Nomads, 30-40 millions in 1995 around the world, roaming around and moving from one place to another for pasture or hunter-gatherer is a fast disappearing life-style. Reindeer have been herded for centuries in polar and sub-polar regions, horses remain national symbols in Mongolia and camels are still the perfect choice in the Sahara. After the industrial revolution “mechanization” and with increasing dependence on fossil-fuel, urbanization became “magnets” causing considerable drainage of people to technology and modern life, even without basic knowledge about the requirements and threats of the new life.

“There’s no place like home”, but with the advance of science and technology the definition of home becomes much different in particular in the era of globalization and the Internet. The choice between staying home and being drained to new life-styles may create conflicts between generations and communities or at least cause separation and fragmentation in families.

The weather in the polar mountains can turn in just a few minutes and at the artic circle conditions can be extreme. The ways of life, learning and even childbirth are often intense. People living in the tundra are accustomed to a nomadic life. Tents are their homes, food is basic, and the deer is king. They don’t watch TV or don’t use internet. Children do go to boarding schools, but not all parents are in favor of them. A well-known writer and teacher created her own alternative education for the children of the tundra as she believes that a good education should be based on the essential skills needed to survive in the artic far north. She explains that our constitution clearly says our indigenous children must have free education but it doesn’t say free life care. In schools everything is done for the children and later on they face life without to know how to do ordinary things, as they don’t have that knowledge when they leave schools. Children become gradually separated from their roots, loose ties with other generations and when graduated from school they have to decide between going to higher education or back to the tundra. What to choose when they already separated from home and are not able to establish roots at home?

Find out more about life and education in the tundra.

This is a lesson to be learned about how previous generations survived the extreme conditions on earth, i.e. somewhat similar to the environment of the ice ages.

Agafia Lykov born 1944 in the Siberian wilderness, she has a very unique and rare story. Today she is still remaining alone, isolated in one of the most extreme and inhospitable environment on our planet. She is surviving steadfast in her seclusion in the Sayan Mountains, 160 miles away from any other sign of civilization. Agafia’s family that escaped persecution and moved to Siberia in 1936 became famous in 1978 when Agafia was discovered by a team of Russian geologists. This event marked the end of their isolation and Agafia’s family became famous in Russia as the family of Siberian hermits who didn’t know that World War II took place!

See and follow this interesting story how a single person turn severe environments to a sustainable living home.

To understand the importance of temperature for the sustainability of life on earth we have to examine how our environment looks like in different climate zones, i.e. at different average temperatures around the year, with different ranges and extremes of temperature. These are central in climate issues and the ongoing debate on the impacts of global warming.

How cold is cold and how hot is hot is, for several reasons, important for us to know. This is not only vital for our lives and living environments but also how the technology we are dependent on in our houses, cities and villages operates. Temperature has several impacts on biological, chemical and physical reactions/behavior of everything around us. Human bodies, for example, have an optimum universal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius for healthy functioning and few degrees change in this temperature may indicate threats and even endanger lives. For other species temperature is also important, elephants wouldn’t survive in Siberia as much as beers wouldn’t exist in “Death Depression”. However, reindeers are perfectly suited for Siberia and camels can survive the harsh conditions of Sahara, deserts and even the heat of “Death Depression”. Temperature has several impacts on water, in hot arid zones you would never find fresh surface-water as is the case of “Death Depression”, and at the very low temperatures of Siberia you wouldn’t find water running on the surface either, i.e. only snow or ice. In both cases, you would have either desert or “permafrost”, i.e. permanently frozen soils, with little on no possibility for agriculture, food, controlled animal husbandry and production.

What concerns technology, there are no need for refrigerators in Siberia and no need for warming houses by fire/electricity in Kenya or Tanzania. Construction of ventilation, water piping and sanitation facilities as well as transport, communication and health-care infrastructures can be much different in very hot and very cold areas. Costs and operation of public and private services and infrastructures would be much different at extreme temperature and weather conditions. We have to take in consideration that different extreme temperatures mean different extreme weather conditions as well. In some cases, functioning and maintenance would be costly, technically complex or even unrealistic. Also, for the agriculture, i.e. food, feed, fuel and fiber production, consumption and conservation of natural resources.

