The DC Environment Journal Issue 2

THE DC ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY

PRESENTS

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THE DC ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL Hello and welcome to the second edition of the DC Environment Journal, July 2021. We hope you feel inspired by our collection of environmental articles.

WHY THE ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL IS GOING BLUE The fight to protect the Earth cannot be won by looking at the green only. Oceans make up 70% of our planet, and are vital in everything from climate regulation to biodiversity to employment. So, we feel it is time to honour them by going blue.

Along with several articles on marine topics, this journal has, once again, brought together people hoping to make a difference in a variety of other fields.

Robotic bees, the circular economy and urban planning are just some of the topics that feature. This journal also celebrates the success that DC students have had raising awareness outside of school, both in essay competitions and at the 2021 Youth Earth Summit. Thank you to all our contributors for helping make this a success.

Janice and Nina

CONTENTS  Seaweed – Our Saviour? Tara Malhotra  Commercial Fishing Solutions, Megan Levitt  When Urban Planning Meets Sustainability, Janice Walder  Innovations Sparking Change, Alize Zobairi and Ryka Gehi  The Potential of Nanoclay (2021 Youth Earth Summit winner), by Madilyn Allen-Paver, Lilly Geldhof, Megan Levitt and Janice Walder  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Mia James  Carbon Capture and Storage, Aaron Walder  How has COVID-19 Affected the Environment, Lucija Amizic  Does the Politics of Global Warming Show that the Nation State is an Outdated Political Artefact? (highly commended for the Minds Underground competition), by Maryam Al Anani

Tara Malhotra

SEAWEED – OUR SAVIOUR? It’s easy to think that more nutrients would foster healthy ecosystems. Yet eutrophication wreaks havoc on marine systems, contributing to harmful algae blooms and worsening water quality.

Industrial farming sends copious amounts of nutrient runoff into oceans. Algae consume this, causing blooms that produce biotoxins and smother habitats. Furthermore, when algae decompose, they consume available oxygen in the water which suffocates wildlife - these areas are aptly named “dead zones”.

Researchers from UC Santa Barbara proposed cultivating seaweed as a strategy for reducing existing nutrients in water bodies. Seaweed could be revolutionary as it would absorb the nutrients, preventing algal blooms and also supplementing these areas with necessary oxygen. This would be a great way to balance ecosystems in disarray.

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico’s geology has exacerbated the effects of eutrophication. Over 800 watersheds deposit nutrients in the gulf which has resulted in a constantly growing dead zone. As a solution, the team were able to identify 63,000 km2 in the gulf suitable for seaweed aquaculture. They even said that planting seaweed in <1% of the gulf could allow the country to reach pollution goals that were previously thought impossible.

Moreover, the demand for seaweed in food and industry sectors are rising. It has the potential for success in biofuel, fertiliser and food: this means that seaweed aquaculture could be lucrative in itself. However, introducing species to fix a problem is tricky. There have been countless unsuccessful attempts to include invasive species, like the cane toad in Australia, so if seaweed species were to be introduced to the gulf, they should be endemic.

Solutions like these bode well for our future. We should endeavour to implement them to alleviate the strain on our planet.

Megan Levitt

COMMERCIAL FISHING SOLUTIONS The world is on the brink of an environmental disaster – experts predict that our oceans will be fishless by 2048. Urgent action is needed to change these global trends, and thankfully there are some solutions that have been successfully implemented around the world.

On a small scale, you can make a difference by being a smart consumer: • Limit your fish intake & choose sustainable fish over farmed fish.

• Educate yourself – through articles, documentaries and podcasts.

On a global scale, immediate reforms need to take place, such as creating more marine protected areas (currently less than 1% of the oceans have zero-fishing tolerance). Additionally, trawling needs to be completely banned. Trawling drags huge nets through the ocean that scoop up every animal and the ecosystem in their pathway, resulting in massive wasteful bycatch. From Chile to Hong Kong, countries all around the world are permanently banning trawling, and many more are moving in the right direction by establishing no trawling zones.

