User:Kimdo1/sandbox

In-Class Suggestions

Header Copy Edits:

The waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands are affected by increasing waste products, such as marine debris from land and ocean sources, washing onto shore as well as effluents generated and released from the islands themselves.Oceans in particular are being devastated by factors including marine debris, plastic pollution, and tourism.

Throughout Article When defining marine debris, I highly suggest paraphrasing the definition, as the quotation disrupts the flow of the article. In general (though I know it's a lot more work), I would avoid the direct quotes and try to paraphrase as much as possible. It has the potential to sound more encyclopedic that way.

Although it adds to the state’s economic growth, tourism is a non-geologically driven environmental issue that also degrades the island's ecosystems, primarily those of Hawaiʻi,Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi, the sites of the major tourism industries.

When talking about Invasive Species, I would delete the definition of the term, and instead link it to the invasive species wiki article.

However, what differentiates invasive species from non-native species is their negative impact and threat to economic,environmental, and human health, which aided by their ability to easily adapt and reproduce.Although invasive species may be, they are typically introduced by accidental or intentional means; intentional purposes include habitat restoration, removal of pests, etc.

Selecting Possible Articles

Practice Area:

• Environmental racism
• Hawaii - subsection “Cost of Living”
• Economic inequality - subsection “Environment”
• Environment in the United States - subsection “Environmental Issues”
• Environmental Issues in Hawaii
• Climate change & poverty

Practice Sector:

• Environmental justice
• Environmental education
• 100% Renewable energy
• Environmental policy

Evaluating Two Articles

Practice Area:

I had expected Environmental issues in Hawaii to provide insight into the specifics needed in my understanding of my Practice Experience sector, and while it addresses the most obvious issues (such as air quality and water quality) and offers supporting statistics with a neutral point of view, the article does not give an all-encompassing overview of Hawaii’s environmental issues. There are no “distracting” sections, but rather, a lack of content; for instance, the very first issue is “Invasive species”, which does not include an explanation of any sort but rather a link to another Wikipedia article on invasive species in Hawaii. The author should include at minimum a brief summation of the issue.

I believe learning about the air and water quality issues will be most relevant to my PE preparation, as the organizations that I have been in correspondence with have targeted problems with pollution, waste, etc through advocacy and direct community action. Equally beneficial to my practice experience would be adding another subsection about the another environmental issue, such as energy/access to energy. Alternately, another section related to policy could be beneficial, as it may be necessary to update the information listed on the page. The organization Blue Planet Foundation had mentioned that Hawaii recently passed a bill to go 100% renewable energy (and is inspiring other states) - a remarkable achievement not mentioned on the Wiki page. The page does not mention any policies, efforts, or updates on progress.

The references appear to be reputable with live links; however, references #5 and #11-18 cite the Environmental Protection Agency, but the EPA’s website states that it has updated and made changes to the website so each of the links are broken. The most recently dated source was 2010 by the EPA, which also indicates the importance of adding more recent, relevant information.

The last and only time a contributor had spoken on the talk page was in 2015, asking the author to add another source of air pollution. The page is “within the scope” of WikiProject Hawaii, but it appears that for one, the “environmental issues” page is not referenced on WikiProject Hawaii, and second, WikiProject Hawaii is listed as inactive.

My learning in GPP has encouraged me to explore the society-nature relationships within my issue, which the article lacks. Although it is an “environmental” issue, its impact can be measured by both human cause and human effect. Moreover, I am tackling the challenge of sustainability to study the societal component by volunteering with a PE org that addresses sustainability in needed communities. And thus, it is imperative that I begin to understand how environmental issues are in fact, social issues.

