Poverty is not only the lack of food and will never end by traditional aid policies where only free-food is given to the poor. These policies have indeed not only fueled poverty but generated more and more poverty, as they turn the poor not only to passive consumers with no empowerment for own production but even counteracted their possibilities to join the era of sustainability.  We have already seen that affordability and accessibility to food is very much related to sustainable management of natural resources, in particular water and energy. Sustainable management of natural resources involves, also, holistic approaches for the protection and preservation of all natural resources through the engagement of every citizen in the society. In this context, achieving sustainable socio-economic developments around the world requires establishing appropriate instruments for true poverty alleviation, i.e. all types of poverty, where the inactive and passive poor populations around the world become actively engaged not only in food production but in all the components of achieving sustainable socio-economic developments.

The world needs much more organizations and institutions that can be both actively engaged in poverty alleviation and in engaging the poor in becoming active players for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments rather than being passive observers and consumers. In this context, “SNV Netherlands Development Organization” demonstrates many successful stories around the world. However, much more is still needed as the world competition on the natural resources, in particular water and energy, is becoming much severe.

http://www.snvworld.org/

Toxic waste and pollution have sources, pathways and final fate in our environments. They may end in your blood, lungs, lever, kedney, bones, ….. and anywhere else in your body. How and why, and what are the impacts are frequently asked questions. To get answers is not as simple as it seems, it is a matter of imagination and hardwork to sort out misleading information from the reality of what is really happening in our waters.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2ya650p466mq8u/finalversion%2C%20open%20house%20Tracers%20as%20detectives.ppt?dl=0

Successful socio-economic policies around the world depend on a simple strategy where “Serve and Get Served” should be of national concern focusing on “Quality as a Goal”. Transformation to sustainable socio-economies is becoming a global struggle to formulate policies for every citizen to use “natural resources” with minimal loss “waste”. It is about how to create “political-stakeholder-citizen” collaboration to utilize “natural resources” effectively while keeping waste and consumption under control. We are not all participating in such solutions and we even left  the consumption of natural resources and production of waste to go hand in hand to promote failing realities where threats to all life forms and degradation in all life qualities are piling up in major parts on our planet.

Successful examples around the world demonstrate that sustainable socio-economic solutions start by listening to the needs of the citizen and enpowering them to participate in “serve and get served” with focus on national quality. To achieve global socio-economic developments we should go the same path as successful nations with focus on listening to and engaging citizens.

The planet as is managed today is facing a failing reality because of increasing and fragmented competition on natural resources with little attention to proper protection and conservation of these resources, in particular water and energy. Management of education, research and technology should consider the urgent necessity for sustainable and appropriate coupling to society, population and market needs. The increasing global population, the random use and consumption of natural resources has caused severe threats to, and degradation of, all life forms on the planet.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7euopk4zjqpom3w/Why%20Sustain-earth%3F.docx?dl=0

As individuals, also in families, everyone knows that bringing economy in balance may not be a simple task especially in life transitions and critical periods, e.g. leaving school, starting university, entering the labor market, moving to another city or immigrating to a different country, also building a family and supporting the diverse needs of growing children. From here and extrapolating to community and national levels, the financial issues become more and more complicated and challenging especially for bringing about major socio-economic transformations, coping with highly dynamic globalized economy and having timely marginal for meeting environments and climate threats through appropriate mitigation policies. Among important issues in many societies are implementation of safety, security and welfare policies, also providing satisfactory public services as well as meeting known and unknown emerging economic needs arising from demographic changes

In historical perspective and throughout the world humans have developed, tested and applied may economic systems with variable levels of success. After WWII Europe went through major socio-economic transformation and political changes that brought around what we know today as the European Union. Sweden, however, demonstrated a unique example of prosperous and stable economy even during periods of severe global economic instabilities and recessions. It is interesting to demonstrate how “Prosperity despite Austerity” works in Sweden and how other countries can learn from the dynamic socio-economic policies where Swedish citizens make use of the election systems to guide politicians and politics to necessary corrections and adaptation. Can the Euro bankrupt learn from Sweden’s austerity success? Can the rest of the world extract some ideas from the economic models that brought Sweden to the very top of sustainable socio-economic societies? Well, the story has a start also. After years running an all inclusive welfare state, Sweden was by the early 90s, in deep crisis. The government pulled on the emergency brake and the social sector was reformed massively. Yet,”in comparison to many other countries, the Swedes have a great confidence in the state”. Drastic austerity measures were coupled with good tax incentives and an open budget. “We have a very long tradition of making information available to the public; this principle has had a big impact.”

