Joesph+Levin

= Sustainability Themes = Top 5:
 * 1) Peace, Justice, and strong institutions
 * 2) Life on land
 * 3) clean water and sanitation
 * 4) Quality education
 * 5) Zero hunger

Clean water and sanitation

Clean water is particularly important for the planet. Although there is plenty of water on the planet, very little of it is fresh water, and an even smaller amount is drinkable for humans. This is why efforts for creating clean water a crucial to humanity. Already, there are areas of the world lacking enough water necessary to support the populations living in those areas. With a way to produce or use more fresh water, it could potentially save many lives and allow more individuals to live in areas that could previously not support the amount of people.

Peace, Justice, and strong institutions

Currently, a large problem with the world is the growing nuclear tensions between the major nations of the world, with all of the other countries caught in the crossfires. The situation is dangerous for the human race, and if conflicts escalate enough it could result in a mass extinction of many species. With the disarming of multiple countries, thee world could see peace and allow the other sustainability conflicts to be taken care of.

media type="youtube" key="yMWlkJAqKYU" width="560" height="315"
 * Curing HIV with lasers **

In the video, it is described how using laser technology can be used to potentially cure HIV. The treatment consists of making small holes in the cell membrane of infected cells, and administering medication through these holes. This would cut out using pills, which take time to come into effect, as they have to travel through the digestive track to be broken down until it is able to travel through the bloodstream. This process is what results in negative side effects from medication and also is not completely effective as the medication is not fully controlled as to what location it travels. Laser technology can administer the medication directly to infected cells, cutting out the negative effects and possibly being effective enough to rid the world of HIV.

Stop Wasting Food media type="youtube" key="cWC_zDdF74s" width="560" height="315"

In this video, the global wasting of food is discussed. It claims that the efficiency of food consumption in comparison to food production is extremely poor. It talks about how most of the food we produce ends up thrown out or wasted. Food is given standards, such as shape or size, and when these standards are not met, food is thrown out and wasted. There are significantly more efficient ways of using food, such as not only giving food that is deemed unfit for supermarkets to those that are hungry, but also using more of the types of food we have which is known as undesirable. By using food better, such efforts could reduce hunger worldwide and reduce waste that is sent to landfills, as well as reducing gas emissions into the atmosphere.

This relates to our lesson this week as ending hunger is a very important sustainability goal. While doing what is recommended in this video is only able to extend the food we already have, it is a good first step towards slowing the hunger on the planet. However it is certainly not a permanent solution, as it is food that is already accounted for, and most likely will not be enough to feed the world within 100 years.

Thorium as Sustainable Energy media type="youtube" key="N2vzotsvvkw" width="560" height="315" While researching a safe source of energy for the moon, this NASA employee stumbled upon a potentially revolutionary source of sustainable energy for the planet. First, he found that the use of salt based energy could be used cleaner and more efficient than current nuclear power plants. These plants would also be safer and require less material to be contained since no pressure would be necessary to apply. However, what he felt the biggest source of sustainable energy that could be used was thorium, and element that exists in fairly high quantities around the planet and on the moon as well. This element has much higher energy potential than Uranium and plutonium as well, and the energy it does produce can be used more efficiently. It also does not require the use of water coolant meaning that it does not produce steam. While making it safer, it means the plants are also more versatile as well since they no longer would need to be near large bodies of water.

While it may seem like there are no downsides from the ted talk, it began to raise questions in my mind as to why, if it truly is this beneficial, have we not started using thorium right away. After further investigation, I learned that thorium is significantly more dangerous of an element in the short term. Its half lives produce elements with extremely dangerous gamma rays, some of which being extremely hard to shield. There is also the question of what we really know about thorium. Not much research has truly taken place into using thorium on plants, and the potential financial problems it could bring scare away potential investors.

Link to benefits/downsides of thorium use: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium.html

This relates to the topics in class as we talked about our carbon footprint, which ties into responsible energy use. Small quantities of thorium can be used to produce the same amount of energy as large amounts of uranium/plutonium. It seems like thorium could be considered a sustainable source of energy with potentially safer uses than other sources. Thorium could be a long term solution for a source of energy to fill in for the flaws of renewable energy sources.