Climate Engineering?

I was browsing through the Reader's Digest at work today and came across an article that might interest some of you. It is very short, definitely Reader's Digest style, but it is very applicable to some of our discussions. Personally, I think the idea of re-engineering our climate is almost as scary as global climate change itself! This article (which I linked the title to) does pose some interesting questions though, especially the section about "unilateral action." Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think!

Wal-Mart Unveils Plan to Make Supply Chain Greener

Here's the opening paragraph of this article from The New York Times web site's "Energy & Environment" page, part of its Business section (it appears in today's print edition, too).

"Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, announced on Thursday that it would cut some 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain by the end of 2015 — the equivalent of removing more than 3.8 million cars from the road for a year."

Remember our discussion with Dr. Phillips about hidden costs of our stuff?  This article fits right into that.

Click the title above to read the entire piece.

Just For Fun

I traveled to Stockholm last weekend. As luck would have it, the weather was the worst the city had experienced in decades. Trains and buses ran late, and cars piled up on the highways. The city was almost completely locked down. Undeterred, mailmen on their trusty bicycles forged on. I thought I should take a picture for you guys.

Buildings at Linneuniversitetet

Hello again from Sweden, it’s been a while. From the look of the blog, you’ve all been making quite a bit of head way. I thought I’d write a little about the buildings on campus today.

One evident piece of work being done to make the university here more sustainable is in the design of buildings. They have heavy doors, large air-locks, great insulation, and always an abundance of natural light. Nearly all the buildings have skylights and the floor to ceiling windows found in many rooms are extremely thick. (It’s quite cold out right now, but when I touch the window to my left it only feels slightly cooler than the room. I have a feeling the windows in Phillips might fail this test.) On many of these windows there are automatic shades that sense the level of sunlight coming in and lower to prevent glare. There are also rooms within the buildings that have glass walls, allowing sunlight to penetrate far past the periphery. Structures are also built with their exposure to the sun in mind. Over south facing windows there are awnings that work to shade against the summer sun, and the north face of buildings are typically less exposed. Overall, the theme here seems to be well thought out construction that focuses on energy conservation.

Cows Can Curb Global Warming

I was in a waiting room earlier today and I looked over and saw an article that someone was reading in Time. I noticed that the title had something to do with cows and global warming, so when I got back to the dorms I looked it up and really enjoyed what I read. It doesn't pertain to what we're doing so much at the university (unless the university's considering raising cattle in the near future), but the science is definitely still relevant. Check it out if you get a chance!

Class Log February 24th

Headline News from Class Log:  E-mail Dr. H or Robyn with top 3 choices for work assignment groups by noon February 25th.

Work Assignment Groups, with number of students needed for each

~ 2 electricity & cooling
~ 3 heating
~ 1 solid waste
~ 1 refrigerants & other chemicals
~ 2 offsets
~ 6 transportation (with survey focus divided as follows)
- 2 will learn Qualtrics
- 2 write/revise questions
- 2 research/ blog review
All 6 work on PR/possible incentives, etc,; decisions about who will handle transportation research beyond the survey will be decided within the group of six.

Other Notes on the Survey

~ We will be giving copies of the survey draft to review to the architects working on the Campus Master Plan, and also to the Clean Commute Initiative, and to the Parking-Transportation ad hoc committee.
~ Survey will close at end of week before Spring Break
- Going live on the March 15th
- Testing the survey the weekend before the 15th with Qualtrics.
- Draft of questions by March 1st (Monday), Review on March 3rd.
Dr. H introduced the opportunity for two students to write and edit the final report with Dr. Jim Boulter, Dr. Kim Pierson and Dr. H this summer.  If you are interested, E-mail Dr. H ASAP.

U.S. Sources of Electricity

After our discussion on Monday regarding the sources of electricity in the United States, I decided to look up an old site I remember from my Conservation of the Environment course. It's actually provided by National Public Radio, and the link for the title of this post leads you to an interactive map of the power grid of the U.S. There are also places to click so you can see the sources of power in individual states, where power plants currently exist, and potential locations for solar and wind energy. Hope some people find these maps as interesting as I did.

An Interesting Event?

I was browsing through recent events on campus and I thought this was... interesting, to say the least:

On Thursday, February 25th at 6:00 p.m. the College Republicans will be showing "Not Evil, Just Wrong," a new documentary by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney in Hibbard 101 which seeks to "provide a different perspective on one of today's hot topics, Climate Change."

Apparently there will also be free root beer floats and drawings for books.

I unfortunately have to work, but I thought it was extremely interesting and a great opportunity for our class! If any of you go, let me know how it is!