Jellyfish Barge

The World Bank predicts that the world population will grow to almost 10 billion in the next four decades. By 2050, the global demand for food is expected to be 60-70% higher than today. Scarcity of water and cultivable land are the main obstacles to meet the quantitative and qualitative shifts of the world’s demand. Most of the potentially arable land is concentrated in a few geographical areas, and it is extremely scarce in many of the regions with high population growth rates, such as North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Agriculture is the human activity that relies most on the existing water resources. Currently in many parts of the world, such India, Pakistan and Southern Spain, the demand for water for agricultural purposes is satisfied by unsustainable methods such as over-extraction from underground reservoirs.

The scarcity of arable land and fresh water for agriculture is being exacerbated by changes in the climate, exposing many areas to increased risks and contribute to make them even more vulnerable to the problem of water and food security. The rising sea level, for example, contributes to flooding of extensive areas of fertile land with salt water. This phenomenon has already begun to occur with alarming frequency all over the Bay of Bengal.

Video by Studiomobile

Floating, self-sufficient cultivation module

© Matteo de Mayda 2014

Tackling these challenges in a holistic way can produce considerable improvement in water and food security of coastal communities. Jellyfish Barge is a module for crop cultivation that doesn’t rely on soil, fresh water and chemical energy consumption. Jellyfish Barge is a floating agricultural greenhouse, able to purify salt, brackish or polluted water using solar energy. Jellyfish Barge is built with low-cost technologies and simple materials, also appropriate to the self-construction paradigm. It consists of a wooden base of about 70 square meters that floats on recycled plastic drums and supports a glass greenhouse for crop cultivation.

Inside the greenhouse, a high-efficiency hydroponic cultivation method provides up to 70% of water savings compared to traditional hydroponic systems. The Jellyfish Barge has an innovative automated system with remote monitoring and control. Required water is supplied by 7 solar desalination units arranged around the perimeter that are able to produce up to 150 liters per day of clean fresh water from salt, brackish, or polluted water. Solar distillation is a natural phenomenon: in the seas, the sun’s energy evaporates water, which then falls as rain water.

The solar desalination system of the Jellyfish Barge replicates this phenomenon on a smaller scale, sucking in moist air and forcing it to condense within the drums in contact with the cold surface of the sea. The low energy required to power fans and pumps is provided by solar panels, mini wind turbines and an innovative system that exploits waves to produce electricity.

According to FAO, long-term successful strategies for agricultural development depend on technological innovation as well as on the ability of small farmers to be economic agents and to meet their own needs. Thus, Jellyfish Barge is novel in its ability to respond effectively with limited resources. For this reason it has been designed relatively small in size, capable of supporting two families, and is thus easy to build even in conditions with economic constraints. However, it is modular, so a single element is completely autonomous, while various flanked barges create a stronger and more resilient organism.

Jellyfish Barge comes from a project by Antonio Girardi and Cristiana Favretto (Studiomobille) called Jellyfish Farm. It exploits the seawater desalinization process to cultivate floating vegetable gardens. The installation is sort of “neo-nature”, where recycled objects become an autonomous living organism.

© Studiomobile 2010

Jellyfish Barge is also a new sustainable lifestyle.

© Pnat 2014

See above how it can be inproved!

ORIGINAL: PNAT

Supercritical Sanitation Systems

ORIGINAL: Duke / U of Missouri

At supercritical water conditions, organics in sewage are converted to harmless carbon dioxide, clean water and energy in seconds.

Engineers at Duke University and the University of Missouri, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are investigating the potential of Supercritical Water Oxidation (SCWO) and Supercritical Water Gasification (SCWG) in helping solving the world’s sanitation challenges.

The team is designing and building a demonstration unit that fits into a 20 ft. shipping container and will be ready for testing in a developing country in 2014.

Neighborhood-Scale Sewage Treatment. Image: Duke

Project Overview

primer.pdf

A Shared Vision

According to the World Health Organization, “2.4 billion people do not have access to any type of improved sanitation facility. About 2 million people die every year due to diarrheal diseases; most of them are children less than 5 years of age.”[i] The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals Report from 2012 states that “sanitation coverage increased from 36 per cent in 1990 to 56 per cent in 2010 in the developing regions as a whole. Despite progress, almost half of the population in those regions … still lack access to improved sanitation facilities.”[ii] As sanitation goals remain out of reach, the associated health hazards and poor living conditions persist.

Unfortunately, established sewage system standards in developed countries do not provide a feasible model for developing countries which do not have sewage infrastructure, lack the economic means to build and sustain such elaborate systems, and do not have the water required to operate them. Resolving the sanitation issue in developing countries will require new, innovative sanitation solutions.

The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has identified the sanitation challenge as their top priority. The foundation fosters the development of new technologies and tools that can help deliver sustainable sanitation where it is needed. As part of this strategy it is funding numerous investigations into a wide variety of potential technologies by universities and commercial entities worldwide. In April, 2013, Duke University received a ‘Reinvent the Toilet Challenge’ grant from the Gates Foundation to develop a demonstration unit for community scale sewage treatment.

