The Big Dig!

Oh pretty! Look at what America can do! Build massive (potentially unnecessary) roads to take us from point A to point B. Sooooo why isn't there public transport used instead? I know Boston has the T, but come on Red Sox fans! You really need your own Spaghetti Junction?

Cities Good and Bad

What makes a good city? Sustainability is the key to any argument. It can make it last and stick around. Since population centers are all about growth and sticking around, sustainable behaviors are key. With this definition in mind, we'll look at some cities that aren't Portland (good) or Atlanta (horribly, horribly bad).

Leicester, England! (Pretty awesome timeline, copy and pasted below)

This city in England doesn't have the best soccer team (yeah, they're not in the EPL so they suck), but they are the United Kingdom's first environment city. This is definitely attributed to their massive amount of plans they have put into place and still in the works. The above link is a chronological laundry list of important moments.

From Environment City to Sustainable City

This page highlights some of the milestones in Leicester’s progress to reduce its environmental impact and become a more sustainable city. Links are provided to further details where available. For specific queries not answered below, please contact the Environment Team.

2010: Leicester was judged Britain’s second most sustainable city by independent think-tank Forum for the Future in its Sustainable Cities Index and came top in the ‘Environmental Protection’ section of

the index.

2010: The Council joined the national 10:10 campaign – making a pledge to cut its carbon emissions.

2008: A commitment was made to plant an extra 10,000 Trees in Leicester by 2011.

2008: The Coun

cil’s first action plan for Adapting to Climate Change was launched.

2008: The Leicester Partnership launched its 25 year “One Leicester” vision for Leicester to become “Britain’s Sustainable City”. One Leicester’s seven priorities include “Reducing Our Carbon Footprint” and “Planning for People Not Cars”.

2006: The City of

Leicester Local Plan introduced a new policy on Renewable Energy (Policy BE16) requiring Major Developments to be designed to meet a percentage of their energy needs from renewable energy generated on site.

2005: The Council was awarded “Beacon Status’ for “Sustainable Energy”

2003: Bursom Rec

ycling Centre was opened by BIFFA Leicester. It is designed to remove metals, compostable waste and much of the paper and plastic from household waste to reduce landfill.

2003: Leicester’s first Climate Change Strategy was launched.

2002: EMAS in Schools was launched, enabling children and young people to learn about the environment while tak

ing practical steps in their school.

2002: Leicester achieved Fairtrade City status through the work of ‘Leicester Advocates Fairtrade (LAFT) – the City’s Fairtrade action group.

2001: The Council was awarded ‘Beacon Status’ for “Maintaining a Quality Environment”

1999: The Council ac

hieved the prestigious Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) standard for its environmental management of local services. It continues to meet this standard to this day.

1997: The Bike Park was opened by local charity Environ (now Groundwork Leicester and Leicestershire) with Council support.

1997: The kerbside recycling service was rolled out city-wide after the success of trials the year before.

1992: Leicester was invited to send a delegation to the first UN ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janiero to discuss the role

of local communities in tackling the world’s environmental challenges. World leaders at the Summit issued ‘Agenda 21’ which included a call for local communities, led by local authorities, to develop their own local Agenda 21 plans for sustainable development.

1990: Leicester was designated Britain’s first Environment City by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, in recognition of its progress and commitment.

1989: Eco House – one of the UK’s first environmental show-homes, was opened to the public by charity Leicester Ecology Trust (now Groundwork Leicester and Leicestershire).

1986: Leicester’s Ecology Strategy – the first such c

ity-wide strategy by a (then) District Council - was launched.

1974: A programme of work was begun which led to the creation of the award-winning linear Riverside Park from north to south through the city, incorporating the Great Central Way walking and cycling route.

(Copyright, Leicester City Council)

Certainly the environment is great around Leicester as well, allowing them to grow intelligently and not haphazardly. In fact, they have a pamphlet that is available for free download on their page. (Click me!) The se are the kind of policies that American cities need to have, well all the world needs to have.

This is definitely a city on the up and up.

You heard me earlier mention Portland as a good city. I claim this due to their city design as of late, trying to become sustainable with alternative transport and innovative design. When a city doesn't have this, urban spraw l can occur. A list on wikipedia reads that urban sprawl leads to:

• High car dependence
• Inadequate facilities, e.g.: cultural, emergency, health, and so forth
• Low public support for sprawl
• High per-person infrastructure costs
• Inefficient street layouts
• Inflated costs for publi c transportation
• Lost time and productivity for commuting
• High levels of racial and socioeconomic segregation
• Low diversity of housing and business types
• High rates of obesity
• Less space for conservation and parks
• High per-capita use of energy, land, and water

I couldn't help but agree. This is definitely truer for Atlanta and San Diego (pictured below).

