Chapter 6 discussed the Laws of Thermodynamics and their relation to energy and energy transfer. Energy transfers take place constantly in everyday activities. Think of two scenarios: cooking on a stove and driving. Explain how the second law of thermodynamics applies to these two scenarios.
The video below is a representative collection of ideas and conversations going on around the world on responsible consumption and production. Using thermodynamic theory as a foundation, devise and comment on what you consider to be a good rationale for responsible consumerism.
The video- 00:00
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now familiar did you know that we
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Americans have about three times the
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amount of space we did 50 years ago
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three times so you think with all this
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extra space we’d have plenty of room for
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all our stuff right nope this new
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industry in town a twenty two billion
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dollar 2.2 billion square foot industry
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that a personal storage we’ve got triple
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the space so we become such good
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shoppers that we need even more space so
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where is this lead lots of credit card
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debt huge environmental footprints and
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perhaps not coincidentally our happiness
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levels flat lines over the same 50 years
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so I want to suggest that less stuff and
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less space are going to equal smaller
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footprint it’s actually a great way to
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save you some money and it can give you
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a little more ease in your life it’s a
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story about us people being persuaded to
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spend money we don’t have on things we
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don’t need to create impressions that
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won’t last on people we don’t care about
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what is the objective what is the
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objective of the consumer Mary Douglas
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asked in an essay on poverty written 35
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years ago it is she said to help create
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the social world and find a credible
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place in it now that is a deeply
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humanizing vision of our lives and it’s
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a completely different vision than the
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one that lies at the heart of this
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economic model so who are we who are
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these people are we these novelty
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seeking hedonistic selfish individuals
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or might we actually occasionally be
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something like the selfless altruist
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depicted in Rembrandt’s lovely lovely
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sketch here well psychology actually
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says there is a tension a tension
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between
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self-regarding behaviors and other
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regarding behaviors and these tensions
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have deep evolutionary roots so selfish
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behavior is adaptive in certain
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circumstances fight or flight but other
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regarding behaviors are essential to our
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evolution as social beings and perhaps
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even more interesting from our point of
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view another tension between novelty
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seeking behaviors and tradition or
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conservation novelty is adaptive when
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things are changing and you need to
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adapt yourself tradition is essential to
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lay down the stability to raise families
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and form cohesive social groups
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unfortunately while the society is
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without a doubt the most prosperous and
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dynamic the world has ever created it’s
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got some major major flaws one of them
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is that every society has an ecological
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footprint it has an amount of impact on
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the planet that’s measurable how much
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stuff goes through your life how much
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weight is left behind you and we at the
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moment in our society have a really
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dramatically unsustainable level of this
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we are using up about five planets if
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everybody on the planet lives the way we
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did we’d need between five six seven
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some people even say ten planets to make
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it clearly we don’t have ten planets
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again you know mental vigil ten planets
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one planet ten plants one plant right we
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don’t have that so that’s one problem
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the second problem is that the planet
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that we have is being used in wildly
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unfair way have you ever wondered where
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all the stuff we buy comes from and
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where it goes when we throw it out I
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couldn’t stop wondering about that so I
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looked it up and what the textbook said
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is that stuff moves through a system
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from extraction to production to
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distribution to consumption to disposal
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all together it’s called the materials
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economy well I would spin to it a little
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bit more in fact I spent ten years
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traveling the world tracking where our
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stuff comes from and where it goes
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and you know what I found out that is
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not the whole story there is a lot
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missing from this explanation for one
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thing this system looks like it’s fine
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no problem but the truth is it’s a
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system in crisis
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and the regenerative system in crisis is
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it’s a linear system and we live on a
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finite planet and you cannot run a
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linear system on a finite planet
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indefinitely every step along the way
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this system is interacting with the real
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world in real life it’s not happening on
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a blank white page it’s interacting with
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societies cultures economies the
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environment and all along the way it’s
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bumping up against limits limits we
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don’t see here because the diagram is
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incomplete so let’s go back sir let’s
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fill in some of the blanks and see
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what’s missing well one of the most
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important things that’s missing is
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people guess people people live and work
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all along this system will start with
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extraction which is a fancy word for
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natural resource exploitation which is a
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fancy word for trashing the planet what
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this looks like is we chop down the
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trees you blow up mountains to get the
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metals inside we use up all the water
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and we wipe out the animals so here we
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are running up against our first limit
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we are running out of resources
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we are using too much stuff next the
