Author: nehamehta

It’s always been a dream of mine to visit the UAE, more specifically Abu Dhabi and now after reading this paper, I have even more of a reason to want to travel there. Masdar, the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste, zero car city seems almost too good to be true. I like that the article explained from the beginning that it would be evaluating the Masdar Initiative based on the three E’s of sustainability: environment, economy, and equity. From what I took from this article was that for how groundbreaking and innovative the Imitative is, in terms of environmental benefit, it is that behind in regards to promoting equity and economic stability. There were parts of the effort or project that were especially notable to me but there were other aspects of the plan that were a cause for concern.

For starters, I like how proactive Abu Dhabi is in carrying out sustainable and techniques to move away from traditional practices that harm our environment. Although one of the main reasons Abu Dhabi moved forward with this initiative is based on economic factors (mainly an economy heavily dependent on fossil fuels and oil exports), it is still well worth noting that that Abu Dhabi how the city is becoming more energy-efficient and waste-conscious. With the Masdar initiative, I liked how energy demand will be reduced by a projected goal of 70%, water demand by 300% and net waste production by 400%. These are significant strides in reducing a city’s ecological footprint, and highlight the highly efficient combination of renewable technology and sustainable planning/practices. I also liked how the entire city would be powered by renewable energy, mainly solar energy. Planners decided not only to use new solar panels and hydrogen plants but also focused on the actual design of the city to reduce energy demand. For example, buildings will be porous to keep the sun out and air in during especially arid times throughout the year. Another really cool element of the plan was the transport idea because there are NO cars in the city! But who cares, because you have personal shuttles that will be able to take you to all key locations! This specific practice emphasizes sustainable transport, forgoing the need for cars, something people consider to be a necessity.

However, I agree with the other responses that this plan is a little disconcerting because, as the authors noted, the city is mainly built for the wealthy to live in and for expatriates to commute to. The plan is also expected to cost almost 22 BILLION dollars! Holy cow. The initiative seems like a huge ploy to better the economy of the UAE place it on the forefront of the renewable energy industry. It seems like most of the city is being done to aid the economy in the long run. However, we always mention that even if the intention is misguided we should not dispute the inherent merits that a specific imitative may possess.

What was most surprising when reading this article was how the logistics of the city were grounded in eco-friendly and sustainable practices that we deemed too far-fetched or implausible during our class discussions. For example, in class we discussed the seemingly impossible idea of completely eliminating the use of cars or relying solely on solar energy in urban settings. However, Masdar has implemented both of these practices within its plan to achieve sustainable transport and energy use. I believe this highlights how important urban planning is before constructing a city because once urbanization occurs, it becomes hard to initiate and implement environmentally sensitive practices. It becomes overwhelming to change specific behaviors, whether it be for big companies, the government or citizens as a whole.

Because light pollution is often not a topic of our class discussions and is a relatively newly discovered form of pollution, it was interesting to learn so much about how light pollution severely affects humans and animals, whether it be birds or sea turtles. Personally, and hopefully I’m not the only one, I’ve become so accustomed to seeing artificial lights on during the night time that when I really see how pitch-black the night time really is, I get a little startled and scared. Growing up in the city, artificial light is everywhere, not just in Manhattan (although it’s probably much worse in that borough.) Every night before I go to bed, I see how many lights are on in my building complex and neighborhood, and always wonder why no one shuts these lights off but I think it’s because we’re so used to seeing big, flashy lights, it almost reassures us.

What I liked was how the article talked in great deal about the health effects of light pollution with three main focuses; its effect on animals, the circadian cycle, and the increased risk of developing more serious cancers and diseases, mainly breast cancer. It was really saddening to read about how sea turtles get distracted by lights left on at the beach that sometimes they can’t find their way back into the ocean. Just imagine how it’d feel to see this new external phenomenon and be so confused by it that you cannot find your way back home, completely lost. Also, I thought the little tidbit on how light pollution affects reproductive abilities in frogs really illustrated the horrible impact of light pollution on animals. Moving on to humans, I can say for sure how crappy my sleep schedule and how irreparably damaged my circadian cycle is. The article reported that the circadian cycles control 10 to 15% of our genes, so any type of change may lead to a plethora of health issues. The article noted that many of the problems that may result from this disruption in circadian clock, are connected to depression, insomnia, cardiovascular disease and more. It’s kind of crazy how the way we evolved does not align with technological advancements. We forcibly have steered away from our evolutionary beginnings and this has evidently caused a host of issues!