Our Project
The Gates Foundation diagram above depicts a sanitation solution that starts with the individual and the toilet, includes the storage, transportation and treatment of human waste, and ends, ideally, with safe, usable byproducts such as fertilizer, fuel or clean water. Engineers at Duke University and the University of Missouri are designing a unit that addresses the treatment of human waste and possible reuse of the system’s byproducts. It will sanitize the collected waste of approximately 1200 people—a neighborhood-scale solution. The goal of this project is to produce a demonstration unit that fits into a 20 ft. shipping container and will be ready for testing in a developing country by summer 2014. A successful design will have a running cost of less than 5 cents per person per day at commercial volumes.

The technology being employed to meet this challenge, supercritical water oxidation (SCWO), is promising because it works quickly and generates energy in the forms of hot water and steam from the treatment of human waste. Furthermore, it does not require prior dewatering or drying of fecal sludge, and it effectively eliminates all types of harmful organisms. SCWO technology has already been implemented in several research and commercial applications to treat waste products, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chemical weapons and sewage sludge. Duke and the University of Missouri seek to demonstrate that both SCWO and supercritical water gasification (SCWG), a related technology, have prominent roles to play in solving the world’s sanitation challenges. In addition, we will produce a business model plan that quantifies and optimizes the economic, environmental and social benefits of the unit.

Our Team

Before and after pictures from a SCWO unit
at University of Missouri.

The project is being led by Marc Deshusses of Duke University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in collaboration with Jay Golden of Duke’s Center for Sustainability and Commerce. The Carbon Recycling Center, led by Bill Jacoby of the University of Missouri’s Biological Engineering Department, provides engineering expertise where the rubber meets the road. Some of the key challenges the team will be addressing include the corrosion associated with sewage at high temperature and pressure as well as designing a system that can be successfully operated in a low-tech environment. In parallel with the technology development, sustainability experts at Duke will be leading the environmental and socio-technological investigations of the value proposition and creating a business model for the sanitation solution. Throughout the project, existing research and first hand site visits to cities and neighborhoods in India, South Africa and possibly Ghana will be utilized to help inform the optimum design of the sewage treatment unit and lay out the best path toward commercial implementation.

Our Timeline
The experimentation and design phase, using process development units at Missouri, will take place in the spring and summer of 2013. Construction of the demonstration unit in an actual shipping container will take place at Duke in the late summer and fall of 2013. In the winter and early spring of 2014, the demonstration unit will be tested at a local sewage treatment plant near Duke University in North Carolina. By summer 2014, the unit should be ready for field testing in a chosen city in South Africa, India or Ghana.

Water Recycling Comes Of Age In Silicon Valley

ORIGINAL: KQED
by Amy Standen,
Jul 19, 2013

Audio Report on  Reporter for QUEST Northern California

In each unit, water flows through small tubes, each with pores 1/100th the width of a human hair

This fall, Santa Clara county residents will get a new source of water. This water is local and pristine. In fact, it's cleaner than almost anything coming out of taps today. But – for now at least – no one will drink it.

Instead, water from the $68 million Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center will flow into segregated, purple pipes to irrigate lawns and cool power plants.

Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center. Photo courtesy of the Santa Clara Valley Water District

In each unit, water flows through small tubes, each with pores 1/100th the width of a human hair

Next, water is forced under high pressure through reverse osmosis tubes

Finally, water is zapped with ultraviolet rays to sterilize any remaining viruses

Ultraviolet bulbs, like this one, are often used to sterilize medicine and fruit juice

Purified water will flow through purple pipes and hydrants, which indicate the water is not for drinking

That's because the water is recycled from wastewater – sewage – from a wastewater treatment plant across the street. Engineers say it's possible to purify sewage water until it's cleaner than much of what residents drink today. The bigger challenge, they say, is convincing people to drink it.

The need for this new Bay Area plant is well established, says Dick Luthy, a professor of environmental engineering at Stanford University.

San Diego’s recycling plan nearly died in 2007 when the mayor uttered the three most dreaded words for this industry: “Toilet to tap.”

“We're basically at the limits of our current water supply,” he says.

California's population will increase in coming years. Climate change will make snowmelt from the Sierra Mountains more erratic. Policy battles over farms and endangered fish in the Delta mean more competition for less supply. The important thing to realize, says Luthy, is that where we get our water and what we do with it have to change.

“What we're realizing now,” he says, “is that the ways of the past are not the ways of the future.”

When it comes online, the plant will produce eight million gallons of purified water a day, using some of the most high-tech water purification systems available today.

The first step is microfiltration. Canisters filled with spaghetti-like fibers filter out anything larger than one micron – 1/300th of the width of a human hair – including bacteria. Next, high-pressure pumps force water through a reverse osmosis membrane, with pores so small they exclude anything larger than a water molecule, including viruses and traces of pharmaceuticals.

Finally, the water gets zapped by ultraviolet rays to scramble the DNA of (and therefore sterilize) anything that might be left living in it. “We are removing 99.99 percent of all pathogens,” says Crystal Yezman, an engineer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

San Jose's been recycling water for more than a decade, but this water will be much cleaner. Theoretically, says plant spokesman Marty Grimes, you could drink it.