We can feel heat/cold through the “sense” of our skin that has “sensors” to tell about the how hot/cold objectives around us are. But, this is in narrow limits of temperature range “hot/cold” and with cost of damaging the skin and/or the body. Thermometers or heat/cold “sensors” are much better instruments to measure the temperature, i.e. the property that describes how hot or cold things are and in terms of absolute units. Among international units to measure the temperature is degrees Celsius, however other systems of units exist, e.g. degrees Fahrenheit in the US. Anders Celsius, Swedish scientist, came with the elegant “Celsius” scale for measuring the temperature by relating it to the properties of water at sea level, i.e. where the atmospheric pressure is defined to be normal. The zero degrees Celsius is where water gets frozen and 100 degrees Celsius is when water boils.

Additional examples of life conditions at extreme temperatures and weather conditions will be given and described on other occasions.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/80809/12-incredible-photos-of-the-coldest-city-in-the-world

Global warming is something happening in the atmosphere but the earth itself is still cooling and the journey of evolution is slowly developing with new lands and oceans to be created. A paradox forcing the earth system to move in different directions, i.e. towards warmer atmosphere as forced by man and cooler earth’s interior due to natural processes. It is the very reality of our planet “Earth” where humans are struggling to survive in the middle of a paradox that they are part of it, but how long would life on earth continue to exist?

The Danakil Depression and the Rift Valley in general have secrets to tell. This so-called “Death” Depression is the hottest place on earth with an average annual temperature of 34.4 degrees centigrade “Celsius” day and night! There is already evidence of increasing volcanic activity that is happening even at a faster rate than ever known. The Danakil Depression is a junc-on of three tectonic plates with an earth crust thin enough for many processes to take place, e.g. tectonic and volcanic activities, development of new deposits, bubbling of gases, colorful acids and crystals as well as creation of salts. These are no ordinary volcano but they rather indicate active hydrothermal system near the earth’s surface with coupled interactions with the sea.

In the Death Depression where machines failed, humans succeeded and Afar camels are the perfect desert machines, as they don’t waste anything. Goats are, also, fit for these areas by being mountains and desert animals that can provide humans by milk and meat. However, the depression is unsafe and has harsh environment with fire wind, chemical minefields and no water. The unique Afar people work under such extreme desert-heat with salt mining and they are situated far away with no access to any modern services. The depression has world’s largest salt deposits by being lower than sea level, 120-170 meters below sea level,

The Hottest Place on Earth Episode 1 Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebM7G4hyFFw

The Hottest Place on Earth Episode 1Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA5ml9aTbos

The Hottest Place on Earth Episode 1 Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59M2uFMA80

The Hottest Place on Earth Episode 1 Part 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlaZtoOXKhM

The Hottest Place on Earth Episode 1 Part 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlYVS4hscCY

The economic benefits of phosphorus fertilization on crop production are well documented, also its importance for food security but is phosphorus fertilization free from risks and threats? or is too much of a good thing can be detrimental? If so, what are the threats and risks that are associated with the excesstive use of phosphorus.

Soil degradation is a worldwide problem especially with the inceasing damming of rivers around the world due to the need for hydro-electric power. Natural erosion that brings fertile soil to the low land and deltas are being halted as eroded materials are forced to accumulate behind artifically engineered barriers, i.e. the dams. As a consequence of damming of rivers huge land-areas loose their natural fartility and artificial fertilization is required for mitigation. This is, indeed, on short-term perspective both economically and environmentally expensive, and out-come are disastrous what regards the long-term and large-scale consequences.

Excessive use of phosphorus in agriculture for food production has negative impacts on water quality of aquatic systems (rivers, lakes and marine coasts) and groundwater due to increasing levels of P in aquatic systems that cause “eutrophication”, decreasing levels of oxygen and gradual decrease in fish productivity. Degradation of water quality of groundwater is associated with increasing agricultural waste/run-off. In all cases, there are associated costs for mitigation, rehabilitation and purification of water.   http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/424/424-029/424-029_pdf.pdf

Another critical issue in securing our future food is indeed missing from the global policy agenda: we are running out of cheap and readily available phosphate fertilizer on which world agriculture is totally dependent. Supply of phosphorus from mined phosphate rock could ‘peak’ as soon as 2033, as phosphate rock is a non-renewable resource becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=eeGPQJORrkw%3D

“Sustain-earth.com” will represent an alternative and sustainable approaches for fertilization with several benefits over artificial phosphorus fertilization that can very well replace it. This alternative is WE-saving, i.e. can save both energy and water, it is environment friendly.

The fact that there are more “mobile phones” in Africa, and elsewhere in the developing countries around the world, than “toilets” provokes many thoughts. It is worth reasoning why such situation has developed very rapidly and still influencing and forcing many people to do so. What is interesting in this respect is neither the “mobile phones”, they are rather symbols of “technology and science”, nor the “toilets”, they are also symbols of “sanitation and hygiene”.

