than competitive. In Somerset, where I live, dairy cows in pastoral systems receive over 70% of their rations in the form of complementary food and produce about 50% more food directly available for human consumption as milk, cheese (etc) than they consume. This makes them very valuable creatures indeed (although seriously overworked).
The suggestion that we should avoid processed meats is wrong-headed because it is profligate. Meat processing, done properly, is a good thing because it minimises waste. Dishes ranging from sausages to faggots and haggis, from known and trusted sources, should contribute to the diet of all ethical omnivores. The traditional cottager made the worthy claim to harvest every bit of the pig but the squeak.
The cry that we should all become vegetarians is equally unsustainable in terms of planet husbandry. Each individual has the right to be vegetarian and nearly all affluent omnivores should eat less of food of animal origin, both for our own health and for that of the planet. However the call to abolish animal farming altogether ignores the fact that grazing lands make up about 70% of the world’s agricultural area. Well managed, this land is vital to the sustainability of the planet, in terms of water management, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and amenity. The husbandry of animals to provide food and other resources is essential to the husbandry of this land. It is however a big mistake to assume that this land can be sustained simply from the sale of meat. The other big mistake is to deny those who manage the land the right to obtain income from their animals. Food production from animals is an integral part of sustainable agriculture (it is an essential element of organic farming). The trick is to reward the sustainable management of land in a way that recognises the importance of the food animals but not in such a way that income from the sale of food comes to dominate everything else.
Of course, to achieve this, we should all eat less meat.
]]>The Climate Bonus
BY ALISON SMITH, author of the new book, The Climate Bonus: Co-benefits of Climate Policy
A few small steps towards a global climate agreement were taken at Doha, but progress is painfully slow. We need to cut emissions much faster, but we are held back by the widespread fear that climate action is a costly burden on society. Yet this need not be the case: well-planned climate action can provide a wide range of valuable co-benefits, from cleaner air to safer and more secure energy. This ‘Climate Bonus’ can provide a much stronger motivation for climate action than the threat of climate change alone.
One of the greatest co-benefits is clean air. Air pollution kills millions of people each year, yet this could be drastically reduced by cutting our use of fossil fuels. Halving global greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 to 2050 could also cut premature deaths from exposure to particle pollution by 42%, avoiding more than 5 million early deaths per year by 2050. This will yield massive financial savings by cutting lost working time and the cost of hospital treatment for conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, heart disease and cancer.
Two-thirds of all attributable deaths – 21 million deaths per year – are due to lack of exercise and unhealthy diets, so low-carbon lifestyles - walking and cycling instead of driving, and cutting over-consumption of meat and dairy produce - could save even more lives than cleaner air. More controversially, a low-consumption ‘buy-less, work-less’ lifestyle can also improve health and well-being by reducing stress levels and giving more time for family, friends and leisure activities.
Using energy and materials more efficiently – for example by installing insulation, recycling materials, reusing goods and avoiding waste - not only cuts carbon emissions but also reduces other forms of environmental damage, such as pollution and landscape damage from extracting and processing fossil fuels and metal ores. At the same time, cutting waste can save money for consumers and make businesses more profitable, as well as reducing the huge amount of waste we throw into unsightly landfill sites. And with oil prices soaring as conventional oil reserves dwindle, forcing reliance on dirtier and riskier sources such as tar sands, deepwater and arctic oil, home-grown renewable energy can help to provide safer, cleaner and more secure energy for the future.
Although opponents of climate policy often claim it is a job-killer, most studies show that new low-carbon jobs in areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and recycling would outweigh those lost in high-carbon industries such as fossil fuel production, mining and metal smelting. And with the increasing scarcity of many vital resources such as rare metals, phosphorous, water and fertile land, a resource-efficient economy will be stronger and more prosperous in the long term.