Finally, a new project called INdIGO was launched with the aim of developing a completely biodegradable fishing net. This is receiving funding from the European Regional Development Fund. EU governments need to support this project as fishing nets are very unsustainable, making up 46% of the Great Pacific garbage patch!

Janice Walder

WHEN URBAN PLANNING MEETS SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability is not just about fencing off vast swathes of land and leaving them be. As land use becomes increasingly intensive, sustainability needs to become embedded in the very core of human society: our cities.

Singapore is called ‘biophilic,’ with sustainability at the front of every planning decision. Here are some ways in which it is done: •

• •

Underground networks of common service tunnels will effectively channel waste, water, power and communication cables. Plans are being made to relocate railways underground, while natural caverns will be used for storage.

Vertical farming is designed to reduce emissions caused by food imports.

Some companies have turned rooftops into farms, and other firms, such as Sustenir Agriculture, grow food indoors on huge scales.

Urban planning: Singapore’s tropical climate means that architects want to encourage breezes. Computer simulations allow urban planners to position buildings and blocks in such a way that breezes are channelled inland.

Ideally, a sustainable plan doesn’t only aim to protect the environment. It harmonises the relationship between us and our surroundings, so that we don’t have to worry if our infrastructure can withstand the next natural disaster, or if our healthcare systems can cope with the next pandemic.

Sustainable cities are safer, cleaner, more habitable and more beautiful.

INNOVATIONS SPARKING CHANGE

By Alize Zobairi and Ryka Gehi The Sea Bin The release of chemicals into the ocean can lead to reductions in oxygen levels, the decay of plant life, and a severe decline in the quality of seawater itself.

Furthermore, 30-40% of the carbon dioxide from human activity (such as the carbon from factories, cars etc.) is released into the atmosphere and then dissolves into oceans, resulting in the creation of carbonic acid. The Sea Bin, created by surfers Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski, wanted to clean up the world's ocean and save the environment. In action, the Seabin can filter out plastics, detergents and oil from polluted water, allowing pure water to flow back out. A water pump sucks water through the bin, passing it out once it has been purified. Today, there are 830 sea bins all around the world capturing around 4000 kg of plastic every day. The total amount of plastic captured is 1.9 million kilograms. It only needs to be emptied once a month and could make a significant impact on water pollution and save our oceans for future generations.

B-Droid There has been a large drop in the bee population due to many reasons, including environmental pollution, fungi, parasites, and the fact that bees cannot fly long distances. In the USA, they travel for hundreds of kilometres and die after several days due to fatigue. But researchers at the University of Warsaw created B-droid – a robotic bee that can pollinate crops as effectively as normal bees. “The robot observes the terrain using cameras and checks the captured images for the presence of flowers in the vicinity,” explains Dr Rafal Dalewski. By analysing these images, it can create a map of the terrain, determine its own location, establish a flower from its setting and immediately prepare a set of data to retrieve pollen from that flower. This invention helps boost the natural bee population by giving robotic bees high labour and low nutritional tasks to do, as well as help improve the efficiency of agriculture.

MarinaTex Lucy Hughes, a 24-year-old innovator and design graduate from the University of Sussex, was the winner of the 2019 International James Dyson Award. Hughes created MarinaTex: a biodegradable, home-compostable, ecofriendly material that can potentially replace single-use plastic. It is made from fish skin, fish scales and red algae – three natural ingredients that can produce a bioplastic that does not release toxins into the environment.

MarinaTex is stronger than a standard plastic bag, even though it is primarily made from discarded fish waste materials. For Hughes, “sustainability was never an afterthought” and she could see “potential locked up” in the fish waste. The new bioplastic formed was “flexible yet pliable.” The waste from one Atlantic Cod can produce 1400 bags. MarinaTex strongly believes in the circular economy: an economic model that is restorative and regenerative by design. It maximises the resources that we have on this planet. Our current model is a linear process: we take from the Earth, we make with it, then dispose of it. To close the loop and provide a framework that bridges the gap between behaviours, business and our planet, we need the circular economy. We need the circular economy to maximise and utilise the resources we are using, and that is exactly what MarinaTex is doing.

