Snow: The new form of carbon emissions.

So it snowed. A lot. As in snow day lot.

That’s right, I’m not in class, instead sitting in front of my computer complaining about the mini-plows they’ve had running since 7 AM! They just sit there, too, with no driver, and thus they do no plowing. This is insane. Madness, even. (But no, it is not Sparta.)

But it IS only 5 degrees outside, and it’s going to get down to -11 tonight. Maybe they’re just trying to bring the temperature back to double-digit positives… Isn’t it funny how last week, it was so warm, only sweaters were needed?

I have a roommate that makes me go nuts!

She:

• leaves the water running at full blast when brushing her teeth
• does the same when she’s washing her face, even when she looks in the mirror to make sure her face is clean
• turns on all the lights, then proceeds to only use her desk lamp to read
• leaves the lights on when she leaves the room
• throws most everything in the garbage

The only thing she has going for her is that she does laundry less often than I do. Though given that it’s been three weeks since move-in, that’s kinda gross…

I got into a small fight with my cousin on Easter.

Why?

She was rinsing off dishes before putting them i the dishwasher, since the dishwasher at her house doesn’t have a garbage disposal.

(The following conversation is not word-for-word, but the general idea is expressed.)

Kim: Jen! Why are you leaving the water on?! *turns the faucet off*

Jen: Relax, Kim! Water is recyclable! *turns faucet on, rinses off a plate* And renewable!

Kim: No, it’s not! And just because it’s recyclable doesn’t mean you should waste it! *turns faucet off as Jen puts a plate in the dishwasher*

Jen: It’s not that big a deal.

Kim: Yes, it is! You are wasting a precious commodity! And you’re using hot water to rinse off plates?!

Jen: Yeah, so?

Kim: You’re wasting water and energy! I don’t believe this!

So I kept turning off the faucet after every dish she rinsed off while my family laughed in the dining room at our conversation.

Then my younger cousin, Travis, was washing the cutting board. He had the faucet running on one end of the cutting board while he was scrubbing the other with a scouring pad.

(The following conversation is also a general idea of the actual event.)

Kim: Trav, why are you so inefficient?! (He always washes dishes like this, by the way)

Travis: Huh?

Kim: You’re wasting water too!

Travis: What, you wanna wash this thing?

Kim:…actually, yes! I can do it better than you!

So I shoved him away from the sink and did in approximately ten seconds what would have taken him sixty.

Moral of the story:

I’m going to be washing dishes at Christmas. Crap!

The Lawn

Now that we have finally had more than four consecutive days with above-freezing temperatures, Dad’s making me mow the lawn.

My strategy:

-Use the old electric mower at a middle setting, one cut for the front and back yard, done.

My left-neighbor’s scrategy:

-riding mower! (He has a huge yard)

My right neighbor’s strategy:

-Two cuts with the gas mower for both front and back yards, trim the bushes, water the flowers and the grass, fertilize the lawn, done.

So, we can draw one of three conclusions:

-I am more environmentally concerned than my neighbors

-I am more practical than my neighbors

-I am lazy and the environment suffers less for it

In case you were wondering, it’s mostly three with a bit of two. I’m lucky if I mow the lawn four or five times from March to September. It’s not like it really matters that much; it’s grass, for crying out loud!

While I was on Kairos eating lots of junk food and crying…

My parents bought a 2010 Honda Insight.

It can get up to 48 miles per gallon! Pretty sweet, huh?

You may have seen me recklessly driving this brand-new car to school, nearly knocking over countless freshmen in the parking lot. (In my defense, they’re freshmen and they deserve it.) Aside from my uncanny ability to send fourteen-and-fifteen year olds running for their lives(while everyone else is just hiding), I’ve noticed something else odd.

One nifty thing about the 2010 Insight is that it has a little eco-guide and magic speedometer. If the light around the speedometer is green, you’re being nice to the environment; blue, not so much. The eco-guide tells you how environmentally friendly you are while behind the wheel.

I get a higher eco-ranking than my dad!

