you can’t have a sustainable world without sustainable cities” -lisa benton-short.

upon entering dr. lisa benton-short’s office i am first drawn to the bookshelves lined with starbucks’ “city mugs” from upwards of 30 cities worldwide that she has collected during her travels as an urban geographer. they illustrate her background and her continued work in urban geography as she delves deeper into creating more sustainable urban spaces.

growing up in a rural community in montana, the thought of city life was always something we had to imagine. whenever we heard the word “city,” we would think of the stereotypical hustle and bustle of people surrounded by tall buildings mixed with unappealing scenes filled with traffic jams, smoggy horizons, and overflowing landfills. we often missed what benton-short points out: the green parks, diverse wildlife, and the sustainable transportation opportunities that cities have to offer.

benton-short has researched the dynamics of the urban environment from many angles, including planning and public space, urban sustainability, globalization, and immigration. i was able to sit down and talk to her about the emergence of more sustainable cities in the u.s. and around the world. she is still so passionate about her work, and seems to continue to love every aspect of it, even after years of research and work in the field.

she highlights the fact that 54% of the world’s population currently lives in cities with numbers trending higher for the future. by 2050 the world’s population is expected to exceed 9 billion people, with continuing trends an estimated 6.2 billion of those people will be living in urban areas – roughly the same number as the world’s total population in 2002.

one of the things she said that i found most interesting was that there is a demographic shift where young people are staying in cities longer, more people are choosing to raise a family in urban environments, and elderly people are making the move back to cities once their kids have settled down. benton-short attributes this shift to cultural influences such as tv shows like seinfeld and sex & the city that made living in an urban environment seem “cool” again.

i had always dreamed of living in a city when i got older, partially because of the glamorization of big cities in television and popular culture. when i was looking at college options, washington, dc seemed like a dream come true. but after spending three years living in dc, and getting the chance to spend some time in other large east coast cities, dc doesn’t seem nearly big enough!

when it comes to the “american dream” many people are abandoning the vision of white picket fences and two car garages in favor of city life, and i fit right into that. i imagine raising kids in a large city, or at least close to one. looking at all of the opportunities and experiences that are available in a large city makes me almost envious that i wasn’t raised closer to one. benton-short talked about how more and more children are being raised in cities and families are demanding services and amenities that not only translate into a higher quality of life for everybody but also make for more sustainable cities with expanded parks, outdoor recreational opportunities, and improved public transportation and urban walkability.

just traveling out to cities on the west coast, i can see the walkability is distinctly different, and the cities have much less public transportation, but many of these cities still have plans to become more sustainable. many communities already have sustainability plans looking toward the future; austin and san francisco plan to be carbon neutral by 2020, new york city is requiring buildings to use less energy and waives city sales tax on efficient vehicles, and portland has already installed over 200 miles of designated bike lanes.

there is no doubt the world of our future will be urban. the challenge confronting us today is whether we can make that world an efficient and sustainable one. 

nearly two hours away from my warm apartment on a particularly cold november afternoon, i found myself playing drums and shaking maracas inside a large barn with inventor and patent agent jaquelin spong, who has a ph.d in applied physics.

the day only got more interesting.

i was in awe as she led me through her house and her large backyard, pointing out every homemade invention we passed along the way. she is particularly interested in solar energy, and her 2 acres are littered with prototypes and working devices she uses on a regular basis. she had built a homemade rock wall and offered to hook me up to give it a try; i got to feel the warmth coming out of a solar powered invention that she uses to heat her house; she showed me a hot tub and sauna that she had configured to run off of a small wood fireplace; and she showed me her fresnel water purifier. by the end of my visit i had heard turkey gobbles and even fed her two sheep.

dirty and cold, i hopped straight into the shower the moment i got home. as i slowly warmed up, this reminded me that a simple shower is easily taken for granted, as many people in developing countries don’t have access to something we consider a necessity. according to the united nations human development report, an american taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day. 

global water scarcity means that people not only don’t have access to safe water to drink – but they also do not have water to cook with, water to clean themselves or their food with, and many people are living without access to something as simple as toilets. more people on our planet have a cellphone than people who have access to a toilet; meanwhile my little sister uses both by texting me from the bathroom to ask for more toilet paper!

lack of clean water for sanitation and hygiene perpetuates a cycle of disease in developing countries. diarrhea and other related diseases that are spread from lack of sanitation are the number one cause of child mortality, killing an estimated 2,000 children under the age of five every single day.

while the problem may be clear, the solution is murky. humanitarian organizations seem to be doing their best, yet many water purification systems are expensive and hard to fix if broken. dr. spong’s background with degrees in engineering and applied physics from yale and stanford, coupled with her intense passion for solar energy solutions, led her to creating the fresnel water purifier. her goal was to create something different from what is already out there by making it affordable, environmentally friendly, and easy to set up.

she and her team are confident that the purifier will fill a much-needed void, especially in rural villages that don’t get much attention from larger organizations.  i’ll be watching with baited breath as she works to deploy her purifier across central america, and looks to africa for her next invention.

as a result of the mountain pine beetle, nearly 70,000 acres of forest, approximately the size of washington state, have died since 2000. dead trees now carpet the rocky mountains.

every labor day my family and i would drive up to our favorite ski resort and help move the dead trees. it became a competition between all of the kids to see who could roll the most dead logs down the slope. we watched our forests shrink in size more and more each year, causing winds at the top of the mountain to become unbearable during parts of the ski season.