Practice Sector:

At first glance, the “Environmental justice” WikiPage seems to offer an extensive history and development of the term in addition to its two accepted definitions. However, Wikipedia lists that is “has multiple issues” at the top of the page, including possible original research, need for attention from an expert in the field, and lack of “worldwide view on the subject”. In assessing the pace, I found that the page is for informative, with little room for improvement but rather room for addition. The article addresses nearly all aspects of environmental justice, including measures taken against injustice, consequences of injustices, and parties involved. In addition to expanding on legal action and civic engagement and movements, the article includes information on related work on a global scale. One section that may be interest to incorporate to the article is the idea of “access” injustices has frequently been discussed as a consequences of humans on the environment, and inversely, back on humans. However, equal access to clean water, air, etc is also an unjust issue that may not be anthropologically induced (i.e. no access to clean water in Middle East b/c lacks funding and resources for desalination)

The sections which Wikipedia is concerned has original research in fact does not have original research, but the references are very weak; the author cited an exclusive online magazine, and the article was a question-and-answer passage that itself lacks a quality source. (A potential contribution I could make might consider searching relevant articles to the author’s claims.) Furthermore, there are several sentences that need citations throughout the article. The author might also consider linking “environmental racism” to the article.

This article offers a broad understanding of environmental justice and the socio-political approaches to addressing this issue. It includes many well-known examples, such as Cancer Alley in New Orleans post-Katrina, to describe how environmental issues can become social issues.

In looking at the Talk page, I can see that many of the modified external links and components which I had been impressed with had initially been suggestions made by other readers. This suggests that it is actively going under revisions.

GPP encourages students to learn and understand issues on a global scale, so I appreciate that this article discusses environmental justices and injustices in regions outside of the United States, as recommended by another author on the Talk page. This provides context as to which kinds of issues may be “unjust”.

Bibliography

Sector:

1. Environmental Education in Russian Universities

This study analyzes environmental education in Russia in accordance with the goals of the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio; Russia spearheaded the movement towards environmental education. This study is informative in understanding the methodology of education reform; however, it does not provide insight as to the benefits of environmental education in society nor environment, which would be good indicators and measures of progress.

2. Green Failure: What’s Wrong With Environmental Education?

This Yale article reviews and interviews author Charles Sayan who argues a need for environmental stewardship and education within the US education system; moreover, Sayan notes the flaws within current environmental education for its not “keeping pace with environmental education”. This piece would offer an interesting component to my project by encouraging reform in education but also suggestions as to the structure of environmental education to better prepare and shape students.

3. Challenges for Environmental Education: Issues and Ideas for the 21st Century

This article breaks down the challenges associated with environmental education in the face of growing environmental issues; these challenges are enforced by changes in society and landscape that emphasize the need for environmental education to stay relevant, or kept to “pace” as Sayan (Source 2) encourages. This source offers the contrasting side of the argument, allowing me to get a more comprehensive understanding of the issue as opposed to purely praising environmental education as a solution. In my PE, I could help my org restructure/reshape their program accordingly to address the challenges that Hudson argues against and apply a few suggestions, such as “activity-based solving”  (236).

Area:

4. Hawaii Environmental Justice Initiative Report

This source is the Hawaii Environmental Justice Initiative Report (2008) which was constructed by the a coordinator under and for the Hawaii Environmental Council to target environmental justice issues specifically, following the enactment of Act 294 which “recognized that environmental justice concerns may arise from disproportionate impacts on the environment, human health, and socioeconomic conditions of Native Hawaiian, minority, and/or low-income populations” (1). In the report, the coordinator Leslie Kahihikolo, assesses the impact of environmental degradation on various groups as well as the progression of mitigating these factors through education and community involvement. She concludes by proposing a series of projects including workshops, policy revisions, and media events among others. This is an informative source for my project because it describes multiple efforts, political and nonpolitical, to address environmental injustices that will be useful in my understanding of development in Hawaii.

