Livable Cities and Food

Livable Cities and Food

The Value of Rankings and the Meaning of Livability. ... The Economist and Forbes base their rankings primarily on data from the Mercer consulting company, which annually measures "quality of living" standards, using data such as crime rates, health statistics, sanitation standards, and expenditures on city services.

A sustainable food system is a collaborative network that integrates several components in order to enhance a community's environmental, economic and social well-being. It is built on principles that further the ecological, social and economic values of a community and region.

Livable Cities

This weeks presentation on local foods and our presentation of livable cities were both very informative and important information in our everyday lives. Living and growing up in New York, I took local transit and buses to get to school in the city, which was most convenient and affordable at the time. If you are enrolled in a high school or middle school more than five miles from your home, you are granted a student Metro Card which gives access to up to three rides a day to and from school and to and from a school event as well. Being able to live in a city expanded my understanding of what life in the suburbs can be like. Being able to sustain a healthy city involved a lot of people but being able to recycle, have reusable bags for groceries and make time to go to the local farmers markets on weekends is a big plus when living in a city like New York.

Local Farmers Markets

I enjoyed listening and watching the PETA video about the meat industry and their large effects and impacts from it. Watching this weeks presentation, second to ours was very informative about food, local resources and what we can do to help prevent more consumers of meats. This can occur such as cutting down on meat weekly.

Life in the City

This week our classmate's presentation was all about food and agriculture. We learned about organic farming, industrialized farming, factory farming, and GMOs just to name a few. I learned that the USA's organic certification process was actually pretty stringent compared to other countries, and that a large majority (80% or so) of Cuba's food is organically grown. They also talked about community farms and a few different projects that have been successful (some more than others). This whole chapter made me realize that having the Food Forest on campus is actually a really cool concept.

Local Food

The presentation last week on food was very eye opening. I now know that not only is the

raising and slaughtering of livestock causing large amounts of harmful emissions of methane

and other gases, but it is also harming the human body. Livestock especially cows are being fed

cheap modified food for the sole purpose of producing the largest cows for the most meat

possible while doing it in a shorter time period than is natural. This is done by adding a number of chemicals to the cow and its food. By the time the meat has been sent to the local grocery store it is hard to even estimate how many chemicals are in the meat. Humans then proceed to put all those chemicals into their system. This chemical infusion is happening to a majority of the food people eat today especially Americans whose whole society is focused around money rather than health. Many people including myself do not believe the increase in sickness and disease has no correlation to the increased amount of unnatural food being consumed.

The Economics of Happiness

The Economics of Happiness

Local Futures believes that modern societies have taken a fundamentally wrong turn: policymakers, mainstream economists, and business leaders have consistently pushed us in the direction of ever more growth, while ignoring the ecological destruction and spiritual poverty that have been the price of rampant consumerism, massive scale, and escalating speed. We believe that a radically different paradigm is needed. Rather than attempting to solve every problem by ‘growing the economy’, we need to focus instead on meeting real human and ecological needs through awakening to our spiritual ties to community and nature – through an ‘economics of happiness’.

Subsidized Affects

After the Western Himalayas' began having subsidizes products, vehicles running on subsidized gas and exposure to advertising in the 1970's, it affected the economy tremendously. Local producers and workers were losing money and became poor after having lack of trade and localization among their remote populations. With such change, it affected globalizing activity which can make of break economics in remote and smaller sized populations. People depend on working, making a life for themselves and being successful among local markets, not concentrating on big money companies. We strive for more local markets because it makes both local consumers and producers happy in which gives positive feedback in the economics of happiness. 

 Going Forward

I thought the video was very eye opening as to how much work we still have to do. I especially enjoyed the beginning when the government was mentioned and how they were thinking ahead by 4 years. I think they should be advancing and thinking 7 years ahead and planning prior, in which I believe this is our biggest problem. None of the officials want to deal with these issues because they wont be in office to get rewards about helping others and the economy. Our society needs to think differently if we want any change to happen.