We have now to examine the connection between mobile phones and toilets. For many people in the developing countries it is more important and essential to have a mobile phone that having a toilet and this choice is not random. It is in fact a human paradox and we need to analyse its origin, i.e. the contradictory behaviour of humans as understood by some of us on the one side and at the same time the irrational but rather natural behaviour also of humans as understood by others on the other side. In this context, we have to take up very complex everyday dilemmas for humans, i.e. the so-called “Nexuses”. “Nexus technology-science” – technology is a consequence of science and both are very much related and dependent on each other like no fish can survive without water and water with poor quality cannot promote life for fish and produce healthy fish. “Nexus science-education” – science in itself a human product based on education, without education there would be no science and the quality of education is essential for survival of good science. One of the essential features of science is that it is neutral which is not the case what regards education and technology. Here comes the modern role of politicians, policy-makers, investors and the market at large on human behaviour, traditions and cultures and thereby the perception of education and technology on the one side and science the other. In the past few decades many of us realised the importance of political “transparency and accountability” for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments. However, no successful political system in the world operates well unless “transparency and accountability” exists in all society sectors and on all levels. This includes “transparency and accountability” within and between all society sectors including all stakeholders, communities and the very building blocks of the society, i.e. families and individuals. “Transparency and accountability” is the core essence of any healthy, functionable and sustainable democracy.

If humans make collective unsustainable decisions then the mentioned nexuses are neither properly understood nor taken in consideration to run the society. At some stage the whole chain in the society contributed in shaping the society in the wrong direction, it is a slow gradual process rather easy to develop but unfortunately very difficult to revert. It is an organised manifestation of the whole society against “transparency and accountability” rules, i.e. organized “misjudgement” which indeed don’t emanate out of thin air. Collective unsustainable decisions and organized misjudgement emerges from ignoring the role of education to foster the citizens and populations to create their own knowledge capital for achieving welfare which indeed a precondition for useful science and technology. Mobile phones and toilets are both products of science and technology but the problems in the developing countries are essentially related to the blind import of knowledge “science” and random imitation of “technology” rather than understanding through education the meaning of science and technology for human welfare.

“sustain-earth.com” main colour of “earth” is green a product of “blue” for clean water and “yellow” for clean energy. Visit, join and contribute in http://sustain-earth.com

Julian Huxley (1887-1975) a zoologist, educator and writer who played a leading role in the creation of UNESCO “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization”. For twenty years Julian Huxley was the Vice-President of the International Commission for the History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind.

Rivers, lakes and deltas, and their catchments are major freshwater resources for the world populations. However, the increasing impacts of waste, pollution and sanitation during the past century, in particular after WW-II, caused major damage and degradation in many river and lake eco-systems around the world. We give here few examples of the most polluted rivers around the world.

http://www.wunderground.com/news/worlds-most-polluted-rivers-20130627?pageno=9

Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh-water body in the world and a water resource shared by three East African countries, is an enormous water resource facing collective mis-management on several levels. Lake Victoria is under considerable pollution pressures causing softly and steadily killing of its bio-diversity in addition to a real risk for drying-up from “global warming”.

An example is Jinja town, population of 300 000 people, that is rising after so many years of decline to claim the glory it lost so many years ago. However, the time is running out not only for the town and its population but for the whole water body of Lake Victoria. There is an accelerating pollution, abuse of environment and water resources due to limited access to waste and solid-waste treatment from industry, agriculture, household, rubbish damp and sanitation. Many industrial (more than 70 factories in Jinja only with high pollution incidents) , agricultural, household activities are releasing huge amounts of waste and pollutants to Lake Victoria.

The fishing, transport of people and goods to the main land and other public services suffer from random management, fragmented policies, and lack of collective protection and management actions. Fish population is declining as consequence of the damage the food-web dynamics of the lake and the natural functioning and metabolism in the lake because of heavy loads of nutrients, pollutants and siltation. Over-fishing of  the so-called “fish-of-choice” a small fish lower down in the food-web that is destroying the natural balance of the food-web and causing the collapse of the overall fish-population dynamics.

Poor infra-structures and water drainage systems from forest, agriculture, household and sanitation along with erosion and re-suspension of sediments due to man-made and animal activities are causing excess delivery of nutrients, accelerating “eutrophication” and decreasing levels of oxygen and thereby death and increasing prices of fish. The degradation of water quality will, also, force gradual and rapid increase in the proces of clean water.