Unlike water from the embattled Delta, or Hetch Hetchy system, the supply – sewage – is basically boundless. And, as Grimes points out, local.

“This water is ours,” he says. “No one can take it away”

Add caption

Initially, at least, this water will be more expensive than current water sources, like the Delta or underground aquifers. It will also be more expensive than measures to conserve current water supply, like low-flow shower heads or more efficient toilets.

But managers expect recycled water costs to fall in the future, as the practice becomes more common, and say that recycled water is much less expensive than other “new” sources of water, such as desalination.

Still, water recycling has been a tough sell here in California. San Diego’s recycling plan nearly died in 2007 when the mayor uttered the three most dreaded words for this industry: “Toilet to tap.”

A few years ago Brent Haddad, an environmental engineer at UC Santa Cruz, noticed that he kept finding himself at industry meetings listening to water managers complaining about an “irrational” public unwilling to accept perfectly clean, recycled water.

(For more on this, here's a terrific NPR story from a couple years ago.)

So Haddad conducted a national survey, to try and understand this resistance and what it would take to change it.

“We found it has nothing to do with level of education or any other personal demographic traits, like race, religion or salary,” says Haddad.

Fear about drinking recycled water, he says, is “a great equalizer.”

So how do you convince the public to embrace recycled water? Haddad says the first step is to explain to people how the water is treated, and why it is safe to drink.

Part of that process is explaining that Americans have effectively been drinking recycled water for generations.

Take, for instance, cities along the Mississippi or Colorado Rivers. Cities treat their sewage and pump it back into the river. Downstream, other cities suck water from the river, treat it, and pipe it to customers.

“Any city that gets its water from Colorado river, like Las Vegas and southern California utilities,” says Dave Smith, Managing Director for Water Reuse California. “are getting some of their water supply through incidental potable reuse.”

Brent Haddad says another way to reassure customers is to use what he calls “psychological cleansing.”

“You have to break the memory, the line of history of the water.”

In other words, re-write the history of the water, editing out the part about sewage. One way to do this is to take recycled water and put it back into nature, for instance, a river.

“That river is something that's comforting to people. We don’t have to think that the water came through a city. We just begin the history of the water in the river itself.”

In fact California's Department of Public Health, which works with utilities to design water recycling facilities, currently requires this kind of “environmental buffer.” (Though the Department is currently reevaluating that policy.)

An environmental buffer is built into the design of the world's largest water recycling facility, operated by the Orange County Water District.

“Toilet to tap.”  A water fountain at San Francisco's Exploratorium challenges people's assumptions about where their water comes from. Photo courtesy of Windell Oskay

Instead of a river, the county's Groundwater Replenishment System cleans treated sewage, then pumps it into underground aquifers, where it mixes with other water and eventually gets pumped up, re-treated, and piped to peoples’ houses.

Water managers call these systems “indirect potable reuse.”

“We put it back into the ground and then eventually it becomes part of the water supply,” says the district's general manager Michael Markus.

Markus says getting water clean enough that it can be put back into an aquifer is the easy part. Much more of a challenge, he says, was convincing the public that the water would be safe enough to drink. The district decided on a policy of total transparency, he says, and started planning a series of public meetings.

“We went to our local state elected officials, the health and medical community, environmental groups, Rotary clubs,” he says. “We talked to the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, scouting troops… anyone who would want to hear or receive a presentation.”

This whole process took nine years. Tours of the facility are still available.

The irony is that when you put recycled water back into the ecosystem, it actually gets dirtier, and has to be treated again.

Markus says it's “frustrating” to watch this facility pump pristine water into a hole in the ground. But he realizes that winning people over to recycled water is an ongoing process.

That process is farther along in Southern California. In Los Angeles, says Dave Smith, “One-fifth of the population is already getting part of their water supply from indirect potable reuse.”

In West Texas, which faces critical water shortages, at least two recycling facilities skip the “environmental buffer” stage entirely, using advanced purification to treat wastewater and pump it directly to customers.

Here in Northern California, the process of use and acceptance is just beginning. When the Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center opens up in late fall, the pristine water will be destined for golf courses and power plants.

But one day, if policies and public opinion change, it could be there for drinking, too.

Tags: effluent water, featured, kqed, pbs, QUEST, recycled water, Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center

Protecting global water sources

ORIGINAL: TicoTimes

By Alberto Font

Friday, January 18, 2013 - 

A study by research group Ecosystem Marketplace noted that 80 percent of the world’s countries are facing issues related to threatened water security.

Dave Sherwood

A new study finds that the number of global environmental services programs doubled from 2008-2011.

A report released this week finds that more countries are turning to environmental services programs to protect sensitive water sources.

Facing increasing water scarcity, many countries are turning to environmental service payments to help mitigate the effects of climate change and pollution. 

A study released this week by research group Ecosystem Marketplace, titled “State of Water Resource Protection 2012,” noted that 80 percent of the world’s countries are facing issues related to threatened water security. 

