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
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 [5]. More sustainable design might
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“Design systems that love all the children of all species for all time” [6]
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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.” [6]
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 [7].
Explain how experiment topics or applications related to the experiment foster or prevent sustainability [8]. Reference [9] 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] G. Van de Kerk and A. R. Manuel, “A comprehensive index for a sustainable society: The SSI — the Sustainable Society Index,” Ecological Economics 66 (2-3), 2008 p. 228-242.
[4] Olaitan Ojuroye as cited in Paul L. Bishop, Pollution Prevention: Fundamentals and Practice Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2004 Fig. 14.1 p. 584.
[5] 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]
[6] William McDonough, as quoted in “Waste = Food (An inspiring documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept)” Directed by Rob van Hattum, VPRO, The Netherlands, 2006. Available: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3058533428492266222. [Accessed September 1, 2008]
[7] Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, pp. 16-24.
[8] 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].
[9] 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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