Sustainable Transportation for Sustainable Living
The 17 goals, championed by the United Nations, all work on coordination with each other, so it is hard to favor one out of the bunch. But to me, Goal 11 is the snowball to roll, but has the best effects once it gets rolling. As per the UN’s definition, Goal 11 is, “[To] Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. The world is obviously such a massive place, so to make such a large change like the UN is trying to achieve by oneself is nearly impossible; however, on the chance it is, the reach of accomplishing the goal is not that widespread. To be clear, that is not to say there is no value in smaller groups or individuals from trying to better the world. To make a sustainable globe, it takes a global effort, it takes everyone. It is easier to accomplish when everyone is on the same playing field, which is why creating sustainable living is so essential.
Before the pandemic hit, almost 1 billion people lived in slums, with most of them residing in parts of Asia and Africa. If that seems bad, about only half of the urban population in the world has access to public transportation. Imagine the numbers now; unfortunately it makes achieving the 2030 goals significantly harder, but they can still be done. 5 years ago in 2016, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, the UN held the first Global Sustainable Transport Conference. It was a success, with the attendees reaching the conclusion that sustainable transport is essential for maintaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The rest of summary of the conference can be found here. In a few days, the next summit will in Beijing, China, which will be another opportunity to discuss challenges and solutions to achieving worldwide sustainable transport. While on paper transport and living are different, in practice they can not function without the other. Roads are no good without places to go to, and places can not be reached and developed if there are no roads to navigate.
The Reflection on the Clean Water and Sanitation Goal
Many countries depend on clean water sources to make multiple daily trips walking countless miles. These countries run a great risk when their only sources of water come from dangerous polluted water sources. These water sources cause many troubles for the students when they get various illnesses from the water sources. When these students get the lack education due to the water sources, they don’t have the preparation for their future life and career. So, when this occurs these countries remain in a continuous cycle of poverty. The top leading cause of death in the world is caused by diarrhea and most of those deaths could be prevented if they had clean water sources.
Blog post 4
` In the world of education, there are multiple factors that contribute to being a successful educator, one of those would be goal setting. In my opinion, I believe that Sustainable Global Education/ goals are a huge goal that should be followed by any educator no matter what environment you are in. One of these goals that are very important would be ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all not only as educators but also to cast onto our students and influence their own lives going forward. To further explain that, education should never stop trying to improve itself, therefore always expanding and creating new options to further educate those students to come. One way to do this is to generate and move further in all levels of education to grow towards a more efficient form of education without hurting any of our resources. In the sense of being efficient to our community, natural resources, and fellow colleagues. In order to fully fulfill this task, we would need to get better institutions for education, brighten up campuses, and support showing our students how to properly complete this task going forward. There are now associates like GAP (Global Action Programme), HESI (Higher Education Sustainability Initiative), and many more that will develop sustainability plans in partnership to further contribute.
Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 14
Conserve and sustainable use of the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development. This is something that we have all heard time and time again. In recent years we have seen issues surface that make us question what we are really doing to the planet. Each year we as humans destroy more and more of the planet with rising pollution levels we are slowly destroying the oceanic environment.
Where To Start?
A common question is where to start with the renewal of our ocean. The ocean is the largest ecosystem and is the greatest amount of mass of surface on our planet. You would think that we would pay more attention to it as a whole. But in all reality is the most unexplored and reached body that we have. Out of all research funds, only 1% nationally goes into the research of the ocean. The world leaders don’t want you to know how there pumping millions of metric tons of waste into it every day. The Dasani water bottle you threw out at lunch or the last time you used the bathroom. It All ends up in the ocean, then we ask ourselves why our waters are polluted and ecosystems are crumbling daily.
Realistically there is no way to stop the flames from spreading unless every single human would stop producing a massive amount of waste. Every year there are higher percentiles of dead zones(oceanic areas of low or no oxygen) and micro plastic contamination in the ocean. This leads to a decline in fishing ocean farming and destroys jobs and food sources for over 3 billion people that depend on the ocean for survival. the purpose of this blog was to open your eyes as a reader. Maybe our eyes will turn to environmental rehabilitation in my lifetime.
