Science Forward

After all of the discussions we had in class about plastics, I know that plastics are a detrimental issue to our environment. It’s known that we should recycle plastics to help, but two questions still stood out in my mind.

Why don’t we recycle everything?

Why doesn’t everyone recycle?

While the answers to these questions were lightly answered in class with short, simple answers, I really wanted to understand the reasons better.

Upon doing additional research, I found many articles and websites going in depth about recycling codes and lifestyles that affect recycling.

Items with recycling codes 1 and 2 are the usual types of plastics that are picked up for recycling every week. Plastics with recycling codes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are recycled less often due to difficult and expensive methods to break down the plastic and insufficient resources to make the recycling systems. There are some recycling centers that accept recycling codes with 3, 4, 5, and 6, but they are less commonly found. Plastics with a recycling code of 7 are generally not recycled at all since they are a mixture of different plastics together (including BPA!) and they are tougher to reuse. However, there is one type of plastic with a recycling code of 7, made with polylactide which is derived from plants like corn and sugar cane, that is biodegradable and can be composted! Unfortunately, cities have found it far too troublesome and costly to spend money on more recycling centers and regulations and other efforts, even if it is for the good of the environment in the future. Therefore, the public feels no inclination to recycle either.

Perhaps ways to combat these hard-to-recycle items are to persuade manufacturers to stop utilizing these plastics to create their products and find alternatives, or try to make most, if not all, plastic products made with polyethylene terephthalate (recycling code 1) or high-density polyethylene (recycling code 2), or create more recycling receptacles so that consumers can conveniently throw away their plastics accordingly.

Turning the tables around, consumers should also make an effort to not only recycle, but reduce plastic consumption. Many people do not recycle mainly out of convenience. There are plenty more trash cans than recycling bins everywhere and recycling centers are too far to travel to just to get rid of some plastic garbage at home. Recycling is not strictly enforced or rewarded, so people do not take the time to look for a recycling bin or separate their garbage. If we changed our lifestyles to be conscious of the things we throw out, then it will become a habit to recycle plastics properly and it will turn out to be less of an inconvenience.

Many countries have begun to place taxes on plastic bags, for example, which has been found to significantly decrease the use of plastic bags and promote alternatives. Organic markets do not package their products in plastic, which offers a much more eco-friendly way to go grocery shopping. Some cities even designate different days for different plastics and garbage so that people can simply put their trash out on the curbside and have it recycled properly.

In a perfect world, every piece of plastic in the world would be recycled and there would not be any plastic debris littering the environment. But of course, that is unattainable. In the meantime, until convenient alternatives to plastics have been created, it is important to reduce the need for plastics and make an effort to recycle what can be recycled.

http://www.wm.com/thinkgreen/what-can-i-recycle.jsp

http://www.nationofchange.org/numbers-plastic-bottles-what-do-plastic-recycling-symbols-mean-1360168347

http://www.earth911.com/home-garden/why-people-dont-recycle/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3116318.stm

“Would you like a ceramic mug or a thermos?” The question I wanted to hear, but never heard.

Although our group didn’t win an award, I was definitely proud of our poster, especially with the fact that

we finished it in a matter of two weeks. I feel that if we had worked on it earlier, I would have a beautiful

Macaulay thermos in my hands right now. But our shorter time table is definitely understandable because

of all the information we covered about plastics in the environment.

I feel that we unfortunately didn’t get to present our poster much, maybe because we weren’t in the prime location which was the lecture hall and also because we were on the side of the board that was facing away from the entrance into the commons.

I must say, I was extremely impressed with the uniqueness of some of the posters, especially the ones that weren’t about Bioblitz. (DISCLAIMER: Not saying the Bioblitz was horrible or anything, it’s just refreshing seeing something new.) Although I feel like we didn’t have enough time to look at all the other posters, a couple of the topics that I passed by that really caught my eye included (they’re slightly reworded since I don’t remember the exact titles):

– The Relationship Between Criminal Activity on Campus to Stress Levels on Campus

– Is Chivalry Dead? Social experiment watching people hold doors for each other.

Overall, this seminar conference was quite an interesting experience, and a part of my wants to do something like this over again.

