For our final lab series, each lab group is completing a situated research project where we select an environmental issue and "situate" it in a particular geographical region. Many groups selected potential Lewis & Clark study abroad program locations as the the focus of their situated research projects, however our group found an interesting location and environmental issue we want to investigate further that is outside the purview of Lewis & Clark study abroad programs.
In our Capitalocene lab series, our group examined World Bank and Yale EPI data to investigate the validity of the Capitaolcene. In the Capitalocene Global GIS Lab, we uncovered a result that contradicts the theories supporting the Capitalocene within the data for Renewable Energy Consumption. When examining the Yale EPI and World Bank data, we found that Burundi, a low income country, uses the highest percent of renewable energy in the world. Iceland, a high income country who is heralded as a world leader for sustainability, uses the second highest amount of renewable energy. Additionally, Burundi's EPI score is significantly lower than that of Iceland, which means that they do not prioritize environmentally friendly practices overall despite their dependency on renewable energy. We were intrigued by this discrepancy between our results and the theories of the Capitalocene, and decided to further our research to illuminate the fact that the utilization of sustainable practices is not a binary relationship. For our previous lab, we began examining the motivators for the global use and development of renewable energy practices. We gathered ten sources that complement our framing question and ten sources that may lead us to our focus question. We explored numerous helpful sources that have furthered our inquiry and complicated our understanding of sustainable practices and the motivators behind such actions. While we found an abundance of scholarly sources on this topic, we found that many sources that discuss renewable energy are generalized for several Sub-Saharan African countries. Despite this road block, I am confident that this information is still helpful to our research because it will allow us to connect the middle and bottom sections of the hourglass. We are still searching for more specific sources that focus solely on Burundi, and are hopeful that our research will produce significant results. We were originally under the assumption that Burundi relies solely on hydropower, however we found that they utilize wind, solar, biomass, and bagasse (a by-product of sugar production) as well. This is a major breakthrough for our research, and must be researched further.
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Treasure McMahanI am an Environmental Studies and Sociology/Anthropology double major at Lewis & Clark College. This blog page is where I will post my lab write-ups for ENVS 220 "Environmental Analysis" Archives
December 2018
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