Increasing Environmental Awareness

Breadcrumbs: The Future of Ubiquitous Computing --> Environmental Driving Forces: Environmental Awareness

Description

Environmental Awareness or environmentalism is a concern for the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment, such as the conservation of natural resources, prevention of pollution, and certain land use actions. It often supports the struggles of indigenous peoples against the spread of globalisation to their way of life, which is seen as less harmful to the environment.

An increase in environmental awareness will lead to a better and more efficient environmental management which is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such but rather the management of the humankind's interaction with and impact upon the environment.

Enablers

• environmental management
• resource efficiency and waste minimization
• environmental responsibility
• greening
• ethics and justice
• Global_Warming
• The environmental movement

Inhibitors

• Convenience
• Lack of personal responsibility
• Lack of environmental awareness
• Governments
• Industries
• Lack of economic resources
• Energy Usage

Paradigm

In recent years many coprorations have been "forced" to be more environmentally concious. Companies are not only taking responsibility of their actions but to also looking to satisfy growing concern and expectations of both consumers and shareholders.

According to estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, by 2030, United States energy consumption will increase by about a third – roughly equivalent to the energy consumption of Texas, California, Florida, New York, and Ohio combined. –Alliance to Save Energy

Transportation accounts for about 68 percent of the oil we consume in the United States, which is far more than we produce. Today, our country imports about 60 percent of its oil supply and imports are expected to increase to 75 percent by 2030. –Alliance to Save Energy

Many idle electronics use energy even when switched off to keep display clocks lit and memory chips and remote controls working. Nationally, these energy “vampires” account for 5 percent of our household electricity use and cost consumers more than $5 billion annually. –Alliance to Save Energy

If all U.S. households used ENERGY STAR refrigerators, the electricity saved could eliminate the need for about 3 nuclear power plants. –Alliance to Save Energy

If all households used ENERGY STAR refrigerators, the electricity saved could eliminate the need for 19 coal-fired power plants. –Alliance to Save Energy

Experts

The environmental movement

Bhattacharya

Timing

Environmental activism dates back nearly 400 years. The first such recorded instance is that of the Bishnois of Rajasthan, India when a number of Bishnois embraced death to defy the cutting trees in their villages, by the king's men of that region.

Modern environmentalism has its roots in the Mid to Late 19th Century United States with individuals such as John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, but it was not until the 1960s that concern for the environment by a few individuals turned into a movement and the formation of environmentalism as an ideology started to happen.

Web Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_management

Bhattacharya, 2004