Author Archives: Justin Aguirre

3 sustainable initiatives

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3 ways that I contribute to sustainable initiatives daily is:

1. Through sustainable water bottle use

2. Using thrift, gift, or hand-me-down clothing

3. Using the search engine Ecosia

A few specs that I found on the amount of water thrifting saves on one shirt: 710 gallons of water per shirt thrifted according to stacker.com who uses the census statistics and bureau of labor statistics as their sources. According to the water bottle filling station nearest my dorm, our floor has saved 12000 plastic water bottles. Ecosia reports that it uses all of its revenue from donations and searches approx. € 2.2 million towards restoring land in Brazil, Burkina Faso, and Indonesia since 2009.
By developing Ecosia into a more robust search engine with quicker and more accurate results sustainable initiatives at least from a conservation and restoration perspective can grow exponentially if larger browsing companies absorb and utilize the infrastructure and their profits accordingly

Social problems of a greater magnitude

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The social problems described in my classmates’ posts ranging from but not limited to food insecurity, US incarceration rates, and unequal access to education may be a symptom of an arguably widening and bigger issue in the US not unrelated to sustainability and social justice topics. According to a Pew Research study published in February ’22, since 2007 earnings for middling workers in the US have remained stagnant while in that same time frame the wealth of upper-income families has exploded by about $200,000 give or take measured in 2018 median dollars. Simply put income inequality in the US is widening and one hedge fund worker and now author Kathy O’Neil in her book Weapons of Math Destruction argues that as we progress into the information age technology can produce some potential negative externalities for low-income people one of them being an over-policing of low-income neighborhoods. This tendency increases the initial chance of people living in these communities ending up in jail for first-time offenses, but she also adds that the recidivism rate, that is the tendency to go back, increases too. Additionally, these are the same communities that often face food insecurity, unstable employment, and unequal access to education at least from a statistical standpoint and perhaps sometimes a very real standpoint in the aggregate. I think from this standpoint we can ask ourselves what types of opportunities does technology offer us middle-class folk that we can use to increase the overall value of our society from top to bottom(monetary, agriculturally, etc.), and what necessary but difficult changes must we adopt to prevent divisive ideologies from distracting from the main focus of our society’s goal to survive and thrive.

Sustainable Farming Techniques and increasing agricultural efficiencies in less environmentally endowed countries

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One aspect of sustainability that is not as significant as perhaps it should be in the modern conversation about climate change as recycling, or solar and wind energy is the idea of agricultural efficiency. Data from 1991 to 2017 compared the output per worker in agricultural industries by country and found that sub-Saharan Africa is in comparison to European nations, and Asian nations less efficient at producing food. In constant 2010 dollars, the Congo put out $947 dollars and Tanzania put out $675 of agricultural output in the year 2017 and in comparison to Denmark and the UK each put out around $50 to $60000. That means that for every hectare of land in the UK approximately 7 tons of cereal(wheat, rice, barley etc.) was produced in comparison to sub-saharan Africa which produced about 1.6 tons of cereal per hectare of land. In Europe, since 1980 according to Our World in Data, the continent has been able to increase crop yields while maintaining on approximately 132 million hectares of land increasing their yields from that year to 2019 by 132% whereas in comparison Africa has increased their land use from 48 to 112 million hectares while their yield has increased .4 ton basis points from 1980-2019. While this data may not be surprising, it is an alarming statistic since Africa’s (across the entire continent) population is the fastest-growing population in the world with the least amount of educational attainment opportunities internally and the least productive population perhaps in a global comparative manner of analysis. Internally, some African nations like South Africa and Nigeria have been able to triple their agricultural GDP in this same time period. From these statistics, it’s clear that Africa is in an early period of classical growth so when thinking about how wealthier countries should consider their impact on less-developed nations, they should continue to work to improve to share technology and work to benefit not only the endogenous growth of their people but so too improve perhaps the environmental capabilities of certain regions as a byproduct of the positive externalities discovered by some nations.