Another nifty thing is that the car is constantly calculating its own mpg while you’re driving.

When I drive, the mpg goes up. When my dad drives, the mpg goes down.

Is it any wonder he has me drive everywhere? I’m saving him money! (At least until I actually get my license and not just my permit…)

Hayao Miyazaki and his concern over nature

Miyazaki’s films often emphasize environmentalism and the Earth’s fragility. In My Neighbor Totoro, the great tree tops a hillside on which magical creatures reside, and the family worships this tree. This ecological consciousness is echoed in Princess Mononoke with the giant primordial forest, trees, flowers and wolves. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki’s environmental concerns surface in the “stink spirit”, a river spirit who has been polluted and who must be cleansed by the heroine. This theme is repeated in the story of the river spirit Haku, whose river had been destroyed tragically by a building project.

In Princess Mononoke, Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the ecological paradise is threatened by military men and violent state-controlled armies. In each film, the conflict between the natural way of life and the military destruction of culture, land and resources is central to the plight of the protagonists. When battle scenes are shown in each, the militaristic music and ecological destruction is paramount to the endangerment of the inhabitants of the villages.

Nausicaä flying her Mehve over the Valley of the Wind

In an interview with The New Yorker, Miyazaki claimed that much of modern culture is “thin and shallow and fake”, and “not entirely jokingly” looked forward to an apocalyptic age in which “wild green grasses” take over.^[19] Growing up in the Shōwa period was an unhappy time for him because “nature — the mountains and rivers — was being destroyed in the name of economic progress.”^[20] Nonetheless, he suggests that adults should not “impose their vision of the world on children.”^[13]

^{(Wikipedia.org; “Hayao Miyazaki”)}

I’ve always been a huge fan of Miyazaki. Perhaps the movie that best exemplifies his appreciation for nature is Princess Mononoke.

How many filmmakers do YOU know that care about the environment to make it a constant theme amongst all their movies?

But as you can see, Miyazaki thinks we ought to appreciate nature on our own terms. Are we going to let ourselves be like the people of Irontown in Princess Mononoke, always exploiting nature for our own gain? Or are we going to do what we can to protect our earth?

Loyola University more directly unsuspectingly supports this class!

Like Creighton, I had to write an essay for the Presidential Scholarship at Loyola University. Only this time, it more directly related to this class.

When I first saw the topic, I first thought, “Ooh! Renewable energy? We’re studying that now!” But alas, I misunderstood. However, I was happy to be able to work in what I learned into the essay anyways.

Again, I had a ridiculously short word limit. I had to cut about fifty words after I wrote the essay to trim it down to the maximum. Frustrating!

—

“Going Green” As the new President of the United States, what coures of action(s) would you take to address the concerns of our environment? Please limit your response to 300 words or less.

As president of the United States, I would focus intently on advancing nuclear energy as a replacement for coal-fired power plants. Businesses are already monitored by the EPA, and cars are continuously getting better mileage. Our main electricity source, however, is very dirty indeed.

Coal, as fuel, is not highly efficient. In fact, each coal plant needs two to three million tons of coal to operate each year–coal obtained by strip mining. After burning all this coal, over seven million tons of carbon dioxide, three hundred thousand tons of toxic pollutants. and six hundred thousand tons of solid waste are created. Furthermore, coal-burning plants release over one hundred times more radiation than nuclear plants because of the naturally-occurring radioactive materials in coal.

Nuclear plants, by contrast, require only thirty tons of enriched uranium per year–an expedition that mitigates damage to the environment. No carbon dioxide or toxic materials are released into the atmosphere; only low-level radioactive gases. Only two hundred and fifty tons of waste are produced each year. On the whole, nuclear plants have less impact on the environment.

There are other issues with nuclear power, however. After all, that waste is radioactive, and Nevadans aren’t at all keen about being the dumping ground for nuclear plants. Even before that point, people are afraid of a core meltdown–of something like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl happening again.

