On December 3rd thousands of people rallied in support of a strong united stance against increasing emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. At the end of the march in Montreal those with cell phones were asked to dial a phone number and leave a message on the phones of decision makers. This is not virtual activism in the sense of using the Internet to transfer information but it does use new technology previously unavailable. Is this more effective then emailing? Is it just another tool added to physical protest? Which technologies are having the greatest effect in the environmental movement?
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Telephone Protests
Sunday, December 11th, 2005ID
Thursday, December 8th, 2005No, not intelligent design. Instead it’s incompetent design. Read a great conversation with Don Wise, professor emeritus of geosciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
He points out that one of the significant examples of incompetent design is our own skeleton.
No self-respecting engineering student would make the kinds of dumb mistakes that are built into us.
All of our pelvises slope forward for convenient knuckle-dragging, like all the other great apes. And the only reason you stand erect is because of this incredible sharp bend at the base of your spine, which is either evolution’s way of modifying something or else it’s just a design that would flunk a first-year engineering student.
the winners
Wednesday, December 7th, 2005Rolling Stone (bless your heart) recently tossed a bunch of names into a list of 25 movers and shakers. Scrolling through, you’d be surprised (or not?) to see J. Lash of WRI, Sen. McCain and Sen. Lieberman, Amory Lovins, and many more.
A New Diagnosis: Internet Addiction Disorder
Friday, December 2nd, 2005Mental health professionals have identified a new addictive disorder in people they refer to as onlineaholics. According to the estimates of these professionals, “6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction” (reported in the New York Times, 12/01/2005.) In response to critics calling this a “fad illness” professionals insist that many online addicts are furthering other addictions to pornography or gambling and have become much more dependent on such addictions due to the presence of the internet. Many people that become addicted to the internet already suffer from another disorder like depression or anxiety, however there are millions of healthy people that get lured in by “the Internet’s omnipresent offer of escape from reality, affordability, accessibility and opportunity for anonymity.” Symptoms of the disorder include cravings for the computer, lying about time spent online, withdrawl from hobbies and social activities, back pain, and weight gain. Withdrawl symptoms are similar to those that are experiences by alcoholics and drug addicts and include abnormal sweating, extreme anxiety and paranoia. Unfortunately, insurance companies do not recognize this as a psychiatric disorder, so people seeking treatment have to pay out of pocket.
Tous Azimuts
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005From a student in the Intro GIS course.
One example of GIS which I use quite often is a program called “Tous Azimuts‗How to Get There. This program can be found at the Societe de transport de Montreal, STCUM. What this program does is it tells people how to get from one specific location in Montreal to another using the Montreal public transit system.
When you first start the program, a map of Montreal is displayed with all of the districts names on it. The instructions of “Tous Azimuts†are very easy. At the top of the screen you have three options: Click Origin, Click Destination and Click to Zoom in. You simply use those options to tell “Tous Azimuts†where you are coming from and then where you would like to be; you would start by using the “Click to Zoom in†option, as you want to be very specific about your origin and destination. Once you do this, a Calculate button will appear next to the other options.
This next section of the program is to me, the most amazing part. When you click on the Calculate button, it will take you to a new screen with a list of about five or six other options. “Tous Azimuts†now knows, because you selected the different areas in Montreal on the map, where you would like to go and from where you are coming. You are then asked which day you are taking this trip; this is important as public transit schedules are obviously different on the weekends. Your arrival time or departure time is also needed, although you have the choice to select which one you want; I personally always use arrival time, because it makes sure you will be at your destination when you want. Finally, you can choose to minimize walking distance and decide whether or not you wish to use the metro or the train to get to your destination.
Once all the options are chosen, you will click on another Calculate button at the bottom of the page. This then takes you to the results page. Three of the best routes will be displayed. The time you will get to your destination will be given as well as when you should leave your house; it even tells you how long the walk is in meters to the nearest bus or metro stop. The bus number as well as the bus/metro direction will also be given as well as the street corner or metro stop that you should get off at. And if after looking through the results you are unhappy about a route or bus time, you can always modify the options on the previous page or view the bus times yourself.
What this program really does is use information that has been inserted into the map of Montreal to help someone get from Point A to Point B using the Montreal public transit system. I highly recommend using “Tous Azimuts†to anyone that is new to the city that wants to explore Montreal without getting lost; I have lived in Montreal my whole life and I definitely still use it.
[STCUM is very concerned about climate change and has created a separate portal to welcome attendees to the UNFCCC meeting, to help visitors get around using public transit. It is also running events at the meeting on sustainable transport.]