Sources utilized:

https://ourworldindata.org/africa-yields-problem

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agriculture-value-added-per-worker-wdi?tab=chart&time=1991..latest&country=ZAF~NGA

https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=Republic-of-Congo-Agricultural-Sector#:~:text=The%20Republic%20of%20Congo’s%20agricultural,gross%20domestic%20product%20(GDP).

https://statisticstimes.com/demographics/continents-by-population.php#:~:text=Middle%20Africa%20has%20highest%20rate,growing%20continent%20Oceania%20(1.27%25).

Metal+Glass Recycling in the USA

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Using a similar set of statistics as some of my peers, I thought about the topic of sustainability, and so a question I asked myself is: what’s in my environment that I can potentially reuse. Two types of material I come to find I use often include: glass especially when I think of my phone, what I use to drink, windows etc. The second one I often use is metal whether that be my phone, my car, my speaker etc. From 1960-2018, the epa estimates that the total change in glass recycling amounted to approximately: 2,960,000 tons. In that same time stretch, total change in the amount of metal recycled amounted to 8,670,000 tons. The growth factor for glass was about 30.6 and for metal it was about 174.4. The Percentage Change for glass is then: 3060% and for metals it was 17440%. When calculating the rate of change for glass: 2.96 x 10^6/58= 51034.48 tons more of glass was recycled per year and for metals it was: 8.76 x 10^6/58= 151034.48 tons more of metal recycled per year. 

Glass recycling on the surface may sound like a good idea, but I decided to dig a little deeper into the materials recycling controversy surrounding its overall utility. According to various websites disputing the overall eco-friendliness of the material, glass is “endlessly” recyclable yet bottles/jars etc. require more energy to manufacture and then recycle and process into sand or reprocess into reusable glass than it takes to reuse plastic. However, plastics’ lifetime utility decreases after a few years whereas glass according to some websites is repeatedly reusable. According to one source, for 10% of broken down glass getting recycled (per year) total energy costs to break it down reduces by 3%. This controversy makes me reevaluate the short-term and long term impacts, in other words, the opportunity cost not just on the good itself, but the lifetime impact of the consumption of the good and its future ramifications on an interconnected issue like carbon emissions.

Works cited: 

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials#composting

https://earth.org/glass-bottles-environmental-impact/

https://www.britglass.org.uk/our-work/recycling

https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recycling-US-broken/97/i6

https://earth911.com/business-policy/how-many-times-recycled/

Goats, Sprinklers, Union College

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  • One example of livestock that uses water: Goats consume: 3 gallons/ 1 day x 365 days/1 year x .0038 tonnes/ 1 gallon= 4.161 tonnes/ year per goat
  • If a typical gardener uses a sprinkler gushing 12,240 gallons/ 1 monthly x .0038 tonnes/ 1 gallon x 1 year / 12 months= the Gardner will use 3.876 tonnes / year 
  • Water waste could be reduced by doing laundry more infrequently (each load requires about 12.5-19.6 gallons per load depending on the washer and according to prudentreviews.com), adding timers to sprinkler systems (where according to bigsprinkler.com it takes 27,000 gallons to irrigate 1 acre of land) and especially by eating less beef which according to denverwater.org requires 1,847 gallons of water to produce.
  • Bottled water is a matter of convenience and one of appealing marketing. Our susceptibility to innovative marketing techniques makes us prone to consuming water-on-the-go. To estimate the student consumption of bottled water, assuming no student is using the hydration stations and only acquiring water from bottled water the following “ideal” situation may arise:
  • There are 2050 students at Union, 47% women, 53% men
  • 3.7 L/day per man x 1 gallon/3.785 L x 365 days/year = 356.80317 gallons per year per man
  • 1086 men at Union
  • Approx. 387,488.243 gallons per year per Union men
  • 2.7 L/day per woman x 1 gallon/3.785 L x 365 days/year = 260.369881 gallons per year per woman
  • 964 women at Union
  • Approx. 250,996.565 gallons per year per Union women ideally
  • It takes one liter of oil to prod. one bottle of water, 

Take the Distance: 7,933 mi xWeight: 2916.247 tons x 161.8g of Co2/1 ton x 1 mi = 3743176249.57 g of Co2 it takes to ship in a 747 Boeing, with 2 passengers at roughly 197 lbs, with roughly 650,000 gallons of water to hydrate Union College.

