I spoke to a family member about why alternative methods to traditional intensive agriculture need to be explored in order to preserve the land. I consider this an important issue as traditional intensive agriculture may contribute to desertification and the socioeconomic consequences of this phenomenon. Given that I've visited the fields cultivated by my grandparents and have observed that they were vast swathes of rice monoculture, I thought this would have been a concern that my family would need to listen to. I told this family member that by replacing the native plants with crops, the soil becomes less stable as the shallower roots of the crops would not be able to retain the soil as well as the native plants. Not only does the soil become unstable and erode over time, the soil that does remain eventually becomes deprived of its nutrients since crops are constantly being grown in high density. I told them that this makes deserts expand more easily and this could bring problems to the economy, public health and biodiversity as the spreading of deserts destroy crops, damage buildings, reduce shade and thereby increasing risk of heatstroke, and destroys viable habitats for all kinds of organisms. I thought that with all the risks associated with traditional intensive agriculture, the family member would have agreed that we need a better farming system to prevent the aggressive spread of deserts, but they did not. They agreed with most of the aspects of the conversation, but also pointed out how alternatives to traditional intensive agriculture could potentially reduce crop yield. According to them, reduced crop yield has two problematic elements. First, given that farmers heavily depend on crops for income, if crop yield were to be even reduced by, for example, 10%, then the farmer with that yield would lose a significant portion of their income. The second problem was that food is always a high-demand resource, thus if crop yield was to be reduced, then many people may starve given the increased difficulty of procuring food. Thus, ultimately, we concluded together that despite the system needing change, we can't exactly afford to be burdened with the potential consequences of such changes. Although, this was not how I expected this discussion to go, I learned to consider the perspectives of other parties thanks to the concerns outlined by the family member. A monoculture rice field in China. Credit: Colin W (Wikimedia Commons) Retrieved on October 5, 2023 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terrace_Rice_Fields,_Yunan_China_-_panoramio.jpg

Despite it being an essential component of our survival, water is a resource that is taken for granted in developed countries. In most other countries, it becomes an exceedingly valuable resource given its scarcity and use in basically everything. Thus, I believe that everyone should have access to clean and easily attainable water. I envision a world where all people will not have to fight over or be forced to pay for water, or worry about contracting horrific diseases and parasites that could cripple or kill from contaminated water. Furthermore, the vision having clean water everywhere would play a role in the preservation of biodiversity as having clean water would help to protect species that heavily depend on good water or general environmental quality. Given that water quality is inequal in different places and varies based on the socioeconomic status of the residents, the restriction of clean and accessible water to demographics of high status is a severe case of injustice that needs to be addressed. I believe that in order to make my vision closer to reality, we need to educate people on the importance of water and inform them on the inequality found in clean water distribution. Through education, more people would understand the gravity of not having clean and accessible. This in turn will help increase support for movements that fight for equality in water distribution. Not only do we have access to water filtration systems, but we also have access to wastewater treament plants such as the one at Iona Beach Regional Park as depicted above. Imagine the difficulty of acquiring clean water in places that lack such infrastructure or the resources for consistently maintaining such infrastructure. Credit: Metro Vancouver. Accessed on October 6, 2023, from https://www.richmond.ca/services/water-sewer-flood/wastewater/iona.htm

Like water, food is an important resource for maintaining the world's population. In the modern day, many farms that provide us with food separate crops and livestock, and are divided into distinct monocultures. Although the aforementioned system see high crop yields, it runs counter to natural ecosystems and causes the soil quality to deteoriate. I value having a significant diversity of food being accessible to anyone and everyone. However, at the same time, intensive monoculture can significantly degrade the very environment that makes such agriculture possible. Thus, I also value agricultural practices that are comparatively more sustainable than traditional agriculture. I envision a world where we can construct farms that act as harmonious systems that does not segregate plants and animals but incorporates them into the same ecosystem. We already have historical techniques that can help reach this goal such as aquaponics. Taking aquaponics alone, if we had the technology to be able to implement it on a large scale, fish farms and crop farms could potentially merged into one, reducing the negative ecological consequences that these farms could bring individually, while reducing maintenance costs given the self-maintaining nature of the mutualistic relationship between the species in the system. Although polycultures and other similar forms of agriculture are made difficult by the government and the economy favoring monocultures, we may be able to see increased prevalence of farms that emulate natural ecosystems in the future. In order to make this change possible, further research need to be done towards this endeavour. In addition, some initial experimental farms incorporating multiple elements into one system need to be set up. If these farms can produce an abundance of products at a low cost, then perhaps they will be considered to be a viable alternative to traditional farming, allowing the practice of diversifying agricultural products to become more mainstream. An image of an aquaponics system incorporating both aquatic organisms and crops. Image by Ryan Griffis on Wikimedia Commons. Image retrieved on October 13, 2023 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aquaponics_at_Growing_Power,_Milwaukee.jpg