the beetles hatch from the trees they have just killed and swarm until they find a home to burrow and lay their eggs. in the past they would hatch and swarm for two weeks in july; now, that cycle is much longer. with the temperature rising the beetles fly, continually infecting trees for six months from may to october. the winters have gotten increasingly warmer causing beetles, weeds, and other invasive species to have a better chance at surviving the harsh winters. the pine beetles alone have are causing devastation throughout montana and the great plains states.

changes in the climate stand to not only affect montana’s forests, but also it’s largest source of income: agriculture. the national agricultural statistics service reports that over 65% of montana’s land is covered with farms and ranches. wheat is the state’s leading crop, bringing in 1/3 of the state’s agricultural income. farming is an integral part of montana life. changes would drastically affect all of the great plains states, an area that is notorious for severe fluctuations in weather that make life dramatic and challenging for the people, animals, and plants that inhabit the region.

growing up in montana i remember pilling on the under armour, ski coats, and ugg boots, just to make it to school in -40 degree weather. when it got that cold you had to be careful walking to your seat on the school bus, because the aisle was often covered with a layer of ice. a few weeks later it could be up to 80 degrees, and in the summer it often reached above 100, pushing people to the outskirts of town to cool off in creeks and the missouri river. 

parts of that very river, montana’s longest, flooded this year due to record rainfall and snow melt, causing major damage to riverfront properties in my hometown, and leaving much of the crow reservation underwater.

increases in winter and spring precipitation throughout the northern plains will increase the water levels through soil moisture which will help agriculture in the early growing season, and rising temperatures will lengthen the growing season making it so that some places will be able to harvest a second annual crop. yet, warming temperatures can create other difficulties; the national climate assessment predicts that the changing national climate will create more frequent and intense droughts, downpours, heat waves, and severe storms adding stress and cost to the region.

climate change poses many threats to my home, and the great plains states. a beetle outbreak , rising river levels, uncertainty about the future of agriculture, and the always looming chance of a severe weather storm are just a some of the worries i think about as we move into winter. how much longer can my state thrive, and what will it take for montanans to realize the threat and make a change?

_{header photo courtesy of the beacon reader}

about to take a bite, you suddenly stop yourself and set your fork down. you can’t believe you almost ruined such a delicious looking presentation before taking a picture for instagram! the next few minutes are filled with  #noms #foodporn #yumm, tagging friends, and choosing that perfect filter before clicking share and finally getting to taste your meal.

instagram’s most recent user statistics reveal that the network is bombarded with upwards of 40 million photos every day. with hundreds of different hashtags that could be used on food related images, it is hard to track just how many photos have food related content. #foodporn is hashtagged on over 37 million instagram photos and #food is linked to more than 132 million photos as of oct. 2014.

social media has become the place for people to share what’s on their plate. we show the world what we’re eating, where we went, with who and every detail of the experience. every time we get a uniquely presented meal at a restaurant, finish cooking an intricate recipe, or even if we just pick up a bagel and coffee on the way to work, we want people to know about it.

eating has always been a traditionally communal event, religious ceremonies, holidays, celebrations, and even funerals are intertwined with specific foods and traditions. social media outlets like instagram give us a way to preserve that sense of community while we, as a society, rush through daily life often not finding time for sit-down meals and face-to-face communication. food is something that everyone has in common. we all have favorite foods and restaurants, things we want to try, and goals for our eating habits, which is why food related content on social media sites is so popular. a 2011 study found that nearly half of online adults say that they learn about food and restaurants via social networks. we have become so ingrained to share everything we do on social media, especially when it comes to food, that people have even started sharing images of food waste!

food packaging and waste account for 49% of litter. jeff kirschner decided to combine litter pick up and awareness with our social media food sharing obsession, and founded litterati in september 2012 with the hopes of cleaning up the streets and sparking a conversation about how we think about trash. litterati created a new activity for food-instagrammers, encouraging them to act when they see a piece of litter. they take a photo of the trash and share it on instagram with the hashtag #litterati. then, they pick it up and put it into a trash can or recycling bin.

the project uses instagram and the popularity of food related posts, coupled with geotagging and an element of competition, as tools to create a movement for crowd-sourced litter disposal. interactive maps document our impact on the planet and, by searching images with this hashtag, we can see just how pervasive food packaging is when it comes to litter. kirschner shares with talking good his hopes that the litterati movement will help draw attention to food waste, make consumers more mindful so that they actually ‘see’ packaging as a precursor to litter, and notice how we don’t just waste food, we carelessly toss things related to food all over our cities and streets.

in the two years since its start, litterati has been tagged in almost 73,000 photos containing litter in over 40 countries, and continues to gain momentum as the hashtag becomes more popular. partnerships with local whole foods, the california coastal commission, and the national resources defense council have been raising litterati awareness by promoting instagram competitions and offering free goodies and prizes for participants.

litterati has all the ingredients to become a trending social media campaign, with the potential to create an online movement that can gradually make a big dent in the vexing litter problem. as i scroll through my instagram feed, seeing hundreds of dinner plates and starbucks mugs, i can’t help but have the urge to break it up with a crumpled receipt or a discarded soda can off the street. next time i see a piece of trash not only will i pick it up, but i will be thinking of a creative angle to capture that perfect instagram picture.

megan varner is a junior studying journalism and mass communication at the george washington university.

latest #litterati posts

george washington university rolled out the beginnings of its zero waste plan earlier this year — how is it effecting students? is their plan working? what you can do to get involved?

megan varner is a senior at the george washington university majoring in journalism and mass communication with a minor in health and wellness.