President Obama recently knocked down a proposal to create an oil pipeline that shortcuts already existing lines and injects more fossil fuel into a country that seems to desire being stuck in a rut, even if that rut terminates at a cliff.  Chances are the proposal will be resubmitted, the environmental impact statement finalized and likely downplayed, and construction eventually granted.  That would bring about 830,000 barrels of oil into the United States daily.  That would bring more fuel into the United States so that SUVs can sit and idle in the shopping center parking lot at 0 MPG.

Oil spills have been on the rise over the past decade.  There is 2.5 million miles of infrastructure to gather, transmit, and distribute oil and natural gas.  According to a 2001 study of oil spills, pipelines are the source of more spills than barges and tankers combined.  While the rate of spillage has reduced, spills in the future are likely due to aging infrastructure.  When the paper was written, 46% of the pipeline infrastructure was already three decades old, and 16% have been in place for half a century.  (Keep in mind this study is over a decade old.)  Do we build new pipelines while precariously ignoring old infrastructure?  Spills throughout the oil industry in the US are ubiquitous.  See a Current Spill Map.

Electricity.  We really like our electricity.  We really like being able to keep the television on while we vacuum the carpet.  Meanwhile, the microwave is cooking food in the kitchen while the monstrous fridge works to offset the heat of the stove positioned right next to it.  The sunray-blocking drapes are closed and the lights are on.  Is anybody home??  While we could all learn a lesson on energy conservation in the United States, transmitting electricity is also not particularly efficient.  Electricity is usually generated miles away from its market, although cannot be easily stored.  And with expansive grids, transmission losses are often estimated to be between 5-7%.  Generating electricity on a large-scale, far from customers is rather inefficient, even for  solar power.  However, solar power is an alternative that can be produced on home and commercial roofs, on terraces, on cars, on pavement, in windows, etc.  Despite many common reservations and misconceptions, photovoltaic technology is amazing and quickly evolving.   A home or institution tied to a grid that allows net-metering can resell excess generated energy or take in grid energy when home-power isn’t enough.

Instead of looking ahead to building more pipelines, more infrastructure, more coal power plants, more oil rigs, why don’t we seriously revisit our existing infrastructure?  Surely replacing and improving existing oil and natural gas pipelines will create jobs while appealing to those with environmental concerns.  A steady transition from central, transmission-intensive electricity generation to micro-generation on-site is also important.  Local resources could be used, including wind, solar, and geothermal, in concert with contemporary electricity generation over a smart grid with net-metering.

An underlying theme in all this is energy responsibility.  At this age, we’re aware of our inefficiencies, and we’re aware that in the United States we consume A LOT of energy on a lot of things.  There are so many things we can do in an effort to conserve energy and our resources.  However, that’s for another day on the soap box.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” ~John Muir

Mr. Muir eloquently puts into words what I hope to instill into the minds of our afflicted, conflicted, and misunderstanding friends on this planet.  Every action is not without consequence; inaction is not without consequence either.   Our decisions to alter the natural construct always has immediate and long-term, foreseen and unpredictable costs and benefits.

Quite literally, when I pick out a tree root from the ground, I find it hitched to the soil, itself a conglomerate of minerals, moisture, air, microscopic life, and organic material hitched to each other so variously and intricately.  The roots hold the tree fast to the ground, the ground is held fast from erosion, and the nearby stream is not choked with eroded sediment but littered with nutritious detritus (fallen leaves) and teeming with aquatic life.  The roots are connected to the tree trunk, a massive pump that provides life-sustaining water and nutrients throughout the tree.  The hollows in the trunk provide habitat.  The decaying limbs on the ground serve as nourishment for fungi, insects, and understory flora.  The branches still hitched to the trunk are themselves hitched to the leaves.  The leaves are sturdy little solar panels and atmospheric air conditioners; they bring in energy, regulate temperature, and provide shade to underlying leaves.  The tree’s crown greets the wind and stirs it about or calms it; the tree is connected to the microclimate.  The tree joins with countless woody and herbaceous brethren to contribute to the biosphere.  The flora-sphere fuels the fauna-sphere.  The fungi-sphere patiently waits to cycle the biosphere.  The biosphere interconnects with atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.  The Earth itself is bound gravitationally to the Sun, and is indebted to its solar fuel for almost all activity on Earth.