Plastics - they're an inescapable part of modern consumption. However, given their lingering nature and organic chemical structure, they have become a persistent issue that impacts both ecological wellbeing and human health. Although exposure to plastic toxins is likely inevitable in contemporary times, I believe that is important that people are able to live without worrying about the risk of encountering health issues arising from plastic usage. I envision a world where that everyone is be able to enjoy food and drink while being minimally exposed to plastic-associated toxins. In order to approach such a world, manufacturers could shift away from plastic towards other alternative materials such as paper, glass or wood. Furthermore, stricter regulations could be imposed on the sale of seafood and other foods for human consumption, screening for plastic concentration. By implementing these two strategies, human exposure to plastic toxins could potentially reduce to some extent. A glass bottle, which could be an alternative to plastic bottles such as the one on the right of this image. Image retrieved on November 3, 2023 from https://ecochain.com/case-studies/case-study-packaging-plastic-vs-glass/

Although we exist in a world where the economy is fundamentally connected to our basic lifestyles, I don't believe that it is impossible to incorporate sustainability elements into businesses while maintaining economic prosperity. What I Value I value an economy that does not attempt to harness and control nature to profit unilaterally, but instead coexists peacefully with it to establish a mutually beneficial relationship between people and the environment. What I Envision I envision a world where corporations can honestly cooperate with governments to set the foundation for a more sustainable society. In this vision, instead of focusing on short-term monetary profits from resource exploitation, companies invest in profitable ventures that help to preserve natural resources in the long term. Possible Interventions As punishing evasion of policy may not be as motivating as rewarding adherence to policy, a potential intervention would be to provide incentive such as subsidies to encourage companies to sustainable practices. However, in order to ensure that sustainable practices are maintained, companies would be regularly and thoroughly audited in order to determine eligibility for incentives based on current evaluations on approaches to sustainability. A train likely containing wood pellets manufactured by Drax. Despite the departure from sustainable practices, Drax continues to receive subsidies (Chan, 2023). In order to provide fair incentive to companies that do adopt and maintain sustainable practices, it is essential that a rigorous and regular auditing system is implement to assess if the operations of a company is deemed sustainable and provide eligibility to incentives accordingly. Image retrieved on October 27, 2023 from https://www.drax.com/ca/ References Chan, K. (2023, October 20). Business [PowerPoint slides]. University of British Columbia.

Fire - it has been both blessing and bane to human civilization. When fire provides for us, it gives us weapons, food, warmth and lighting. However, when it does not, fire razes settlements and exterminates people and other animals alike. Especially in the modern day, where given that methods of firefighting predominantly revolve around extinguishing emergent fires and not reducing combustible material, wildfires become increasingly more intense as they have a greater abundance of fuel. In the present, fires could grow to dangerous extents and encroach on towns and cities. I believe that people should be able to live without worrying that everything theyve built and loved could be reduced to ashes by rapidly spreading wildfires, and that forest fires can stabilize into area-limited and low-temperature burns. I envision a world where people won't have to be concerned about conflagrations during the summer and the ecosystem maintains a sustainable balance between burns and regrowth. Such a world would have overall improved air quality and reduced casualties during the fire season. In order to live in such a world, controlled burns need to be implemented as a more prevalent practice in the world. This would reduce the amount of viable fuel that fires can consume, and would consquently result in cooler flames and slower spread. This would not only help to keep the ecosystem stable but would also keep people and property safer from fires. A fire encroaching on the vicinity of Chongqing, one of China's largest cities. Image by CNN. Retrieved on October 20, 2023 from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/23/china/china-heat-wave-chongqing-wildfires-intl-hnk/index.html

I believe that sustainable means of death care are an essential aspect of approaching a sustainable world. I envision a world where sustainable death care is more prevalent and accessible in the world, granting more choices as to how one's body is dealt with after death. In this world, people would come understand that honoring the memory of someone has died is not mutually exclusive with returning the deceased back to nature. Making sustainable death care accessible could likely be achieved by subsiziding related practices. However, in order to make sustainable death more prevalent, people need to be able to openly discuss their stance on death care and be able to make their own choices without being coerced to choose otherwise by social pressures. Thus, in order to make this vision possible, interventions are required. One such intervention could be to educate people, providing comprehensive information on the various forms of death care. This way, people would understand what is done with their bodies upon death, thereby potentially encouraging discussions on how they want their bodies to be treated after death and opening new choices for people who would have otherwise only believed in the existence of traditional methods such as casket burial. Earthworms are detritivores that participate in decomposition and thus contribute nutrients back into the ecosystem. By making sustainable death care practices more accessible to the public, then many people would also be able to contribute to ecosystems by returning their bodies back to nature instead of confining their remains in a box until they are forgotten. Image by Fir0002 on Wikimedia commons. Retrieved on November 10, 2023 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earthworm.jpg(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earthworm.jpg)

