Sustainability History Project

This week’s Reading Response assignment asked students to find 1-3 primary sources (government reports, news articles, website blurbs, etc.) and 1-2 related peer-reviewed secondary sources, and compare-and-contrast these sources. I designed this assignment to help students prepare for writing their essay.

This post complements student research highlighted in this post.

More details below the fold!

One student is researching the complex relationships between dams, ecosystems, and human communities. For example, in reading about the potential financial benefits of selling and transporting water from the Columbia River to users in Southern California, this student observes that

It is economic opportunities like these that keep these plans from being shut down outright. As water becomes scarcer, its price will rise and Oregonians stand to profit from our plentiful water systems. [Michael] Milstein’s ideas on the benefits and conflicts of selling our water goes along with Terry Flora’s, whose focus is on the detriments of removing dams from the lower Snake River system. She argues that removing dams will increase both our carbon footprint and our energy bills.

This student continues with the observation that “Currently our region enjoys the benefits of clean hydropower technology to supply economically cheap power to our region,” and then asks “would we be able to sustain our current level of output if we lessened both our number of dams and amount of water?” This student concludes by writing that

dam removal is not a sustainable approach to energy efficiency, at least not in economic and equity terms. However, there is another factor to look at, which is in environmental terms. The detriments of dams to the ecosystem, as pointed out in [G. H.] Huang’s essay . . . and [Marios] Sophocleous’s essay . . . seem to contradict the equity and economic need of dams. Both essays discuss the barriers that hold up sustainable water usage and also discuss the environmental and social impacts of dams, in a rather negative stance.

Another student commented on articles discussing the relationship between salmon and sea lions:

In terms of the three pillars of sustainability, these articles helped clarify how environmentally sustainable protecting sea lions and salmon is and how unsustainable the human actions in this issue are (commercial fishing, killing sea lions, etc…). Economically, controlling sea lion populations is not a good use of money since the real threat to salmon populations is humans not sea lions. The articles did not discuss the issues in terms of social equity, but I can image that social equity has a big role in relation to commercial fishermen and Bonneville employees.

I replied that it’s important to bring these points up. If we’re to include equity considerations as a co-equal pillar of sustainability, then society will have to address the loss of commercial fishing as a livelihood.

Another student researching the sustainability of fisheries found one answer to the question of addressing the loss of commercial fishing jobs. W.D. McCausland, et al., write that one proposal for retaining fisheries jobs might be to “switch to aquaculture. The authors concede that aquaculture pollutes the ocean and could possibly spread disease to rebounding fish stocks, but still recommend it as an alternative to fishing.” In turn, a solution to the pollution problem might be found in the example that Martin Schriebman writes about, a large-scale urban aquaculture project in New York City. “Urban aquaculture,” the student writes, “is the process of raising fish in containers and also pairing the raising of the fish with growing vegetable matter in a symbiotic relationship that recycles fish waste and serves as nutrients for the plants.”

Such projects require clear knowledge of ecology and fisheries science. These projects will also be guided by rules, regulations, and other policies. However, to his chagrin, this student found that policy decisions sometimes do not reflect sound science:

[Ikerene del Valle and Kepa Astorkiza] outline the [policy-making] process from the initial suggestion by “unbiased” expert scientists through the lobbying process representing the fisheries’ and ecologists’ interests to governmental organizations and eventually Congress. As one can imagine, what was initially proposed is seldom what is set as the allowable catch. Their proposition for limiting the variability between the proposal and the ultimate ruling is to set long-term rules that are left unspecified. This paper left me with a bad feeling about any timely action being taken to address and prevent the further depletion of ocean species. If it is this hard to do in a democratic country, how much more difficult will it be to get a large coalition of counties to agree to proposed limits?

One student found a lack of scientific consensus in his research is on biofuels. This student asks “what energy sources can the United States, and nations abroad, [use] to prevent potential economic and environmental collapse?” One alternate fuel sources is corn-based ethanol, but, this student notes, “ethanol is not without its controversy. Some scientists believe it is a viable, and sustainable resource while other scientists believe its environmental impact is greater than its value as an energy source.” This student then outlines some of the potential trade-offs that arise when considering corn-based ethanol:

biofuels are not a cure-all, other cuts in energy use, and more efficient automobiles must be produced to combat GHGs [greenhouse gases]. In addition, biofuels consume an abundance of water – a valuable commodity in any country, therefore water may be better used growing other food sources. Moreover, biofuels themselves are difficult to produce in large quantities, and the infrastructure for producing them is a fledgling one. The undeveloped infrastructure of producing biofuels leads to the question of whether giving millions or billions of dollars to produce ethanol is worth the effort if it is environmentally unsound

Student Sources

Biofuels

Stephanie Hanson, “Corn Fuels Controversy,” Council on Foreign Relations: Analysis Brief, Feb. 2007.

Ignacy Sachs, “The Biofuels Controversy,” New York: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Nov. 2007.

Green Building

Erica Oberndorfer, et al., “Green Roofs as Urban Ecosystems: Ecological Structures, Functions, and services,” BioScience 57:10 (2007), 823-833.

Kym Pokorny, “Rocket Science: An edible rooftop garden in Portland,” Oregonian, Oct. 11, 2007. [available at City Farmer News]

Abby Haight, “An Uncommon Commons,” Oregonian, Jan. 16, 2009.

Housing & Homelessness

www.joinpdx.com/.

Theresa Novak, “Shelter for chronically homeless closer to reality,” [Corvallis, Oreg.] Gazette-Times, July 24, 2010.

Hydrology & Hydropower

Michael Milstein, “Time for Oregon to cash in Columbia water?” The Sunday Oregonian, Aug. 10, 2008.

Terry Flores, “The real costs of removing four lower Snake River dams,” The Sunday Oregonian, March 14, 2008.

Marios Sophocleous, “The Science and Practice of Environmental Flows and the Role of Hydrogeologists,” Ground Water 45:4 (2007), 393-401.

G. H. Huang and J. Xia, “Barriers to Sustainable water-quality management,” Journal of Environmental Management 61:1 (2001), 1-23.

Marine Ecosystems

Peter W. Dillingham, John R. Skalski, and Kristen E. Ryding, “Fine-scale geographic interactions between Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) trends and local fisheries,” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 63:1 (2006), 107-119.

Scott Learn, “Sea lion numbers fall, but appetites rise at Bonneville Dam, researchers say,” Oregonian, Nov. 7, 2009, Sunrise Ed., Local News sec. 8.

Scott Learn, “At Bonneville Dam, the sea lions continue to munch endangered salmon, despite hazing — and a lethal injection program,” Oregonian, May 14, 2010, Sunrise Ed., Local News sec.

Ikerene del Valle and Kepa Astorkiza, “Institutional designs to face the dark side of total allowable catches,” ICES Journal of Marine Science 64:4 (May 2007), 851-857.

W.D. McCausland, et al., “A simulation model of sustainability of coastal communities: Aquaculture, fishing, environment and labour markets,” Ecological Modelling 193:3-4 (2006), 271-294.

Logan Sachon, “Fifteen Minutes with Martin Schriebman,” Next American City, Winter 2007.

Growing Power, Inc..

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