Sci 207 - Innovation and Sustainability - Substainablity Case

Sustainability 1

Innovation and Sustainability

Heather Lane

SCI 207

Jody Emeterio

April 23, 2012

Sustainability 2

We are a global society that is constantly trying to find new and creative ways of

producing goods or services along with consuming those goods and services using material

resources. While creating these new ideas we are using for production and consuming we are

over extending our natural resources at an alarming rate. If we continue to produce and consume

material resources at this rate our natural resources might disappear. There are many production

systems that are in place in our society. The two that I find are the most important are food and

fuel production; I also believe that these are the most consumed in our society. This consumption

is based on our population growth and demographics in our part of the world. If we don't

reevaluate how we consume and produce our food and fuel then we might be headed for a

disaster when it comes feeding our families and getting around our cities or being able to use

some of basic modern conveniences.

Our food production has drastically changed in last 100 years. It began when the

industrial era came in the late 18th century. It changed many families' lifestyles, such as more

and more farmers came to work in the factories when their farm failed. Children became

invaluable resources of labor in the factories so large families were able to support themselves

easily. When families moved from the country to the city there was a major push for more food

productions because the families could no longer grow their own food in the cities. This put a

new stress on the farmer to produce as much as possible and fast. There was another over flow of

population when immigrants were flooding New York and other areas of the country. This

continued to more and more of a strain on the production food on the farmer. Society began to

shift from being mostly self-sufficient growing their own food and relying on their crops and

their livestock to sustain themselves and to sell what they would not use to generate income. The

industrial era changed how people could support their families. People no longer had to farm to

generate income for their families they could work in the factories to generate an income. The

changed however created new problems for the farmer and the factories workers. The farmer was

Sustainability 3

forced to produce more and more food because of the growth in the population in the cities

needing more food production. This caused the prices of food to rise which in turn made he

factories workers have less food because they couldn't afford it.

The consumption of food has also grown because of the dramatic growth of population

during the 1950's with the baby boomers. Food production also had a major overhaul. Food

didn't come straight from the farmer. We picked up our food at the local grocery stores which

also provided us with many conveniences of how food was prepared. It made it easier for people

to consume more and more but, no longer and conversely our lifestyle has become more

sedentary . We now live in a society that is over half obese and we need to create activity and

changing our eating habits to match our new lifestyle. We now are consuming food more and

more

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