“We are witnessing the first stages of a global response that could transform the ways in which we value and manage the world’s hydrologic resources,” said Michael Jenkins, CEO of Forest Trends, a conservation group that manages Ecosystem Marketplace.  (Charting New Waters State of Watershed Payments 2012)

According to Marta Echavarría, a member of Ecosystem Marketplace’s advisory committee, Costa Rica, is a pioneer of environmental service payment programs, established in the 1990s with the creation of the National Forestry Financing Fund, which provides landowners with financial incentives to protect forested areas. 

Other countries in the region, including Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia, have created similar programs, sometimes offering non-financial incentives. In Bolivia, for example, more than 500 families receive bee farms, fruit trees or other productive input in exchange for efforts to protect water sources. Ecuador pays farmers and indigenous communities to protect their hydrologic resources. 

From 2008 to 2011, initiatives to protect and restore forests, wetlands and other important ecosystems have doubled in number. The report covers 205 programs around the world, 21 of them in Latin America. Globally, the number of programs has increased by 100 in three years, totaling $8.2 billion in investment, a significantly greater amount than in 2008. 

Ecosystem Marketplace analysts noted that investing in programs to protect water at the source, rather than spending on treatment, could result in considerable savings for governments. It also helps to guarantee water security and provide environmental and social benefits to communities. 

“[These programs] definitely curb costs. If we don’t look for natural alternatives, eventually we’re going to have to invest heavily in building large water treatment plants or in transporting potable water long distances,” Echavarría told The Tico Times.

Another problem Latin Americans face is a general lack of water treatment infrastructure. Coupled with the effects of pollution and climate change, the lack of treatment facilities is converting a region rich in hydrologic resources into one that is highly vulnerable to problems with accessing potable water. 

The study notes that China is a global leader in investing in programs to protect hydrologic resources at the source. The Asian giant accounts for 91 percent of global investments in environmental services programs protecting water. Chinese officials, for example, offer new health service benefits for residents in mountainous communities in exchange for better groundwater management, which they say will help improve potable water access.

“The lack of secure water sources likely represents the greatest threat for continued economic growth [in China],” the report noted. 

In the United States, officials in New York chose not to invest heavily in new water treatment facilities, opting instead to implement compensation programs for farmers in the Catskills who agreed to work to reduce pollution in regional lakes, rivers and streams that provide New York City with potable water. Thanks to these efforts, New York had enough drinking water to make it through the recent Hurricane Sandy.

The study also notes that 68 other environmental services programs operate in all of North America. 

“The benefits of these hydrologic programs extend well beyond water; they support biodiversity, reduce emissions and provide income to rural families,” said Genevieve Bennett, the report’s lead author.

But private-sector participation in these types of programs remains limited, despite the fact that many companies have reported problems related to water availability. Most of these types of programs are operated by nongovernmental organizations or by governments. 

“It could very well be that many companies are taking a wait-and-see approach to see if these programs can be improved upon,” Bennett said. 

But Bennett believes that the market for hydrologic services investment is on the verge of considerable growth, particularly if the global economy begins to improve. 

“The best part of this report is that it tells us that these types of investments are real, they’re growing, and they don’t follow ideological lines. Countries with a neoliberal philosophy are implementing them along with capitalist countries and communist countries like China. We all have to protect our water sources,” Echavarría said.

On Xi's to-do list: Fix China's drinking problem By Jaime A. FlorCruz,

ORIGINAL: CNN

By Jaime A. FlorCruz, CNN

November 23, 2012 -- Updated 1419 GMT (2219 HKT)

Experts say pollution is a serious threat to China's already limited water supplies.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• China is one of 13 countries facing extreme water shortages, according to the U.N.
• The country is home to 20% of the world's population, but only has 6% of its water resources
• Yangtze River, once the country's lifeblood, has now turned blood red
• Pollution needs to be cut, but ordinary Chinese must also reduce consumption: Experts

Beijing (CNN) -- When China's new leader Xi Jinping spoke to the media last week, one sound bite struck me as especially noteworthy.

The Chinese people love life, he said, and they wish for better education, more stable jobs, better medical care -- in short, "more comfortable living conditions and a more beautiful environment."

This, he said, is the goal that China must strive for, one that is surely shared by many Chinese.

To achieve that, however, China needs to square the circle: to grow fast while mitigating the degradation of its environment and ecology, especially its air and water.

Read more: Protest stops China sewage pipeline project

China, for one, has a drinking problem.

I discussed this topic with a group of experts in a Fortune magazine forum recently held in Beijing.

China's water crisis looks grim, the panelists agreed. The United Nations says China is one of 13 countries with extreme water shortages.

China's environmental challenges

China in transition

China's new leaders

China river turns bright red

The problem is partly demographic -- it hosts 20% of the world's population yet only holds six percent of the world's water resources -- but is also exacerbated by rapid and short-sighted development.

Read more: Taking a swim? App lets users check water's cleanliness first

Strong economic growth has turned the country into the world's second largest economy but at the expense of the environment.

The Yangtze River, once the lifeblood of the country, now flows a foreboding blood red, possibly due to industrial pollution, experts said.