Waters around the world are facing a new era of threats with accelerating disasters, pressures and constrains due to global warming, waste and pollution. Water scarcity and degradation in water and ecological qualities are creating crises for wild habitats and human civilizations. Many seas, rivers, lakes, and underground water reserves around the world are either lost or losing their aquatic resources with serious impacts on the livelihoods of hundreds of millions people, animals, farming, lives, electricity, and threatening further environment and climate changes.

Chinas Salween River, Europe’s Danube, South America’s la Plata, North American Rio Grande, India’s Ganges, Pakistan’s Indus, Africa’s Nile and Lake Victoria, Australia’s Murray Darling, Southeast Asia’s Mekong-Lancang, China’s Yangtze due to dams, over-extraction, overfishing and climate change. In addition to the threats of global warming and human activities; waste and pollution from industry, agriculture and household further worsen the quality of waters.

Follow the stories of water resources around the globe.

The Nile Basin Countries are facing two major long-term and large-scale threats that can lead to the total collapse of the water resources in the whole Nile system, i.e. from the very sources at its origin “up-stream” to its final fate at the deltas “down-stream”.  These major threats are related to climate change “global warming” and environmental degradation because of waste and pollution (from energy, industry, agriculture and household). To deal with these major threats, i.e. mitigation and solutions, the Nile Basin countries need to develop and implement sustainable management strategies/policies. In this context, achieving sustainable socio-economic developments in the Nile Basin region, which indeed applies also to the other parts of the MENA region, requires coupling public awareness, education, science and technology programs to society, population and markets needs.

The so-called renewable energy sources/resources differ considerably and in many aspects from non-renewable ones. In “susutain-earth.com” we examined one type of electricity generation TPP “Thermal Power Plants” through using fossil-fuel “coal”. The “life-cycle”, in this case the transformation of fossil energy to electricity, was given including the production of waste and pollution as unwanted bi-products with environmentally damaging effects. We demonstrated, also, the so-called WE-nexus, i.e. how the production of (energy) electricity is dependent on water. Here we illustrate the “life-cycle” for production of electricity from wind.

The construction, installation and operation of wind turbines are simple in relations to the more complicated “TPP units”. With appropriate storage solutions, i.e. to compensate for variable power production “weather conditions”, they provide cost-effective and environment friendly solutions, as is the case for solar planels, i.e. with “zero” pollution and no need for water in operation.

Many of us have seen many power stations and industries are built near water bodies, this is because they need the water in their production or need to get rid of their waste, or both. Here we can see how Water and Energy are connected to each other, both with positive or negative impacts. Here is an example of positive and negative impacts given only in a qualitative and descriptive way.

Understanding “Water-Energy Nexus” is a key issue in Applied Sustainability in terms of how transformation of energy, i.e. from fossil form to electricity, not only needs and consumes water but also creates environmental pollution. The emitted atmospheric pollutants and rest products, in this case, e.g. carbon dioxide (100%), sulphur oxide 8%, nitrogen oxide (data on extraction yield is not given), heavy metals such as Pb, Cu, Zn, Cd, ….. (information and data on removal are not given) and water vapor. These pollutants and rest products have negative impacts on the environment in terms of degradation in air, water and ecological qualities, e.g. acid rain that cause acidification of aquatic systems with negative impacts on lakes, rivers and marine coasts.

The life cycle of thermal power plants starts with coal mining, coal transport, coal pulverizing and coal burning (combustion of coal to produce heat and produce water vapor to run the turbines and generate electricity). As mineral coal has different levels of impurities and pollutants, such S, N, heavy metals and probably small amounts of radio-active elements, all these substances will turn to bi-production. The bi-products are not likely to be completely removed and some amounts will be released to the environment as is evident in many areas in China by the naked eye. The negative impacts of such pollution on air and water quality are very well documents in literature, however some countries have improved their production technologies and have strict protection rules what regards air, water and ecological qualities. Nevertheless, emissions of “green house” gases, causing “global warming”, is still a major global problem. The scape of water vapor from fossil-fuel based-power and industrial plants around the world introduces disturbances in natural water cycles and adds new uncertainties in modeling the water cycles. Water vapor is also a “green house”. At the same time, the emerging negative threats from “WE-nexus” on achieving socio-economic developments need further improvements and actions what regards WE-management policies.

The accelerating consumption of WE-resources “Water and Energy Resources” in the MENA region has huge negative long-term and large-scale impacts on achieving sustainable socio-economic developments in the whole region. The same threats are emerging in the Nile Basin region. Effective large-scale and long-term solutions are urgently required for developing and implementing WE-saving technologies in all society sectors and on all levels.

