PowerPoint Presentation

Hi, folks-

I edited the Transportation section of the PowerPoint and altered the background color to a light beige. Feel free to change it back, etc. (Still on W Drive - Final Presentation_Draft2)

Also, if you have any more recommendations or suggestions for the Transportation section, please let me/us know via email or blog.

Just thought I'd let you know...

Thanks,

Andi

eCO2 Emissions

Post the eCO2 emissions for your section here!

Electricity is responsible for 13,278.2 metric tons of eCO2.

Please note that this uses our estimates of the months yet to come. We are going to use this number for now, but it will end up changing sometime this summer when we have all the correct data.

For Robyn and Isaac especially!

We were wondering exactly how you calculated the offset for the Waste-to-Energy program. It says "To calculate the offset of Veolia Environmental services Waste-to-Energy program, figures for the campus' tons of garbage were collected and were first input into the CACPCCC as if the waste were disposed of into a landfill instead of through the program...This value was then again put into the CACPCCC to generate carbon emissions generated within the Waste-to-Energy program." As far as inputing these goes, can you perform a calculation in solely one area of the calculator without having any other data in there? Thanks!

It's All About Timing (elevated from a comment to a post by Dr H)

Because this is an important issue, and I'm afraid Andi's thoughtful summarizing of the situation will be missed where it is, I'm copying/pasting/posting it here to get your attention.  The rest of this is all from Andi.  (also, don't miss Lynn's post right below this one, which I don't want you to miss because it is so COOL!)

I agree with Elizabeth - we should quickly come to a decision; until we do, our survey and data-collecting are at a stand-still. I also agree with Isaac in that we absolutely cannot use data from two separate years. The transportation and University-usage data must be from the same year or our results will be more skewed than they would be from estimating one or the other. We have three year choices: July 1, 2008 - June 31, 2009 June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2010 July 1, 2009 - June 31, 2010 Below, I've commented on what I see as pro's and con's for each. Please let me know what you think, and let's make a decision.

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.

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.

Putting it into Perspective

I have a quick question I wanted to throw out there. I calculated my personal carbon footprint to be about 4,827,946 grams CO2 per year or 1,316,712 grams of C per year. I guess what I was wondering is if someone could put these numbers into some sort of perspective for me. (They really don't mean anything to me in that format.) I don't know if you could give me an idea how many, I don't know, maybe Lambeau Fields this would fill or something, just so I could get a general idea. Thanks!