Chronic droughts plague important agricultural regions like Shandong province, which produces most of China's grain.

For Guo Peiyuan, general manager at SynTao, a Beijing-based corporate sustainability consulting firm, the problem is close and personal.

"I was born in a farmer's family in southern China, and there are a lot of rivers there," he recalled. "When I was a child we could swim in the river. But as I grew up in the 1990s, a lot of factories came in. One summer vacation I went to my hometown, and my mother told me that the local farmers would not use the water for the crops because water was polluted, and the vegetables would die."

Read more: River in China turns red

Stories like Guo's are common. Citizens lodge not-in-my-background public protests amid fears of industrial pollution. In October, for instance, thousands of residents protested in Ningbo, a thriving coastal city, and forced local officials to shelve plans to expand a chemical plant.

Such successes are still rare, and experts worry the water crisis is going to worsen in years.

China's water demand will reach 818 billion cubic meters, experts say, and yet there's only 616 billion cubic meters available.

Beijing has about 100 cubic meters of water available per person, well below the U.N. standard of 1,000 cubic meters per person, a threshold used to measure chronic water shortage.

Read more: ConocoPhillips to pay $191 million more to China over oil spill

Debra Tan, a specialist at China Water Risk, a Hong Kong-based non-profit group, suggested a way to visualize the crisis. Imagine, she said, that China has 25 bathtubs of water per person. The U.S. will have the equivalent of 125 bathtubs.

Polluted water is both deadly and costly.

China now has around 300 million people with no access to potable water, resulting in some 66,000 deaths per year, according to the World Bank. It estimates the cost of water pollution to China at $22 billion, roughly 1.1 percent of the country's GDP.

The Chinese government recognizes the problem and is seeking to cut water consumption by 30%.

Read more: Experts detail 5 challenges for China

But that target, experts said, is hard to reach.

"Because of population growth, because of distribution of populations, there's even greater demand. There's an expected increase of up to 10% demand in the agricultural spaces in northern China. This increase is going to put ever increasing stress on those already stressed water systems," said Matthew Durnin, director of science programs in Asia for The Nature Conservancy.

Read more: Why booming China needs to learn the three R's

China's rapacious water consumption is in part boosted by an illogical scenario: water, while scarce, is unusually cheap.

"In China, water really should be three to five times more expensive," said Tan of China Water Risk.

One way to reduce consumption, she said, will be to keep raising water prices, a step China has been taking since 2009.

Tan believes the solution lies in targeting industry and agriculture, the "largest users and polluters." They use about 85% of the water in China, she said, and should face higher disincentives and harsher punishments.

Ma Jun, who runs the non-profit Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing, seeks pollution control, especially of water resources, by blacklisting notorious violators.

Read more: China's famed Pearl River under denim threat

Ma, one of China's most tenacious "green warriors," has made some headway but said environmental litigation is nearly impossible because enforcement of existing environmental laws is weak.

"We need to bring in more stakeholders and apply public pressure, like putting these companies on a list of polluters," he said.

Pressure, shaming and wish to make amends, he said, is changing behavior. "So far we have some 720 companies on our list coming to our NGOs to figure out what they did wrong and how they can fix their problems."

Read more: Red river brings cancer, Chinese villagers say

Ordinary Chinese consumers need to change consumption habits, too, experts said, just like those in developed countries.

"America can't be America anymore," explained Durnin of The Nature Conservancy. "The rest of the world can't be like the developed world. We can't keep saying that we want everyone to rise up to the same standard because that is an unsustainable standard."

Durnin proposed a simple step for China and other countries to take: fix leaky pipes.

"There's a lot of waste in urban environments, in the transfer of water in the pipes. There's literally hundreds of millions of miles of pipe laid around the world that are leaking and wasting water. These are some simple fixes that we could do right away."

CNN's Rebecca Chao contributed to this report.

Our Thirsty World

ORIGINAL: National Geographic

Did you know that only 1% of Earth's water is fresh and available for consumption? Fresh water is the world's most essential natural resource, but it's also one of the most threatened. National Geographic magazine's April issue celebrates and explores this important resource.

Learn more about this Special Issue 

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater

Water: A Special Issue http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/table-of-content

¿Será 'La Felicidad Nacional Bruta' una mejor medida que el PIB?

ORIGINAL: The Atlantic

By Andrew Billo
Apr 8 2012, 8:01 AM ET 13

El país asiático de Bután cree que ha encontrado una buena manera de medir el bienestar.

El rey Jigme Wangchuck de Bhután y la Reina Jetsun Pema llegan a la India. Reuters

El lunes, en el centro del bullicio de Manhattan, a nivel de altos funcionarios se reunieron en las Naciones Unidas para discutir un nuevo paradigma económico en la Reunión de Alto Nivel sobre el bienestar y la felicidad, un evento organizado por Bután, un país que sabe un poco acerca de la felicidad .

Mientras tanto, en Phnom Penh, en la confluencia sueño de los ríos Mekong y Tonle Sap, los jefes de los gobiernos de los 10 estados miembros de la Asociación de Naciones del Sudeste Asiático (ASEAN) deliberó sobre el refuerzo de la seguridad regional y cooperación económica.