Madilyn Allen-Paver, Lilly Geldhof, Megan Levitt, Janice Walder (A winning entry at the 2021 Youth Earth Summit)

THE POTENTIAL OF NANOCLAY Soil is a non-renewable resource at the heart of terrestrial ecology. It plays an indispensable role in agriculture and is responsible for 95% of global food production. The soils in the United Arab Emirates, however, are coarse, sandy, underdeveloped, and deficient in organic matter. This, coupled with the UAE’s challenging, arid climate and limited rainfall (<100mm annually), inhibits the country from producing the desired yield of domestic crops for self-sufficiency. As a result, there is a heavy reliance on imports: 3.5million tonnes of food was imported in the first quarter of 2020, accruing a cost of over 13 billion AED. As a solution to reduce the economic and environmental impact of transporting produce across continents to feed the growing population, we explored the use of Liquid Nanoclay to enhance soil fertility and thus improve food security.

Invented in the mid-2000's by a Norwegian start-up, Desert Control, Liquid Nanoclay has the ability to transform poor-quality sandy soils into arable agricultural land. The technology turns thick clay into a thin liquid. When sprayed onto sand or sandy soil, the liquid mixture soaks in, forming a sponge-like layer. The natural polarity between negatively charged clay particles and positively charged sand grains cultivates a layer 200-300 nanometers thick around each sand particle.

This increases the surface area of the soil so that water and nutrients can chemically bond to the sand instead of being lost through soil runoff. As a result, water retention improves thus benefitting land fertility.

According to Desert Control, Liquid Nanoclay is able to reduce irrigation requirements and water usage by half.

The deposition of alluvial particles for soil fertilisation has been occurring naturally on the Nile Delta in Egypt for thousands of years. The UAE’s harsh climate is alike to that of Egypt and thus using clay technology to fertilise the soil has potential to be upscaled for domestic crop production.

Having piloted the technology, Nanoclay-based agriculture has demonstrated recent success in converting barren land to a fruit farm within 40 days in the emirate of Dubai.

Therefore, the most prevalent challenge to commercial scaling in the UAE is the startup cost of $2 per square metre.

The ‘National Strategy for Sustainable Agriculture’ has been introduced by the UAE Cabinet, with the aim of increasing the efficiency of farms and the nation’s self-sufficiency. This interest towards investing in pioneering technology creates the necessary budget for the commercial upscaling of Nanoclay. However, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with similar climatic pressures, will not be able to afford the technology. Increasing the usage of Nanoclay in the UAE would also assist in the solution to this global food insecurity.

Scientists’ increased exposure to its effects will in turn refine the product and eventually reduce the cost. Moreover, by reaching out to developing economies who are focused on agricultural output and working with NGOs such as the Red Crescent, the UAE can reap the benefits of exporting Nanoclay to these countries. The broader effects include access to international crop supply, potentially cheaper imports and better relations between the UAE and global food suppliers – something that is vital in any international action to combat the climate crisis.

Mia James

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE The 3 R's of responsible waste management are reduce, reuse, and recycle. These components are essential to achieving a sustainable lifestyle.

Reduce: lowering consumption is an important step in protecting the Earth's resources. It can be done by limiting the amount of goods and materials you consume. This will help you avoid impulse purchases and minimise the amount of goods you buy.

However, the most effective way to reduce waste is to not create it in the first place.

Making a new product requires a lot of materials and energy - raw materials must be extracted from the earth, then the product must be fabricated and then transported to wherever it will be sold. These processes release carbon emissions, polluting the atmosphere. To avoid these extra emissions, you could avoid disposable goods such as plastic straws, paper plates, cups, napkins, and razors. Single-use items contribute to the problem, and cost more because they must be replaced again and again.

Reuse is a broad term that refers to the process of reusing or remaking various materials or products. Disposable cutlery is an example of a non-reusable product. Cutlery that can be reused prevents waste at the landfill, and as no new products need to be manufactured it also lowers the amount of energy needed. As a result, there is less pollution and more natural resources are left intact. You could reuse products for the same purpose, such as reusing paper or plastic bags, or in a different way, like using old clothes as car rags.