My undergraduate degree encompassed environmental science, political science, and a bit of economics.  The emphasis was Sustainability.  As a result, I tend to evaluate debated issues from multiple perspectives.  After all, life is interdisciplinary; we cannot hide in only one school of thinking, be it the business school, the science building, or the social science department.

If we take the universe, to which we are hitched,  into consideration for more decisions, we just might begin to make sustainable progress.

I gave this presentation to fellow college students during an Earth Day event. I’ve followed the advice and example of several folks at ecomodder.com, who have taught me how to improve my fuel economy in my Pontiac Vibe.

I am able to do so by first, “Adjusting the nut behind the wheel,” by just changing my driving habits. I am much more patient, much more aware of my surroundings, and able to squeeze MPGs by coasting (in gear) as much as possible.

Next, I’ve added instrumentation to track my progress (ScanGauge). By knowing my average and instantaneous fuel economy readings, along with other information like coolant temp and intake air temp, I am able to adjust my driving style on the fly to garner more MPGs.

Finally, I’ve slightly modified my vehicle for greater efficiency.  See the presentation for more information on “Ecomodding.”

Before visiting the site, I averaged 28.5 MPG hwy/city combined and ranging from 28 to 33 in city and on the highway, respectively. Now, my fuel economy ranges from 30 to 38 for city/hwy. For all fillups recorded since mid 2010, I am averaging 33+ mpg on a fairly regular basis.  (Sure, it would be better not to drive at all, however that is simply not an option in the Midwest.)

If you decide to visit ecomodder.com or similar sites like cleanmpg.com, check through their exhaustive lists of tips.  If you have questions, take them to the forums and join scores of people seeking to reduce their fuel consumption and save money in the process.

Where there is economic development, there is usually natural destruction.  One is sacrificed for the other in the name of “Progress.”  Progress includes stripping mountains of their mountaintops, relieving forests of their leafy blankets, replacing verdant prairie with monocultured agriculture, replacing cropland with shiny-10mpg-SUV-ridden suburbia, encapsulating our ‘trash’ in tombs that rival the massive, ancient Pyramids of Giza, choking our once pristine waterways with effluent, trash, and sediment eroded from our denuded stream banks, browning and blackening our air, poisoning and exploiting our worldly neighbors. Progress includes urbanizing, shutting out, ignoring, destroying, breaking, burning. (I recall the Ent’s rant from Lord of the Rings.)

Look in the mirror. What do you see?

Instead, visualize a metropolitan area that has aggressively striven to become a verdant, sustainable and self-sufficient city.  A walk down main street is a pleasure, not a chore.  Old buildings have been LEED restored, and are teeming with activity again.  Building facades are checkered with superinsulated solar windows and trellis-twining vine green walls.  Looking up, roofs are home to plants, solar panels, and helical wind turbines. The sidewalk under your feet appears unusual;  porous pavement, which reduces stormwater runoff and flooding, and also increases uptake by the street trees along your path.

You come to an intersection and find not a wedge of concrete or non-native landscaping but an urban garden.  Some backpacks lay at the edge of the garden.  Some children are tending to their crops.  They seem excited about the plants they’ve learned about, the seeds they’ve planted, the plants they’ve watched grow, and the food they get to bring home.  As they scamper home with a couple ripe vegetables, you turn back to the intersection.  Instead of a complicated and fuel-wasting traffic light system, a traffic circle greets oncoming motorists.  As traffic rolls smoothly about this round about, you look closely to the center circle.  Instead of a cement-curbed impervious surface, a rain garden adorns this traffic circle.  The native grasses, forbs, and shrubs, wait patiently for the next rain.  They and their high-retention growing media will gladly accept stormwater runoff.

