California unveils plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2045, says climate plan could be the roadmap to a post-human future
By Laura Fermi
The Colorado River, in the background, running through Hoover Dam in Nevada, which produces about a third of the water used in the United States.
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Laura Fermi
The climate of the American South, especially in the Southwestern region, has always been a hotbed for experimentation and innovation. Throughout the years, the region has seen massive change, some of it good, some of it not so good, and sometimes in shades of grey. The change has been, and continues to be, both massive and complex. This is the environment in which the concept of sustainability has been invented, and in the process it was also born out of the Southwestern region.
The concept of sustainability is a concept that was first articulated by Herman Daly in his book entitled “The Great Transition.” Daly proposed a concept called “sustainability” that describes what happens when a system’s environmental impact is balanced against the need for the system’s operation, to keep producing, producing, and producing on a level that maintains the overall viability of the system. According to Daly, we were moving toward a situation where the environmental impact of an organization, or an industry, or a society can no longer be considered a negative, but instead has become a positive.
The Colorado River, in the foreground, running through Hoover Dam, producing about 25 percent of the water used in the United States.
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The need for water, which becomes more and more difficult to meet as a growing population demands for more services, creates a pressure to find a solution. This is where the concept of “Sustainable Water Systems” comes in. These systems need to be as sustainably operational as possible to prevent future crises, and maintain a continuous supply of water to a growing population, which has been a driving force in the change towards a more sustainable living.
The concept of sustainability has also been coined as a way to bridge the gap between the current and the future. According to Daly, a goal of sustainability is to not only reduce but also eliminate human impact in the environment. The idea is that the way we