Tag Archives: sustainability

Green Fee proposal idea

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I think a very feasible and impactful change Union College can make to increase our sustainability is to increase the amount of compost collection sites and by providing more recycling bins. Currently, there are only compost bins in the dining halls. However, students and faculty eat and use compostable items all around campus everyday. I think that the college community would use more composting bins if there were more available, for example, in the library and in academic buildings such as Karp or Olin. Often times we throw things in the landfill garbage bins simply because there are no other bins available. By making composting and recycling more accessible, we could cut down our waste and become a more sustainable campus.

Presidential Green Grant Proposal

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Lately the topic of excess garbage, including food waste, has been a hot topic in the news because the destructive effects of excess waste are starting to affect health and safety of people.  Excess waste has always been affecting our health and safety but until now the effects have not been so obvious.  Excess waste causes air pollution, respiratory diseases, contamination of surface and ground waters and increased bacteria, insects and vermin urban centers.  To help alleviate some of the stress on our environment caused by excess waste, I propose that each first year student receives a custom Union Tupperware container.  This way the students can use the containers in Reamer for various food options; Rathskeller takeout; and in the dining halls so as to reduce the amount of to-go cups used as makeshift takeout containers.  A typical square generic “Tupperware” container costs ~$1.00 so for an incoming class of ~700 students this would call for a grant of ~$750 for custom Tupperware containers.  The waste we would be avoiding if this grant were to be granted would far out-cost the cost of the containers.  Perhaps dining services could have some kind of program or contest once a term that incorporates the containers and when they hold their “pop-up” events, students should only be served if they have their reusable containers.  Perhaps this would also encourage students to purchase more reusable containers and use less one-use containers!

Green Fee Idea

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I think a great way that this school could manage and lower the carbon footprint of the students could be to lower the amount of meat products offered in the dining halls. After learning that the amount of water and natural resources needed to produce meat products for people to consume is unbelievably high, I realized that cutting back on meat would make a very large impact on our environment. For this reason, I think the school would benefit from using $25,000 to offer more vegetarian options and perhaps some meals on some days without meat at all. The school could use the money to invest in other protein sources, such as tofu and bean products, so that students are still attaining protein in their diet, minus the environmental impact.

Food Scraps as Fuel

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In 1879 Sir Charles Chamberland invented the autoclave which was later used to develop a waste autoclave which was later used to develop today’s organic waste converter.  Here’s how an organic waste generator works: 1) Organic waste (food scraps, mulch, firewood, biosolids, etc.) is superheated then 2) moisture is released from the heating of these materials which acts like steam and the 3) steam is used for power generation.

Organic waste converter technology is a sustainable alternative to traditional methods of waste disposal such as incineration and landfill dumping which have destructive effects on our environment.  Not only do organic waste converters reduce our carbon footprint and avoid polluting emissions, but they also result in a usable end product known as biofuel, soil compost, or building material (if mixture contains wood/garden scraps).  Organic waste converters vary in size; they are used in households to fuel a car or they are used in large corporations such as hospitals, which generate huge amounts of food scraps and biosolids, who then use the steam to generate electricity for the facility.  There is a large push in the U.S. to construct on-site organic waste converters in supermarkets.  Supermarkets throughout Europe have already implemented this technology and results have shown that there are massive decreases in electricity costs, waste disposal costs and carbon dioxide emissions.  Green technology is the ability of modern converters to transfer mechanical energy and friction force on the waste mass into heat energy that is used in the pasteurization and sterilization processes.  In the future we should look forward to seeing more green technology integrated into our daily life.

With Great Inflation, Comes Great Recession

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The 2007-2008 Financial Crisis was a formative event in many of the lives of our generation. Many lost jobs, even homes. The entirety of the American economic structure felt unstable, as though it was on the imminent verge of collapse. Yet, when you look back at the data, it almost seems impossible to miss the inevitability of it all. Let’s take the housing sector, for instance:

The above graph shows the rough correlation between housing prices and inflation. As the graph clearly shows, for much of the late 20th century the value of median family homes closely mirrored the consumer price index. And that is as you would expect: as Americans make more, they can afford more, and when they can afford more, prices go up accordingly.

Yet somehow beginning around the turn of the millennium, perhaps even slightly before that, the value of a median family home began to increase at a rapidly faster pace than did the consumer price index. We see a huge differential form between the two values. Economically speaking, its a bubble. And like the bubbles you used to blow when you were a kid playing in your driveway, bubbles eventually burst.

We see an exponentially increasing value of the median family home, while the consumer price index continues to follow its linearly increasing trend. When the growth becomes unsustainable, when the difference between the two values becomes simply too much for the market to believe any longer, the bubble bursts. There’s a rapid and sudden devaluation of one value to match the other. All of a sudden, a house is worth 1/2 what you thought it was, or 1/2 what you bought it for. It’s an enormous financial windfall, and one prone to produce and fuel a serious economic crisis that affects the nation at large. As we saw in 2007-2008 and the years that followed, that’s just exactly what happened.