We can work around these issues. We can find away to safely dispose the radioactive waste without putting anybody in danger, and we can build reactor cores with passive safety features–features that require no human action to work properly. If we can work together with the people to address their fears, then nuclear power can become a more viable option–an option that will help us and the environment in the long run.

Creighton University unsuspectingly sponsors this class!

For the Presidential Scholarship at Creighton University, I ahd to write an essay about who I was, and then an essay on a controversial issue. Immediately, I thought back to our time spent going over drilling in ANWR.

Please keep in mind, I had a maximum word limit of 450 words. It was rather frustrating.

—–

Write an essay of 350-450 words on an intellectual topic or controversial current event and submit it with this
application. Your essay should clearly state and support a position on the topic you have chosen; however, you will
not be evaluated on which position you take, but on the quality of your argument and the way in which you present it.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR) is home to over two hundred species of fish, birds and mammals that can’t be found anywhere else. It also houses some ten billion barrels of oil–oil that can be used to fuel our lifestyle. The proposed drilling area is two thousand acres of the 1002 Area, where over seven of the estimated ten billion barrels are.

Some people are in favor of drilling in ANWR. They say, and rightly so, that drilling at home will lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Furthermore, jobs would be created in the process, stimulating the economy. Furthermore, the technology used to drill for oil is being constantly improved, and the scars that drilling leaves behind are growing smaller all the time.

Those who oppose drilling, however, have their own valid reasons. There’s a significant possibility that there’s much less than seven billion barrels within Area 1002. Even with the maximum amount of production, America’s current rate of consumption means that the oil produced would last only about six months. The price of gas at the pump, too, wouldn’t drop more than a few cents. Also, we can speculate all we want about the impact our actions will have on the environment, but we won’t know for sure until we drill–and then, it would be impossible to undo any damage. This damage could very easily include oil spills.

I don’t think the benefits of drilling justify the potential damage to the wildlife in ANWR. The inescapable damage caused by drilling can utterly devastate Alaska’s fragile, carefully balanced ecosystem. After all, the Prince William Sound still hasn’t wholly recovered from the Exxon Valdez spill twenty years ago. Oil still covers the beaches and poisons the fish and anything that eats them. What’s to stop another devastating spill from happening if ANWR were opened up?

Besides, we’re taking a simplistic approach to the whole issue. There are other alternatives available to us, so we can save the wildlife and still live our lives as usual. There are already-built oil production sites that are closed; we can open them, and get oil from there. To reduce our need in the first place, we can buy fuel-efficient cars. By bringing efficiency requirements of vehicles to thirty-five miles per gallon, we save over one million barrels of oil a day–over half of what we import from the Persian Gulf every day. On top of that, we save the environment as well.

We shouldn’t drill in ANWR. But that doesn’t mean we have to drastically change the way we live.

If only I could be this productive on a daily basis.

Lately, I’ve been pretty dictatorial about turning off lights when they’re unnecessary.

If only my parents would follow suit. Alas, ’tis not meant to be. My father still doesn’t really believe in global warming.

I did not attend this school for nothing.

Please stop driving to Starbucks to get a coffee, then go straight home. You are wasting gas. You are wasting plastic, if you get a cold drink. You are wasting cardboard if you get a warm drink

Above all, you are wasting your money.

I will admit, I like their Peppermint White Chocolate Mochas that come out every year at Christmas. I refuse, however, to pay three dollars for about eight ounces of jacked-up hot chocolate every time I think about coffee.

And let’s not talk about how it’s not worth filling up the tank for it. I have better things to spend 23 dollars on.

If you really want gourmet coffee, go to Dunkin Donuts. There’s practically one on every corner. There’s even one in Berwyn, and Berwyn has next to nothing! And you can walk to Dunkin Donuts, pay two bucks for enough coffee to drown a horse with, and put as much sugar and creme and flavoring as you want in it.

Of course, the recyclability of the cups is questionable, but you’re not wasting gas and you’re not wasting so much of your money.

And you’re not wasting my time on those rare days when I get my jacked-up hot chocolate in the dead of winter. While grocery shopping.