The increasing globalization and mobility around the world has caused accelerating pressures on improved integration-immigration policies. In Europe, the integration-immigration policies moved very high up in the political agendas in many countries. The outcome of the integration process versus the immigration policies achieved very much different results in Europe (see the 2007-Analysis of Integrating migrants, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7043918.stm). The importance of integration-immigration policies is reflected in the public influence on the political structure in the European countries especially in the past decades. Among the recent measures implemented by the European Union, is an initiative of 12 European Foundations, The European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM). It has the objectives to strengthen the civil society in advocating for constructive approaches to migrants in Europe through grant making, capacity building and networking (http://www.epim.info/). Also the issue of illegal migrants in Europe and the difficulties associated with having a decent life are being addressed. An important question that is being discussed is the actions to remedy the situation  (http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2013/11/19/is-there-solidarity-in-europe-over-illegal-immigration/#.VBbdvSjFr7s)..

The actual fate of individual immigrants is the responsibility of member states.  As elsewhere in Europe, 2014-elections in Sweden demonstrated that there is strong public concern about the integration-immigration policies with a clear message to all political parties to deal effectively with integration-immigration policies without delay (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-14/social-democratic-bloc-emerges-as-largest-in-swedish-election.html).

“SustainEarth” is a new face of “sustain-earth” where Applied Sustainability is further developed to couple professionals in all sectors and on all levels to the public. This is how social media operates; however, there are still barriers that limit the diffusion of important messages from professionals to the public both on national and international levels.

As the world is entering a new era for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments, see for example the vision and mission of sustain-earth at http://sustain-earth.com/about/ further instruments are needed to bridge the existing gaps in the different forms of “social media”, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, ……. etc. We are extending our activities to promote the messages and interactions of Professionals for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments on all sectors and on all levels.

Visit, share and contribute in:

https://www.facebook.com/SustainEarthNow

Management and pricing of water resources are important issues for improving access to water and sanitation, and also for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments around the world. Financing the sustainable management of water resources is a major and accelerating challenge because of the increasing competition on water resources, still growing populations and expanding needs. Water resources and their uses shift greatly around the world and in water resource management there are increasing attention to how pricing of water could be best coupled to financial strategies as well.

Achieving sustainable managements policies is very much related to appropriate optimization of water uses to achieve the “best value for the water resources” on all levels with attention to enhancing accessibility and affordability to water and sanitation. The cost of managing water resources to reach social, economic and environmental goals is increasing due to population and economic growth as well as to climate change. This is generally true in the developing countries especially in Africa.

Formed in 2003, the European Union Water Initiative Finance Working Group (EUWI-FWG) is focused on helping to shape the financial strategy of the EUWI. The FWG group encourages innovation, the development of institutional and regulatory frameworks and capacity building. It also encourages the use of development funding as a catalyst to leverage other forms of finance, including national budgets, donors, user and private finance, to improve access by the poor to water and sanitation services.

Click to access Water_Pricing_FINAL.pdf

Management of drinking water is becoming a global issue and it is not any longer a problem in the developing countries but it is, also, appearing in developed countries as well. National Geographic along with other news media, e.g. “The Guardian” are describing the accelerating demands on water resources, in particular the decreasing accessibility and affordability to drinking water. In this case it is Detroit, USA, which indeed is situated in a region rich in fresh-water resources: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/special-features/2014/08/140822-detroit-michigan-water-shutoffs-great-lakes/; http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2014/jun/25/detroits-water-war-a-tap-shut-off-that-could-impact-300000-people

According to “The Associated Press ABC 7 News” Detroit water shutoff controversy ignited nationwide debate in the USA http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/07/detroit-water-shutoff-controversy-igniting-nationwide-debate-105641.html

A pressing and urgent question now is: how would drinking water be treated in the future and how far would we go on with privatization of drinking water. Also, how would the pricing of drinking water look like in the future and how public drinking water facilities be financed?  These are typical management issues where policy-makers should be prepared to deal with.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/detroit-water-crisis-a-prelude-to-the-privatization-of-water/