Recently, talks about having an international climate agreement have begun in Lima, Peru.  Many of the countries meeting there are looking to decrease the amount of fossil fuels burned throughout the world.  However, some countries are resisting this change.  Interestingly enough, these places are developing countries.  One such country is India. Countries like India, where many of the people do not have access to any type of energy source, are opposing this major cut on energy derived from fossil fuels. Yes, cutting down on the use of fossil fuels is good, but it can have large effects on the people in the developing world.  To be honest, I had never really thought about this effect.  Many developed countries are pushing for this cut and the United States wants to make it legally binding.  However, this is unfair to people who need any source of energy they can get.  Not only will this be detrimental to individuals in the developing world, it may also hurt the economies of these countries.

Energy sources are not easily accessible in the developing world, forcing industries to take advantage of whatever resources they have to make a profit. If the agreement in Lima is legally binding these countries will be forced to cut down on the energy they use and, thus, cut down on the amount of products that they produce. Despite this, what is the rest of the world to do when the effects of global warming have become apparent in recent years? Will forming this agreement without making it legally binding be effective if most countries will most likely not be as diligent on their fossil fuel cuts? As we discussed in class, scientists and politicians do not agree on whether global warming is something that we need to worry about.  Thus, is it worth it to hurt the economies of developed countries in order to prevent something that we don’t think we are responsible for?

Despite this, developing countries have decided to accept limits on their emissions for the very first time. Many believe that this was due to China’s new view on limiting its own emissions. China’s leaders have made cleaning up their cities’ emissions a top priority. As the largest developing country, this may have pushed some of the other developing countries to follow suit. However, China did refuse to have their emissions monitored. The purpose of emissions monitoring was to make sure that the countries involved would keep up their end of the deal. However, China refused, weakening the agreements made in Lima, so that countries would not have to provide information about their reduced emissions.

As we discussed in class, it is difficult to tell whether or not doing things to prevent global warming is worth it. However, the natural disasters that have been occurring in different parts of the world have told us otherwise. Thus, it would seem obvious that we would strive to do anything that would prevent further disasters from occurring, as New York City is doing. This is difficult, however, when doing so can hurt countries in different ways, such as weakening the economies of developing countries. Perhaps, countries should still focus on doing things locally. The problem with this is that it might not be enough. What affects the globe comes from people all over the world. Politicians, with the advice of scientists, must find some middle ground in cutting down on fossil fuel emissions to quell global warming without hurting other countries in the process.

You can read more about this in the op-eds that I got my information from: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/the-soft-path-to-a-climate-agreement-from-lima-to-paris/ and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/opinion/chinas-double-edged-pact.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0

After finding out that the New York Times recently published another article about marine plastics, I was excited to read it and write a blog post on it with our class’s critiques of the last article we read together in mind.
The last New York Times article we read in class was very sensational. It did an excellent job of creating unrealistic imagery of plastic islands and it did an even better job of hyping the uneducated public up about marine plastic. The article’s two main flaws were that it did not present quantifiable data, and it also did not offer any prospective solutions for the problem being presented. The article created the hype but failed to propose any proper way for our society to deal with the marine plastics problem.
John Schwartz’s article, “Study Gauges Plastic Levels in Oceans,” covered all of the bases that the previous article we read together failed to address. Aside from being compelling and journalistically well-written, Schwartz’s article practically opened itself by throwing out numbers that helped quantify how bad the marine plastics problem has become. I liked the way he listed an approximate number of plastic pieces found with their corresponding weight. As we discussed in class, just knowing the amount of pieces alone or the weight of pieces alone is not enough information to get a well-rounded picture of the data.
After quantifying the study, the article went on to explain the categories of plastic that are found the most in our oceans. It even pointed out that although fishing supplies is our most abundant perpetrator, putting laws into effect to stop those plastics from entering our oceans are not enough because those laws would not take into consideration all of the other categories of plastic that wind up in our waters. However, the article did a great job of starting off with suggestions to fix the problem.
The article continues to suggest plans of action when it recommends that producers stop using small plastic beads in their beauty products and that companies should be held accountable for the plastic they put into the environment.
One part of the article that I appreciated was how it spoke about micro plastics and reminded us that an even bigger part of our problem is not just plastics we see at the surface. The article also did a great job of describing the harmful effects of plastic in a marine ecosystem.
Overall, I enjoyed comparing the two articles and being able to use the skills we learned in class to be a more critical reader.

