Wasting Goods or Wasting our Future? The Epic Fail of Common Policies on addressing Climate Crisis

From "Wasted Health. The Tragic Case of The Dumpsites" ISWA 2015

In these days we're witnessing the new step of the common tragedy acting on the stage of the UN COP25 Climate Change Conference held in Madrid.
While the Earth and the life on her as we know it is in severe threat, the Economic System is on its way to make the rules underpinning the discussion by the immoral idea that to address urgency of crisis can be accomplished acting as in the past with some little improvements.

While every second someone is trying to convince that you must buy an electrical car to make your part "deep within the jungles of Indonesian Borneo, illegal fires rage, creating apocalyptic red skies and smoke that has spread as far as Malaysia and Singapore".

The growing demand for palm oil is pushing local farmers to clearing the forest the fastest way they know in order to cash as soon as possible. Smoke from the fires has spread across Southeast Asia, including the Indonesian capital Jakarta, on the nearby island of Java, as well as Singapore and the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

image from CNN "Borneo is Burning" Report

So what the hell is going on!?

Very simple, it's all about money!

Indonesian palm oil exports have surged almost 1,500% in less than 20 years ($20.7 billion only in 2017) and now  it’s the country’s number one export, supplying more than half of the world’s palm oil demand.

Palm oil production surged over the last 50 years as global demand grew, with farmers attracted to its high crop yields. Credit: CNN

Yes, because is estimated that each one of us consumes 8 kilograms of palm oil per year in around half of all products found in supermarkets, including margarine, ice cream, chocolate, pizza, soaps and shampoo. It's also widely used as a cooking oil in parts of Africa and Asia.

But the worst news is that palm oil is being used increasingly for biofuels, driven by climate policies encouraging the use of planet-friendly alternatives to oil and gas so that many countries use palm oil biodiesel to count towards their targets under the Paris Climate Agreement.

All that even if, according to a a 2016 Globiom study, palm oil biodiesel emits three times more carbon emissions than fossil fuel diesel if you take in account the "negative externalities", in other words if you take in account its other environmental costs in terms of destruction of the pristine environment, loss of biodiversity and CO2 emissions due to fires.

Though bio-energy accounts for only a small percentage of palm oil use, its environmental impact is considered a growing risk. Credit: CNN

So how is it possible that, as the top scientist Johan Rockström  (joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) said, “There is a risk of disappointment in the UN process because of the inability to recognise that there is an emergency.”


An image is better than thousand words and we're still using images to push the market but not to push the common will to change the way we live.


It's a fact: UN talks on tackling the climate emergency are still not addressing the true scale of the crisis

It's a fact: we're not making all is in our possibilities  to tackle the environmental crisis because there's a general refuse to admit that a deep change is needed in the entire economic system and lyfe style has to be thought and steared. 

The consequence is that we need also to plan, design and rebuild more livable Cities in the sake of our common future. But we cannot design the shape without designing the new processes and this is going to be the hardest effort because it requires a complete change in the economic paradigma.

For sure one example of the impact of human settlements on the question of global emissions is the case of the 50 biggest dumpsites  that affect the daily lives of 64 million people, a populaton the size of France. This is a global problem because those dumpsites receive roughly 40% of the world’s waste and they serve about 3.5-4 billion people and a unaccountable amount of waste is directly reversed into rivers and the in the oceans.

As urbanizaton and population growth will contnue, it is expected that at least several hundreds of millions more people will be served by dumpsites, mainly in the developing world.
Although there is a lack of systematc long-term epidemiological studies that fully document the health impacts from dumpsites,

from Wasted Health: The Tragic Case of Dumpsites

Yet an overwhelming health problem associated with dumpsites is arising due to the emissions of these Dumpsites depending on the practices followed and on the type of the waste disposed of in each dumpsite, as well as on the environmental and social conditons of the area. Open burning and animal feeding increase the health risks substantally: the frst by direct emissions of dangerous pollutants and
the second by transferring the pollutants to the food chain.

Moreover uncontrolled disposal of hazardous and healthcare waste as well as manual on-site treatment and disposal of e-waste by informal workers result in important increases of all the health risks and the negatve environmental impacts.

From "Wasted Health. The Tragic Case of The Dumpsites" ISWA 2015, figure 1

The emissions usually involve Persistent Organic Pollutants (PoPs), Heavy Metals and Volatle Organic Compounds (VoCs).

On 2015 ISWA calls upon international organizatons, governments and local authorites to develop emergency programs that will identfy the riskiest dumpsites and proceed with their closure,  considering the closure of the dumpsites as a global health emergency and working closely with all the involved stakeholders to accelerate programs, initatves and investments that will result in a world free of dumpsites.

Men work in the shipbreaking yards of Chittagong, Bangladesh, in 2009. (Photo by YPSA 2009)

For sure to address the new and old challenges we cannot act as in the past and the lesson learned so far is that  the economy of Cities can't be pushed for ever on the head of poor Territories and People. For this reason ISWA's initiative is in the good direction.

But what's really changed in the past five years?
Something is going better?
Is this a matter that single private organizations could try to address?
Are Government and International Organizations really aware of what is going on?

I'll try to answer in the next posts.