The Race to Renewable Energy

I read an article called "Race to renewable; five developing countries ditching fossil fuels". This article (which can be found here) shows how five developing countries are successfully making the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The five countries talked about in the article are Costa Rica, Afghanistan, China, India and Albania. As of 2015 Costa Rica is the first developing country to have 100% of their energy come from renewable sources like hydro, wind and geothermal sources.

This is a view of solar panels on the roofs of greenhouses in China.

Even though Albania is a small country they are making big leaps in renewable energy. In 2013 they passed a law that promotes renewable energy growth. For such a small country I think that they are making big progress that some other countries, like ours, are not.

This article really brings up a lot of good points about why certain countries do or do not have renewable energy sources being used. I think that this article shows the difficulties of switching to renewable energy right along with the benefits, which is very important because other similar articles tend to gloss over the difficulties that countries might face if they were to switch over.

Environmental Film

I chose to watch the documentary Trashed, which was released in 2007, so it is a little outdated, but I think it's still relevant. The documentary describes how the garbage business works in America. I learned so many things from this documentary that I never knew. For example, many states import garbage from other places to make money on the landfills that they are creating. There have been many incidents where the public has protested because the state is creating more landfills in places that the citizens find appalling in order to take on the garbage from other states.

This is the site of a proposed landfill in Indiana in 2005. The school that is near it is barely far enough away to fulfill the requirements and the public is very opposed to building another landfill here, especially so close to the school.

Another big point that the film makes is how much waste Americans produce and the ways we dispose of it. In many places there is no recycling or reusing allowed. There is only garbage trucks and if someone wanted to recycle they would have to drive quite a distance to find a place where that is available. It also talked about how certain landfills don't allow people to search in them for things that can be reused. To me this is just ridiculous. Why would the company not want to let people find things that they could reuse. If it is a matter of money, then they still wouldn't have an argument because these people would be making more room in the landfill for more trash anyway. This means that the companies are just against reusing, which is utterly insane.

One thing that the film brought up that I found intriguing and made me wonder why it's not very popular is the use of methane gas, created by landfills, for energy. If we took the methane from these landfills and used it in a way that didn't harm the environment, in fact it would be helping it by not using other (more harmful) methods of providing energy, and making money in the long run it would help everyone. Using the methane that the landfills create while the land is unusable because of the waiting time after the garbage is buried is a great idea. I think that if more people knew about this that it would be more popular and probably another form of alternative energy, at least until the landfill problem is fixed, and it will help the environment along the way.

Overall, I think that this film is very educational and I got a lot of good information from it. If anyone is curious and would like to watch it it is available on YouTube.

Alternative Energy

I read an article from The Independent online by Ian Johnston who is an environment correspondent. It is titled: "Developing world invests more in renewable energy than rich countries for first time, new study says".

I found this article very interesting especially because one of the things that Bethel and I were talking about when we chose this topic is why developing nations are so much farther ahead in using alternative energy sources than developed nations. According to this article many developing nations are spending more money on renewable energy sources while developed countries, such as the UK, are spending more money on things like fossil fuels. Renewable energies are not just environmentally friendly, they are also the cheapest. It is interesting to note that many developed countries are finding it shameful to be outspent by the developing countries.

Here is the APA citation for the article:

Johnstone, I., (2016, May 31). Developing world invests more in renewable energy than rich countries for first time, new study says. The Independent. Retrieved from: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/renewable-energy-investment-developed-world-developing-world-ren21-report-a7058436.html