Donating old clothes, toys or books is an easy way to reuse products.

Recycling is a series of steps that takes used materials and processes them to form new products. Various materials such as aluminum, plastic, and glass are commonly used to make new products. Buying recycled goods is an easy way to be more environmentally friendly: they are no different from standard goods, but they help make the most of our valuable resources.

Together, these three elements can help preserve and enhance the natural resources of the Earth. By reducing waste, energy consumption, and pollutants, we can help minimise our impact on the environment.

Here is an infographic that shows the importance of the three R’s of waste management in the circular economy:

Aaron Walder

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a method of reducing the damage done to the environment by the burning of fossil fuels. CCS involves capturing the harmful gases released by fossil fuel power stations and separating the carbon dioxide from the other gases. This carbon dioxide is then injected back into the ground, in suitable underground locations, where it then turns into harmless carbonate rocks.

The first part of the process, the capture of carbon, is achieved through two steps. First, the gases given off by the burning of fossil fuels are collected. The carbon dioxide is separated from the other gases through the use of a variety of separation technologies, such as membrane gas separation, which uses polymeric membranes to extract carbon dioxide.

In the second stage of the process, the storage of carbon, the carbon is transported from the fossil fuel power station to a suitable location using pipelines for shorter distances and ships for longer distances. Freight railways and tanker trucks can be utilised too, although they are more expensive methods of transport. Locations for storage that involve sedimentary carbonate rock formation are ideally over 1 km underground and are at high temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius, for faster carbon mineralisation. Alternatively, other good locations can be depleted gas fields that can be refilled. Once the carbon dioxide reaches the location, it is injected underground where it is stored in either rock formations or as a gas.

Carbon capture and storage is a concept which is being attempted in many regions across the world. So far, the efficiency of CCS at reducing the impact of emissions hasn't been easily measurable, and increasing the use of this unproven system can prove to be a waste of money and resources, as well as precious time. If, however, it is proven to be effective, it can be turned into a key component of transformative change.

For more information, please visit: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200616-how-iceland-isundoing-carbon-emissions-for-good

Lucija Amizic

HOW HAS COVID-19 AFFECTED THE ENVIRONMENT? Since the outbreak of COVID-19, our consumption of PPE litter has skyrocketed. In fact, China increased their production of face masks by 450% in a month. This has significantly increased plastic pollution globally and poses a threat to wildlife; animals may be entangled by mask ear loops, trapped in them, or even ingest them.

Even though our short-lived consumption of this litter is partially unavoidable, here are some tips to make your use and disposal of COVID-19 related items more environmentally conscious: •

Cut the strings off your single-use face masks. This is because masks that still have ear loops attached easily tangles around animals’ necks, legs or beaks.

•

Wash and reuse cloth masks. This might not be possible for every situation, but if it is safe to do so, buy from local makers who use scrap fabric. You are not only being more sustainable, but also supporting small businesses, who need all the help they can get during this financial crisis.

•

Skip single-use cleaning wipes. Instead, use a cloth or rag and a spray cleaner. Alcohol-based disinfectant can be bought in bulk and poured into reusable bottles so there is less plastic that has the potential to harm wildlife.

With your help, we can help alleviate the strain on our planet and help the voiceless!

To find out more, please visit https://www.piie.com/blogs/tradeand-investment-policy-watch/covid-19-chinas-exports-medicalsupplies-provide-ray-hope.

Maryam Al Anani (Highly commended for the Minds Underground competition)

DOES THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL WARMING SHOW THAT THE NATION STATE IS AN OUTDATED POLITICAL ARTEFACT? The last seven years have been the warmest in human history, with 2016 and 2020 being the warmest years on record. From the Rio Earth Summit to the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement, something seems to be hindering attempts at progress on global warming. It is clear that the issue is in need for political reform. As world politics is built upon nation states as political entities, this essay will argue that the nation state itself is counterproductive to making progress on this issue. Through examining the various UN climate change conferences, I will first discuss the rising trend in regionalism, what this means for nation states and the need more specifically for supranational institutions such as the EU. Then I will touch upon the role of the nation state in propagating the problematic ‘developed’ vs ‘developing’ dialogue that has polarised the many nations of the world on the issue of global warming.

