EasySustainability's March Newsletter

Hello everyone, and welcome to the March edition of EasySustainability's newsletter, a monthly recap of the most influential news and information in the sustainability world.

For those who don't know yet, EasySustainability is a project that aims to promote sustainability and related topics in every area of our society. We believe that climate change news should be more direct, accessible, and easily understandable; we have decided to do this in various ways, like the publication of a sustainability bible for youth and students, which will be available soon, webinars, and this newsletter. In this second edition of the newsletter, we will cover what impressed us the most during the last month regarding sustainability news.

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Thank you for choosing EasySustainability, and enjoy your reading!

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1)???“Water sobriety:” How Italy and France are bracing for another year of drought

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As summer approaches, people worldwide are celebrating the end of winter, while some countries are getting ready for harsh, challenging months. Italy and France are preparing for their second year of drought after an abnormally dry winter. Only a few years ago, the two countries had many diverse, lush bodies of water; now, dried-up riverbeds and shrunken lakes, usually seen during the warmest summer days, are commonplace.

Italy hasn't experienced such drought since the late eighties and early nineties, but now the circumstances are more extreme. Many farmers have already expressed their concerns, stating that water shortages will affect agricultural production. Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister, has appointed an "extraordinary commissioner with executive powers" to prepare an anti-drought campaign.

In France, the situation isn't much better: the country has registered 32 days without rain this winter, the longest winter drought since record-keeping began in the late 1950s. The national weather service has also has found that snow levels, whose melting is essential for filling rivers and reservoirs in the French Alps, the Pyrenees, and other French mountain ranges are also considerably lower than expected for this time of year. President Emmanuel Macron promised to develop an emergency "water plan" in mid-March.

Independently of how the situation will be dealt with, France and Italy are experiencing firsthand the consequences of climate change and need to plan ahead to face such adversities in the summer such adversities in the summer.

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-???????“Italy, France Confront 2nd Year of Western Europe Drought.” AP NEWS, 1 Mar. 2023, apnews.com/article/drought-europe-italy-france-agriculture-1e789a5b782ee951a17ba37d7f189900.

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2) The Willow Project

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The Biden Administration has recently approved what is known as The Willow Project, located on the Alaskan North Slope.

The Willow Project will leave Alaskan land wide open to intensive oil drilling, with 180,000 barrels set to be produced on a daily basis. It will transform Alaska into the largest oil field the United States has had in decades. Besides being an energy source for the country, it will also trigger an ecological disaster: 287 million metric tons of carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere over the next thirty years, affecting the environment and wildlife and heightening the effects of climate change.

The Biden Administration, Alaska Native communities, labour unions, leaders of the North Slope Borough, and the Alaska Federation of Natives, among other governmental authorities, support the Willow Project. Alaska's senator Dan Sullivan says the project is not only "critically important to Alaska, but critical to America as well. A project of this size when we need energy security — the max production is close to 200,000 barrels a day." The Willow Project will create more than 2,800 jobs and generate 17 billion dollars in income for the federal government, and many local communities. However, although the project represents an enticing economic opportunity, the impact on the Earth's environment will be devastating. The Willow Project’s approval not only demonstrates that the Biden Administration has failed to honour it’s environmentally-friendly election promises, one of the few reasons young Americans bothered to vote for Biden in the first place—it announces the destruction of Alaska’s biodiversity and irreversible climate change.

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-???????Euronews. “‘Carbon Bomb’: What Is the Willow Project and Why Is Joe Biden Being Sued for It?” Euronews, 16 Mar. 2023, www.euronews.com/green/2023/03/14/biden-administration-approves-alaskas-willow-oil-project-sparking-anger-from-environmental.

-???????Hewitt, Sian. “What Is the Willow Project? Alaska Oil Drilling Approved by Joe Biden Despite Climate Pledges.” Evening Standard, 13 Mar. 2023, www.standard.co.uk/news/us-politics/willow-project-controversial-us-oil-explained-joe-biden-alaska-b1063956.html.

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3)???Scotland first to ban anesthetic over environment

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Scotland has become the first country in the world to prohibit the use of the anesthetic desflurane because of its harmful environmental impact. NHS Data, "a database which allows community service providers and commissioners to view local and national information from community services and to improve patient care," says anesthetic desflurane, which is used to keep patients unconscious during surgery, has the potential to be even worse than carbon dioxide.

In 2017, Scotland registered its peak year for using anesthetic desflurane; today, the country has successfully banned it from hospitals, becoming the first country to do so and cutting emissions equal to powering 1,700 homes a year. Instead, many Scottish hospitals are focusing on gases with less warming potential and are staring to use safer alternatives to anesthetic desflurane, such as sevoflurane or non-gaseous anesthetics and more efficient equipment.