You follow the street to the bus stop, which is adorned by solar panels to generate electricity and provide shelter as you sit at the bench.  A few minutes pass and the bus quietly pulls up.  Fueled by an alternative energy, it doesn’t spew exhaust in your face as you get on.  Going up the steps you see roof reinforcements in the bus.  An information board shows you pictures of this bus’s extensive green roof.  Drought-tolerant stonecrops wait patiently on the bus roof for the next rain, while providing even more greenery for residents looking down from multi-story buildings.  The roof reinforcements ensure structural integrity, even under the full load of saturated growing media and plants during rain events.

You look out the window as the bus enters the highway.  You are not in a claustrophobic corridor of asphalt lanes and concrete barrier walls.  Where possible, the pavement has been painted with electricity-generating nano-solar cells.  The barrier walls that attempt to block displeasing sounds and sights for nearby residences are made more effective with coverings of ivy facades and living walls of other plants.  As the bus rounds the side of a hill, even the retaining walls facilitate vegetation with pockets filled with growing media.

Finally you arrive home after walking a couple blocks from your bus stop.  It is dusk and as you approach your yard, the solar-powered LED street lights come on.  You stop and admire your short-grass prairie lawn.  The buffalo grass might need to be mowed once or twice this year, no rush.  Your flower garden along your home is vibrant with native flowers.  You decide to wait until tomorrow to water the drought-tolerant, climate-adjusted flowers with water from the rain barrel at the foot of your gutter.  Your roof also supports an extensive green roof system.  Succulents and grasses thrive up there.  The system retains stormwater, or at least detains it in larger storms.  The stormwater the roof cannot hold goes down the gutters toward the rain barrel or toward your backyard rain garden.  Even if that isn’t enough, the excess outflow from the rain garden passes through a grass swale before finally, what’s left of the runoff is received by the stormsewer.

You are eager to disconnect your stormwater flows from the sewer whenever possible.  The risk of the stormwater inundating sanitary sewers would mean combined sewer overflows into waterways.  Your favorite fishing spot would no longer be favorable.  The greenery throughout your city provides stormwater benefits, thermal benefits for the building and microclimate, efficiency boosts for photovoltaics, aesthetically pleasing views, sound dampening, to name a few. 

Green roofs, green walls, rain gardens, public gardens, etc. provide sanctuary to otherwise nature-deficient city dwellers.  Reusing and revitalizing abandoned areas is important. Incorporating safe, useful public transit is important. Educating children that the outdoors are to be explored is important; to learn to dismiss the overbearing fears of a wild nature, the risk of playing outdoors, the intangible but strong grasp of liability (sue-happy society)…is IMPORTANT. We must mitigate suburban and exurban sprawl and revitalize what we already have. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Three words more powerful than faint arrows on a pop bottle.

There is nothing natural about an urban setting. That said, 7 billion people need to live SOMEWHERE. Perhaps we will realize the necessity of understanding the principles of sustainability and that  we should be stewards of God’s Creation, not robbers of its bounty.

The trail is quiet. God’s Creation is often best enjoyed in solitude. Only birds join me on my walk. Some sparrows, cardinals and robins actively scamper about, chirping loudly. A cardinal watches me. I am a curious spectacle on such a cold day. I walk on. The forest floor is littered with fallen leaves, dormant grass, and fallen tree limbs. Some lively green grass and moss and lichen add a splash of color to an otherwise simple landscape. The red twigs of sleeping Acer rubrum also stand out.

I walk on. The trees about me sway ever-so gently. A few ragged leaves still cling to their warm-weather homes, on the branches of oaks and maples. In the midst of so many trees, the blotched-white trunk of the sycamore stands out like a sylvan beacon.  It is cold, but not windy. It is the calm before the next snow storm. More snow will soon join the remnant white dusting that still hides in the shadows of the forest.