Nuclear Power Blog

Sooooo the tsunami just hit Japan after that devastating earthquake. We've seen the problems that have begun to happen at the Fukushima prefecture's nuclear power plant. A meltdown is definitely possible. This isn't to way that the cause of all these problems was human design though. This meltdown is only going to happen because an earthquake and tsunami, two natural disasters, occurred. There is no need for panic or alarm that those facilities in the United States which are built similarly are in any danger. The odds of a catastrophic tsunami in Japan are so minute, and that's light years ahead of any danger the Eastern seaboard would face. The fault lines and Ring of Fire establish that any important construction projects in the Asian continent's Pacific Ocean side must be able to stand up to an earthquake for the most part. No one guessed a tsunami would come immediately following. Basically, a perfect storm has allowed some cesium to escape into the atmosphere. Yes, I'm sure that there is some health risks for those nearby. However, this is not the time to lose a level head and start pointing fingers and claiming nuclear energy is horrible and will kill us all.
Jokes like the one above just help incite the populace against nuclear energy, when the only real problem is the disposal of the waste. Once this part is figured out, there is no telling how much benefit can be gained.


Comics like this one are just fallacies that say "well because BP messed up a sure thing with Deepwater Horizon, nuclear energy is bound to go wrong...and our point is proven thanks to that tsunami!"

This is downright shameful. It's cleaner and better than coal. While coal might be cheaper and easier to use, it has intense emissions problems.



In essence, nuclear energy is still amazing, and it should looked at as a viable alternative. While it won't do much to get us off foreign oil like switching to electric cars would, the vast amount of cheap electricity from a cheap substance could make electric cars in higher demand.




PS- this blog was typed ages ago, but I hit Save as Draft. Whoops!

Vampire Power

Please do some research about Vampire Power and write a blog that describes this phenomenon, it's implications, and what can be done to remedy this.

Well Vampire Power is a source of power that is equal to the amount of energy (both light and heat) produced from the sparkling vampires in the popular series of books by Stephanie Meyer, Twilight.

Haha, funny right?

ANYWAY...

Vampire Power...what is it? Well, vampire power is also called standby power or no load power. This is when something is plugged in and is drawing power when the object itself is off or in standby mode. Plasma TVs are a major problem with this, as they continue to suck in vast amounts of energy even when turned off. When a laptop is plugged in and has full power, this is no load power, and it's doing the exact same thing. Power bills are immensely higher due to this phenomenon.

As you can see, these power amounts add up FAST. This is especially true for someone in my predicament, who has a large amount of electronics. It makes up part of something called the miscellaneous electric load. This includes small appliances, security systems, small power draws, and vampire power. This is a major problem right now due to the economy as well.

This art demonstrates what is wrong and what happens.

Every penny counts, showing that we need to maybe not have everything left plugged in.

JUST UNPLUG EVERYTHING.

THAT'S THE EASIEST THING TO DO.

This picture would be better if money was leaking out.

Materials and the Environment Timeline

We had to choose two compounds to research in greater detail this semester from the timelines on page 3 of Materials and the Environment. I would like to know more about synthetic rubber and teflon/PTFE.

Synthetic Rubber came into prominence in 1922, just after the First World War and before the Great Depression. A major reason for its' rise over natural rubber was the blight of Brazilian rubber trees in the ten years before the rise of natural rubber. Another reason was burgeoning Communist Power Russia, who had decided to reduce dependence on Britain for resources, and therefore, they made synthetic rubber from petroleum in one project and from ethyl alcohol in the other. Finally, the First World War demonstrated that the massive war machines were going to need new sources of rubber, and it couldn't all be natural. America refused to buy British rubber after the Stevenson Act, and so DuPont finished up production of synthetic rubber for the States. Synthetic Rubber is man-made that is based of elastomers in a polymer group. Pictured is a roll of synthetic rubber sheets.

PTFE/Teflon was developed in 1943. PTFE is short form for polytetrafluoroethylene, a compound that DuPont created for nonstick surfaces. The compound posted is PTFE. It's also highly unreactive due to the strong "carbon-fluorine bonds." It was used in uranium enrichment plants in teh 1940s, and it is also used in pipes due to its' highly noncorrosive nature.

Class Assignment: 1/13/10

So Dr. Rood asked us to:

1) identify some federally funded program that you feel should/could be reduced or eliminated;

2) and identify some federally funded program that you feel should be maintained or even expanded.

Well, I hate to upset anyone with this heritage, but I personally think the Bureau of Indian Affairs should be cut entirely. They're a part of the country, why do we still feel a need to count them out and do special things for them. Personally, I feel that they should assimilate (as a people), and we move their programs to other departments, such as reservations to the Department of the Interior. The other services are just ensuring the rights for Indians that all other citizens get, so why not just take away those "protecting their rights" programs and make them become part of the country. Incorporate the Indian schools into regular districts and change their funding and such to under the Department of Education at different levels of government. Most of the services can be taken care of by local agencies or other preexisting departments. The BIA was necessary once, but now, Indians should just get off their high horse of being so important and assimilate. Everyone else has had to.

However, I do feel that their funding needs to redistributed among somewhere else. Namely, the funding once set aside for the Bureau of Indian Affairs should go to the US Department of Education for distribution among the states that have districts which are experiencing difficulty keeping up with national standards. A major problem is low teacher salaries in these districts. By using the former BIA money to make these locations more hospitable and favorable for new and young teachers, we might see improvements. The No Child Left Behind program could be retooled with this additional money being granted to troubled districts.