Climate policy can also help to preserve our vanishing tropical forests, through forest carbon payment schemes where landowners are paid for the carbon stored in trees. This has multiple benefits: as well as safeguarding biodiversity, forests also reduce the risk of floods and landslides; protect local water supplies; supply fuel, fruit and timber to local people (provided that it is harvested sustainably) and provide beautiful places for recreation. Climate-smart agriculture also provides co-benefits: reducing the over-application of fertilisers, for example, not only cuts emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, but also cuts air and water pollution and saves money for farmers.
By carefully designing climate policy to maximise these co-benefits, and to minimise any conflicts (for example by sensitive siting of wind turbines, and enforcing safeguards to ensure that biofuel production is sustainable), we can turn the threat of climate change to our advantage, by using it as a stimulus to move to a cleaner, safer, healthier and more prosperous society.
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The new Earthscan Series on Sustainable Design
BY STEFFEN LEHMANN, series editor of the new Earthscan Series on Sustainable Design.
I am pleased to introduce the new Earthscan Series on Sustainable Design, which I am editing. The first two titles are Designing for Zero Waste (2012) and Motivating Change (forthcoming in 2013), both of which I have co-edited with Dr Robert Crocker. The next volume will be Low Carbon Cities (currently in production).
All books in this series are authored and edited by leading academics and practitioners in the field of sustainable design. Although there has been an immense amount of theory- and technology-focused writing published on the topic of sustainable design, many of these books have failed to introduce readers to the wider challenge of what the rethinking of design, production, and operation and re-use/recycling of all products, buildings and cities really means. Sustainability is not a passing fashion, and people are constantly searching for more reliable information and relevant ideas, and thinking of emerging systems in this area.
The Earthscan series aims to develop a theoretical framework for how different theories of sustainable design might engage with the practice of architects, designers, urban planners and related professions. The books equip readers with the tools for realising the full potential of the good intentions of sustainable design and offer a novel alignment of interdisciplinary perspectives on the problems of global consumerism and strategies to avoid resource waste.
The books in this series will be essential reading for professionals and students, researchers and experts, industry and government agencies, and are a highly useful addition to the literature, focusing on key topics in sustainable design, urban development and city transformation.
One of the issues explored is the question: how can we move towards environmentally sustainable design and reduced consumption quickly enough? There have been dire warnings about the implications of global climate change and a strain on the full range of resources from fuel to food. But there is neither regulations nor political will to make the changes to meet the growing challenges for urban communities for the next 20 years and beyond.
How much longer can we sustain the high-consumption lifestyle we are used to? To get the full picture on consumerism and over-consumption, we need to understand interconnected global systems of production and consumption. We hope to embed notions of sustainable consumption with architects, designers and urban planners, who all face different challenges depending on where they are in the world.
Choosing sustainable building materials and systems goes beyond considering durability. We need to take lifecycle analysis and supply chain into account, and specify the most appropriate materials for a project – the least polluting, most easily recyclable, most energy efficient (least embodied energy) – from sustainable sources. We need to refocus on avoiding waste creation in the first place and rethink the way we design and construct products, buildings and cities to facilitate re-use and disassembly at their end of life.
This change of focus makes the concept of zero waste both powerful and controversial. From a purely economic point of view, producing waste is unproductive. But reversing the existing, wasteful business system and manufacturing practices is not a fast, easy or cheap process. If we can begin at the beginning and design waste out of the picture, we can recover not only the final product, but also the energy, materials and time embodied in the product or building.
The zero waste ethos is a big call – radical in its ramifications – and it requires more than a top-down, government-imposed approach. To be successful, zero waste needs to be embraced and implemented by citizens, community groups, business and industry. It is already technologically possible to build a zero-waste and zero-carbon-emission city.
The question is: are we willing to transform from consumers into citizens?
Professor Steffen Lehmann, PhD, is the series editor of the Earthscan Series on Sustainable Design and an internationally highly respected architect, urbanist and scholar. Steffen is currently professor of Sustainable Design at the University of South Australia, where he is also director of the Zero Waste Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour and director of the China−Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development. See more on Steffen’s work at: slab.com.au.
