Water

           The last group, I felt, brought to light some interesting perspectives for class in their presentation about water scarcity. At first, the short video (of the show Dual Survivors I think) puzzled me, I actually thought they were trying to eat time up. But after it ended, I saw the significance. Despite the fact that the hippy survivor seemed to have spent several days out in this dry landscape, the conviction he expressed during his interview and the fact that back home he does live in a home that reuses much of what is expelled was powerful. With regards to the former, the finite aspect of water is so easily forgotten when you live in the Midwest. I’ve grown up in a house on a lake that drew its water from a natural underground spring, we never had to worry about only being able to apply so much water to the lawn. So when I choose not to flush the toilet, it is more out of concern of the energy that the pump would consume rather than the use or contamination of perfectly clean water.

I also feel that this discussion of water scarcity parallels a larger attitude that especially first world countries like the U.S. seems to suffer from. Many humans, myself included, have a hypersensitivity to controlling their environment (like maintaining a very high degree of cleanliness of body and environment) and is something, if addressed, can help act as a gateway to other problems I feel we have. From the presentation, it seems while water restrictions are present in areas, we continue to move towards increasing accessibility/supply through increased distribution rather than preventing consumption or restricting development in inhabitable areas. Such examples include the proposed pipe from the Great Lakes into the western U.S.. This can be paralleled with our general reliance on our scientific understanding and technological capabilities to survive and be comfortable in areas that would otherwise be dangerous. This generally comes at the cost of resources and habitats. What seems like cultural domination may very well lead to the demise of other cultures (like what happened in Brazil, which is unjust) and eventually even ourselves.

Green Shelter

I thought group three did an overall good job of addressing the residential side (on an individual scale) of shelter and the environment. While some of the concepts/information could be applied across the world, the presentation focused primarily on what first and maybe second world nations could live to be more green. Geothermal or energy star appliances are not feasible for many third world countries not only because of high upfront cost, but electricity and heating/cooling are not as imminent (and often not available) a need as staying dry, nourished, and drinking clean water (although they did talk about a natural filtration system, but I’m not sure how expensive it was). I do feel that if looking at the scale of the United States, they did a very good job addressing how people of different economic status may approach becoming more sustainable on their own (the group activity was one example). Whereas someone with less spending money may be looking at resealing/insulating their house, someone on the higher end of the spectrum may be looking into geothermal or solar. I also liked how they established early on the need for more circular economic thinking rather than linear (which is where the U.S. is). This is one example that strikes at the heart of the ethical difference between the ethical stance that the group proposed (sustainable development/consumption) and the current dominant, at least economic/policy wise, utilitarian ethic. The big difference between sustainable development from utilitarianism is this notion of development meeting the needs of today while not encroaching on future generations ability to meet their own need. An example of this in shelter is using materials that can be sustainably harvested, which gives us the shelter we need now and allowing future generations to be able to utilize that same source, forming this cyclical cycle. Utilitarian philosophy, on the other hand, would advocate for the harvesting of materials (cheapily) that could most readily develop our infrastructure, the depletion of the source not being as much of a consideration.