Author Archives: Adam Albren

Bottles Need To Go

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First off there needs to be a global awareness by humans for their consumption, use, and waste of resources that affect the environment. Global awareness with sustainability is how humans will survive in all regions of the world. Awareness has to do with initiative where if people are aware of their actions, they can be held accountable and have an initiative to either fix their harmful actions or to continue practicing beneficial actions. One way that awareness correlates to mathematics is being aware of the ways that each human is polluting the environment. This can be through using plastic bottles, driving efficiently, not recycling, and using an excess of energy. For example, millions of people use plastic bottles for beverages instead of using reusable bottles which in return affects the atmosphere and environment by releasing Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. For every water bottle, 1.6 ounces of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Think about the millions of water bottles used per year, that is thousands of ounces of carbon being released into the atmosphere. If each human can use reusable water bottles, this will immensely help the environment. A simple switch to reusable water containers can extremely benefit the environment, and this can be accomplished through global awareness. If humans can become educated and aware of their actions with plastic bottles, even though they are very convenient, the earth takes the punishment. Awareness is a key to any change on earth, which is in return through education and knowledge.

Solar Saves Hard Earned Money

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One innovative idea that has been growing in popularity all over the world is the use of solar panels. Solar panels offer a variety of ways to help people’s lives financially and protect the environment, a key of sustainability. Solar is a natural resource and the human population should take advantage of renewable energy sources. The use of solar panels creates zero pollution and zero greenhouse gasses to be emitted into the atmosphere. With solar energy, there is an increase in moving away from importing and exporting oil and fossil fuels that harm the environment. Then in regards to financially, solar panels are a future return on one’s investment. Although they can be expensive to install, eventually there will be a return on investment to the point where some households even create a surplus of energy. This will minimize electricity bills in the future for many people. With the use of solar panels, people can receive the electricity to power their homes and more importantly shift toward electric vehicles. If the sun is paying for the electric vehicle batteries, people will save money on their homes and cars. How can anyone be against saving money while also saving the environment? In the future there will be minimized costs of installing solar panels which will benefit all classes of people.

References:

https://news.energysage.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-solar-energy/

Gas Prices By State

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One relevant topic to sustainability is the carbon emissions from vehicles into our atmosphere. Recently there has been a United States increase in prices of gas and this can be beneficial for our future. Electric cars are becoming more practical with the ridiculously high gas prices. In the graph below, there are ten different states in the U.S. and their current price per gallon. As we can see, the different states have different prices which can be confusing to people wondering why it isn’t unanimous throughout all states. The data was collected from triple A where they collect data on gas prices daily. As we can see from the graph, California has the highest price per gallon and Texas has the lowest price per gallon. It would be interesting to find a correlation between the gas prices per state and the reason as to why they are all close, but different.

 

https://gasprices.aaa.com/state-gas-price-averages/

Necessities during Covid-19

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During the Covid 19 virus outbreak, this left many families coping with insecurities such as food, income, and health. With many people losing their jobs due to the worldwide shutdown, this impacted the food insecurity issue. Without jobs there was not a constant income coming into families homes that they could use for necessities such as food. The impact of Covid 19 on food security has a common theme of different races being differently affected. As presented in the chart below, it depicts the food insecurities by race with a variable of whether the family had children or overall. As we can see, the black and hispanic race was much more affected by Covid 19 in relation to food security. This chart was found in a study on whether the families had thought about food in the last seven days. The black communities suffered from Covid 19 food insecurity most prominently as shown in the chart at 23%. Whereas the Asians and White race were suffering less but it also depicts how all races had been affected by food insecurities during Covid. As the United States recovers from the pandemic, society must intend to help the families in need whether that’s through governmental funding or radical changes such as access to food banks and pantries. Although food insecurities is a major suffrage of Covid, there are several other social justice issues that the American society is working toward. Charts like the one below can visually present the effects Covid has had, and there are many other charts for other social justice issues.

References:

https://econofact.org/who-does-not-have-enough-to-eat-in-america

Never Pay for Gas Again

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One engine for carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere has to be the driving of cars to various locations. With millions of people needing to drive to work or other activities this leaves the atmosphere and our planet earth taking the hit. It is determined that every gallon of gasoline burned creates about 8,887 grams of carbon dioxide. Now think about how many cars are on the road and how many people go through gallons of gasoline everyday, week, month, and year. The typical car releases 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year and this is an extreme amount. If we can reduce the amount of vehicles on the road this problem can be solved. One way to solve this is to turn to electric vehicles. Many high end brands such as Tesla and Audi have developed electric cars but those certainly are not affordable for millions of people in America. Recently cheaper, more affordable car companies are producing electric cars such as Toyota and Nissan. If Americans can become aware of the environment and the emissions of Carbon Dioxide they could be interested in investing in an electric car. Not to mention the extremely expensive gas prices all throughout the U.S., whereas electric cars require no gas. For those that do not have interest in electric cars, there are several other options to protect this earth such as carpooling, trains, and biking. Not every single American will listen to these suggestions, but little at a time I hope America can transform into an electric car dominated country.