The scariest but most fascinating part of this article was the discussion on how increasing light pollution is correlated with increasing rates of breast cancer, mainly due to the reduction of melatonin production. I know or recall that melatonin deals with regulating our biological clock but also plays a role in producing female hormones! The study remarked that light definitely decreases melatonin and reduction of melatonin levels causes a higher risk for cancer. I know many of these studies are still in the fetal stages, but it is not hard to dispute the idea that light pollution could really play a role in higher breast cancer rates. I appreciated that they referenced a study done elsewhere to corroborate this data. They also focused on how working later at night or in places with greater light pollution led to increased rates of breast cancer for woman. Overall, I think we need to be better educated and informed about light pollution.

After reading this article, I was completely and utterly appalled by the actions of the Environmental Protection Agency. The article took a harsh and critical stance against the EPA, who the Government Accountability Office believes did not provide an accurate, transparent, or even comprehensive review and testing of indoor air pollution post 9/11. It’s mind-blowing to think that the EPA did a shoddy job at the only task they were assigned, which was to test for contaminants in the areas affected by 9/11. They did not test a wide variety of locations nor did they test for a wide variety of contaminants; it seemed as though the EPA didn’t really care for what the lives and well-being of those affected by the tragedy. The first program was clearly a huge flop; thus the second program is aimed at fixing these major flaws and issues. However, the GOA illustrates that his second program leaves just as many existing cleavages and does not truly and wholly help to address indoor contamination.

I liked that the article pointed out and reiterated how the new program by the EPA did not have include many of the recommendations outlined by the Inspector General and the rest of the panel. For example, in the first program, 80% of the spaces that the EPA tested had already been professionally cleaned. How is this an accurate and representative sample? Plus only 20% of the available parties had volunteered to be a part of the study and experimenting process. They even tried to claim, at one point that they had trouble distinguishing between urban dust and WTC dust. On top of this 1% were still found to have unsafe levels of asbestos! Who knows what else there could have been lurking in the air that the EPA did not test for. In addition, the Inspector General added that the contaminants in uncleaned apartments and common areas could re-enter the air supply system and contaminate clean areas all over again. This is why he/she added that more contaminants be tested for, especially in inaccessible areas. However, this was not even done. Apparently, the agency offered more limited testing in more apartments rather than opting to do more comprehensive testing in a more limited number of places. It’s crazy that the EPA cant even fix the problems that were already pointed out to them; their solutions were not planned or carried out well. I think the worst part was the second program did not truly expand the testing to include workers and workplaces; indoor air pollution isn’t something we hear about a lot so the threat seems less real and tangible. However, it can lead to serious and devastating health problems especially because indoor air pollution is more concentrated!

I think it’s fair to say we all recognize that NYC has a problem with trash, mainly in terms of effectively disposing of and managing a wide variety of waste. However, this article discussed in greater detail the issue of waste management within NYC, specifically the Upper East Side. What was nice was it contextualized the ongoing plan to open up a new Marine Transfer Station within the city’s growing waste problem. To begin, it’s completely mind-blowing that NYC has to dispose of around 50,000 tons of waste every day. That’s about 18,250,000 tons of garbage each year!! The article mentions that only 15% of NYC’s residential waste is recycled, which means approximately 15,512,500 tons of trash does not get converted into reusable matter. Even worse, the 15% is an eight percent decrease from the previous recycling percentage of 23%. The article also noted that corporations and “commercial entities” do not have to recycle; it’s optional for these businesses to recycle, even though they produce 75% of the city’s total garbage. To me, this represents a huge shortcoming of the city’s public policy. After GE’s PCB contamination of the Hudson and companies’ general indifference towards the environment, it only seems right that laws be passed to curb this toxic behavior. It seems problematic that regular citizens have to recycle but these corporations get away without having to do so, even when they generate the most waste. If recycling is an option, one that sadly is more costly and time-consuming, it will not be taken seriously.

