Sustaining The Earth 11th Edition Pdf Download
Bente Coker
Professor Danielle Wood leads the new Space Enabled Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. The Space Enabled Research Group advances justice and development by improving designs for complex systems. The mission of the Space Enabled Research Group is to advance justice in Earth's complex systems using designs enabled by space. Our message is that six types of space technology are supporting societal needs, as defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These six technologies include satellite earth observation, satellite communication, satellite positioning, microgravity research, technology transfer, and the inspiration we derive from space research and education. While much good work has been done, barriers still remain that limit the application of space technology as a tool for sustainable development. The Space Enabled Research Group works to increase the opportunities to apply space technology in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our research applies six methods, including design thinking, art, social science, complex systems, satellite engineering and data science. We pursue our work by collaborating with development leaders who represent multilateral organizations, national and local governments, non-profits and entrepreneurial firms to identify opportunities to apply space technology in their work. We strive to enable a more just future in which every community and country can easily and affordably apply space technology. The talk will provide examples showing how each of these areas contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
While space exploration is often described in terms of universal human progress, the Apollo missions to the Moon would never happened but for US - Soviet competition. Long after 1969, military applications and "national leadership" continued to be key rationales. Public support for Apollo was never universal; many communities saw little of relevance to their concerns in that display of technical might. Public opinion polls find that today the American public is more willing to fund space exploration than they have been in decades. The most persuasive arguments for space exploration are its benefits for humanity: understanding climate change and other environmental problems, or the scientific study of other worlds and better understanding life on Earth. A sustainable politics of space is directly related to sustainable development of space. Three trends put the sustainable politics of space exploration at risk. First, there is no public demand for a rushed re-run of Apollo, and doing so for political purposes risks space becoming just another partisan issue. Militarization of space, not only via space weaponry but framing space exploration as competition to "dominate" other worlds is unlikely to have the appeal it did during the post-Sputnik panic. Finally, despite the achievements of "New Space" entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, their techno-utopian visions for space colonization imply a future of inequality, abandonment rather than advancement of humanity, and an implicit rejection of politics itself -- reinforcing other trends to tune out civic life and abandon hope for cooperative solutions to our shared problems.
The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, COPUOS, was set up by the UN General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development. The Committee was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, studying space-related activities that could be undertaken by the United Nations, encouraging space research programmes, and studying legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space. In 2010 a Working Group was created to consider practices, technical standards and policies relevant to sustaining the space environment and space activities through all phases of mission life cycle through the development of voluntary best practice guidelines to enhance the long-term sustainability of outer space activities for all space actors and all who benefit from space activities. This Working Group concluded its work last year with the provision of a report containing 21 comprehensive, wide-ranging guidelines that has been endorsed by the Committee and the UN General Assembly.
The international Planetary Defense community has been steadily growing over the past 20 years while increasing its capabilities to detect Near Earth Objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets. It has also coordinated efforts worldwide in order to best mitigate a possible impact threat to Earth. Collaborative efforts have been developed at the United Nations as well as through UN-mandated expert groups. They tackle today a large array of topics ranging from ways of detecting these objects to technical capabilities to push them away, to the legal questions raised by these new possible missions. We will explore the events that led to the emergence of this one-of-a-kind field of study, review their ways of practice and discuss their latest research on the legal implications of Planetary Defense missions.
How can the Earthrise photograph provide a context for what it means to be a global citizen? Inspired by the Global Oneness Project Emmy-nominated film Earthrise, a photography project will be shared along with student work from around the globe. This project gets to the heart of our human connection to the Earth, our relationship to the living world, and how we can become advocates for protecting and documenting local ecologies.
To imagine a sustainable future in our current dark age is both necessary and revolutionary. Science has always relied on the imagination, married to the rigor of scientific methodology, to explain phenomena that challenge our current conceptions of reality. However the increasingly dire climate crisis calls for us to radically re-think everything. The transdisciplinary nexus where science meets the social sciences, arts and humanities is the crucible where we must fire our imaginations. This nexus is the natural habitat of science fiction, which can potentially free the imagination from the constraints of our default frameworks. To then leap from imagination to meaningful action is the urgent challenge of the times.
Green roof gardens can deliver locally sourced foods that help protect the environment by minimizing the use of pesticides, fossil fuels, and other resources to grow and transport food to market from larger commercial farms. Green roofs can also improve the urban environment by insulating buildings against energy loss, managing storm water, improving air quality, and providing places of recreation.
Seeking creative solutions to a water quality control problem, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began pouring some three million polyethylene balls into the Ivanhoe Reservoir in the summer of 2008.
Engineers flooded the surface with the same type of balls that airports use to keep birds from flocking to wetlands beside runways, where they create a hazard to aviation. This solution isn't typical, because open-air reservoirs containing chlorine are increasingly rare. But water quality problems abound and their control is an increasingly important green job around the world.
Transportation currently burns about two-thirds of America's oil and produces about one-third of its greenhouse gas emissions. Electric cars, like this one, are an exciting alternative but can only be as green as the ultimate source of their power. The renewable-energy sector is working to replace dirty fuels like coal with cleaner alternatives such as wind and solar.
As the world's nations try to move towards sustainable lifestyles and greener economies, it's essential that trained professionals monitor and analyze our impacts on the world around us and the natural resources on which we all ultimately depend for both wealth and health.
Adam Howland of Long Way Home uses green building techniques to help residents of Guatemala's San Juan Comalapa municipality. Long Way Home is helping to construct a school from ecologically friendly materials, such as earth, and discarded refuse, such as tires and plastic bottles.
The result is a safe, sturdy building and a new value for rubbish that is otherwise chucked into rivers or burned for lack of better disposal methods. The self-sustaining school will also green the environment for years to come by educating the area's youth about sustainable lifestyles and training them for work in the green economy.
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