Population Growth and Decay in Schenectady, NY

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According to the World Population Review, Schenectady, New York’s population as of 2017 is estimated to be 65,625 people. In comparison, Schenectady is the 9th largest city in New York, based off of the 2017 US Census Bureau. The review also revealed that the city had a population density of 6080.95 people/mi^2.

Based on information obtained from the American Community Survey, there was an average 2.67 people per household and the median income for households is $41,243. Lastly, 16.2% of families and 21.1% of individuals living in Schenectady are below the federal poverty line, where 38.3% of those under 18 are in poverty, and 10.2% of those 65 years or older.

So the question is how the population has fluctuated over the years. As you can see in the chart below, Schenectady suffered an enormous population decline with a decay rate of -11.01%  (roughly 10,000 people). In the years after, the population suffered a slow decrease that may have been caused by the economic decline the city suffered through. Below is a table and chart displaying the growth/decay of our city’s population. 

Investing in the Future

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If how our society acts right now is how the future is going to be, its going to be a long road ahead to recovery. If we were to reduce our emissions by investing in nature then we would be promoting more sustainable options for a successful environment. Reducing fertiliser use and protecting wetlands from development are just a couple goals for sustainability in the future. There have been cases of finding and creating sustainable alternatives to current struggles we’re encountering as a society. For example in the realm of Co2 emissions, the following graph is a great representation of what has happened to date and what is actually the best way to approach the consistent worldwide epidemic of Co2 overuse.

If we were able to become more sustainable in Co2 emission, especially in the regions of South America and South East Asia then we could save the world from the years of future damage due to global climate change.

 

 

Population Growth and Sustainability

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For my data selection, I chose to examine world population graphs. Below, we see the graph of the changing population from 1750 to the projected population in year 2100. The red line that we see in this graph shows the annual growth rate of the world population. This line expresses how growth was relatively between .4%-.6% from 1750 up through 1930, but after the baby boom post WWII, population growth shot up exponentially. Now, with less people having babies and the population is unable to replenish itself, population growth is now slowing at an exponential rate as well. There are several reasons for this–more women are joining the work force and are either waiting to have kids, having less kids, or not having kids at all. Some women choose not to have children at all due to their perception of the world in its current state, which is something I learned from my political science class this past spring. The other curve seen on this graph is the blue curve of the world population. The dark blue shaded in section represents the actual population growth from 1750 up to 2015. The lighter blue shaded in region represents the projected population growth from 2015 up to the year 2100. The population is still increasing, but at a much slower rate than in the past, which is why the slope of the projected population growth is much less steep than the slope of population growth from 1945 to 2015. This relates to sustainability because our current population growth is not sustainable for our Earth. This is partially due to the amount of food we need to grow to feed this giant population, and the amount of land that we need but do not have to efficiently grow food on (not all land is good for growing crops). This also relates to my research from last week discussing the problems with eating meat, as this population size is not sustainable for having humans be able to consume meat (which the practice of raising the meat in itself isn’t sustainable as well).

Link to article here.

Sustainability of Crops

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Despite the attempt to increase the productivity of crops through modern agricultural techniques, a recent study found that crop yield has not been rising at a sufficient pace to meet the projected demand by 2050. The study analyzes the historical improvements in crop yields for corn, rice, wheat and soybeans. The solid lines in the graph below show that growth has been growing at a consistent rate over that past few years. However, they also show what would happen if this growth rate continues, which is a rate that is unsustainable. The dashed lines show how productivity would need to grow even more rapidly in order to satisfy the expected demand in 2050, essentially doubling global food production.

This additional wheat production graph below shows that crop productivity is not the same across the world and is actually stagnating. In the U.S. Midwest, wheat yields per acre have been rising at a 2 percent per year. But in parts of India or Eastern Europe, they’ve basically flat-lined. It is assumed that the countries experiencing this are simply not using their resources such as fertilizers properly. However, on the other hand, some parts of the world are hitting a “biological wall,” a limit on how much yields can keep rising. Even with genetic modification and better technology, there are physiological limits for plants. This in combination with the effects of global warming such as extreme heat waves that can affect crop yield are quite terrifying when considering our future. The current population of about 7 billion is projected to rise to 9.6 billion in 2050 suggesting that our crop yields will not be sustainable. Essentially, we are not growing enough to feed the world.

 

Start Carpooling to Work

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According to Pew Research Center, Americans are making few eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyle choices, even though three-quarters of the population see climate change as a very serious issue. The Environmental Protection Agency strongly recommends that people purchase an electric car, instead of one that runs on gas. However, 95% of Americans have not made this switch. The EPA also suggests that people carpool or use public transportation to commute to work, but three quarters of Americans still drive alone.

The graph below shows 7 different modes of transportation that people use to commute to and from work and how the popularity of each has changed since 1980. Since 1980, “driving alone” has increased from 64.4% to 76.5%. The number of people who carpool to work has decreased by more than half from 19.7% in 1980 to 9.2% in 2014. In general, people are also using less public transportation and taxis, but there is an increase in the number of people who work from home.

Even though the EPA has made recommendations as to how people can live more sustainably and 45% of the population has said that climate change is a huge threat, few people are actually making any changes to their routine. What do you think are other ways that would get people to actually make more sustainable choices?