5. The Public's Right of Participation: Attaining Environmental Justice in Hawai'i through Deliberative Decisionmaking

This piece if part of UC Berkeley’s Asian American Law Journal and discusses the importance of civic engagement in policy-making, particularly outlining the history and evidence of community participation in the discourse of environmental justice. The paper critiques existing Hawaiian government processes and its restrictions on affected people and also draws on Source #4 in addition to other enacting legislation. This source is particularly informative because it aligns with my PE org’s mission to promote community involvement by outreaching and providing educational resources. Through its outline of political and bureaucratic components that shape environmental policies, I can grasp a better understanding of environmental justice conflicts.  

6. Honolulu council passes “environmental justice” bill package

This is a news article that discusses 3 bills (35-37) that address environmental injustices in the form of dumping in Honolulu, particularly in the Wai‘anae neighborhood. As a recent news article, this can supplement the other environmental justice policy texts I have gathered. However, this piece is also relevant because my PE org aims to work in the most affect, more impoverished communities of Honolulu - Wai’anae included! This has given me the groundwork I need to begin to dive into more research on policies and efforts within the last five years.               

Summarizing and Synthesizing

Environmental Issues in Hawaii

What I did:

• Edit Introduction Paragraph
• Change the order of Issues
• Expand on Water Quality
• Add Tourism
• Write a brief intro paragraph on Invasive species

Introduction paragraph: The majority of environmental issues affecting Hawaii today are related to pressures from increasing human and animal population and urban expansion both directly on the islands as well as overseas. These include tourism, urbanization, climate change implications, pollution, invasive species, etc.

Order of issues: Water quality, Tourism, Invasive species, Superfund sites *add more to Invasive species & look review Flora & fauna section

1. Water quality

The waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands are affected by increasing waste products like marine debris from land and ocean sources washing onto shore as well as effluents generated and released from the islands themselves. Oceans in particular are being devastated by factors including marine debris, plastic pollution, and tourism.

Marine debris: Marine debris is defined "as any persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment or the Great Lakes"^[1] that is both a land-based and ocean-based issue faced across the world. The positioning of Hawaii in particular makes it a high-impact target for marine debris, given the natural ocean currents and its relative location to the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone. As a result, marine debris is not limited to waste from the islands exclusively but is also carried from other locations around the world. Several organizations, both government and non-government agencies have taken initiatives to counter the environmental impacts of debris carried onto shore through clean-up efforts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which performs under the United States Department of Commerce, has "led this mission every year since 1996, removing a total of 904 tons of marine debris" as of 2014^[2]

Waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch washed ashore at the south end of Hawaii.

Plastic pollution: Although plastic pollution remains under the umbrella of “marine debris”, it is one of the largest concerns affecting marine life and the most ubiquitous source of pollution across the oceans. In a 2014 study, the “first study that compares all sizes of floating plastic in the world's oceans from the largest items to small microplastics,” researchers estimated that a minimum of 5.25 trillion plastic particles exist in the ocean. Historically, the U.S. military used the ocean as a dumping ground for munitions from 1919 to 1970, ^[8] and the U.S. army dumped 16,000 mustard gas bombs in deep water (south of Pearl Harbor after World War II.) Presently, floating plastic garbage from disposable consumer products accumulate in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, from debris eventually find its way onto the reefs and beaches in Hawaii. Kamilo Beach, located at the southern tip of the Big Island, has been devastated by plastic pollution from the patch and was named “The Dirtiest Beach in the World” by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). Unique to this site is the abundance of both microplastic and meso-plastic, where geologists found plastic-infused rocks called"plastiglomerates”; they expect this new rock become a part of the fossil record, indicating the intensity of human influence on the environment. Plastiglomerates are formed when “melted plastic binds together sand, shells, pebbles, basalt, coral and wood, or seeps into the cavities of larger rocks to form a rock-plastic hybrid”; although they were not discovered until 2012 by Captain Charles Moore from Algalita Marine Research Institute, plastiglomerates occur in other parts of the world, in part by fire-using activities such as bonfires.

