Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
Anyone with a working knowledge of sustainability issues in the world today understands there are major problems with the food supply systems we have in place. They are structurally unequal, dependent on damaging tech, work against rather than with nature, and are looking like they could cause reductions in yields over the long term rather than the increase they were implemented for. One of the stand out arguments is that meat production is getting harder to justify on the two main grounds of it being hugely damaging to the environment and hugely inefficient in terms of the food calories per unit of resources put in. But we also know that vegan diets are problematic for overall human health. Insects are therefore a really good option for how we could maintain animal proteins in our food but produce them in a very much sustainable way. See a great overview in this article from The Guardian. . . .
Tourism is one of the most fraught areas of consumption for the sustainably minded and is a classic case of how much carrot and stick is needed between regulators and suppliers as well as how much interaction between those suppliers and their customers can lead to change. Until now, just about the only memorable change we have seen long-term has been the move by most hotels to reduce their environmental footprint by removing a certain amount of their complementary single use bathroom items and encouraging less laundry. This is though a great way to start in so many businesses precisely because it makes business, not just environmental sense. Part of the problem some industries face is rowing back on the “freebies” embedded in the consumer mindset by providers in a less well -informed age. In more modern times we have had more serious discussion about transport options, with the aviation sector still a long way from sustainability. It is extremely difficult to expect or a . . .
Why we should abandon the concept of the ‘climate refugee’ (The Conversation) Case study of litter origin (The Conversation) UK and US banks among biggest backers of Russian ‘carbon bombs’ (The Guardian) Cholera tragedy in Indian village sheds light on power debts (Eco-business) Circular solutions struggle to make an impact in disposables-reliant Singapore (Eco-business) Germany hypes green hydrogen alliance while shopping for Canadian fossil gas (CHN) World Bank backs carbon credit blockchain registry to attract crypto investors (CHN) Here’s why we must integrate nature into urban infrastructure (RtZ) . . .
IYD falls every 12 August so the Youth Advisory Committee of the ITS Foundation organized a fantastic fair for youth initiatives and NGOs which took place at AISHK. The event allowed a wide range of contributors and interested youth to gather together and share what they are doing towards solving issues encompassed in the SDGs. There were opportunities for learning, sharing and getting inspiration. A great day was had by all and the YAC looks forward to running more events like this in the future. . . .
My name is Anna and I am a 15-year-old student at Victoria Shanghai Academy. From a young age, I have been passionate about environmental issues surrounding the SDGs such as plastic pollution and climate change. This interest has led me to collaborate with NGOs such as Plastic Free Seas to raise awareness and advocate for these prominent issues. Furthermore, I firmly believe that more youths will be able to step up and take action through education. My two projects, Apogee Academy and Sophos Montessori and Elementary School both emphasize the importance of SDG education in our modern society. Apogee Academy is an online education site in Hong Kong that focuses on teaching students about the SDGs by providing professional resources from experienced founders, educators, and advocates. While the Sophos Montessori and Elementary School project set in Ghana aims to provide underprivileged and disabled children with quality education involving SDGs and other global issues. In the future . . .
Companies are prepared to pay to stop plastic waste. Here’s how it could be done successfully (reuters) Companies must put money where their mouths are to fight nature loss, says CDP’s forests chief (reuters) Bank Australia to ditch fossil fuel car loans in push for EV future (The Guardian) Are indoor vertical farms really ‘future-proofing agriculture’? (The Guardian) Beyond GDP: changing how we measure progress is key to tackling a world in crisis (The Conversation) 10 Reasons Why Cultivated Meat Is The Future Of Protein: The Case For Lab-Grown (green queen) 13 Ways To Reduce Your Food Waste Footprint Right Now (green queen) How geographical gaps are harming climate science (Eco-business) Greening the Himalayas: Is there a 'wrong' place to plant trees? (Eco-business) Why the US climate bill might struggle to deliver on carbon capture (CHN) . . .
For a long time, as a Geography teacher, I have emphasized to students the need to be careful around language and the climate crisis is a perfect example. For me, the science has proven the anthropomorphic influence on climate for a long time. But at the beginning, people were still debating it and this was playing out for most people in the media where the science and the arguments had gone through the wringer of the journalistic process. The media is a fantastic source of information but students mustn’t forget that in the end the editorial responsibility is maximizing eyeballs and nothing else. Thus, the early years saw the climate crisis described as the greenhouse effect and that terrible metaphor was used in a negative way. Without the “greenhouse effect” there would be no life on earth so we can see how quickly that went wrong. Then this shifted to global warming, which has a nice fuzzy feel to it, especially if you live in colder climes. Finally we saw clim . . .
Debates around sustainability initiatives can often become quite binary. But the world isn’t like that and we need to recognize the complexity of the problems we face. I was reading recently about the problems still facing hydrogen as a fuel of the future. The potential for hydrogen is huge as a clean, efficient and “ubiquitous” energy source. Most debate focuses on the quality of the fuel production methods and how well we have progressed in that area. But while the potential for hydrogen fuel production is spread across space much better than fossil fuels, it will always still be to a certain extent location dependent as the production facilities take considerable investment (unless we hit a utopian future where perhaps a house could produce its own hydrogen fuel). So this creates a new set of problems around moving hydrogen fuel from producer to consumer as hydrogen is difficult to contain without leakage, causes embrittlement of metal casings, can be technically . . .