It was a moody Saturday, with an overcast sky and freezing winds that blew drizzle towards you. In comparison, the inside of the Macaulay building was humming with energy. I was among many students from throughout New York, gathered inside on two floors to showcase our semester of hard-work. Students displayed various levels of care and devotion, from serious -the ones in business attire- to relaxed -the ones in casual clothes-. I fell into the more relaxed set of people, setting up my poster with my group members Alec, Nicole and Sara, and afterwards leaned against a wall while using my phone. After some time, we were directed to present our posters to passing students and faculty or to wander the two floors filled with posters and students.

Each group presented posters on many different topics, from ecology to physics. Each poster exuded the amount time and effort that the groups and its members devoted. And just as topics widely varied, so to did the information gathering carried out by the students. Some students collected their own data and some utilized public data from several agencies. Many students presented with passion and pride in their work while ours grimaced at the difficulty and failures of their methodology, data, and poster.

Regarding our poster, my group and I presented with no prepared speeches. We knew enough about our subject and our poster that we could discuss them on the spot. We did make a few mistakes, which irked me inside, but it was a successful presentation.

Nearing the end of the session, people had consumed their energy and had begun to leave, not knowing that there was a final event. It was an awards event in recognition the best posters decided by the students. My group won “Best in Show” due to pure luck, we were second place in this category but the first place group had packed up and left early. We won by default and made for a good laugh between my group members. Overall, it was a somewhat fun 3 hours spent on a disgusting Saturday afternoon.

As we trekked along the litter-covered beach (more like a beach of litter with some sand in it) in the frigid Halloween air, we searched the horizon for our classmates. We finally found Anna and Nicole standing on the side, yelling some nonsense and looking down at something. “THERE’S A DEAD CAT HERE.” Lo and behold, a (plastic) pet carrier washed up on shore, with a cat carcass inside of it and sentimental notes written in Sharpie marker on the outside — a failed attempt to send off a loved pet into the afterlife.

We continued on to find the rest of the class, and wow, walking on the beach against the wind could be quite a work out. Eventually, we caught up with the rest of the group, but we were incredibly late so we didn’t get to actually survey the beach as the rest of the class did. Professor Branco ended up making us just sample the different kinds of plastics we could find along the shore, in between the groins and along them, too.

The sample of plastics we collected along the shore, ranging from syringes to tarp.

We weren’t exactly doing a beach clean-up, more just trying to find as many different plastics as possible (but as you can see there are a lot of bottles, mostly because seeing so many made me feel bad so I just picked up more than I needed to). We found beverage bottles, plastic wrappers, a syringe, a lighter, a tampon inserter (not pictured because we decided to not collect it), tarp, goggles, children’s play-doh mold and some other things. I think the most ironic is the piece of plastic sign that we found that was restricting certain things that shouldn’t be done on the beach, just because of the risk of harming the environment.

We also found more carcasses, but of horseshoe crabs. Professor Branco told us about how Plumb Beach is covered with horseshoe crabs during the early summer months, to lay their eggs.

Overall, I feel that I underestimated this experience. I learned a lot from this field trip and my eyes were opened to the reality of plastic pollution, especially being that it’s such a nearby area and how great of a concentration our waste products are destroying nature.

For a Greener NYC!

Although I’ve already expressed my constructive criticism in class in regards to the culminating event of the class at the Macaulay building, I was still able to really enjoy my time spent there observing other projects and topics. The two that caught my attention the most— out of the five or six I was able to see— were the one related to the geophysics applied to the wine industry and the one presenting the idea of green roofs around the city.