The presence of plastic is harmful to marine life, including seabirds, that often get entangled in plastic or mistake plastics as food sources and consume them. Studies show that ingestion can block gastric enzyme secretion, diminish feeding stimulus, lower hormone levels, and lead to reproductive failure. The “The Pollution of the Marine Environment by Plastic Debris” review in the Marine Pollution Bulletin notes several species impacted by plastic ingestion influenced by foraging and selectivity factors, such as the loggerhead sea turtle, in which a pattern of white plastics were found to have been consumed.

2. Tourism

Though the term has shifted meanings over the years, tourism is now more accurately defined as “the set of activities performed by people who travel and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year, for leisure, business and other purposes”. Tourism in Hawaii began in the 19th century and persists today with its tropical weather and landscapes. Welcoming over seven million visitors annually, it is one of the major contributors to Hawaii’s economy.

Although it adds to the state’s economic growth, tourism is a non-geologically driven environmental issue that also degrades the island ecosystems islands, primarily Hawaiʻi, Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi, the sites of the major tourism industries. Major concerns of the urban infrastructure development for tourism include habitat loss for local flora and fauna, energy use, consumer waste and pollution, and water shortages. Because of their need to satisfy travel customers, resort destinations’ reliance on “the shining sun”, “a comfortable climate”, and “the beautiful sea” heighten resource use. A 2013 study of five tourism sectors in Hawai’i assessed total waste accumulation and resource consumption and estimated that the tourism industry was responsible for “21.7% of the island’s total energy consumption, 44.7% of the island-wide water consumption, and 10.7% of the island-wide waste generation”. Considering the negative impacts from tourism, many advocates suggest a push towards a more socially responsible alternative, ecotourism, that would offer a win-win solution by adopting a business model to sustainable practices.

3. Invasive species

Invasive species are non-native organisms that are introduced, often by humans, to an ecosystem . However, what differentiates invasive species from non-native species is their negative impact and threat to economic, environmental, and human health, which aided by their ability to easily adapt and reproduce. Although invasive species may be introduced naturally, they are typically introduced by accidental or intentional means; intentional purposes include habitat restoration, removal of pests, etc.

Main article: Invasive species in Hawaii

Environmental Education

What I did:

• Change order: History, About, In the United States, Obstacles, Movement, Implementation of EE in the Global South, Trends
• Take out the links that don't actually have pages in the History section
• Add the role of EPA in existing In the United States section
• Add to Obstacles section
• Add new section Implementation of Environmental Education in the Global South

1. History

One of the first articles about environmental education as a new movement appeared in the Phi Delta Kappan in 1969, authored by James A. Swan. A definition of "Environmental Education" first appeared in The Journal of Environmental Education in 1969, authored by William B. Stapp. Stapp later went on to become the first Director of Environmental Education for UNESCO, and then the Global Rivers International Network.

3. In the United States

Through the EPA Environmental Education (EE) Grant Program, public schools, communities agencies, and NGO’s are eligible to receive federal funding for local educational projects that reflect the EPA’s priorities: air quality, water quality, chemical safety, and public participation among the communities.

4. Obstacles

Another obstacle facing the implementation of environmental education lies the quality of education itself. Charles Sayan, the executive director of the Ocean Conservation Society, represents alternate views and critiques on environmental education in his new book The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It). In a Yale Environment 360 interview, Sayan discusses his book and outlines several flaws within environmental education, particularly its failed efforts to “reach its potential in fighting climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation”. He believes that environmental education is not “keeping pace with environmental degradation” and encourages structural reform by increasing student engagement as well as improving relevance of information. These same critiques are discusses in Stewart Hudson’s BioScience paper, “Challenges for Environmental Education: Issues and Ideas for the 21st Century”.