Other works not already cited:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92222327

Carbon emissions: Cap or trade

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As mentioned in other posts, carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas measured in ppm has been shown by NASA and other media outlets to have increased steadily measured since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 19th century. NASA’s data (AIRS 2002-2016 times series) displays that in 2005 CO2 emissions were at a level of approximately 375 ppm, and comparing that to the last measure in that set in 2016 CO2 emissions dramatically rose to 425 ppm in mid-tropospheric calculations. Most recently NASA’s GEOS team during the 2020 COVID pandemic tracked a significant decrease in overall CO2 emissions especially during February through about April (13% decrease) and then an uptick in CO2 emissions restarting in the summer months (3% decrease) when people again became mobile. Although changes like these produce positive externalities for the environment, their short term effects shouldn’t be overstated since according to Jessica Merzdorf Evans at NASA’s Goddard space flight center, CO2 can last “for up to a century after it is released.” Luckily, technology for recording disturbances to the CO2 cycles (positive and negative in the economic senses of the word) is becoming more sensitive to every CO2 change from detecting the  effects of ‘isolated’ wild fires in California to a global shutdown to carbon emitting cars, not only that but models like AIRS and OCO-2 are putting these seemingly isolated incidents in conversation with one another both in the macro, micro and mini senses of time and space.
While in the short term, it may be humanly impractical to pause the entire global economy one solution that may help reduce carbon emissions is by playing a balancing game with carbon credits. These credits represent one ton of carbon emissions to be ‘removed’ from the atmosphere. Economically, an oversimplified example might look like the following: gardener Riley plants enough plants to take in 2 tons of carbon dioxide per year, which means a factory owner producing 3 tons of carbon per year can purchase Riley’s positive externality of 2 less tons of carbon per year leaving the factory owner responsible for 1 ton of carbon per year in the atmosphere rather than the original 3 tons. Additionally, because Riley now has saved 2 more tons of carbon emissions yearly they might be able to use those credits to plow their land with a tractor emitting 1 ton a year at no additional cost to Riley the gardener. While this innovation is not perfect since carbon credits only work to offset a more significant negative externality, it would seem as if more green projects which work to localize green production would go a long way in the short term to increase the positive externalities to the environment and in the long term for ourselves.

links utilized:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna3228
scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/carbon-dioxide

jpl.nasa.gov/news/emission-reductions-from-pandemic-had-unexpected-effects-on-atmosphere

climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

scitechdaily.com/nasa-makes-first-of-it’s-kind-detection-of-reduced-human-CO2-emissions/

 

Justin Aguirre

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My name is Justin Aguirre and I am a sophomore who’s currently undeclared, but who is looking to complete perhaps a poli sci major. I am from New York and a fun fact about me is that I have a puppy named Hudson. I think about sustainability on a micro level in the hopes of inspiring those around me to inspire those around them to make a sustainable change. For me, that just means recycling what I know to be recyclable like plastic bottles, cardboard boxes. Additionally, it means trip planning more precisely. While nothing will ever be perfectly green, I think smaller actions have the potential for larger and planet positive consequences. *Positive in the sense of smaller actions benefitting the larger whole*

Course Description

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Sustainability addresses the idea of a global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. It is of vital importance and will affect everyone. Mathematics is essential in identifying and analyzing the challenges. Through a sequence of sustainability and mathematical concepts, exercises, and projects, you will be brought along on this journey and confront global challenges to develop an understanding of the complex environmental, economic, and sociocultural interlinkages, and to empower yourself to become an active citizen.