Seminar summary by Hanna Koloszyc
On Thursday, 08 May 2014, four students presented their own presentations at the seminar course
“Sustainable Development in Internationals Perspectives” at Mid Sweden
University in Östersund. They chose really interesting topics. There are four short
overviews of discussed issues below.
1. PHYTOREMEDIATION
by Andreas Willfors
One of the efficient technology, which can help us with taking
care of pollutions is phytoremediation. It uses green plants to remove, contain
or render harmless environmental contaminants. We can remediate soils and
groundwater easily by this idea. There are different types of plants to remove
different kinds of pollution. Advantages of this technology are mainly: not so
high costs, sustainability and aesthetic. However, we are not able to predict
how long we will need to monitoring, measuring and using proper treatment for these
plants, what can be a reason of increasing costs. Moreover in this kind of investment
it is really important to plan it carefully and improve people’s knowledge.
2. ISOLATION OR INTEGRATION - NATIONAL PARKS IN SWEDEN AND THE USA
by
Daniel Streif
Nowadays we can protect nature in different
ways. One of the possibility is creating the national parks. They are usually
established by the governments or organizations, which co-operate with
governments. There are 29 National Parks in Sweden and 59 in USA. There are
variety of different regulations. The
isolation of areas (especially small) can has disadvantages such as: limited
living space, small gene pool, limited biodiversity and less adaptation to
climate change. Solution for this can be integration of few areas by building
ecological corridors, enlarging gateway areas and habitats. This is way our
future goals to achieve sustainability should include increasing the number of
protected areas, gateway areas and corridors, otherwise loss of biodiversity in
national parks can increase the climate change.
3. THE HUMAN POPOULATION – THE MAJOR ENVIRONEMNTAL PROBLEM
by Linus Theorell
After the industrial revolution, the human
population has started increasing really fast. Current world population is
around 7 231 400 000 people. In the future it will probably
reach 10 billion people, which is definitely too much to provide good life for
all of these people. Already now 2,5 billion people live in poverty. What is
more increasing population has a big influence on our environment, which is not able to deal with effects of human
lifestyle. We can distinguished effects of human activities such as: lack of
food and soil degradation, desertification, deforestation, lack of freshwater
shortage, overfishing, mineral depletion, increased energy demand, escalating
climate change, environmental refugees. Possible solutions are: population
reduction methods (family planning, abortion, sterilization, legislation,
education) and demographic transition. However, these solutions can meet with
boundaries such as: religion, culture, tradition and social class. Additional they
can be responsible for the unsustainable age distribution. The conclusion is
that the human population growth will lead to really bad conditions on earth or
even to the collapse.
During debate in the classroom we could
notice that is really controversial topic. What is worth to emphasize that the human population growth will regulate by itself depending on the
current living conditions. It is rather not possible to prevent the growth or to
decrease it. People should rather focus on dealing with effects of their own
activities. Furthermore, developed
countries should educate and help less-developed countries achieve the economic growth.
4. ALGAE - FULE OF THE FUTURE?
by Fredrik Longueville
One of the solution and possibility of the
future fuel are algae. The algae can double its biomass in 3,5h, they needs
less water than terrestrial crops and they are photo synthetically efficient. Due
to new technology we can get from them: hydrogen, biodiesel, bio methane, bio
oil and green diesel. They grow in special shallow pumps (Tubular photo
bioreactors). They are harvested by
filtration, centrifugation, flotation and flocculation. They can also be used
like the carbon capture and storage or the carbon capture and utilization. Algae are emerging to be one of the most promising
long-term, sustainable sources of fuel.
This show us that we should invest in
education and science research. It is really important to not stuck in one
place but try to test, develop and create new ideas to make our world more
sustainable and happy.