I thought this article also did a good job of focusing in on NYC’s “throwaway” culture and our tendency to only look for short-term and geographically localized solutions. Opening up the new Marine Transfer Station does not at all seem like a good idea. Tbe site of the new station is opposite a community center for neighborhood kids. There is no way to gauge what effects this may have on their safety or health! In addition, there are various other local institutions within a close proximity of the new project. I understand that opening up the station would be easy because there is already an old transfer station that used to be in operation within the area. However, the Upper East Side did their part for years when the station was used and I don’t believe they should have to suffer. But of course, the problem then becomes well, how should the city tackle waste management. Unfortunately, if it is not this neighborhood, it has to be some other community. The article cites the city’s throwaway culture as the root of the problem. We have a “disposable mentality” that will not be fixed unless we encourage thoughtfulness and teach people to be more conscious of their actions. Perhaps the issue is that the city is not as united and unified as it needs to be. We don’t care if other people have to confront a problem if it doesn’t concern or involve us. That might be our biggest flaw.

Finally, what I felt that this article forgot to mention was the even more dangerous ramifications of reopening and expanding the Marine Transfer Station. I cannot help but wonder that if we begin to transport waste and garbage through our waterways, it will lead to increased water pollution and toxic chemicals in our water resources.

A great deal of our student-led discussion papers have been focused on both public and private initiatives to help combat “emergent” environmental issues, and this article on a newly-renovated, eco-friendly, Bronx playground is no different. This article was a great read because I think it addressed two of the concerns that always seem to come up in our in-class discussions: how to address (water) pollution with green infrastructure and how to get new generations involved in these efforts, specifically how to get adolescents to care for the environment.

In regards to the first problem, it was great to see that the Trust for Public Land and the Department of Environmental Protection teamed up to turn 40 playgrounds or play spaces in to sustainable areas. Although we often criticize that programs such as these are too local and do not wholly address environmental degradation, this article demonstrated that this breakthrough is crucial in reducing storm water run-off and the spread of raw sewage. It was crazy to read that “overflows an be triggered up to 75 times a year.” Personally, I feel like I never notice or pay attention to these overflows, which is in itself a concern because not seeing something for yourself makes it easier to ignore and care about. This poses as the largest challenge, in terms of water pollution, that NY has to tackle despite the presence of treatment facilities and sewage plants. However, the program clearly relies on green infrastructure to increase filtration and retention of storm water and raw sewage, through the use of green roofs, gardens, porous concrete, and more. The Twin Parks Playground in particular includes bioswale, vegetation, and more.

I think we all noted that the most amazing part of this effort was that kids or students were involved throughout the process. Learning about water pollution, they were able to give their input on how the new playground should be built (even through participating in design workshops). This type of hands-on and interactive is so vital because the students did not merely memorize what they had been told but truly applied it. They understood that trees were important in providing shade and absorbing water; thus, they opted to have lots of trees in the new playground. This awareness and understanding is so cool to see because it indicates that the children have more appreciation for their environment and have internalized what they were told, increasing their connection to the surroundings. Because my paper is focused on water pollution and government legislation, it’s interesting to see how there is not as great of a focus placed on learning and education. This program’s mission is two-fold, whereas most of the papers I have read only believe in the importance of ecosystem services, not in getting support and backing from the public; to solve environmental problems we need a two-tiered method such as the one incorporated in this article.