I think these two stood out because they explored interesting and very different applications of the sciences. The first one mentioned, from what I remember, further explored the benefits of applying geophysics on the quality of wine produced by vineyards. It highlighted the idea that soil of varying qualities (most importantly, fertility-wise) could be mapped and depending on the varying characteristics, the industries produced certain types of wine (with different textures and flavors. What intrigued me the most is actually finding out the actual correlation between soil moisture, for instance, and the type of wine produced, whether sour or sweet; if there is any correlation between the two, because it is possible that the level of moisture affects different aspects of wine quality. Who knows?!

This topic deeply intrigued me since I had the amazing experience of going to San Francisco and visiting a few vineyards. And although the tour only lasted one day, the amount of things I was able to learn about wine were super helpful, such as how to appreciate your first tasting of any wine.

The second project, touched upon an idea I had previously been exposed to during a group presentation during my biology I class. What stood out about this particular project, however, was that the group included the psychological effects that having a “greener” city can have on its inhabitants. The project explained that there are many benefits from planting grass and full blown-out gardens in the roofs of buildings; one of them being the ability to produce our own vegetables. In addition, green roofs provide a storage for water during storms therefore, decreasing the amount of runoff in streets and sidewalks, they also moderate the temperature of water and act as natural filters, they can filter noxious gases, but they can also help foster a more relaxing city due to the fact that these creations can actually help reduce noise. The color green also contributes to this feeling of relaxation and calmness as their study showed.

Overall, GREAT JOB MACAULAY KIDS! 🙂 & I’m also somewhat upset that I didn’t get to see much more.

This semester we have been discussing plastic pollution and the various ways it negatively affects the ocean’s life forms and environments. We all know how plastic is often ingested by sea-roaming birds and other animals, causing illness and death in most cases. And while the plastic problem continues to wreak havoc on the Earth’s waters, we have some, less obvious, problems in the pollution department: sound pollution.

Sound pollution is a phenomenon in which constant, loud noises can disrupt the natural balance of a specific environment. Just like plastic and chemical pollution, sound pollution can harm life forms, but the research is still relatively new and long-term effects are not yet fully known, according to World Health Organization specialist, Dr. Rokho Kim. Some studies have shown that “prolonged exposure to loud sound can lead to problems with concentration, fatigue, decreased working capacity and stress reactions, academic research has found (Wassener, The NY Times). If this is all or even partially true, people living bustling cities like New York, Shanghai, and Mumbai (just to name a few loud ones), are prone to detrimental health issues just by walking through the streets. The sounds of millions of people, cop cars, traffic, construction work, busses, trains, sirens, airplanes, advertisements, and even street performers can be heard in these cities. What’s worse is that there are yet to be regulatory laws in place to stop these detrimental noises.

Amongst some of the problems mentioned earlier, noise pollution can also cause loss of hearing (not surprisingly). We all know that when we go to a concert, we should wear ear-plugs to cancel out some of the loud noises and protect our ears from damage. However, most of us do not wear ear-plugs in the street; the constant stream of high-decibel noises and (the very harmful) high-pitched frequencies can damage our ears resulting in premature hearing loss. If the noise is not tamed, we may have to bring a pair of noise-cancelling ear plugs everywhere we go.

More research should be done for noise pollution and ways to treat it. It would be interesting to design a system for cities that could improve their acoustic properties, taming the incoming high-pitched frequencies and reducing the absorbing loud sounds. Another option would be to enact sound regulations, many of which would likely be controversial. Still, noise pollution will only continue to grow until we start paying more attention to the issue.

Climate change has been an extremely divisive political issue for the past decade, and with the recent shake-ups in the United States senate, this is unlikely to change any time soon. Passing any sorts of laws to regulate carbon emissions and city wide pollutions has been difficult because even the existence of climate change continues to be debated throughout both congress and the Senate.

Last year, President Obama issued Environmental Protection Agency rules that would require states to set limitations on carbon emissions from power plants via an executive order. Even then, with a Democratic majority in the house, both parties met such rules and regulations with major backlash. Don Stewart, the spokesperson for newly elected republican Speaker of the House Mitch McConnell said, “there was bipartisan opposition to the president’s unilateral regulatory assault before the election”.

