As we learned all too poignantly last summer in the Midwest, food, energy and water have such an interdependence, that we can no longer make decisions about one in a vacuum and ignore the impact on the others. Resolving our food waste issue in our country - nearly 40% wasted each year! - has enough importance just on its merits. Add to that the water that gets displaced and buried, and the crisis takes on extreme importance. If we can reduce our waste by even 10%, and get that waste to people who need it, we can solve the hunger issue in this country. Eliminating all of it will take a combination of policy and behavior changes, but given that our population will grow by 40% over the next 30 years, we have a great opportunity to maintain food production and still feed our citizens.
When you waste food, you're wasting tons of water, too
"According to the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, inside the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted every year worldwide is 45 trillion gallons of water. This represents a staggering 24 percent of all water used for agriculture. And agriculture is already the world's biggest user of freshwater: The sector accounts for 70 percent of all use around the world, according to the World Water Assessment Program. Those freshwater resources are diminishing fast, just as demand for them rises from millions of hungry and thirsty people joining the global population."
Meanwhile, as we are wasting water through discarded food, we treat the rain and water resources we have in the Midwest as if they are a pollutant to be avoided or quickly thrown away. When we "throw away" water in northern Illinois, it makes its way into the Mississippi (even in Chicago when our rainwater should find its way into Lake Michigan) and eventually to the Delta. This dead zone results directly from the choices we make here in Chicago, and we must hold ourselves accountable for this if we are to truly take personal responsibility for our actions.
Dead zone could break records in Gulf this year
"NOAA warned Tuesday that a dead zone the size of New Jersey could break records this summer in the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy rainfalls are washing a stew of pollutants and nutrients into the Gulf, feeding outbreaks of algae that will rob the waters of oxygen as they die and decompose. In these oxygen-deprived waters, marine life either flee or die."
As a consequence of the historic lows in electricity prices, and the impact of current and proposed regulation, coal plants have reached a state where they no longer make economic sense to maintain. Now, we see that the market is having a similar impact on nuclear. This causes experts to fear for the near future of electricity generation, and environmentalists to cheer the end of two major obstacles to clean energy - cheap coal and nuclear. Both have enjoyed such heavy subsidies, that hopefully this marks the beginning of the revolution that will accelerate the development and deployment of renewable energy and passive building design technologies.
Nuclear plants, old and uncompetitive, are closing earlier than expected
"Such is the fate of all old power plants. As the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s main trade association, pointed out when San Onofre closed, of the power plant retirements since 2010, 41 percent were coal and 33 percent were natural gas. Ten percent were nuclear. Old power plants lead conditional existences; they may not survive new environmental rules or other circumstances that require expensive retrofits."
A first step toward understanding the possibilities in improving building performance is to first and foremost, know how much energy a building consumes and where. We would never accept a business as legitimate if they could not produce a profit-loss statement or tax return that accounted for the management of money. Nor should we accept a building that does not have an accurate accounting of its energy resources, and the impact of those resources.
Energy benchmarking and why it matters
"Benchmarking benefits entire cities, too. Building performance data helps cities strategically meet energy efficiency and climate change reduction goals, by targeting energy efficiency rebates and incentives for buildings that have the most potential for savings. Which is one reason why, to date, several U.S. cities—including Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C, and most recently Boston—have adopted energy benchmarking and disclosure ordinances that require large buildings to benchmark energy use."
I do not normally link to propaganda directly from businesses, but this release from Ford highlights the possibilities inherent in the marriage of our energy delivery and management systems with modern communication and engagement tools. If we can develop tools like this, and make them as easy to use as it is to play Farmville or use SnapChat, then we have an opportunity to completely change our society's relationship with energy...and for the better.
Ford teams up to save energy with MyEnergi Lifestyle
"As unlikely as it seems, simply updating outdated appliances, adding a renewable energy source like solar panels and switching from a vehicle that gets 25 miles per gallon to a Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid can yield significant savings. According to a computer model created by the Georgia Institute of Technology, this could result in a 60 percent reduction in energy costs and a savings of over 9,000 kg of CO2 for a single home."
Happy Friday!
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