Large-scale and long-term over-consumption of surface water and groundwater can gradually cause large areas of land to dry with gradual expansion of drought zones. Impacts of climate change, e.g. global warming, make such “irreversible” process to be even faster. Sustainable  management of water resources has to take in consideration the increasing competition on the uses of water in agriculture, industry and household sectors. In order to achieve sustainable socio-economic developments both natural and human-made impacts have to be taken in consideration. In this context “business as usual” for traditional industrial uses, such as the production of bottled water, has to be replaces, or at least supplemented by, more sustainable approaches for better conservation of water resources including the mitigation of the negative impacts of climate change. Private and public sectors have to work hand in hand to bring about long-term and large-scale sustainable socio-economic developments where uses in different sectors have to be weighted and balanced against each other and with consideration to natural effects.

http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2014/08/bottled-water-california-drought

Food is a pleasure that has found many ways to adapt to the country where they are prepared. The ingredients, although they may appear similar to those of other continents, there is always a unique stamp associated with the taste of each dish depending on processing, origin of meat or vegetables and spices being used (http://www.whichcountry.co/countries-with-best-food/).

However, food is not only a pleasure of the taste. There are very much to learn about global cultures and habits and importance of agriculture, farming, food production and processing. Why some countries are better than others and why, for example, The Netherlands is ranked best in world food systems (http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2014/01/15/netherlands-ranked-best-in-world-food-systems/). Also, why European countries and Australia are among the ten best countries. The challenges countries faced in getting enough of the right food are dependent on many factors. Oxfam’s Good Enough to Eat Index asked four core questions using two measures each in order to get a global ranking of eating in terms of accessibility, affordability and quality of food, and the unhealthy outcomes of people’s diet. Here are these questions and measures used in the global assessment and ranking:  1. Do people have enough to eat? – Measured by levels of undernourishment and underweight children; 2. Can people afford to eat? – Measured by food price levels compared to other goods and services and food price volatility; 3. Is food of good quality? – Measured by diversity of diet and access to clean and safe water; and 4. What is the extent of unhealthy outcomes of people’s diet? – Measured by diabetes and obesity.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/the-best-and-worst-countries-in-the-world-for-eating#i7aod3

Sustainability issues are imperative for the survival and any technology. Lead, as other toxic compounds, has negative environmental and ecological impacts both what concerns air and water quality.

Researchers from USA and U.K. came up with new research where they claim could be a win-win solution for new long-lasting solar panels that provide emissions-free power. The idea is to use recycled lead from discarded car batteries to produce solar cells using perovskite “organo-lead halide perovskite”. This technology has rapidly progressed from initial experiments to a point where its efficiency is nearly competitive with other types of solar cells. Perovskite technology identified its use of lead as a drawback. Researchers claim that using recycled lead from old car batteries can save the environment insteed of the energy and waste demanding lead mining. Also, such technology can benefit from excess lead in the future markets because of production of new lead-free batteries.

Production of “perovskite” solar cells is relatively simple and economic as the process can be done at low-temperature with reduced number of steps as compared with the manufacture of conventional solar cells. So, it would be “easy to get to large scale cheaply”. Questions still remain (https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/8/19/solar-energy/revolutionary-perovskite-solar-cells-could-be-game-changer-questions) about how this technology become sustainable: (1) would large-scale production require additional lead mining as lead-recycling is currently used to produce lead-batteries, i.e. before there is complete shift to new car-batteries?; (2) would lead used in this technology be capsulated with no leak to the environment under the life-time of solar cells?; (3) would the life-time of “perovskite-based” solar cell be as long as traditional solar cells?

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/08/recycling-old-batteries-into-solar-cells?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-August19-2014

“Knowledge” is needed in all sectors and on all levels in any society, however the content of knowledge for achieving “sustainable socio-economic developments” needs not necessarily to be of the same components, structure and organization. To bring about changes and developments in any society knowledge has to be “fresh” in the sense that it has to be up-dated or “refreshed” not only to mitigate historical imparities but also to meet emerging necessities and to have capabilities and instruments to deal with any future known or unknown challenges. Knowledge has, also, to be individually adapted to maximize engagement and integration of all citizens and stakeholders for the benefits and welfare of the society.

In our ICT-based “Information Communication Technology” societies there are huge capital and diversity of knowledge resources, though needs of more knowledge still remain to be among essential priorities. Problems and difficulties in many societies for bringing about changes, especially what regards sustainable developments, are not a priori related to availability and accessibility of knowledge but rather the management of knowledge in terms of structure, transfer and adaption on both vertical and horizontal levels. In this context, instruments for appropriate coupling of science and technology to society and market needs is an imperative part of structuring, transferring and adapting knowledge. This is the essence core of successful knowledge-management policies where the coupling goes through citizens and stakeholders, i.e. within and between the very building blocks in the society, i.e. “individuals” and “groups”, in all society levels and sectors.

