Day: July 9, 2021

Environmental sustainability has become a major global agenda; and as such, it requires practical and urgent action. Rapid urbanisation, industrial growth, and the ever-increasing human population have intensified the use of natural resources. At the same time, these factors have also increased the need to protect the natural environment.  A United Nations report, “The Climate Crisis – A Race We Can Win”, affirms that no part of the earth is untouched by the effect of human activities or pollution. Natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate and are also being contaminated with toxic chemicals, potentially leaving a future world in which the young generations would live in to be quite endangered. It is little wonder that young people are becoming very vocal about environmental sustainability.

Join master gardener Yvonne Savio to learn how recycling and inventing new uses for household items such as garden tools will ease your gardening chores. You’ll feel the delight of creating a new use for what might have been discarded.  Yvonne Savio has been “playing” in home gardens, community gardens, and school gardens for some 60 years in both Southern and Northern California. She retired in 2015 as Master Gardener Coordinator for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Los Angeles County, following 21 years developing the program and providing the information and photographs for the Master Gardener website.

This project-based course will explore the connection between environmental conservation and poverty reduction. Learn how to develop entrepreneurial solutions for challenges where the environment and livelihoods are sometimes at odds — like deforestation, overfishing, waste management, and agriculture.  Readings, case studies and expert insights from Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy; Vien Truong, CEO of Green for All; and Michael Kobori, Vice President of Sustainability for Levi Strauss & Co. will guide you as you generate solutions to an environmental challenge of your choosing.

The fashion industry is the world’s second largest polluter behind big oil, and is responsible for around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. There are a number of contributing factors to this problem, ranging from “fast fashion”—a model based on producing low-cost garments intended to be worn only a handful of times—to disposal of luxury overstock merchandise.  Consumers today are increasingly conscious of environmental issues. Younger generations in particular have a clear preference for environmentally friendly products—74% of millennials and 62% of Generation Z are willing to pay more for sustainable goods. Thankfully, consumer demand has caused a discernable and welcome shift towards sustainability in the fashion and apparel industry.

An elegant new algorithm developed by Danish researchers can significantly reduce the resource consumption of the world’s computer servers. Computer servers are as taxing on the climate as global air traffic combined, thereby making the green transition in IT an urgent matter. The researchers, from the University of Copenhagen, expect major IT companies to deploy the algorithm immediately.  One of the flipsides of our runaway internet usage is its impact on climate due to the massive amount of electricity consumed by computer servers. Current CO2 emissions from data centers are as high as from global air traffic combined—with emissions expected to double within just a few years.