Sustainable Development Goal: End Poverty in all its form everywhere
A big goal for every country should be to end poverty. By the year 2030, the global poverty rate should be 7% (United Nations). Especially with the beginning of COVID-19 in 2020, the level of poverty increased rapidly. It became the first time where there were levels of extreme poverty rising. There were 119-124 million people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 (United Nations). There are a total of 17 goals written by the United Nations that can transform the world we live in. The number one goal in this list is to end poverty.
There are top priorities in eliminating poverty from the world. Directly from the source of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
- Improving access to sustainable livelihoods, entrepreneurial opportunities and productive resources
- providing universal access to basic social services
- progressively developing social protection systems to support those who cannot support themselves
- empowering people living in poverty and their organizations
- addressing the disproportionate impact of poverty on women
- working with interested donors recipients to allocate increased shares of ODA to poverty eradication
- intensifying international cooperation for poverty eradication
From: https://sdgs.un.org/topics/poverty-eradication
The goal is, by the year of 2030, poverty is eradicated in all its forms. This might be considered one of the greatest challenge of all. The definition of poverty is that you don’t have enough material possessions or income in order to complete the basic needs of a person. Poverty can cause many different issues socially, economically, and politically.
Achieving Gender Equality
The United Nations is working on achieving sustainable development by 2030. There are 17 extremely important goals, but one that really stood out to me was to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
As a woman who lives in America, I know that there is still some inequality. However, I did not realize the severity of inequality in other countries. There is still massive amounts of women underrepresentation in all forms of government, domestic violence/ sexual assault is still very prevalent all over the world, and there are still so many young girls who are at risk for marriage.
Targets and Indicators
There are nine goals in ensuring gender equality by 2030.
- “End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere”
- “Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation”
- “Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation”
- “Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”
- “Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”
- “Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences”
- “Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws”
- “Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women”
- “Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels”
Progress
While it may feel like there has been a substantial amount of progress made, unfortunately, there has not. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have went backwards in achieving equality. For example, violence has increased, child marriage has increased, and women are still underrepresented in government (even though they have played a crucial role in this pandemic). Women are still suffering with pay inequality all over the world.
What can you do?
I encourage everyone to look over all of the sustainable development goals, and see what you can do for your community. As for gender equality, inform others on what is going on around the world, send emails, call local government offices, attend events that are listed on the website. There are so many things you can do to make an impact on the world!
Thank you for reading!
Jillian DeMore
@DeMoreJillian
How SDGs address Climate Change as a humanity issue: Goal 13
Peace and prosperity are about more than a flourishing economy. It all starts with saving the planet. Reducing the amount of climate-related natural disasters and increasing the quality of human health are the major stepping stones on the road to achieving global prosperity and zero hunger.
These goals are on the list of the UN’s highest priorities in addressing climate change. The other priorities include food and security protection, protecting terrestrial and wetland ecosystems, expanding freshwater resources and contributing to key economic sectors and services that directly fund climate change administration. The climate change aspect of Sustainable Development Goals is now more crucial than ever, considering that the pandemic.
According to the UN’s goal to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”, 70-161 million more people had likely experienced hunger in 2020. This does not get any better with recent natural disasters like 2017’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, especially when the global average temperature was 34 degrees F above the pre-industrial baseline in 2020, further contributing to the growing climate crisis. Rising greenhouse gas emissions also contribute to this, and the UN suggests that by 2050, changing global economies will have to become carbon neutral as goal to battle climate change.
But the global climate change conversation is not all about the daily setbacks we face. Between 2015 and 2018, climate finance increased by 10%, which makes its annual average $48.7 billion. This monumental sum arguably reflects the way governments and citizens alike are taking climate change and its domino effect impacts more seriously. With all of this funding, there is hope for real change.
With Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s recent popularity, the question of morality has entered this conversation, making more people aware of just how far-reaching the effects of climate change are if it took a teenager to make government officials wake up to the real crisis that the Earth faces. This saw real progress with the UN’s E-Course on Harnessing Climate and SDGs Synergies, which not only engages policymakers with the effects of climate change but also addresses Sustainable Development Goals as a whole.
The goals can be reached by never letting climate change leave the mainstream conversation, both in society and politics, much in the way Greta Thunberg has done. And when we follow the resources found in Goal 13, educating ourselves is the first step we can do as individuals to fight this crisis that affects not only the Earth but human rights itself.
Goal 15: Life on Land
Sustainable Development is development that meets needs of the now without affecting the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable Development goals are made for every 15 years. The last set of goals were made in 2015 and a new agenda was created. This agenda for 2030 is “comprised of 17 Goals to drive development over the next 15 years by ending extreme poverty, tackling climate change and fighting inequalities”. The challenge for us is to make sure the goals are carried through in a way that guarantees no one is left behind.
The sustainable development goal that I found most interesting was Goal 15: Life on Land. The goal reads as follows:
I find this goal really important because we need to protect the life on land around us. This life gives us food, medicine, and so many more resources. This goal has 12 targets each related to things like deforestation and preserving ecosystems. This video about goal 15 is a great resource as it discusses the targets within this goal and show visuals:
Watching this video and seeing the information and resources that the United Nations gives us, it was really upsetting to see the ecosystems that have started to diminish. As a future teacher this gives me ideas as to how I can incorporate this into art projects that my students can work on. I believe I could teach my students about sustainable development goals and allow them to choose a goal to represent in a project of their choosing. We could hang them up in the school for other students and staff to see. This would be a great way to get more information out there to people who may be able to help.
Thank you so much for reading!!
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Peace, justice, and strong institutions is Goal 16 in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The main website for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, explains in detail, what these goals entail.
There are many ministries and organizations that are fighting for this justice day in and day out. The beautiful thing about that, is that some are associated with the United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goals and others are not- but equally so, they are working towards the same goal. One of the ministries that are fighting for this justice is Agape International Missions. This ministry fights specifically against child sex trafficking in Cambodia. Cambodia used to hold the title of “child trafficking capitol of the world”, but now with this help, they have been moved to the 2-tier watch list in the Trafficking in Persons Report.
This goal encompasses a belief that America claims to stand upon in the Bill of Rights- justice for all. This goal from the UN is a great reminder that can hold our nation accountable in this. Of course, it is also the responsibility of the individual to make sure they are living out a life that is promoting peace amongst their neighbors and looking out for others’ best interests and well-being. Are you doing your part?
Diane Hoffman
Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 4
Since I am going into the education field, goal 4 is near and dear to my own personal goals of providing quality education. In the targets and indicators section of the United Nation’s website on SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals) there are specifics into what this goal aims to do by 2030. Target 4.1 is getting students to complete primary and secondary school, 4.2 is quality pre-primary care and 4.6 where all youth and a substantial portion of adults both achieve literacy and numeracy.
There are ten targets in total, and I implore you look the other targets and explore the other goals at this site. There are 17 goals, ranging from ending poverty to affordable energy to even preserving wildlife. No matter what your are passionate about, there is a SDG for you!
Now you might be wondering “How has Covid-19 effected the SDG’s?” When looking at Goal 4 there has been an extreme drop in literary in countries that were on the rise before the pandemic.
This graphic above displays just how much literacy rates decreased during the pandemic. Not only did it drop in developing nations, but even in Europe and North America there was a severe decline. The need for Quality Education is now at the highest it has been in years. And with the end of the pandemic possibly insight, I believe there will be an explosion in education around the world.
But there is progress on Goal $ happening as we speak. Teachers across the world, and people without degrees, are helping those in need. According to the global goals website all you have to do donate to charity, take some online courses or even just donate your old books. Any educational material is welcomed. Teachers are helping by providing online classes so that students around the world can have access to language and math learning. In this day and age anyone can help, even with just a click of a button.
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