Services, i.e. serve and get served, production and consumption have to be shaped and based on sound economic policies involving all basic sustainability requirements, i.e. the conservation and protection of natural resources. If all natural resources are consumed, wasted and/or degraded, then it wouldn’t be possible to have life any more. In a knowledge-based society difficulties don’t exist in how knowledge can be obtained and how “citizens”, as carriers, transformers and generators of knowledge, can be engaged to form and shape “consumption”, “production” and “services” for the benefit of their society. The optimum functioning of any society is therefore a balance of these components: why knowledge is needed; what and when knowledge is required; how can knowledge can be produced, transferred, disseminated and propagated.

A major part of the capital knowledge of humans is stored in “virtual memories” around the world. However, such knowledge is accessible but not necessarily affordable for everyone. The Internet provides knowledge with variable quality and in a very scattered and random way though search engines may provide certain limited structuring. Traditional sources of knowledge through libraries are still important sources to “on-line” publishing with excellent audio-visual illustrations and “open-access” versions. In social and human sciences, for example, morals and ethics can be biased by historical misconceptions with negative impacts on freedom of speech as expressed by the public on the Internet. Quality of knowledge is, therefore, essential not only for sustainable socio-economic development but also for lasting security, safety and political stability.

Issues and topics of relevance for achieving socio-economic developments around the world are being discussed and detalied in http://sustain-earth.com

According to a report by sustainability investment firm Robecosam Sweden is ranked as the most sustainable country in the world. But why? and such a status was achieved? What long-time is took to get their? and how it was possible to revert Sweden poverty to what Sweden is today?

Some reasons are its use of renewable energy sources and low carbon dioxide emissions, as well as social and governance practices such as labor participation, education and institutional framework.

Follow http://sustain-earth.com to know more about sustainability.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/08/19/sweden-most-sustainable-country-in-the-world/

Water quality is often understood in its narrowest meaning where the focus is limited and reduced to portable water. Often at homes, schools, and communities as well as even among policy-makers and politicians, especially in developing countries, the knowledge is still limited to drinking water. This can be true on short-term and small-scale levels to secure affordable and accessible water resources with acceptable quality to mitigate immediate and epidemic impacts on human health.

However, this understanding has generated serious and widespread global threats with disastrous impacts on ecosystem and human health worldwide. This is evident from historical “palaeo-environmental” data that gives information on evolution of water quality and its degradation in natural water resources, e.g. rivers, lakes, reservoirs, marine coasts, wetlands and groundwater. Long-term and large-scale monitoring of the quality of natural water resources and associated impacts on eco-system and human health are IMPERATIVE and there are standard ways to do such studies. Typically, there are two approaches: (1) continuous monitoring of contemporaneous water quality status, such as those given in the present report given in the provided link; (2) full historical records on the evolution of water quality due to point/diffuse pollution sources.

Both approaches are necessary have different and important benefits. The first one is used for “Early Warning” with direct coupling to enforce regulation and laws on stakeholders regarding production of waste/pollution, also to take necessary measures and solutions to cope with the threats, and to give relevant information to the public. While, the second is important for uncovering long-term and large-scale impacts on water quality, e.g. acidification, eutrophication, chemical pollution, other industry/agriculture associated threats and climate impacts. It is, also, useful for assessing consequences of environmental and ecological impacts of pollution/waste in terms of their cycles from source to sink. This outcome of the seconds approach has feedback impacts on international laws and regulations and for implementation appropriate rehabilitation strategies.

Click to access water_quality_human_health.pdf

The magic actions and power of water have been the major drivers for the creation of the most beautiful natural places on earth which can be seen in Turkey, China, Columbia, Thailand, Iceland, Indonesia, USA, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Maldives Islands, Norway, Venezuela, Australia, Canada, France, Croatia, Northern Vietnam, Seychelles Islands, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Alaskan glaciers, Switzerland and New Zealand.

Among these natural formations from the long journey of evolution are: volcanic deposits; natural mountain forests; exotic waters and marvelous lakes; beautiful islands and exotic fjords embedded in green mountain landscape; water falls; forested and exotic islands; mountain rivers; spectacular green landscape; glacial mountains; virgin beaches; national parks; sea reefs with exotic sea life; canyons and rocky mountains; ocean Polynesians, exotic vegetation’s and fauna; limestone’s mountains; ice formations; sand and rocky deserts; the Alps; and rocky coasts; wadis and oasis.