 

We are all aware that nature experience is incontrovertibly intertwined with our health, both mental and physical. However to what extent can being in nature, even for a brief period of time, truly influence our physiological function? This article answers just that question through an interesting and quite intensive study that analyzed the impact of nature on our affect and cognition. I liked that this article provided more of a science-based reading, grounded both in the methods and measures of affect and cognition within the study. The article, which conceded that one of its goals was to replicate prior findings (to corroborate pre-established claims) also had the goal of understanding other effects of nature experience like rumination or self-reported anxiety; the balance between both goals was certainly admirable!

What was really fascinating to me was that our response to natural environments, when compared to urban landscapes, is the product of evolution. We have an innate preference for natural views because we are intrinsically connected to nature; as a species our inclination and longing for nature far outlives our connection to urban scenery. This is the reason we instinctively, or rather unconsciously, grow calmer and less stressed/anxious when in the presence of natural ecosystems. Our visceral response is not something we are consciously aware of but our body immediately knows and begins to react to in accordance to our surroundings; thus, we become less stressed and happier. The study definitely illustrated that being immersed in nature remarkably helps ease our tensions, combats stress, and puts us in a better mood overall. The tables certainly helped in terms of visualizing the affective impact of nature experience across the four different measured categories.

In terms of our cognitive functions, nature undoubtedly helps with our dual-task memory. However, in regards to the other values that researchers measured, the effect of experiencing nature was somewhat inconclusive. There was no discernable or significant difference between he results generated between walking in a natural environment or urban landscape. However, I think this highlights that there could be more information that scientists and environmentalists have not yet discovered. Under different circumstances, it could be that nature has more of a bearing on our cognitive abilities. Does sustained duration play a role? Do specific natural landscapes correlate with higher mental faculties? I was reading this other article that remarked that there was a substantial relationship between perceived restorative properties and attention-restoration. The paper argued that not only are children diagnosed with ADD more alert and focused when interacting with green settings, but interacting with nature can be an effective alternative to other treatments. In addition, it was noted that the effects of nature experience were most profound and evident in adolescents, who are developing intellectually, emotionally and physically. This suggests that the type of changes their mind is going through can be tied to being exposed to natural scenery.

Adams’ article on the mass extinction of species and in turn the extinction of direct interpersonal relationships with nature had absolutely no chill. The article, which highlights a number of intertwined and parallel issues that plague society, focuses mainly on our collective disassociation from nature and the root of this phenomenon. The main concern comes from the fact that we view ourselves as separate from that which surrounds us; thus, we are not one with nature but rather one next to or around nature. Rather than focusing on our similarities and the ways in which humankind is a “manifestation of nature”, we emphasize differences, which stems from our individualistic and narcissistic perspective.

In the beginning, Adams uses the ivory-billed woodpecker to propel his discussion of the many valuable species lost in our seemingly never-ending desire to conquer nature. He mentions Jackson’s relentless search for the supposedly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker and how Jackson would play the woodpecker’s call to attempt to get the bird out of hiding. However, Adams, then goes in for the kill by placing us in the ivory-bill woodpecker’s shoes, asking how we would feel if we were the last humans on Earth living solitary lives for years on end. It was tragic and heartbreaking to think about being the sole __ of a species and how once a species is gone, there is truly no way to ever bring it back. The statistic that “30 of our kindred species are being killed off every day” really shook me to the core because that’s more than one species an hour! With only about 20 million different species left, my fear is will there be a time when we only have one million or a hundred thousand? What happens then? This relates to the problem we discuss in class a lot. It is the idea that although we are aware of extinction, we have grown so accustomed to desensitizing ourselves to this knowledge. We do not feel the true ramifications of what we hear of or even see because society has engrained in us this idea to ignore the things we feel like we can’t fix. The issue is we can actually fix our disassociation from nature and egoist point of view.

Much like our class-discussions, Adams talks about our modernist/post-modernist cultural values, mainly those that compel us to dominate everything and anything. He explains that when we identify “all of us” and exclude nature from who we are, we reveal more about ourselves. I think he makes an interesting point that we seem to not truly grasp the deterioration of nature because we lack contact with it. If we had experience with our surroundings, we could then place what we know in to context. However, is appreciation the first step or do education and experience take precedent? Like Jess says, the most important thing is to not take what we have for granted because the permanence we feel now is only ephemeral.