Finally, I will be examining the emergence of non-state actors, primarily nongovernmental organisations, and what this reflects about the nation state as a political artefact.

Regionalism is defined as the ‘creation and implementation of institutions that express a particular identity and shape collective action within a geographical region’. The creation of such institutions over recent decades, ranging from the European Union (EU) to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Arab League has been a response to pressing global issues, and a recognition of the need for collective action, as ‘common problems need common solutions.’ It is safe to say that there is consensus among the nations of the world that global warming is one such common problem. Regionalist approaches are in and of themselves proof that the nation state, as a political artefact, is unable to tackle issues such as global warming, as they necessarily infringe on the sovereignty of nation states.

While not every party’s interests are protected, this allows groups of countries to achieve much more than what would be possible for one sovereign nation state alone. For example, through developing a single market, the EU has been able to force transnational corporations (TNCs) to comply with minimum environmental standards, as these companies do not have a choice.

However, there is one crucial factor that is missing from most of these regional organisations that is preventing any real progress to be made (perhaps because it infringes even further on the sovereignty of nation states), which is the lack of supranational, as opposed to mere intergovernmental, governance. It is not a coincidence that there is only one regional institution that has been able to effectively address environmental concerns: the EU. Unlike intergovernmental bodies such as the UN, supranational institutions do not require unanimity to reach a decision, making the process of reaching resolutions much more efficient. The failure of several climate conferences over the years to achieve any concrete environmental goals shows that there is a need for more supranational institutions like the EU. This sheds light on the weaknesses of the UN, namely that, as an intergovernmental organisation, states still uphold their sovereignty, meaning they cannot be compelled to adhere to any internationally negotiated restrictions.

Indeed, the reluctance of the US and China to sign up to binding agreements has been a major obstacle in most climate conferences. For example, at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development, more commonly known as the Earth Summit, US president George H. W. Bush was reluctant to attend and refused to sign a number of key agreements regarding emissions. The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference required participants to merely ‘take note’ of the Accord, with no binding action to achieve the required reduction in emissions. The Paris Conference in 2015 was interesting in that not a single country was legally required to make emissions cuts- a deliberate approach. This decision was due to previous failures of the UN to craft legally binding global treaties concerning global warming and subsequent hopes that voluntary pledges would result in greater co-operation between states. However, this was a huge risk to take. The result of not putting enough pressure on states is that, unsurprisingly, many are not living up to their promises. Global greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase, with a billion tonnes added to annual CO2 emissions between 2015 and 2018, corresponding to an increase in global temperatures.

Nation states are also problematic in that they propagate an individualistic ‘us vs them’ mentality, notably between developed and developing nations. It is obvious why these labels are counterproductive to resolving a crisis that does not recognise the artificial boundaries that constitute nation states. Despite efforts made in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during the 1992 conference in Rio in recognising the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ of states, disputes over the issue of which nations should take the most responsibility have proved to be a significant obstacle to cooperation and agreement in all climate change conferences. What further complicates these negotiations is the multitude of factors that different states claim need to be taken into account when deciding who should take the most responsibility, including annual emissions, emissions per capita, historical contributions and accounting for traded goods. Unsurprisingly, each of these factors points to different culprits.

The ‘developed’ vs ‘developing’ narrative has allowed countries that fall in each of these two categories to scapegoat one another in climate change conferences. Jeremy Wallace, associate professor in Cornell University’s Department of Government, admits that ‘we might need to move beyond this language of developing and developed countries…it obfuscates more than it actually clarifies’. Björn Conrad, Vice President of the Mercator Institute for China studies, highlights that China’s ambiguous position on this scale has been the cause of tension in international conventions. During the 1992 Earth Summit, China argued that, as a developing country, it was not responsible for the damage done by wealthier nations whose earlier industrial activities were responsible for the environmental damage felt today. The Kyoto Protocol exempted 80% of the world from emission reductions, garnering widespread criticism for failing to take into account developing countries such as Brazil and India that were increasingly responsible for emitting greenhouse gases due to industrialisation (U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 2016). This caused the US to withdraw from the Kyoto agreements in 2001, with then-president George W. Bush claiming the terms were unfair as they disregarded countries contributing more to global warming. As a political artefact, the nation state inevitably encourages this ‘tit for tat’ dialogue that hinders the process of reaching any resolution on environment issues, as states naturally adopt a defensive attitude to protect their national integrity.