Since then, opposition to climate change legislation has only grown. In the midterm elections, republicans took the majority in both the senate and House of Representatives. The new Senate Majority leader and long time republican senator, Mitch McConnell, has even declared an anti-climate legislation stance, pledging to do away with the EPA.

So what’s the basis for this ardent opposition? There are two main stances taken by political officials. A handful of politicians (all republican) deny that Climate change is an effect of human activity. The most common defense of such a view is that science does not support such a claim. Republican, Florida senator Marco Rubio has stated, “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way that some scientist are portraying it”. This stance is general taken by more extreme sub-groups within the Republican Party, such as the Tea Party. Though small, these sub-parties have great influence in the political arena.

The main argument against Climate Change legislation, however, is rooted in concern for the United States economy. It is true that in the Midwest, in states such as Kentucky (Senator McConnell’s state), Coal mining remains one of the primary sources of income. To limit coal pollution is to limit jobs and income from American’s still recovering from hard economic times.

Whatever the reasoning behind the back-lash, it has been made abundantly clear that Climate Change is one issue that will be put on the back burner in the terms to come. The EPA’s future is now on unstable ground, and climate change activists, in government and the public sector, will have to find new tactics (and more money) to convince the government that the future of our environment must take precedence over our economic systems.

For more information on the results of the midterm elections and its possible effects on climate legislation, refer to these great sites:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141105-united-states-congress-election-climate/

http://graphics.wsj.com/midterm-election-results-2014/

I read this article out of curiosity about what the current political administrations approach to carbon emissions is specifically. It gave an interesting case study of a dairy farm that has reduced its carbon monoxide emissions along with a big picture depiction of carbon markets on national levels.

I got excited when I learned about the possibilities in agriculture and animal husbandry posed by the dairy farm remodeling. The farmer who owned it were given the incentive of funding for the overhaul of their farm’s energy supply and receive additional money annually for having this particular energy generator, through a California initiative. The manure from the cows is treated to extract the methane gas from it as fuel while the rest of the manure is dried and used as bedding for the cows. This seems like an excellent idea, especially as it means not only reducing carbon emissions and using alternative fuel, but it also saves the costs and fuel expenditure required for bringing in bedding for the cows (tons and tons of straw, by truck).

Though the article transitioned rather abruptly from the small picture to the bigger, it gave a comprehensive overview of the global carbon market environment. The main approach now is the “cap and trade” model, where governments set a “cap,” the maximum total amount of carbon emissions allowed per year, and divide this total amount into “shares” of one ton or carbon each. Energy companies either buy enough shares to cover their total emissions, or can invest in carbon-emission-reducing innovation — whichever they find more profitable.

This model poses two large problems. One is the reliance upon the goodwill of energy companies, which is mostly a problem in the EU. Governments relied on companies to provide their current emission levels so that there could be an estimate of where to cap emissions. Of course, companies grossly overestimated so that they would not feel any future strictions on their emission levels, which rise each year. It is a big mistake to put the reins into the hands of the “horses” who need to be reined in themselves. Energy companies are the last people to be trusted to promote cleaner energy and environmental preservation when they are the very entities who benefit from the quick profits generated by the degradation of the environment and an increase in resources used up.

The second problem is the difficulty of generating enough political impetus to raise carbon share prices high enough to incentivize a switch over to investing in carbon reducing innovations. Since energy companies have extremely powerful lobbies, prices per share have not been able to rise over the highest price of $11 in California. In the EU, shares are only $7 per share, after an effort to raise it from the previous $4. This unevenness of global prices also allows energy companies to in a sense seek the lowest bidder and go where their emissions would cost them the least. This disunited front on fighting emissions is also symptomatic of global politics.

On a global scale, there is no consensus on how to fight climate change, and some of the biggest culprits of pollution and carbon emissions, like China, are absent from even discussing the issue and committing seriously to fighting the problem.

Of course cap-and-trade does have the advantage of linking climate concerns to the economy. As soon as money is concerned, even those who are unconcerned about climate begin to feel its relevance. The most important thing now is that exigent climate concerns be openly acknowledged and discussed by governments and citizens alike. Even those who debate the validity of rising global temperatures must accept the disadvantages of pollution and environmental harm.