How to Contextualize our Effects on the Environment

 In our day to day life we often don't think too hard about the things we use and what happens to them after we are done using them. To use we are simply just completing our tasks and going about our lives, but there is always so much more to it. The resources used to create the things we use from start to finish of their usage can fall into three categories. Non renewable resources which are more of a one and done situation some do not reform on the earth or it can take a very long time for this to happen. Renewable resources renew quickly and can be used over and over again. Lastly is bio renewable resources which are living in organisms that also renew themselves through various processes (Lesson 1). My hope is that this blog post can help you, citizens of Minnesota, open your eyes about many tough consumer situations we face today and how we can make mindful decisions going into the future. 

Global consumption of metals and other resources is often something that we imagine on a large scale but these things are essential to our daily lives. Our phones, fridges, and cars are all filled with precious metals that took many resources to mine. I’d like to specifically focus on the use of copper which is metal that has also been a hot topic recently in Minnesota. 

From the chart we can see that the United States received 6% of copper distributions in 2020 (M. Garside). According to the infographic Copper consumption of the United States from 2010 to 2021(in 1,000 metric tons) we can see that the United States in 2020 consumed 1650 metric tons of copper (M. Garside). So although it seems like the United States receives so little copper they manage to consume the copper of other countries as well as their own. 

This also poses a question of whether countries should take responsibility for the emissions of resources they consume. This is a moral issue so although everyone's opinion will vary the baseline is there is a lot of hypocrisy taking place. Forbes defines this “Not in My Backyard” phenomenon like this “I resonate with a desire not to have such facilities in our "own backyards." However, I also hope that the facility or future "undesirable" infrastructure that supports all of our lifestyles…” (Shepherd). This can be applied to the copper mining industry internationally as often it's only the producing country taking on the burdens and ownership of emissions to produce this copper. 

Since we now understand how our consumption affects the environment we can focus on how we directly affect the environment. Humans contribute about 9 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year (Lesson 4). According to the Department of Energy Office of Science the carbon cycle is “the process that moves carbon between plants, animals, and microbes; minerals in the earth; and the atmosphere” (Office of Science). With this in mind we can contextualize how we also contribute to the growing issue of climate change through our own carbon footprint. Climate change has many factors but the main focus is to understand how it warms the earth and how we take preventive steps to help lessen the damage being done to the environment. Regardless of how much we each contribute to global warming we will all feel the effects such as extreme weather and drastic changes in air quality. One way that we can all learn about our carbon footprint and environmental impact in general is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). 

The LCA aims to track the life of a product accounting for all the resources put into it from “cradle to grave”. From the infographic above we can see some of the “Midpoint Impact Categories” which are the environmental effects that can result from the creation of certain products. The carbon footprint can als be understood in a similar manner in that it “refers to the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions associated with an activity or product” (Lesson 6). This means that we can factor in both LCA’s of products we use frequently and our own carbon footprints to understand how much we really affect the environment. This is important so we know what steps to continue to take. I hope this blog post explains important ways to understand the environment and also provides new information you may not have known before!

Resources

“Doe Explains...the Carbon Cycle.” Energy.gov, https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsthe-carbon-cycle. 

Garside, M. “Copper Mine Production Global Distribution by Country.” Statista, 25 Apr. 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/605533/distribution-of-global-copper-mine-production-by-select-country/. 

“LCIA: The Recipe Model.” RIVM, https://www.rivm.nl/en/life-cycle-assessment-lca/recipe.

Lesson 1 Introduction to Resources, BBE 1002, UMN 

Lesson 4 Carbon Cycle, BBE 1002, UMN 

Lesson 6 Environmental Assessment through LCA, BBE 1002, UMN 

Shepherd, Marshall. “'Not in My Backyard' - Environmental Justice 101.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 June 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/06/12/not-in-my-backyard-environmental-justice-101/?sh=4389bbef886d.