Estas dos reuniones muy diferentes en realidad tienen fuertes implicaciones para los otros. La reunión de la ASEAN estuvo flanqueada por la diferencias sobre el Mar de China Meridional fila, un conflicto sobre recursos. Y los líderes en la reunión de la ONU reconocieron que la tasa actual de extracción de recursos ya no es viable.

El nuevo paradigma económico (ver abajo) presentado por el primer ministro Bután Jigmi Y. Thinley utiliza "los valores del capital natural y social para evaluar los verdaderos costos y beneficios de la actividad económica" y puede tener la respuesta para evitar el conflicto en la región de más rápido desarrollo del mundo. El bienestar sólo puede lograrse evitando el agotamiento de recursos, que a su vez mejora la seguridad global regional.

Los Desafíos del Desarrollo Humano Sostenible

El apetito del sudeste de Asia para el crecimiento económico está todavía insatisfecho, y sus líderes, así como sus gobiernos, puede dar cuenta de ganancias a corto plazo financiero y político de la extracción de recursos.

Aunque tal vez reconocimiento en la disminución de la calidad de la vida como resultado del auge de la producción actual, las presiones de la globalización mantienen a los líderes del sudeste asiático en la búsqueda de alcanzar  el estándar de vida de Nueva York cada vez más dependiente de los recursos naturales.

Sin embargo, en la ONU, hoy se reconoce que, como dijo el economista Joseph Stiglitz el lunes, "Maximizar el PIB no es lo mismo que maximizar el bienestar." El nivel del PIB, el indicador frecuentemente utilizado de desarrollo económico, de forma natural sufre a expensas del desempleo creciente.

Debido a que las tecnologías sostenibles aún no se han aplicado de forma generalizada, y la comunidad mundial pregona la necesidad de lograr mayores niveles de desarrollo humano - se define como la expansión de opciones de las personas - los países tienden a ser cortos de vista para promover a sus economías con tal de ofrecer ahora, en lugar de en el largo plazo.

Esto es especialmente cierto en el sudeste asiático, inundado de publicidad comercial de los bienes de consumo como teléfonos móviles, motos, e incluso coches. La elección, rara vez vista o reconocida antes, ahora abunda en estos mercados emergentes.

Lamentablemente, el mercantilismo choca de frente con un concepto de desarrollo integral más humano que tiene la felicidad y el bienestar en su núcleo. Mientras hay mayor número de opciones acerca de dónde podría provenir los medios de vida, por ejemplo, la gestión eficiente de los recursos hídricos limitados, la priorización de la propiedad individual sobre el bien colectivo se ha traducido en una carrera para que la gente adquiera más.

Por supuesto, las décadas de la política de colectivización económica en el sudeste asiático resultaron desastrosamente mal. Pero el poderoso impulso para el logro individual - ya sea una autoridad, valiéndose de su posición de poder para adquirir un coche deportivo de lujo alemán, o un residente barrio lograr reunir $ 100 dólares para un nuevo teléfono celular - hará que el logro de un nuevo paradigma económico basado en la felicidad y la el bienestar de todos sea aún más difícil.

Una gobernanza débil impide que las políticas de bienestar

Los gobiernos del sudeste asiático, a pesar de un impresionante crecimiento económico, a menudo son demasiado débiles para perseguir trayectorias más sostenibles ecológicamente, pero no probadas, de crecimiento.

Para complicar aún más las cuestiones, las instituciones mundiales de desarrollo, en gran parte responsables de establecer los estándares de sostenibilidad, presentan una firme competencia con respecto a llevar a cabo proyectos de desarrollo más sostenibles para los cuales China ofrece grandes cantidades de ayuda "sin condiciones". Las normas pueden ser erosionadas en favor de la competencia.

Es difícil convencer a los gobiernos y a la humanidad de los peligros de la trayectoria de desarrollo "hambriento" en recursos.

Si bien los sentimientos de la ONU reconocieron que abrumadoramente que las medidas de desarrollo en términos puramente económicos no son sostenibles, puede ser sólo cuando se agoten los recursos que este tema realmente les venga a la cabeza.

Sin embargo, disputas por los recursos, como el actual en el Mar Meridional de China, son y seguirán siendo, una realidad cada vez mayor de este siglo. Es por esto, que adoptar e incorporar las nociones de felicidad y el bienestar en las discusiones al igual que la reducción de nuestra dependencia de los recursos, serán fundamental para garantizar que estas llamaradas no desemboquen en batallas plenas.

En la reunión de la ONU, el ministro de la India para el Medio Ambiente, Jayanthi Natarajan, recordó a la audiencia de una importante cita de Gandhi: "La tierra proporciona lo suficiente para satisfacer las necesidades de cada hombre, no la codicia de cada hombre."

Este artículo apareció originalmente en la Asia Society, un sitio asociado The Atlantic.