Aspiration I envision a future where I could effectively communicate my values with others as a means to facilitate transformative change. In such a world, I would be able to bring my friends and family together to discuss current ecological problems such as flaws in traditional agriculture and rampant consumption caused by fast fashion. By sharing my ideas with those close to me, we may be able to change the way we live, and subsequently influencing the ways that other people live via social signaling and approach a more sustainable world. Intervention In order to achieve such a future, I plan to practice public speaking more often in order to improve my confidence and articulation. By improving my ability to communicate clearly with others, I would be able to more easily share my values to a wider audience. Reflection Overall, this course was particularly insightful in showing me the importance of expressing my own values in shaping transformative change. I found this point to be particularly important because if we as a whole would like to drive sustainably beneficial changes to how our society and economy is structured, we need to get people to care about the issue at hand. Also, I appreciated how the every issue in the class was discussed in a multifaceted way as it taught me to carefully consider every aspect of a given issue as perfect solutions may be difficult or impossible to devise. In order to gain traction for transformative change, framing relative to the target audience's values would likely be critical in convincing the audience that ecological issues are severe and need to be addressed. Image by Alexander Sheko. Retrieved on December 8, 2023 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Picture_frames_Presgrave_Place_Melbourne.jpg

Last year, I stumbled upon a speech by Vijay Prashard that I resonated with. In the video, Prashard criticizes the West for holding developing countries such as India and China responsible for significantly contributing to climate change, when the root of the issue stems from historical and economic factors such as the aftermath of colonialism on a post-colonial India and outsourcing of unsustainable manufacturing to countries such as China. I also think that calling for control on carbon emissions is unfair to developing countries as they may heavily depend on fossil fuels to even barely just get by or lack the infrastructure or resources to develop alternative energy sources. Given that we live in a world where not everyone begins at the same starting point, I believe that it is important that peoples who hail from developing countries should not be pressured to be held at the same environmental standard as people who come from developed countries. I also believe that responsibility for Climate Change should be designated not just by superficial factors such as current air quality but also by addressing the causes of underlying issues such as oppression and poverty so that we can approach a world that is more just. I envision a world where different peoples of different standings can progress at their own pace without being criticized of being indifferent about the environment when addressing ecological problems takes lower priority over simply surviving in this unforgiving world. I believe that in order to solve this issue, we need to address the dark and persistent history of exploitation, oppression and humiliation that is inextricably connected to it. We need to call reconciliatory action and by this I don't just mean monetary reparations. We need to educate the general public and not obscure the past atrocities committed by colonial and warmongering nations that attempt to whitewash or downplay them in the present. Only then can we gain the slightest glimpse of how these people have suffered and have been deprived of a future of prosperity. Only then can we understand that not everyone stands on the same ground when it comes to climate change. Perhaps in a future where we do achieve such a feat, others can provide unconditional aid to those in need and pull them up to the same level so that we can approach a more sustainable world together.

In the modern day, people may find it impossible to avoid buying stuff. Sometimes, we might just think that this is simply due to the covetous nature of human beings. Indeed, this greed and desire for status manifested through symbols of material wealth certainly does contribute to uncontrollable consumerism. However, no matter how much of an ascetic one may be, it is genuinely difficult to avoid making unsustainable purchases, and this is a product of planned obsolence. In a world where our everyday lives are heavily entwined with technology, it is difficult to avoid making purchases if products break on a regular basis. You can't even purchase a cell phone without having to replace it four or five years down the line! I believe that by circumventing planned obsolence, we can not only make the world a more sustainable place, but we'll also make technology more accessible to people with lower income, thus improving general quality of life. I envision a world where people can continue use products for more than ten years at a time without malfunctions. I also hope to see a world where even the lower class can have access to functional cell phones, washing machines, kitchen appliances, etc, without having to having to frequently repurchase. A potential solution to mitigate planned obsolescence would be to advise people to, if possible, purchase older products that are known to be durable. I remember the stories from my parents where they would accidentally drop a flip phone from the third floor and the phone would be perfectly intact. Another way to combat planned obsolescence would be to purchase appliances that have more analog components than digital components to facilitate repairs as digital components tend to be more difficult to repair compared to mechanical ones. .

As far as I can trace back, my ancestors all used to provide people with food through farming. However, as traditional agriculture requires clear land and is generally monoculture, I am concerned about desertification due to the removal of deeply rooted plants and nutrient depletion in the soil as a consequence of monoculture. This is a serious problem to me as my family has ancestrally depended on the land. If the once fertile soils disappeared, then my family and many other families may ultimately be deprived of the food that used to be available in abundance. To circumvent such a grim future, action must be taken. Perhaps we could inform people on how the land may transform after clearing away the native foliage. They could incorporate endemic flora back into the farmland to help preserve the initial composition of the soil and reduce the risk of desertification. The image above is a picture of my grandparents' home and a monoculture of crops can be seen in the pen.