Scotland's eco-friendly decision is already having a domino-effect on its southern neighbour: NHS England will introduce a similar ban in 2024, which prohibits the use of anesthetic desflurane for anything but exceptional circumstances. The 2024 desflurane ban throughout English NHS hospitals will significantly reduce harmful emissions, almost equivalent to those caused by powering 11,000 homes every year. Other countries across Europe are starting to follow Scotland's lead and are likely to intact similar bans in the next few years.

Scotland's case interweaves sustainability with the medical field, strengthens the process of making every sector in society more sustainable, and represents an important development in the fight against climate change.

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-???????Mundasad, By Smitha. “Scotland First to Ban Environmentally Harmful Anaesthetic.” BBC News, 3 Mar. 2023, www.bbc.com/news/health-64347191.

-???????“Data Sets - NHS Digital.” NHS Digital, digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-sets.

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4)???How a high school in Estonia has almost achieved carbon neutrality

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P?lva is a town in southeastern Estonia and the capital of P?lva County. A local high school, now the pride and joy of P?lva, has almost achieved carbon neutrality, being the first in the country to get so close to a near-zero carbon footprint. The school's building, now Polva Gümnaasium, was built during the Soviet Union Era and rebuilt in 2016, with a total budget of over €5.7 million, including a contribution from the European Cohesion Policy of €4.9 million. Polva Gümnaasium has been described as a European project that submits sustainable energy solutions; these sustainable solutions range from the selection of building materials, such as wood, to the way the building operates. The school has 140 solar panels on the southern side of the roof, which produce 37.4 kWh and power the entire building. Construction crews used natural materials instead steel and concrete, which emit CO2. Furthermore, blinds automatically go up or down depending on the light, which helps control classroom temperatures. Besides benefiting the environment, Polva Gümnaasium seems to significantly impact the students' and teachers' lives, making them more aware of climate change, global warming, and ways to prevent the latter.

The Polva Gümnaasium project has been recognized as a perfect example of what local communities can do to be more sustainable and is model to be followed, both in Estonia and abroad. Moreover, it was recognised as one of the most satisfactory European projects at the 2022 REGIOSTARS awards, yearly competition organised by the European Commission’s Directorate General Regional and Urban Policies since 2008.

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-???????Velez, Aurora. “How a High School in Estonia Has Almost Achieved Carbon Neutrality.” Euronews, 27 Feb. 2023, www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/02/27/how-a-high-school-in-estonia-has-almost-achieved-carbon-neutrality.

-???????Home | REGIOSTARS Awards. regiostarsawards.eu.

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5)???The Ohio train derailment and its ecological consequences

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Last month, a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, marked the beginning of one of the worst ecological disasters in US history. On the night of the accident, the train, operated by Norfolk Southern, had been carrying hundreds of thousands of gallons of vinyl chloride, a highly flammable and toxic chemical and a brain, lung, blood and liver carcinogen. The local authorities decided to do a controlled burn, a planned fire to maintain the health of the surrounding environment, which led East Palestine's residents to evacuate the area.

However, controlled burns had the opposite effect to what?authorities intended: vinyl chloride burns released hazardous chemicals like hydrogen chloride and phosgene—a gas that numerous armies used as weapon in World War I. Although the US Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has stated that they haven't detected any toxic chemicals that meet or surpass "any levels of concern," many residents believe otherwise: locals have been experiencing nausea, headaches, burning sensations; wildlife and household pets started to fall ill and die, with estimates of at least 3,500 fishes killed by toxic chemicals in the water; residents are also worried about soil and water contamination, as it also been confirmed that dangerous chemicals spilled in the Ohio River, which supplies water for at least five million people.

The East Palestine train derailment is one of the biggest ecological disasters in US history, which will produce a myriad of long-term consequences that will affect the environment and human health.

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-???????Hauser, Christine. “Train Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio: What We Know.” The New York Times, 6 Mar. 2023, www.nytimes.com/article/ohio-train-derailment.html#:~:text=On%20Feb.%203%2C%20a%20train,some%20of%20the%20train%20cars.

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-????Upcoming events

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On the 27th of March at 19:00 CET, Easysustainability will host its second webinar event. The webinar will focus on the relationship between sustainability and the tech industry, particularly on the impacts of eco-innovation and green technology in the fight against climate change. The webinar will be conducted by Kingsley Okonkwo, Environmental Engineering Graduate, and Federico Quaratesi, Green Economy and Sustainability Master Student and Circular Economy Specialist.

Additional information can be found on our Linkedin page (https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/ea sysustainability-project2022/).

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Thank you for reading this far, and we hope you have enjoyed the March edition of Easysustainability's newsletter. If you have any questions or feedback, we would be happy to assist you and hear your opinion!

For now, this is all; see you next month!

The Easysustainibility team.

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Written by: Aurora D’Auria