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LLAMADO URGENTE PARA REUNIÓN DE ALTO NIVEL SOBRE "EL BIENESTAR Y FELICIDAD: LA DEFINICIÓN DE UN NUEVO PARADIGMA ECONÓMICO" EN LA SEDE DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN NUEVA YORK EL 02 de abril 2012 

El mundo está en una encrucijada. El futuro de la humanidad y el planeta está en juego. El 9 de noviembre la Agencia Internacional de Energía advirtió: ". El aumento de uso de combustibles fósiles de energía conducirá a un irreversible y potencialmente catastrófico cambio climático" A pesar de Río, a pesar de Kioto, a pesar de Copenhague, las emisiones de CO2 aumentaron en un 5,3% el año pasado. La humanidad está consumiendo los recursos naturales 35% más rápido de lo que pueden regenerarse. Y en Bután y Nepal, ya no podemos evitar la fusión de los glaciares, que amenaza una devastadora inundación lagos glaciares, y la disminución de fuentes de agua para cientos de millones aguas abajo. No hay tiempo que perder. Sin una acción inmediata, advierte la AIE, en 2017 todas las emisiones de CO2 se encuentran "atadas" por las centrales eléctricas existentes, fábricas, edificios y otras infraestructuras.

Nuestro sistema económico mundial se encuentra en una rápido fusión, empezando por el colapso financiero de 2008 y ahora se manifiesta en la crisis de la deuda europea y la difusión de graves. Ese sistema económico, basado en la premisa totalmente insostenible del crecimiento ilimitado en un planeta finito, es la causa directa de las mismas políticas que dice la AIE nos están llevando a un callejón calamitosa como es evidente en la creciente frecuencia y magnitud de la hecha por el hombre y los desastres naturales. Y ese sistema económico ha producido desigualdades cada vez más amplias, con un 20% de personas que ahora consumen en el mundo el 86% de sus bienes, el 84% de su papel, y el 87% de sus coches, mientras que 20% más pobre consume el 1% o menos de cada uno y emiten sólo el 2% de los gases de efecto invernadero del mundo. Esa brecha, junto con la profunda crisis económica, llevó a la Organización Internacional del Trabajo para advertir el 30 de octubre que el mundo se enfrenta a años de inestabilidad social, poer el fallo de las economías.

La OCDE advirtió que "sin una acción decidida el panorama es sombrío." Sin embargo, la "acción decisiva", ahora se requiere que vaya mucho más allá usando el vicio no subsanable del PIB basado en el sistema económico, que por error cuenta el consumo de recursos, como beneficio económico. Fue instituida en momentos en que los economistas no se conocían los límites de capacidad de la naturaleza para apoyar la actividad económica humana, o que la actividad humana podría cambiar el clima del planeta para producir lo que el PNUD llama "el mayor desafío que enfrenta la humanidad."

Y, sin embargo, en este momento presenta una oportunidad. El mundo tiene necesidad de un consenso internacional para la creación de un paradigma económico basado en la sostenibilidad, con indicadores de bienestar, sistemas de contabilidad nacionales que cuentan los valores del capital natural y social para evaluar los verdaderos costos y beneficios de la actividad económica, instituciones reguladoras y sistemas de comercio y los incentivos para la producción sostenible. Existe la necesidad urgente de medidas para reducir la contaminación y la degradación de los recursos drásticamente lenta, mientras que se proteje y apoya a los pueblos más vulnerables del mundo.

La resolución de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas A/65/L.86, presentado por Bután con el apoyo de 68 Estados miembros, y aprobada por unanimidad por la ONU, pidió un "enfoque holístico del desarrollo", destinado a promover la felicidad sostenible y el bienestar. Se metió en mi pequeño país, la responsabilidad de iniciar los pasos para la promoción de la presente resolución. Por consiguiente, se prevé que los principales líderes representativos de los países desarrollados y en desarrollo, junto con los principales economistas, científicos, y la sociedad civil y líderes espirituales, se unen para emitir un llamado de atención a la ONU el 02 de abril por un paradigma de desarrollo basado en la sostenibilidad económica de sustituir el sistema actual. Para ello, se espera convocar una reunión de alto nivel para ver los mejores expertos del mundo, basado en los mejores conocimientos disponibles para trabajar juntos durante el próximo año para negociar los detalles de las medidas, las cuentas y los mecanismos financieros necesarios para en el modelo económico basado en la felicidad a consideración de la comunidad internacional. Este tipo de modelo, o aspectos de la misma estaría disponible para su incorporación en las políticas nacionales sobre una base voluntaria.

Jigmi Y. Thinley, Primer Ministro, el Real Gobierno de Bután

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URGENT CALL FOR HIGH-LEVEL MEETING ON “WELLBEING & HAPPINESS: DEFINING A NEW ECONOMIC PARADIGM” AT THE UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK ON 2nd APRIL, 2012

The world is at a crossroads. The future of mankind and the planet is at stake. On 9 November the International Energy Agency warned: “Rising fossil-fuel energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.” Despite Rio, despite Kyoto, despite Copenhagen, CO2 emissions rose by 5.3% last year. Humanity is using up natural resources 35% faster than they can regenerate. And in Bhutan and Nepal, we can no longer stave off glacial melting that threatens devastating glacial lake outburst flooding, and shrinking sources of water for hundreds of millions downstream. There is no time to waste. Without immediate action, warns the IEA, by 2017 all CO2 emissions will be “locked in” by existing power plants, factories, buildings and other infrastructure.