Happiness Among Us

The two points in the video The Economics of Happiness that I thought were the most relative to this course were the ideas that globalization waste natural resources and accelerates climate change.  Globalization promotes the construction of large buildings and massive road systems that destroy the nature that keeps our planet and climate stable.  With all the economic trading or goods across the world, the amount of transportation increases exponentially and with transportation by planes, large trucks, and fuel guzzling ships comes an enormous amount of emissions along with nonrenewable resources consumption.  Globalization creates levels of competition and comparison that are toxic to humans.  Production has changed to have its focus on producing the highest quantities with no regard for the quality of the product.  Food products now have chemicals pumped into them to produce the largest crops/animals in the least amount of time possible.  With all these products being mass produced with no regard for the emissions and other harmful side effects, it is very evident that this globalization is the cause for the accelerated climate change we have been noticing.  To mass produce products resources are needed to build the buildings the products are made in, run the machines used to construct the products, and the materials the products are made from.  Unfortunately many of these materials are nonrenewable resources that once they run out our whole way of life will be a risk to end.  One main point that the video kept referring back to was that the human life has now become so focused on obtaining as much materialistic items as quickly in life as you can because our society compares what each person has to other people and it leads to no one ever being satisfied.  Our lives are spent rushing around to earn money just to spend it to impress or out do other people.  With such busy schedules people are becoming more and more lonely.  Depression is at an all-time high because there is so much pressure on individuals to gain as many possessions as possible that there is only a small percentage of people who really enjoy life.

Future Economy

In class we watched a documentary titled "The Economics of Happiness". The documentary explains the impact globalization has on the world at the human level. The material and money based "western" system of living in the long run ends up producing more famine, depression, and general bad situations than the communities and people that lived off the land. The short term gain is creature comforts, but in the long run it drives people against each other and has proven to be not all it's cracked up to be for certain areas (especially when they realize what they now DO NOT have). 

Globalization almost always ends up with a country being exploited and stripped of their resources. This documentary proves that material things and money are not necessarily important to lead a happy life, as long as they were never present to begin with. 

Lee County Waste to Energy Plant

Lee County Waste to Energy Plant

All of the household garbage collected in Lee and Hendry counties eventually ends up at the Lee County Resource Recovery Facility, where it is sorted for reusable and recyclable materials. The lowest value waste is brought to the Waste-To-Energy Plant where, for the last 20 years, it has been converted to electricity through combustion.

Creating Energy

Being able to bring local garage and objects to the Lee County Resource Recovery Facility changes garbage and our wastes to resources, energy, power and light. Being able to reduce, reuse and recycle local goods and wastes, not only makes our lives sustainable but we are able to give back to the community and the earth. The more resources such as tires, can build up so much energy and bring it back to the county. Being able to reuse resources can not only make our lives healthy, but reduce wastes. If other communities around the country can reuse wastes instead of burning them, we can become sustainable as a whole.

Local Wastes

Being able to enjoy the waste management plant was left as the most interesting trip for last. One thing that was very interesting to learn was not only the entire process but that local people in Lee County have five days to have their trash and wastes to be picked up and for free. I think this is a great way to ensure that people don't find other means of getting rid of things they don't want or need.

Environmental Planning

We visited the Lee County Solid Waste-to-energy plant on our last field trip. This field trip was very informative and surprising to me. We went into a meeting room and were given a presentation about the plant. The presenter went into great detail describing exactly what that plant was NOT, which is an incinerator or "dump". Apparently this is a common misconception that hurts their reputation a great deal. 

When we went inside the facility we were told that there was little to no smell, although I found that turned out to be pretty subjective once we got into the unloading area. We got to see the crane/claw and massive pit area, and then moved through the furnace. After seeing the furnace we got to see the control area and learn what goes on behind the scenes at the facility. I learned that this facility is one of many that is for the most part completely sustainable. 

Resource Center

The Waste Management field trip was not what I expected at all.  I had the mindset of the incinerator instead of a massive power supply.  It was really interesting how much technology went into the process of getting rid of all the waste.  I previously thought that the plant simply got rid of the waste in the most eco-friendly way they could.  I did not know that they actually used the process to create an enormous amount of energy.  I personally think that the state and federal government should be helping and financially supporting waste removal facilities to operate in this same fashion.  It would not only create less pollution from all the waste, but it could also power a large amount of the countries electricity.