Hi Guys, this is my article for the student led paper discussion: http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/remediation_hudson_pdf/dhreaa15.pdf

You only have to read from pages 3-19!!!  (Super sorry that it’s a little longer, but it’s spaced nicely and has a lot of pictures!) Also, if you guys have any questions, can you include them in a separate section of the post so I can address them all? Thanks!! 🙂

Reading these student read-papers has made me feel more and more optimistic about the state of NYC in terms of environmental conservation. The article on the Solar Thermal Pilot Program was a great read because it detailed a study regarding whether or not this initiative to use solar energy for providing hot water had real potential in NYC; it was focused on instituting a new environmental or green practice rather than critiquing a current development. The limitations stated in the beginning were crucial because after reading about the success of this city-wide effort, they are barriers we will have to resolve in the near-future. To me, the two biggest restrictions were lack of awareness and incentives, because awareness translates to action and real change. When consumers are not familiar with these studies, like most of us were not, it then leads to stagnation and collective ignorance. If people knew of how great the payback period was for this project, the reduction of emissions, and the energy savings more people would be jumping on this train. I think environmental preservation undoubtedly needs to be talked about more but mainly needs these financial incentives. The table on Page 8 really illustrated that with greater incentives, the payback period moved closer and closer to less than a year. Obviously money butters people up and makes them more likely to be open-minded and receptive to new ideas.

The two on-site reports that were of notable mention were the ones conducted for Site #2 in Manhattan and Site #4 in Staten Island. I think Site #2 addressed some important limitations and failures in the conceptual design of the plan. What was even better was the authors hypothesized what this could have been attributed to and listed several factors, such as applications for financial incentives, limited roof, demand for hot water and more. Like all the other sites, Site #2 met a high percentage of the building’s hot water demand and decreased annual energy savings. However, the issue was that the payback period for this building was far longer due both to the additional costs (lack of state and federal grants) and the lack of favorable conditions for thermal deployment. On the other hand, for Site #4, the system produced enough therms to save building owners over 3,300 on their gas bill, also avoiding 604,476 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. The reason for this was that the demand for Site #4 was relatively large and the orientation of the collectors allowed for optimal production of solar energy. In addition, the solar panels allowed for a payback period of less than a month, which is almost ridiculous!

Lastly, I think the benefits speak for themselves. Between economic advantages, reduction in total gas and pollutant emissions, and energy cost savings, this program seems to highlight efficiency and environmental conservation. Of course, this initiative is still in its fetal stages, however despite some kinks and minor flaws, this is a trend that we ought to be popularizing fast.

Looking at the dinosaurs footprints from the Jurassic period within this region, an archeologists may be able to learn a plethora of facts about dinosaurs. They may learn about the behavioral patterns of these creatures and general information about their general nature such as: what type of dinosaurs they’re looking at, number of legs, length, weight, ability to swim/run, etc. They may also be able to determine from the number of fossils which types of dinosaurs were most abundant and how they travelled along the land.

One of the biggest limitations in looking at dinosaur footprints from this time period is the lack of certainty in findings. This is because science is grounded in what we know and does not function with doubt and speculation. Thus, if a dinosaur fossil is found and could be from an undiscovered species, we would not be able to connect this because our classification of this fossil would be grounded in what we have already studied in-depth; there is a general lack of flexibility. In addition, there is so much missing in terms of correlating data, with footprints, with actual bones and dinosaurs. Another huge limitation is the huge lapse of time and that there are so many different factors that could have affected the Earth’s formation. For example, there was a dinosaur print that was not identical or similar to any other prints in the general region. Was this due to an unknown variable? Is this from a dinosaur not yet discovered? We have no real way of finding out until we do more research; there is not enough of a record to compare bones and fossils.

DEFINITIONS:

Lithology- The general physical characteristics of a rock or the rocks in a particular area

Half-Graben: A geological structure bounded by a fault along one side of its boundaries, unlike a full graben where a depressed