This wiki aims to share information regarding sustainability issues related to integrated circuits, offering a forum for students to teach each other about sustainability and the electronics field.
Definitions of sustainability
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Sustainability describes a condition in which natural systems and social systems survive and thrive together indefinitely [1].
- Sustainability allows people to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs [2].
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Safe
Universally accepted
Stable
Technology that benefits all
Antipollution
Improvement in quality of life
Nontoxic
Awareness
Beautiful
Indigenous knowledge
Least-cost production
Income
Total quality
Youth [3]
Because humanity now consumes and pollutes the Earth’s resources faster than natural and human systems can replenish and clean them, we do not currently live in a sustainable manner [4]. More sustainable design might
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“Design systems that love all the children of all species for all time” [5]
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“The goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just
world, with clean air, soil, water, and power,
economically, equitably, ecologically, and
elegantly enjoyed.” [5]
In analyzing sustainability issues, it might prove helpful to consider Commoner’s laws of ecology, which sound unsurprisingly similar to laws of physics:
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Everything connects to everything else
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Everything must go somewhere
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Nature knows best and bats last
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There is no such thing as a free lunch [6].
Explain how experiment topics or applications related to the experiment foster or prevent sustainability [7]. Reference [8] and others on Blackboard™ provide helpful information. Consider issues related to Energy, Environment, Economics, and social or political Equity, four “E”s of sustainability.
What is your ecological footprint?
Course sustainability wikis
References
[1] S. R. Euston and W. E. Gibson, Earth Ethics 6, 1995.
[2] The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, chaired by Norwegian Prime-Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, 1987.
[3] Olaitan Ojuroye as cited in Paul L. Bishop, Pollution Prevention: Fundamentals and Practice Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2004 Fig. 14.1 p. 584
[4] Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends, Volume 1, Eds. R. Hassan, R. Scholes, & N. Ash, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005, p. 827-838. “MA Findings Animated slides,” Available: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/SlidePresentations.aspx, [Accessed March 22, 2006]
[5] William McDonough, “Food is Waste”
[6] Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, pp. 16-24.
[7] P. Hawken, A. Lovins, and L.H. Lovins, Natural Capitalism. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999, pp. 49-50, 57-58. Available: http://www.natcap.org/images/other/NCchapter3.pdf [Accessed March 22, 2006].
[8] E. Williams, “Environmental impacts in the production of personal computers,” in Computers and the Environment: Understanding and Managing Their Impacts, R. Kuehr and E. Williams, Eds. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003, pp. 41-72.
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