I find myself at a clearing with the sun to my face. In the frigid cold, the distant eternal fire warms my chest. I stand for several minutes staring into the tall grass, mesmerized by the thousands of minuscule movements as each gentle breeze blows by. The trees behind me also nod to the breezy passerby. The view above me is consumed by a cool blue ceiling, with only a few gleaming white clouds. The foreboding snow-storm front slowly approaches on the distant horizon.

I begin my trek back; my back now garners the warming attention of the sky-fire. I unsuccessfully pursue my shadow back into the forest. Every tree, bush and vine, cast cool shadows on my back as I hike on. A lone bluejay has discovered me and saw fit to alert the area.   As a more forceful breeze brushed me by, I made my exit from this winter wonder land.

Yes, coal creates jobs. lobbyist jobs. marketing jobs. mountain demolition jobs. mining jobs. home and town construction jobs, mine-induced healthcare jobs, secondary exposure healthcare jobs, cancer screening and clinical jobs, environmental health jobs, water quality specialist jobs, aquatic ecotoxicology jobs, remediation and restoration jobs, coal burning jobs, air quality jobs, environmental injustice placement of power plants jobs, carbon sequestration jobs, climatologist jobs, “clean coal” promotion jobs, EPA coal regulation jobs, scrubber jobs, EPA coal deregulation lobbying jobs, coal subsidy lobbying jobs, renewable energy subsidy opposing jobs, “October Sky” jobs.

So, a student often finds the teachings of core classes, especially those outside his or her discipline, as unnecessary to retain. But therein lies the problem. Ultra-specialism is vital to real progress in prominent and up-and-coming fields. However, no knowledge or little interest in anything else is dangerous to society and precarious for the individual’s ability to function during adverse situations.

While I believe that the core curriculum is just and beneficial, I offer a course option that further validates core education. Moreover, this course is exemplary of the interdisciplinary nature of life. Sustainability is a strong link between ecology, economics, and social equity (involving political science). Sustainability is the conservation of all resources so that those resources aren’t jeopardized for future generations. Consequently, colleges and universities would do well to incorporate a lower-level sustainability course to mitigate any disinterest in core curriculum.

Sustainability education produces considerate and well-rounded individuals; the three entwined disciplines provide exposure to diverse viewpoints but similar goals. Sustainability education could be integrated into three courses already required (i.e. Biology, Economics, and Political Science). Otherwise, the core concepts could be emphasized in a single team-taught course. Ecologists, economists, and political scientists don’t always see eye to eye, but quite frequently, and not by chance, their inclinations are related. The experience alone of team-teaching is enriching, and I believe that entry-level college students would find a multi-voiced sustainability course highly rewarding.

Although sustainability is generally comprised of three disciplines, it also supplements education, a fourth field. While environmental education is an exploding field, any educator could utilize sustainability concepts in the classroom. The phrase, “Think globally, act locally” insinuates that if people live, learn, and act locally, not only will they become stewards of their communities environmentally, economically, and ethically, but also they will have benefited the world. People would learn principles based on local economic, environmental, or political examples. Placing education in the mix with the other three disciplines makes sustainability a promising option as a required course.

For those seeking more, Advanced Sustainability could be offered as an optional capstone course. While generally appealing to the four fields inherent to sustainability, other seniors would be welcome to take this upper division course. At this level, text book information could be supplemented by novels, educational trips, team projects, as well as flaring debates. The key is students will tie their major back into the comprehensive picture. As an added benefit, students may network more successfully in multiple fields.

Overall, though, fundamentals of sustainability would benefit the minds of future business leaders, economists, political scientists, politicians, educators, artists, musicians, writers, caretakers, scientists, etc. This interdisciplinary approach to core-teaching really will produce attentive and well-rounded citizens.