 

References:

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle

Solar Worldwide

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One method to the world becoming more sustainable is the use of solar energy. Solar power is a process of taking renewable energy from the sun and turning it into electricity or power run sources. A method of this is the use of solar panels on houses or buildings. These panels take in the sunlight and are able to turn the natural resource of the sun into electricity, which is cost saving and way more environmentally friendly. The amount of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 getting released into the atmosphere is substantially brought down from the use of solar energy. A way to explain how much improvement that solar panels are doing is to say that each car emits 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. It is proven that a solar panel system can offset the emissions of one car per year. The amount of CO2 emissions by a single vehicle may not sound impactful, but just think if everyone was aware of the benefits of having solar panels, then thousands to millions equivalent of one car can be impactful through reducing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. This is basically saying that through solar energy, one car per year can be taken off the road theoretically, benefiting the environment hugely.
Through looking at the current exponential growth of solar energy and wind energy, both renewable sources, the market share grew, “at a compound average annual growth rate of 15% from 2015-2020. If exponential growth continued at this rate, solar and wind would reach 45% of electricity generation by 2030 and 100% by 2033.” If by 2030 there is 100% use of renewable sources of energy, then the environment and atmosphere would benefit through the lack of greenhouse gasses being emitted. With the rising awareness of how the atmosphere is effected through CO2, if more people can implement using solar or wind energy, not only would families have a ton of money on their electricity bills, but also will benefit the environment. How can anyone be against these two huge benefits?

References:

https://news.energysage.com/much-solar-panels-save/

https://www.wri.org/insights/growth-renewable-energy-sector-explained

Water is Life

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Water. Water is an essential part of human life on Earth. We as humans are made of water, use water everyday, and need water to survive. It helps regulate all of our functioning parts of our complex bodies and ensures benefits of living a healthy life. Just as humans are extremely dependent on water, so are many other species such as the group of livestock. One animal in particular is cows, which are heavily connected to greenhouse gasses and Co2 emissions. Depending on the temperature that a cow is living in, the weight of the cow, and whether it is producing milk or not, correlates to the amount of water it needs daily. It has been estimated that for cows, “Daily water intake may vary from 3 to 30 gallons per day depending on age, body size (weight), stage of production, and the environment (mainly air temperature).” With an increase in temperature or lactating cows, this requires more clean water for them. But to put the stat of 3 to 30 gallons in perspective, every human is advised to drink 8 cups of water per day, which is half a gallon of water. So although cows are much larger than humans, their daily water intake is extremely large and crucial for them.

Water is an essential to everyday life but there is a ton of water being wasted annually in the United States. An article published by the Washington Post states, “The incredibly stupid way that Americans waste 1 trillion gallons of water each year.” 1 Trillion gallons of water is another worldly large number and the ways depicted that Americans waste water are water leakage, hoses, and irrigation systems: all are not needed waste methods of water. One way to prevent the wasting of water would be to be more aware of how you are potentially wasting water. This can be from fixing leaks immediately, shutting off your sprinkler system when not needed, and using less water related activities such as dishwashing and laundry. If there was to be less water wasted, the number conducted through the Washington Post of 1 trillion gallons, could be minimized by millions and millions. Not to mention saving water waste, but this can save thousands of dollars spent by homes and businesses.

One method of intaking water that is very popular is through bottled water. It is so popular because it is pre bottled, convenient, and can be disposed of. Although it is not economically and environmentally friendly, Americans live a fast paced life and want the fastest way to intake water. To put water bottle usage in perspective on Union College’s campus, let’s first say there are 2,200 undergraduate students. I’d say about half of the students here use plastic water bottles daily, so 1,100. If every student is drinking about 3 bottles a day, that’s 3,300 approximately, plastic water bottles. To calculate the amount of oil used to produce and ship the water to Union, I estimated around 15,000 gallons of fuel to get the water from Western states all the way to Union College.

 

References:

https://beef.unl.edu/amountwatercowsdrink

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/17/the-incredibly-stupid-way-that-america-wastes-1-trillion-gallons-of-water-each-year/

Carbon Dioxide Levels are Increasing Yearly

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Carbon dioxide has a heavy impact on the atmosphere of the Earth and is proven to affect climate change, global warming, and the ecosystems for the future. With the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this is an issue to the energy imbalance which leads to the Earth’s temperature to increase; global warming. Due to human interactions and human life, there will always be carbon dioxide being released in different forms into the atmosphere, but there needs to be a way to reduce this amount of carbon dioxide for the wellbeing of the human population and the earth. If it continues to rise with the amounts of carbon dioxide, the human population and the land we inhabit will be in trouble due to temperature and destruction. What can be attested to this rise of earth’s temperature is the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas, that all release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. This has been studied heavily and due to the amounts of greenhouse gasses being pushed yearly, this is not normal or necessary. In a USA Today article reporting on the carbon dioxide emissions it states, “In the past 20 years, the world’s temperature has risen about two-thirds of a degree Fahrenheit,” which may not seem impactful, but this constant rising of temperatures will be detrimental without changes being made. Just hearing that global carbon dioxide emissions have reached the highest level in history, should be alarming and should incite awareness and sustainability ideas. To preserve the environment we live in and increase recycling, renewable energy sources, and reducing emission is crucial. As the world shifts back to a “normal society” after recovering from Covid-19, there needs to be a change from the Pre-Cvoid Era where human population abused the amount of fossil fuel use. There needs to be an alternative to burning coal in order to have factories, cars, and businesses be run. Coal has been the issue of 40% of the overall global carbon dioxide emissions in 2021. One idea we can look toward is electric car batteries and also the rise in use of solar panels.

 

Works Cited

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/03/08/global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-soar/9429433002/

Intro-Adam Albren

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Hello, I’m Adam Albren and I’m a sophomore and working to be a sociology major. I am from Boston, MA. In my free time I play and study the game of poker and play in several casinos and home games with my friends. When I’m not playing poker, I enjoy playing pickup basketball or soccer and working out. I love being outdoors by the beach or the fields, so sustainability and preserving nature is important to learn about. I am looking forward to learning about how sustainability applies to mathematics and how to effectively solve out problems through equations to come to sustainability conclusions. Sustainability is crucial to protecting the earth for our generation and future generations to come.