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20130418161903

An important question for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments in any nation is: what is the limiting factor, is it water or energy? Currently, lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent to jumbo jet crashing every four hours, this is equivalent to 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene-related problems. Almost 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, mainly in the developing countries; the problem will still worsen as 70 percent of industrial waste is dumped untreated into waterways. The so-called emerging economies are, also, facing an accelerating threat from mismanagement of water resources that on the long run will be the most limiting factor for achieving sustainable socio-economic development.

China isn’t an exception, with its 22% of the world’s population, an access to only 5 percent of global water resources and an estimated 300 million people that lack access to safe drinking water. According to the Ministry of Water Resources in China, if China continues to consume and pollute at today’s rate, water demand will exceed supply in less than two decades. The past decades of rapid development, massive construction of infrastructure and huge industrial developments resulted in huge pollutant’s spill untreated into waterways. An estimated 50% of groundwater in cities, 77% of 26 key monitored lakes and reservoirs and 43% of 7 major river basins are considered unfit for human contact. Meanwhile, 19% of monitored rivers and basins, 35% of lakes are reservoirs are considered unfit even for agricultural or industrial use. These effects are related to China’s huge needs for energy and the associated “energy-water” nexus, e.g. 96% of China’s electric power requires water to generate, and 47% of electricity is consumed by water scarce provinces. Agriculture is by far the largest consumer of water at 62%, and the largest polluter, with pesticides and fertilizers responsible for about half the contamination of waterways. Soils are, also, facing great degradation, the average level of organic matter in soil is now 1-5% for northeastern China’s arable land, compared with 8-10% in the 1950s. A report published in 2007 by the World Bank and the Chinese government estimated the combined health and non-health cost of outdoor air and water pollution at approximately $100 billion a year, or about 5.8% of China’s GDP. Water pollution, meanwhile, worsens China’s severe water scarcity problems, with the overall cost of water shortages estimated at 1% of GDP.

Climate change has, also, negative effects in form of growing desertification and prolonged droughts in agricultural regions nationwide with impacts on drinking water and livestock as well as water levels in some of the countries major hydropower producing regions.

http://chinawaterrisk.org/resources/analysis-reviews/china-water-portrait-past-future/

The environmental importance is gaining greater and greater attention for policy makers around the world. Many countries are struggling to provide drinking water with good quality for their population. However, the quality of drinking water is very much related to the environmental conditions. The most important indicator for clean environment is availability of clean drinking water for everyone, this is also very much related to availability of clean natural waters and thereby clean environments.

Many countries in Europe can offer everyone the best drinking water quality in the world; in this context tap water in Europe can very well compete with the quality of bottled water.

http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lifestyle/location/top-10-countries-with-the-best-tap-water/

Worldwide water governance has been challenged on several levels from local up to international though the existing forces are beyond human control, e.g. growing human population, increasing diversity in economic activities, enhanced competition on water resources, threats of climate disruption on water balance and availability. Sustainable management of natural resources is facing challenges in particular policy-making, the  implementation of laws, interpretation of international treaties and conventions. Examples are the trans-boundary water issues and disputes between upstream-downstream countries due to divergence in utilization of water resources for power generation, industry, agriculture and household uses. Water scarcity and security are typical issues in the MENA region and have caused disputes in the Nile Basin and Israel-Palestine area. This is, also, the case in other parts of the world, e.g. between India and Pakistan.

Other challenges are: affordable access to safe drinking water as a human right, e.g. sanitation and health issues in Sub-Saharan Africa; the needs for ways to measure access to improved water and unimproved water; the push to privatize water resources to drive efficiency and water trade; drought management and impacts of climate change. In global perspective water as a human right is not totally agreed upon, e.g. by the US and others international donors and what concerns affordability there are still more efforts to be done.

A panel discussion on contemporary challenges is given here on the sustainable use of the world’s freshwater resources, and the effectiveness of international law, e.g. international human right law, international environmental law and others, to meet existing challenges.

Among the most important indicators for life on earth are air and water qualities with poor qualities of air and water it becomes difficult, even impossible, to sustain life in any form. In some places in the world abuse of the natural resources, e.g. blind exploitation, production and use, have caused serious degradation and enormous damage, of natural environments. Exploitation, production and consumption are associated with environmental, ecological and human costs in form of “environmental, ecological and health degradation” and if such costs are not accounted for we will have negative sustainability balance. With gradual pile-up of such environmental, ecological and health debt, as is the case in the given examples, there would be no places on earth for suitable and sustainable life.          

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/the-15-most-toxic-places-to-live/earths-orbit