Today we heard from the Sustainability director on campus, a newly appointed role that students had been trying to fight for creating for years.
I appreciate Vouloudis’ efforts to gather data on the environmental situation and impact done by our campus, which previously had only been measured by students volunteering and painstakingly collecting data through an audit. Before Vouloudis was hired, administrators sent CVs to some of us students involved in the Sustainability Committee on campus. Personally I was deeply concerned about how he used to work for Formula One; this is the most anti-sustainability entertainment industry I could possibly imagine. To me it seems that Formula One racing is inherently unsustainable because it is about burning petrol, so any efforts to recycle have marginal returns in terms of environmental sustainability.
I suppose it is important to infiltrate government and economic development with people who remotely care about sustainability so that they aren’t threatening to those in charge who may otherwise completely reject any proposals; but these surface-level changes aren’t enough to achieve actual sustainability.
His phrase “Plastics are not exactly a problem but an opportunity” seems a bit tone deaf relative to the state of plastic overconsumption and the destruction it is wreaking on people and habitats worldwide.
Thanks to Abu Dhabi policies he promoted, all new developments have to apply sustainability criteria, which is very hopeful; this is a big milestone, but I am afraid it may serve as a distraction from the broader issues inflicted by the government of Abu Dhabi (labor rights violations, oil drilling, etc.)
From an urbanization perspective, it was very illuminating to learn how continued human development can respond and adapt to accelerating climate change. It was helpful to learn about the anthropogenic effect of streets and the heat island effect, with urbanization as a way of creating pocket parks that cool the area.
The ideas of misting, white materials with properties to reflect rather than absorb sunlight, green walls (vertical aluminum walls with plants that cool air as it passes through) also incorporate financial sustainability and the consideration of aesthetics to make sustainability an economically favorable endeavor.
As Vouloudis said, “cities must become more resilient” – but Abu Dhabi will literally be underwater in 100 years, billions of people will be displaced, vector-borne diseases will rage rapidly, temperatures will become unsurvivable, air pollution will be suffocating– and the very existence of densely populated cities accelerates all of these problems.
The double-bind of Covid halting supply chains for sustainable development (gravel) but accelerating unsustainable supply chains (single-use PPE, food delivery, online shopping packaging, and more) shows how the environment is routinely sacrificed when economic, political, social, and health threats are perceived.
The discussion of a construction company stealing gravel from another project reminded me of the book I am reading, The World in a Grain, which explains the worldwide demand for aggregate sand and gravel, of which there are severe shortages relative to development efforts. Only marine sand is usable for construction with concrete or artificial islands, because desert sand is too round and can’t be used for construction.
Questions: how do you balance the urgency of climate change and the fact that we have no time to waste, with needing to be gentle to convince people to make small changes?
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