User:Krao01/sandbox

-adding to already existing article

- new additions underlined

-editing two articles, numbered accordingly!

= Article #1: Water Supply and Sanitation in Peru =

Social Access
As discussed later in this article, parts of Peru are located in vast deserts, making water accessibility very limited. While there has been an emphasis within the country to focus in on improving infrastructural resources to strengthen water access and restoring watersheds, much of Peru still remains underserved, with over 1.5 million people estimated to have no running water in their homes. According to a report conducted by the UN Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water, Peru has made significant improvements within the last fifteen years to promoting sanitation and improving access to water. But, upon closer inspection, it is realized that accessibility of water does not correlate with every person in Peru receiving water. The system of water distribution is still unjust, with reported rates of citizens with running water being charged 1.3 sols (.40 USD) for one cubic meter while poorer citizens who rely on water delivery trucks to bring them their resources pay around 20 sols ($6 USD) for one cubic meter of water, an over 1500% increase. Additionally, this water tends to be not sanitized and properly treated to be potable, forcing Peruvians to heat their water to sanitize, and additionally having to spend more energy in comparison to Peruvians who have these enmities in their homes.

"Water for everyone"[ edit]
In September 2006, the new President Alan García announced an ambitious investment plan for the water and sanitation sector called “Water for everyone” (Agua para todos), promising water access to all Peruvians – mainly to the poorest – by the end of his mandate. However, as of 2020, there are has been no further developments on this proposed plan and rather just projects partnered with NGOs to make this vision a reality, such as the non-profit Water for Everyone.

Lobitos and EcoSwell
An additional example of water accessibility non profit work being done outside of the governmental realm is occuring, currently, in Northern Peru, in the Talara region. EcoSwell, identified a need in this region for an organization around the creation of a sustainable method of organizing and creating sustainability in the region both environmentally and economically. As taken from their website, their Bottom-Up approach to non-profit organization focuses “on the needs of the base of the pyramid” Ecoswell has chosen to centralize in Lobitios due to its coastal location, growing population, and flow of tourism, as well as the importance for rural communities like Lobitos to “mitigate and adapt to Climate Change”. As a result, EcoSwell has multiple projects to ensure the long term sustainability of the town. The community’s needs are primarily focused around sustainability and working towards an economic pattern of no growth. Peru already has a history of moving towards sustainability and making work to extend the Peruvian journey towards sustainability, as previously mentioned by Treehugger magazine. Lobitos is located in a dry zone that does not have a lot of access to fresh water, so desalinization is a smart alternative during drought periods, that can derive resources from the ocean that Lobitos is located right next to. The project revolves around solar-powered distillers that have been developed and are now seeking greater community support and funding, to build large versions and keep it running.

Water resources and impact of climate change
On average, surface water in Peru is abundant. Nevertheless, it is unequally distributed in space and time. Especially the coastal area, where the country's major cities are located and two thirds of the population live, is very dry. Lima with 8 million people, is the world's second largest city located on a desert (after Cairo). The peaks of the Andes are the source of many Peruvian rivers. Peru contains over two-thirds of all tropical glaciers which provide important water sources for the dry western half of the country. These glaciers are rapidly melting as a result of climate change, making the flow of rivers more irregular, leading to more droughts and floods. A report by a team from the World Bank published in June 2007 in the bulletin of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) predicts that many of the lower glaciers in the Andes will be gone in the next decade or so, and that glacial runoff may dry up altogether within 20 years. The last comprehensive satellite survey by Peru's National Environmental Council, carried out in 1997, found that the area covered by glaciers had shrunk by 22% since the early 1960s. Partial surveys by geologists suggest that the rate at which the glaciers are melting has sped up over the past decade. Additionally, as these glaciers rapidly melt, they also expose the water to contaminants in the glaciers, such as lead and cadaium, making it unsafe to consume,

For example, the Quelccaya ice cap is the second largest in the Peruvian Andes and has shrunk by 30% in the last 33 years. Streams fed by glaciers and rainwater provide water further downstream.

Parts of Peru are in arid, dry desert-like conditions, which in turn have created a drought-like situation. As global temperatures increase, these areas are at higher risk of not obtaining steady access to water in already limited amounts. This is seen in Peru in the primarily Northern part of the country where there is much more desert-like conditions,

Sustainability
Discussed in Treehugger magazine, there is a sustainability sweet spot, in which a nation has a high level of human development cross-checked with ecologically sustainable use of resources. Peru is one of the very few countries falling into this sweet spot. If Treehugger is any hint, however, the sustainability methods of Peru is a relatively modern ideology that has not been thought about in the grand scheme of time. Peru is able to pursue a method of sustainability since it has a large amount of readily available natural resources, as opposed to other countries that rely heavily on imports for mass amounts of natural resources. While this is good to hear, it is also important to understand how sustainable Peru's future water resources will remain as climate change progresses and rapidly affects the water supply. For example, the Rimac, Chillon, and Lurin River are all central to Peru's water supply, and are not equipped to handle the growing population. As it stands, there are no current plans by the government to deal with this issue.

= Article #2: Steady-state Economy =

Ecological reasons for a steady state economy[ edit]

 * Depletion of non-renewable minerals

Non-renewable mineral reserves are currently extracted at high and unsustainable rates from earth's crust. Remaining reserves are likely to become ever more costly to extract in the near future, and will reach depletion at some point. The era of relatively peaceful economic expansion that has prevailed globally since World War II may be interrupted by unexpected supply shocks or simply be succeeded by the peaking depletion paths of oil and other valuable minerals. In 2020 in the first time the rate of use of natural resources arrived to more than 110 billion tons per year

Renowned economist Jason Hickel has written about the ideology of green-growth. Green growth is the idea that as capitalism and systems expand, natural resources will also expand naturally, as it is compatible with our planet’s ecology. This contradicts with the idea of no-growth economics, where the sustainability and stability of the economy is prioritized over the uncontrolled profit of those in power. In a study, models around creating development in communities found that without accounting for sustainability in the creation of these models do not work out and end up failing in the long term. In other words, green growth theory is a myth and does not help the development of these same systems. Additionally, folks who are living in poorer areas tend to be exposed to higher levels of toxins and pollutants as a result of systematic environmental racism. A solution to both alleviate the pollution of these areas as well as address the poverty in these areas is to increase the access to natural resources, as well as increase local involvement in the distribution of said natural resources.