Our global economic system is in rapid melt-down, starting with the financial collapse of 2008 and now manifesting in Europe’s severe and spreading debt crisis. That economic system, based on the totally unsustainable premise of limitless growth on a finite planet, is the direct cause of the very policies that the IEA says are leading us to a calamitous end as evident in the growing frequency and magnitude of man made and natural disasters. And that economic system has produced ever widening inequities, with 20% of the world’s people now consuming 86% of its goods, 84% of its paper, and 87% of its cars, while the poorest 20% consume 1% or less of each and emit only 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases. That gap, coupled with the deep economic crisis, led the International Labour Organization to warn on 30 October that the world faces years of social unrest as economies falter.

The OECD warned that "without decisive action the outlook is gloomy." But the “decisive action” now required goes far beyond tinkering with the fundamentally flawed GDP-based economic system, which mistakenly counts resource depletion as economic gain. It was instituted at a time when economists did not know the limits of nature’s capacity to support human economic activity, or that human activity could change the climate of the planet to produce what the UNDP calls “the greatest challenge facing humanity.”

And yet, this moment presents an opportunity. The world is in need of an international consensus for the creation of a sustainability-based economic paradigm, with wellbeing indicators, national accounting systems that count natural and social capital values to assess the true costs and gains of economic activity, regulatory institutions, and systems of trade and incentives for sustainable production. There is the urgent need for measures to reduce pollution and drastically slow resource degradation while protecting and supporting the world’s most vulnerable peoples.

The UN General Assembly resolution A/65/L.86, introduced by Bhutan with support from 68 Member States, and unanimously adopted by the UN, called for a “holistic approach to development” aimed at promoting sustainable happiness and wellbeing. It thrust on my small country the responsibility of initiating steps for the furtherance of this resolution. It is therefore planned that key representative leaders from developed and developing nations, along with leading economists, scientists, and civil society and spiritual leaders, come together to issue a clarion call at the UN on 2nd April for a sustainability-based economic development paradigm to replace the current system. To this end, it is hoped that the high-level meeting will call for the world’s best experts, based on the best available knowledge to work together over the next year to hammer out the details of the measures, accounts, and financial mechanisms required for a happiness-based economic model for the consideration of the international community. Such a model, or aspects of it would then be available for incorporation into national policies on a voluntary basis.

Jigmi Y. Thinley, Prime Minister, Royal Government of Bhutan

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The Asian nation of Bhutan believes it has found a good way to gauge wellbeing.


On Monday, in Manhattan's bustling midtown, senior level officials came together at the United Nations to discuss a new economic paradigm at the High Level Meeting on Well-Being and Happiness, an event organized by Bhutan, a country that knows a little bit about happiness.

Meanwhile in Phnom Penh, at the sleepy confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers, heads of governments from the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) deliberated on regional security and enhanced economic cooperation.

These two very different meetings actually have strong implications for one another. The ASEAN meeting was sidetracked by the South China Sea row, a conflict over resources. And leaders at the U.N. meeting recognized that the present rate of resource extraction is no longer viable.

The new economic paradigm laid out by Bhutan Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley uses "natural and social capital values to assess the true costs and gains of economic activity" and may hold the answer for avoiding conflict in the world's fastest developing region. Wellbeing can only be achieved by avoiding resource depletion, which in turn improves overall regional security.

The Challenges of Sustainable Human Development

Southeast Asia's appetite for economic growth is yet unfed, and its leaders, as well as their governments, can realize short-term financial and political gain from resource extraction.

Although perhaps recognizing a quality of life decrease resulting from the present production boom, globalization's pressures keep Southeast Asia's leaders grasping to attain an ever more resource dependent, New York standard of living.

However, at the U.N. there is now recognition that, as economist Joseph Stiglitz put it on Monday, "Maximizing GDP is not the same as maximizing wellbeing." The level of GDP, a frequently used indicator of economic development, naturally suffers at the expense of increased leisure.

Because sustainable technologies are yet to be widely implemented, and the global community trumpets the need to achieve ever higher levels of human development -- defined as expanding people's choices -- countries tend to be short sighted in helping their economies to provide now, rather than in the long-term.

This is especially true in Southeast Asia, awash in commercial advertising for consumer goods like cell phones, motorbikes, and even cars. Choice, seldom seen or recognized before, now abounds in these emerging markets.

Unfortunately such commercialism flies in the face of a more holistic human development concept that has happiness and wellbeing at its core. While increased choice about where to live could come from, for example, efficient management of limited water resources, the prioritization of individual ownership over collective good has resulted in a race for people to acquire more.

Of course, decades of collectivized economic policy in Southeast Asia went disastrously wrong. But the powerful drive for individual attainment -- whether an official using his position of power to acquire a luxury German sports car, or a slum resident mustering together $100 for a new cell phone -- will make achieving a new economic paradigm based upon happiness and wellbeing all the more challenging.