Baby Steps

“We must be the change we want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi.  What a wonderful statement. To create maintainable change we should start with a purpose. “The purpose is the most important pillar, which gives birth to vision—the key to fulfilling the systems’ mission. A sustainable future will require purpose-driven transformation of society at all scales, guided by the best foresight, with insight based on hindsight that science can provide.” In the article, Visioneering: an essential framework in sustainability science Joon Kim claims that having a vision is the building blocks to making an effective change. As a consumer, it is my personal vision to always make educated decisions in what I am using on a daily basis and buying for myself as to do my part to not negatively effect the surrounding environment.  

              According to the article Limiting Consumption, the major causes of the sustainability paradox can be condensed into the lack of three basics: understanding of the behavior of complex systems, sufficient capacity to perform the actions and changes needed, and political willingness to implement changes. Meaning that we first need to understand how the ecosystem is affected by the way our economy produces and discards all environmentally hazardous products. Although some companies have the resources to create eco friendly products, most do not and those who do might not use them to their full advantage. According my vision, we the consumer must make a conscious effort to purchase and support the companies that do make an effort to move forward in creating more eco-friendly products.

              In Thinking Ahead: The Value of future consciousness, they discuss the development of future consciousness and how it contributes to the growth of a variety of different virtues, including courage, humility, compassion and especially wisdom. Also that wisdom is the capacity to apply general knowledge gained in the past to challenging and novel problems and situations. Each generation shares responsibility to the up keep of our environment.

              I admit I have been guilty in the fact that I have obtained the wisdom of sustainability but have not done enough to instill it in my every day routine.  As stated in the readings it appears that I would be in the envisioning phase of my vision, but I realize that in order to become a part in bettering our environment I need to become a leader and take action engineering my vision. I will do so by first living the vision continuously in my own life. I cannot expect change in others if I do not change myself. I know in order to be successful in doing my part to help better the environment through my day-to-day activities I must be vigilante.  New environmental issues as well as resolutions are being discovered everyday, and it is mine as well as the rest of the world to stay educated on these trending topics.  

The Boring Pot

Hemp, the civil war uniforms were made out of it, the constitution was written on it, and the first flag was created from it. Hemp is a renewable and easy-to-grow crop that is a substitute for paper and wood, and is also compliant enough to be made into clothing and even a biodegradable form of plastic.

People today are faced with the same decision that our policy makers are: should we prioritize economic gain, or hold true to our social values? This question is especially relevant to the debate over legalization of industrial hemp growing in the United States, because its main argument compares the growing of hemp to the appearance and consumption of marijuana.

Farmers and environmentalists consider hemp as an alternative to cotton for creating clothes and paper. While cotton requires less energy to grow and process than its competitors, it uses a lot of land. The "fabric of our lives" needs approximately twice as much territory as hemp per ton of finished textile. Unlike cotton, hemp does not require large doses of pesticides and herbicides as it is naturally resistant to pests and grows fast, crowding out weeds. To make paper, trees must grow for many years, while a field of hemp can be harvested in a few months and make four times the paper over a few decades. Also, making paper from hemp uses only a fraction of the chemicals required to turn trees into paper.

Hemp also fertilizes the soil it is grown in and can be used to curb the depletion of topsoil. If farmers were to introduce hemp as a rotation crop, the soil would be much more fertile and would therefore yield greater harvests of other crops.

In the film Hempsters: Plant the seed, hemp is not looked at as an alternative, it is seen as a solution. Through out the film, they highlight many farmers who say industrial hemp may be the solution they need to be able to make farming sustainable, especially with tobacco in less and less demand. Also that being able to legally grow and sell hemp would help small farmers compete with large commercialized farms.

The legal problem for hemp is that it's visually and taxonomically identical to marijuana. In 1970 the U.S. Congress designated hemp, along with marijuana, as a “Schedule 1” drug under the Controlled Substances Act, making it illegal to grow without a license from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Although industrial hemp does not contain enough psychoactive ingredients to make a smoker “high,” farmers who grow it can risk jail time. Today, the U.S. is the only developed country that has not established hemp as an agricultural crop.

One argument the government has against hemp is that law enforcement may confuse hemp with marijuana. But the film argues that hemp plants can be grown close together, whereas marijuana plants need to be spaced far apart. 

Hemp is a crop with seemingly unlimited potential, to not take advantage of this miracle crop is senseless. The benefits to the environment and the economy are numerous. The arguments against it are outdated, and our society needs to become more aware and better educated of this topic. Legalizing the growing of industrial hemp would be one of many alternative solutions to our green initiative.

Lofty Goals

Today the cotton industry is actively working towards accomplishing one of the most important goals that all industries must strive for – sustainability. Does this green initiative also include the cultivation of cotton? Is the cultivation of cotton sustainable? Improvements have been made throughout the years to improve the use of pesticides used on cotton during growing season. The reuse of water during cultivation has also changed in recent years. Are these changes enough?

         In the report, Science Shop Wageningen UR, dated April 2006 they discuss the issues involving cotton production and processing. This study provides an extensive description of the cultivation practices of each system in the major cotton producing countries and the related environmental effects. Cotton is produced in more than 100 countries, the most important countries being:

•    China (24% of global cotton production)
•   USA (19%)
•  India (16%)
•    Pakistan (10%)
•  Brazil (5%)
• Uzbekistan (4%)

Three types of cotton cultivation are distinguished in this study:

• Conventional systems (representing about 80% of cotton production internationally)
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems (approximately 20%)
•  Organic systems (0.04%)

It is determined that water and pesticide use cause the most significant environmental problems in cotton systems. In developing countries most organic cotton is rain-fed while the majority of the IPM and conventional cotton is irrigated. The environmental impact of water use is considerably lower for rain-fed than for irrigated cotton, however the opportunities for yield gains by optimizing water applications are also consequently lower.

The widespread use of extremely high toxic pesticides in developing countries is a major concern both for the natural environment and for people who are exposed, especially workers applying these pesticides. Pesticide application methods strongly affect the potential impact on field workers and the environment; thus, the way field workers apply pesticides needs to be better understood.

Although this information may be true, there are always two sides to every story. Cotton today states that modern technology has enabled increased efficiency in cotton production. Specifically, 50% more cotton is produced worldwide today on the same amount of land as compared to 40 some years ago.

In the video titled Cotton and Water: white, blue and green they inform us of the ways that the cotton industry is becoming more environmentally friendly. One way is by the use of precision irrigation, which is where an underground piping system allows the water to feed directly to the plants preventing water evaporation. Large factories now use a new machine called a vibrating member that removes indigo molecules after dying so that the same water can be used repeatedly. This system has been able to recycle 80 percent of the water used from dying, which is 20 gallons a day. Countries such as Bangladesh have also created ways to help improve the environment by recycling rainwater during monsoon season and then using the water during textile production.

In my opinion, I think it will be hard for industries such as clothing and textile to become fully sustainable. Cotton is used in the manufacturing of nearly everything we wear and use. I do believe that there are ways to improve the process in which cotton is created, but it will obviously take time and effort from everyone involved. But we need to set a high goal in order to make a large impact.