Inefficient household products
Thursday, November 17th, 2005American households spend $1 billion a year on energy that they are not even aware of consuming. No, not to fuel their cars or charge their ipods, but rather to keep their televisions and vcrs running at night- WHEN THESE DEVICES HAVE BEEN TURNED OFF! The energy needed to fuel such items amounts to 1000 kilowatt hours a year per household. The invention of the microchip has partly led to this phenomenon. It brought improvements over the traditional switch (in the form of a soft button) in that it was more durable and compact. The downside, however, is that the chip requires a steady flow electricity. Thus, even when home devices using this chip have been shut off, they are still sucking electricity out of the sockets, resulting in huge amounts of energy wasted. While there are more efficient alternatives available, they do not compete very well in the marketplace, especially since most consumers are unaware of this overnight energy use. There has been call from the most unlikey of places, notably the Bush administration, to increase the energy efficiency standards of such objects. The energy department had a meeting this week to discuss the implementation of energy standards in homes and California has already created such a program, to begin in 2006. As more and more electronics flood the home, it is important that consumers understand the energy implications of their actions, specifically that “off” does not neccessarily mean “off.”
Environmental Groups Found a New Ally??
Tuesday, November 8th, 2005Environmental groups in the U.S. have found a new ally in an unlikely place- the Evangelical groups that help form the base for conservative support of the republican party. As reported in the New York Times, the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization that comprises a network of 30 million people across the U.S., is circulating a draft of a policy statement that is meant to encourage lawmakers to pass laws requiring reduction of carbon emissions. The association is motivated by biblical obligations that require humans to be good stewards over the earth. Environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are welcoming the support. Since the Evangelical group mainly support the Republican party, they could bring an entirely new sphere of influence into our current governmental regime.
The power of cell phones
Sunday, November 6th, 2005They can be used in case your car has broken down on the highway and to catch up with your friends whenever and wherever you like. They can be used fora range of smart mob activities. But they can also be used to solicit sex and conduct drug deals. One thing caught my eye in the wave of reporting about the urban unrest in Paris: the use of cell phones in arranging fire bomb targets and in avoiding the police:
The youths said they dodge the authorities by splitting into small groups, using their cellular telephones and text messaging to alert each other to the location of police and firefighters.
I wonder how long it is before certain kinds of text messaging is criminalized and tracked.
Guide to “Become an Cyberactivist”
Friday, November 4th, 2005In my short two decades of life I have come to realize if you are interested or care about something and want a change you learn more and figure out the best way to take action. Do environmental non-governmental organizations on the Internet allow better education (allow you to learn more)? Or do they feed you one side of the issue? Is it the best way to take action by following their step-by-step guide to “becoming a cyberactivist� Are you hindering the issue by not learning everything about the issue because you are following one side? Is it possible to learn everything or do you only require one side to make change?
Oil Offal
Monday, October 31st, 2005I’m sure by now, most of us have been exposed to the news that oil prices have gone up fairly substantially in the past few months. Everytime I hear a story on this, I have two competing demons in my head, the first saying something to the effect of “Well, maybe more expensive energy will make people consider some non oil-alternatives and stop buying those houseboats on wheels”, with the second chiming in that high world energy prices disproportionately hurt the poorest, while the rich will grumble a bit and continue along their marginally less merry Range Rover ways.
This leads me to wonder, if we could wish for an oil price, what would we set it to? Too high an oil price, and in addition to hurting developing nations, we might get a lot more coal, and will likely have more exploration in places which otherwise might escape the drill bit. Too low an oil price and we get a cost which isn’t coming close to reflecting the true cost to society of our energy.
Along the same lines, I read an article on cnn a couple of weeks ago, which apparently is no longer findable, where readers wrote in to express some of the sacrifices they were making with the cost of gas being above 2 USD. A lot of them were simply laughable (with the tone of the laughter depending on your level of cynicism), along the lines of the father lamenting he had to drive the 1990’s Civic the 50 mile commute to work, while his son got to drive the 3 mile commute to school in their suv, oh the horror. Weaving among those stories however, were the people who were unable to continue to afford dental insurance.
Something of a conundrum. Are there environmental economists whose business it is to balance such things?
Greenpeace and co. – running things into the ground
Wednesday, October 26th, 2005Here’s a story: I am an economist working for an eNGO (or running an eNGO?), and I want to go about proving that renewable energies are under-prioritized. In fact, break-throughs like new, fancy, cheap solar panels need encouragement (monetary incentives, tax breaks, subsidies, etc.) so that renewables can take the lead in providing primary energy for society.
Well, well. It won’t work just yet. Scanning mostly any mainstream account of energy choices and alternatives describes renewables as a niche-source. Limited applications include in-situ provision of energy for, say, manufacturing hydrogen.
The real hurt comes from a simple fact: wind and sun come and go, and capacity for storage is plagued with poor efficiency. Supplying energy to a power grid is impossible, because the mis-match between supply and demand cannot be righted if a few cloudy, windless days roll by. Everyone’s back to candles and extended weekends (who’s going to go to work?).
