HOLLAND vs COLOMBIA: FOOTPRINT
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays the global warming is one of the most worrying problematics around the world, also, the Carbon footprint importance has been improving through the years, To study the environmental carrying, this project is going to develop a comparison table and an analysis between the lifestyle in Colombia and The Netherlands, showing the differences in this two countries.
COMPARISONS
NETHERLANDS
- Being an European country, Netherland, didn’t suffer a process of colonization, that’s why its resources weren’t affected.
- The water in Netherland is drinkable for all its 17 million population and all the water resources are being protected so they are not contaminated.
- Netherland has projects like “The Smog free Tower” which is a building that purifies the air around it. The objective of this country is to build more structures like that in places where air quality is not so good; for them it is a priority to make constructions that help the environment.
- Netherland encourages its citizens to propose ideas that improve the quality of life, this is how ideas like “the first giant vacuum filter” are born, which is able to filter the dirt particles in the air, and with this, is capable of purify it, this idea was presented on Amsterdam and is mean to reach the entire population.
- The culture of bicycle use in Netherlands is very strong; the country has a total of 35000 km of bikeways and 400 million of euros per year in maintenance of the structure. This not only decreases the environmental impact, but also helps to decrease the number of victims dead by traffic accident.
- Due to the importance of the bicycle in the Dutch culture, the cities are not at the top of cars and besides the mobility is facilitated it also improves the quality of the air.
COLOMBIA
- The rough process of colonization, since its beginning Colombia has been abusing of its natural resources.
- Colombia is still trying to make water drinkable for all its territory. The biggest problem is the large number of people that live far from the main water treatment centers and how the big industries pollute the mains waters resources, despite this, Colombia is one of the countries with the largest amount of water storage.
- There are several self-sustaining structures in Colombia, however there is no one that has the technology that “The Smog Free Tower” has. The air quality of the cities in Colombia is not yet a risk to life, anyway, measures are taken to keep it in good conditions.
- Although Colombia has several entrepreneurs who surely have projects as those implemented in Netherland, the lack of support and corruption prevent them from moving forward.
- In several cities of Colombia, the use of bicycles has been encouraged, but the level of Dutch bike lanes is still far from being reached. Cities such as Medellin barely reach 53 km of bikeways and a large part of the population still does not take advantage of it.
- In Colombia, the impressive number of cars that transit through the cities put mobility and air quality at risk, so strategies such as "pico y placa" are adopted. But the industries contribute in the contamination of the air by producing a lot of smog but for this very few measures are taken.
ANALYSIS
With the test it was shown that the majority of the students that practice a colombian life-style got a result of a carbon footprint of 4 to 6 hectares, which means that they need between 2 to 3 planets to live, only the ones that doesn't eat meat got a result of 2 to 4 hectares. This is a worrying situation because it shows that not even the young ones are worrying enough for the environmental carrying, the carbon footprint that they generate and the cons that it can bring to the planet not to do it, this is why, it is important that people make conscience of its daily activities so, in this way, they can change some of then and contribute in the improvement of the environment in our country.
CONCLUSIONS
- A very important fact that determinates in part the environmental situation in both countries comes from the difference between the histories that they have gone through.
- In the Netherlands the government takes measures to decrease the environmental problem, but in the other hand, the Colombian government and its corruption doesn´t allow the country to develop.
- The analysis shows that in Colombia the people have a bigger carbon footprint due to the lack of interest that they have, and their daily habits that doesn´t help at all.
- The globalization is good in some things, but also bad in some others, problem that affects a lot of countries around the world, including Colombia and The Netherlands, but in the case of the second country they have known how to solve it, but in the Colombian case, they haven´t, and every day it is a bigger problem.
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