The splitting of the world’s nations into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ draws attention to the history of how nation states came to be in the first place, a history steeped in the colonialist ambitions of 20th century superpowers. As novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta (2018) puts it in his The Guardian article, ‘in the breakneck pace of decolonisation, nations were thrown together in months’. The result is that in many parts of world, as put by Colomer (2007) ‘the very idea of ‘state’ is frustrated since governments have not attained an internal monopoly nor external sovereignty’. As he further argues:

‘Among the usual characteristics of many Latin American, African, and Arab would-be “states” there is a lack of control of the territory and population by the government, an inability to extract taxes and provide the most basic public goods and services, persistent violence and widespread crime, frequent interstate border conflict, and ethnic civil wars’ (p. 100).

If many of the so-called nation states of the world are failing to even govern their own populations, how can we realistically expect them to join international agreements on the same footing as other nation states? How can the nation state, as a political artefact, effectively address global warming if most states do not even meet the basic definition of one? This inequity simply cannot be ignored.

The question of non-state actors such as NGOs is an important one to consider when examining the nation state as a political artefact, as the emergence of the former can shed a light on the inadequacies of the latter. It could be argued that the aforementioned reasons for the failure of many of the climate change conferences do not apply to NGOs, as they arose specifically from peculiarities pertaining to nation statehood. The main area where nation states fall short of their non-state counterparts is national interests. Nongovernmental organisations are not hampered down by the need to satisfy national interests, whereas nation states, by their very existence as such, are.

According to the Cité de l’Économie, one key issue at conferences has been ‘agreeing on voluntary national targets consistent with an effective global response to climate change’, however this is contradictory in itself as the individualistic national interests of states will never sufficiently align with global needs. The result has been a lack of domestic legislation to implement targets agreed upon at conferences. The voluntary approach undertaken at Paris highlights this conflict of interest, with Intended Nationally Determined Contributions raising the question of whether any such ‘nationally determined’ policy can ever be of real value.

NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the World Wide Fund for Nature have been instrumental in putting pressure on international organisations to make economic growth compatible with sustainable development, calling for more drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. They are also effective in their ability to increase awareness on issues, which can ultimately lead to changes in government policy as voters start to prioritise global warming. They have been present at UN climate change conferences and actively lobby state governments on environmental issues. For example, a significant achievement of the Friends of the Earth was recognising the 1.5°C threshold at the Paris Accord. NGO participation in the Rio Earth Summit contributed to decisions such as Agenda 21 and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, showing acknowledgement of NGOs as ‘partners for sustainable development’. During the Kyoto Protocol, NGOs framed and set issues on the negotiation agenda, and additionally helped address the divide between developed and developing countries.

Ultimately, in a world that will continue to accelerate towards the disastrous consequences of global warming unless something drastically changes, it is imperative to look beyond what existing political structures have to offer. The traditional authority of nation states, who have been the major players in global politics, is being threatened by the need for supranational governance that overrides their sovereignty. Furthermore, the rising influence of non-state actors has clearly exposed the areas in which nation states have repeatedly failed. To be in a position to effectively tackle global warming, the world needs to function less like it does now and more like a large-scale institutional equivalent of the European Union.

Editors in chief Nina Hindocha Janice Walder Editors

Mia James Tara Malhotra Writers Tara Malhotra Megan Levitt Janice Walder Alize Zobairi Ryka Gehi Madilyn Allen-Paver

Lilly Geldhof Mia James Aaron Walder Lucija Amizic Maryam Al Anani