Now then, what does Greenpeace say? Popular arguments are often a mimicry of public paranoia and poor grasp of science. Most notably, the profound distaste for the only, repeat, the ONly wholesale source of carbon-free energy: nuclear power. Even if MIT concludes the same. The recent volleys of email-cum-spamming from Greenpeace characterize nuclear power as a terrorist threat (everyone’s favorite, especially in the cozy Mid-Western US).
I certainly wouldn’t say that the “Tainted Desert”, the South-Western desert region in the US, hasn’t been ravaged by toxic waste in the air, water, and soil, hasn’t caused exploding adult and infant radiation poisoning and cancer, hasn’t forced US imperialism to extend itself in a 40’s-era-fashion over vast tracts of Native American land, jobs, and communities only to offer bitterly-bitterly-ironic compensation by funding the construction of cultural history museums, or general added to the triumvirate of industrial-military-government blinded dominance in matters of science and social justice. Of course not.
But, if the climate is changing, then campaigning against nuclear power has to be re-thought. Quite seriously. Otherwise, many parallel campaigns against threats to sustainability, rain forests, oceans, icebergs, species biodiversity, natural heritage, etc. seem to tug against each other, until they become hopelessly behind the catastrophe.
Beyond Message Frameworks
Tuesday, October 25th, 2005Does communication over the Internet improve an environmental campaign or “merely change how it frames its message?†This is a question discussed by Jenny Pickerill in the book Cyberprotest: Environmental Activism Online (2003). The Internet allows communication at faster rates and is passed over a large worldwide audience, with less governmental control. This instant communication without limits of physical distance can created a dialogue between people on the Internet. A case can be made that the Internet is space for people to answer and react to others involved in an issue, creating discussion and involvement. Does the creation of dialogue constitute go beyond changing how an environmental movement frames its message? Many researchers argue this creation of dialogue aids the democratic process. However, the Internet is still limited and not available to everyone, resulting in larger inequalities.
Party without wires
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005If you’re in the Montreal area and you want to party with people who have a vision of a wireless Montreal…
Ile Sans Fil is now at 10,000 users! We’re celebrating.
So . . . we’re doing a call-out. Do you:
– spend *way* too much time being a rockstar (on garageband)?
– work for bandwidth?
– consider joining the online class action whenever your ipod flashes “lowbat” but still drool over the nano?
– blog every cheese sandwich you eat?
– have RSI?After two years of busting our chops, we’re ready to put down our laptops, pringle’s antennas, and o’reilly books for one night. Come party with us October 22 (this sat) on our first annual PubCrawl.There will be (much) beer, t-shirts and prizes.
Prizes are:
-Wifi TeliPhone with 6 months free service (long distance inc.)
-512 mb iPod shuffle from the Coop UQAM
-Accesories you never knew you needed from Toshiba
-a little something you may have heard of called the “iPod Nano”
[What amuses me is that the characteristics for likely partiers is different in French:
– Vous passez vos week-ends à jouer les Rock stars (avec GarageBand)?
– Vous songez à inscrire une connexion à Internet sur fibre optique à votre liste de cadeaux de Noêl?
– Vous bloguez sur tout ce qui bouge?
– Vous seriez prêt à vous remettre au Kraft Dinner pour acheter un iPod nano?
– Vous souffrez atrocement du syndrome du tunnel carpien ?]
Cell phones in Africa
Sunday, October 16th, 2005Cellphones are changing not only communication in the continent of Africa, but its commerce:
NAIROBI, Kenya – Amina Harun, a 45-year-old farmer, used to traipse around for hours looking for a working pay phone on which to call the markets and find the best prices for her fruit. Then cell phones changed her life.
…
Harun is one of a rapidly swelling army of wired-up Africans — an estimated 100 million of the continent’s 906 million people. Another is Omar Abdulla Saidi, phoning in from his sailboat on the Zanzibar coast looking for the port that will give him the biggest profit on his freshly caught red snapper, tuna and shellfish.
The Positive Side of Global Warming???
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005The polar ice caps, as they retreated this year into the smallest size ever recorded, are presenting new opportunities for investment and profit. Entrepreneurs are eager to explore the region for potentially vast amounts of natural resources (including oil), that are projected to be worth billions of dollars. The ice caps could retreat for summers at a time, leaving room for the territory to be explored and mined. According to the U.S. Geological survey, the Arctic contains one quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources. Already countries have been negotiating over the titles of the land. A Denver investor bought Churchill, Manitoba, a Hudson Bay Port, from the Canadian government in 1997 for a mere $7 and is now seriously considering re-opening it to Arctic traffic. With the receeding ice caps, industry will greatly expand in the region, bringing him revenue in excess of $100 million per year. The government of Manitoba is investing millions into developing the area. A Swedish shipbuilder has recently designed a ship that is capable of navigating through icebergs, and after selling two of them for $90 million, the Russian government liscenced the design and is building two of its own. Does it strike anybody as odd that our overconsumption of fossil fuels is causing noticeable and alarming (albeit only to some) changes to our planet, and instead of reflecting on the potential consequences of our behaviour, our fellow countrymen look to further the process??? How deep can we dig ourselves into this mess in the hope of recovering more oil???