5. Implementation of Environmental Education in the Global South

Environmentalism has also began to make waves in the development of the global South, as the “First World” takes on the responsibility of helping developing countries to combat environmental issues produced and prolonged by conditions of poverty. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) and the Earth Council Alliance (ECA) have been forefront in pushing forth the agenda towards sustainable development in the South. After the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, over 80 National Councils for Sustainable Development in developing countries were created between 1992-1998 to aid in compliance of international sustainability goals and encourage “creative solutions”. In 1993, the Earth Council Alliance released the Treaty on environmental education for sustainable societies and global responsibility, sparking discourse on environmental education. The Treaty, in 65 statements, outlines the role of environmental education in facilitating sustainable development through all aspects of democratized participation and provides a methodology for the Treaty’s signatories. It has been instrumentally utilized in expanding the field towards the global South, wherein the discourse of “environmental education for sustainable development” recognizes a need to include human population dynamics in EE and emphasizes “aspects related to contemporary economic realities and by placing greater emphasis on concerns for planetary solidarity”. Even as a necessary tool for the proliferation of environmental stewardship, environmental education implemented in the South varies and addresses environmental issues in relation to their impact different communities and specific community needs. Whereas in the developed global North where the environmentalist sentiments are centered around conservation without taking into consideration “the the needs of people living within communities”, the global South must push forth a conservation agenda that parallels with social, economic, and political development. The role of environmental education in the South is centered around potential economic growth in development projects, as explicitly stated by the UNESCO, to apply environmental education for sustainable development through a "creative and effective use of human potential and all forms of capital to ensure rapid and more equitable economic growth, with minimal impact on the environment". This promotes independence in the South and gives them the educational tools foster responsible and sustainable communities.

WORK IN PROGRESS REVISION:

*more history (Tbilisi to post-2015 Millennium Development Goals)

Post-2015 sources to read/review:

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002305/230508e.pdf

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002464/246429E.pdf

5. Environmental Education in the Global South

Environmentalism has also began to make waves in the development of the global South, as the “First World” takes on the responsibility of helping developing countries to combat environmental issues produced and prolonged by conditions of poverty. Unique to environmental education in the Global South is its particular focus on sustainable development. This goal has been a part of international agenda since the 1900’s, with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) and the Earth Council Alliance (ECA) at the forefront of pursuing sustainable development in the south.

The 1977 Tbilisi intergovernmental conference played a key role in the development of  outcome of the conference was the Tbilisi Declaration, a unanimous accord which “constitutes the framework, principles, and guidelines for environmental education at all levels—local, national, regional, and international—and for all age groups both inside and outside the formal school system” recommended as a criteria for implementing environmental education. The Declaration was established with the intention of increasing environmental stewardship, awareness and behavior, which paved the way for the rise of modern environmental education.

After the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, over 80 National Councils for Sustainable Development in developing countries were created between 1992-1998 to aid in compliance of international sustainability goals and encourage “creative solutions”.

In 1993, the Earth Council Alliance released the Treaty on environmental education for sustainable societies and global responsibility, sparking discourse on environmental education. The Treaty, in 65 statements, outlines the role of environmental education in facilitating sustainable development through all aspects of democratized participation and provides a methodology for the Treaty’s signatories. It has been instrumentally utilized in expanding the field towards the global South, wherein the discourse of “environmental education for sustainable development” recognizes a need to include human population dynamics in EE and emphasizes “aspects related to contemporary economic realities and by placing greater emphasis on concerns for planetary solidarity”^[16]. Even as a necessary tool for the proliferation of environmental stewardship, environmental education implemented in the South varies and addresses environmental issues in relation to their impact different communities and specific community needs. Whereas in the developed global North where the environmentalist sentiments are centered around conservation without taking into consideration “the the needs of people living within communities”, the global South must push forth a conservation agenda that parallels with social, economic, and political development^[17]. The role of environmental education in the South is centered around potential economic growth in development projects, as explicitly stated by the UNESCO, to apply environmental education for sustainable development through a "creative and effective use of human potential and all forms of capital to ensure rapid and more equitable economic growth, with minimal impact on the environment"^[18].