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materials move to production and what
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happens there is we use energy to make
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toxic chemicals in with the natural
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resources to make toxic contaminated
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products and of course the people who
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bear the biggest brunt of these toxic
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chemicals are the factory workers so you
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see it’s not just resources that are
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wasted along this system but people too
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whole communities get wasted so what
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happens after all these natural
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resources are turned into products well
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it moved here for distribution the goal
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here is to keep the prices down keep the
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people buying and keep the inventory
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moving we shop and shop and shop keep
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the materials flowing and flow they do
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guess what percentage of total materials
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flow through this system is still in
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product or use six months after their
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date of sale in North America 50 percent
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20 No 1 percent 1 in other words 99% of
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the stuff we harvest mine process
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transport 99% of the stuff we run
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through the system is trashed within 6
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months so in the end what happens to all
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the stuff we buy anyway at this rate of
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consumption it can’t fit into our houses
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even though the average house side is
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in this country since the 1970s it all
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goes out in the garbage and that brings
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us to disposal all of this garbage
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either gets dumped in a landfill which
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is just a big hole in the ground or if
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you’re really unlucky first it’s burned
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in an incinerator and then dumped in the
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landfill either way they both pollutes
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the air land water and don’t forget
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change the climate
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what about recycling does recycling help
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yes recycling helps recycling reduces
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the garbage to descend and it reduces
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the pressure to mine and harvests new
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stuff at this end yes yes yes we should
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all recycle but recycling is not enough
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recycling will never be enough it’s not
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not just about products in people’s
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homes we’ve got to think about the raw
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materials that produce our products
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obviously there’s fantastic
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opportunities with recycled materials
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and we can and will go zero waste and
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there’s opportunities in a circular
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economy but we’re still dependent on
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natural raw materials
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let’s take cotton Cotton’s brilliant
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probably many people are wearing cotton
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right now it’s a brilliant textile in
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use it’s really dirty in production it
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uses lots of pesticides lots of
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fertiliser lots of water so we’ve worked
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with others with other businesses and
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NGOs on the betta cotton initiative
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working right back down to the farm and
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there you can have the amount of water
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and half the chemical inputs the yields
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increase and sixty percent of the costs
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of running many of these farms with
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farmers with low incomes can be chemical
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inputs yields increase and you have the
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input cost farmers are coming out of
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poverty they love it already hundreds of
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thousands of farmers have been reached
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and now we’ve got 60% better cotton in
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our business again we’re going all-in by
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2015 we’ll be a hundred percent better
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cotton take the topic of a hundred
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percent target such like people
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sometimes think that 100 percent is
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going to be hard and we’ve had the
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conversation in the business actually
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it’s not 100 percent is easier to do the
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90 percent or 50 percent if you have a
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90 percent target everyone in the
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business finds a reason to be in the ten
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percent when it’s a hundred percent it’s
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kind of clear you know and business
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people like clarity because then you
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just get the job done and I think
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everybody would agree but now business
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has to take full risk
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ability for the impacts of your supply
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chain many businesses now fortunately
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have code of conducts and ordered the
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supply chains but not every business far
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from there and this came in IKEA
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actually in the 90s we found with a risk
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of child labor in the supply chain and
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people in the business were shocked you
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know and it was clearly totally
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unacceptable so then you have to act so
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a code of conduct with developed and now
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we have 80 auditors out in the world
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every day making sure all our factories
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secure good working conditions and
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protect human rights and make sure there
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is no child labor but it’s not just as
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simple as making sure there’s no child
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labor you’ve got to say that’s that’s
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not enough today I think we’d all agree
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that children are the most important
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people in the world and the most
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vulnerable so what can a business do
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today to actually use your total value
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chain to support a better quality of
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life and protect child rights we’ve
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worked with UNICEF and Save the Children
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on developing some new business
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principles with child children’s rights
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increasing numbers of businesses are
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signing up to these but actually not in
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a survey many business leaders said they
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thought their business had nothing to do
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with children so what we’ve decided to
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do is we will look and ask ourselves a
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tough questions with partners who know
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more than us what can we do to go beyond
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our business to help improve the lives
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of children
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Your Discussion should be at least 250 words in length, but not more than 750 words.
Use APA citations and references for the textbook and any other sources used; you should use at least 1 APA citation and reference, but you can use more if needed.