I can see the money rolling in
Friday, October 7th, 2005America Online (AOL) to buy Weblogs Inc. network for $25million US. No, no. Computers, Society and Nature cannot be sold at any price (wait a minute…)
frontier energy frontier
Thursday, October 6th, 2005Let’s do some math.
How can we aim to get carbon-free energy for the least amount of all-inputs-considered?
One exciting sector in energy is the BioFuels explosion (figuratively speaking, of course). These fuels derive from plant and vegetable matter. They produce energy from breaking down the matter in combustion, but with negligable emissions. Coupling this with the notion of capturing already-available sources of fuel instead of letting them become a waste issue is an attractive concept.
Consider this idealized view:
However, the numbers are not adding up as many speculate. With BioFuels, it seems the sustainable cards cannot be played – it may not even exist.
Producing ethanol and biodiesel from a variety of crops is just not worth the effort, so much so that it plain hurts. Some math:
In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:
— corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
— switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
— wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:
— soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
— sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
“Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation’s energy security, its agriculture, economy or the environment,” says Pimentel. “Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input, and therefore, it is contributing to oil and natural gas imports and U.S. deficits.” He says the country should instead focus its efforts on producing electrical energy from photovoltaic cells, wind power and burning biomass and producing fuel from hydrogen conversion.
This quote and the above numbers come from a July 1, 2005, study at UC Berkeley.
Undetterred (as well they should be), environmental scientists concerned with righting this energy imbalance have been cutting as many corners as possible. Within this panorama article, mention of the many process steps and treatment applications come under scrutiny. Much work has been done, however, to roll many steps into one, for example, having on talented biotic enzyme do more than its share of chores, reducing the energy input required to churn out fuels.
The argument that neither biomechanically- or thermochemically-produced biofuels can compete with standard fuels is still contended, however, by some that say the math hasn’t been honestly calculated. The UC Berkeley mention builds on what Dr. Pimentel, Cornelle University, has produced, which has been criticized for using out-of-date data on the inputs necessary for fuel production.
Of course, it’s not all about the simple ‘energy math’. Consider the cropland which would supply all the biomass. Whole-sale growing of corn or any other single crop, according to Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth, requires pesticides and fertilizers that can find their way into the environment in water runoff from the fields. Replacing the entire U.S. fuel supply with corn ethanol would require at least 60 percent of the nation’s available cropland, according to calculations by Marcelo Diaz de Oliveira of the University of Florida.
Environment for Kids
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005Here’s a great site from Japan for kids that doesn’t talk down to them. It’s Kids “Create Your Future”, a site that both explains environmental problems and offers concrete ways for kids to positively impact the environment.
The following example onHow to have a car without owning it offers a very sophisticated way of framing the problem and embedding the solution, which could be public transportation:
We buy cars because we want to have the freedom to travel conveniently whenever we like. In other words, we want the service provided by the car, not the product itself. It’s important to understand the difference between the service of a product versus the product itself.
Umm, maybe we should try these arguments out on adults.
Zero Emissions Vehicles: Not Anytime Soon
Friday, September 30th, 2005Recently, GM and a few other car makers have decided to discontinue producing electric vehicles, claiming that the production was economically unsustainable. The companies recalled many of the vehicles that had been leased, leaving behind many disappointed consumers. Much of the focus of large auto companies has been shifted towards gas-and-electric hybrid automobiles, which have been receiving a lot of hype and media attention. There are notable mileage limitations with solely battery powered vehicles and they require several hours worth of recharging. Additionally, while operation of the vehicle produces zero emissions, the power plants that produce the electricity used to power the battery are nowhere near zero emissions. Zero emission technology has a long way to go from here.
ID is science (not)
Monday, September 26th, 2005Parents in Pennsylvania are seeking to block the teaching of intelligent design in their children’s schools.
The [Dover township, Pennsylvania] school board, represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a religious-based nonprofit firm, took the position that this was about freedom of speech.
“Intelligent Design theory is really science in its purest form,” said Pat Gillen, a lawyer for the board. “It promotes the search for knowledge that embodies the essence of a liberal education.”
This argument is part of repackaging ID. Not only do proponents seek to distance themselves from the Christian god. They seek to change the actual definition of science, from hypothesis testing using empirical evidence of the natural world to a more general search for knowledge. This, of course, includes everything that is researched and taught at universities and schools. I guess we no longer need separate arts or humanities faculties. Everything is science.