Helpful links for your research!

Think tank websites:

List of US Think Tanks (From Wikipedia… there are 100+ listed here)

Center for American Progress (CAP)

Tax Policy Center (TPC)

Post Carbon Institute  (PCI)

Economic Policy Institute (EPI)

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

Brookings

Podcasts:

Kunstler’s blog & Kunstlercast

Robert McChesney Media Matters (WILL-AM)

WILL-AM Agricultural Happenings

NPR Podcast Directory (Highly recommend this one)

NYTimes Podcasts

 

Oil Fracking

We all know the importance of oil in our day-to-day lives, whether it is heating our homes or fueling our cars. There has also been much attention brought up regarding America’s dependency on foreign oil. Through natural gas found in our own country it is possibly to alleviate some of that dependency. Large basins of natural gas have been found within American soil, and natural gas companies are jumping at the opportunity to take advantage of these gas basins with hopes of helping the economy and environment using natural gas, but at what cost? “Gasland” is a documentary discussing the immense cost of the methods used in order to tap into these natural gas reservoirs. The methods used incorporate the use of 596 different chemicals forced into the ground, breaking rocks, and freeing the gas. The incorporation of so many chemicals is having huge effects on health and the environment around the site. One outcome is the escape of natural gas into homes and water, and in some houses family are able to light the water on fire right out of their out faucets. What are other unforeseen side effects to this homegrown and natural source of energy?  

Link to the entire documentary Gasland:

http://www.letmewatchthis.com/watch-movies/2010/watch-gasland-211332/

Flaming Faucets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrnnQ17SH_A

By: Nicole Eads

Young Farmers - Danielle Lessing

NY Times Article

Young Farmers Find Huge Obstacles to Getting Started

With the conversations we have been having about our not-so-sustainable future and how we are in need of a change when it comes to food production, it was disheartening for me to come across this article. A young couple in Oklahoma struggle to start up an organic farm because of the cost of land. With the struggle for farming to continue on, these young people found it hard to believe that they were being denied the ability to farm because no one would give them a loan. 

Luckily, with the aid of the 2008 Farm Bill, young farmers are provided with education on how to go about starting a farm in the modern agricultural world. With the age of the American average farmer rising, the need for young people to get involved is crucial. In a society that is increasingly becoming more co-dependent on the importing of food sources, local farmers are in high demand. Reducing the shipping and travel costs, both environmental and capital, will help us to move forward as a society to become more sustainable. There will come a time when we will no longer be able to afford to import food from all over the world. Keeping our food sources close will not only eliminate a large portion of our environmental pollution but will boost our national agricultural economy.

Orbital solar power plants could meet Earth's energy needs

With the random weather today (soo warm and then a tornado warning!), I felt the need to check out some other extreme weather conditions going on throughout the country.

I came across this video posted last Wednesday on Yahoo News. I had heard about the storm plaguing Alaska, but this was my first time seeing its monstrous effects.

The video: Alaska Storm: Why the Extreme Weather?

I also read two articles about the storm. One came from The Wall Street Jounrnal: 'Epic' Alaska Storm Batters Region. This article reported the intense flooding along the state's western coast. Strong winds ripped roofs off and sea levels 3 to 5 feet above normal level. The storm produced 85mph wind gusts, as well as heavy snow and rain. Residents of the effected towns hadn't seen anything like this since 1974. The best quote taken from the article states, "'This is a storm of epic proportions,' said meteorologist Jeff Osiensky with the National Weather Service. 'We're not out of the woods with this.'"

Watching news videos and reading articles about this detrimental storm had me reflecting on the intense weather the East Coast experienced not so long again. It even had me thinking of Hurricane Katrina. The increase of global warming is not only effecting climate change, but seems to be increasing the number of natural disasters the United States and other countries have experienced. While I am far from an expert on this global change, it made me think back to the article posted on Moodle "Disaster at the Top of the World": At the same time, warm Pacific Ocean water is pulsing through the Bering Strait into the Arctic basin, helping melt a large area of sea ice between Alaska and eastern Siberia." This change is happening, with no way to reverse it. So, my question is what precautions will the United States take to prevent huge mistakes like the ones during Hurricane Katrina? What steps will be made to prevent future damage to the planet?

By: Jaclyn Bednar

Delaware River Basin Fracking

This issue is of extra interest to me because of the proximity of the issue to my family that lives in Connecticut. For those of you who don't know, on November 21st a vote will be made by the Delaware River Basin Commission as to whether or not they should allow hydraulic fracturing to corporations. If the corporations should win, an estimated 15 million people will be affected by contaminated drinking water.

Josh Fox, director of Gasland (which we watched in class) appeared on Democracy Now! talking to Amy Goodman about the severity of the issue. I've posted the link below.

http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/11/11/white_house_could_cast_decisive_vote

You can also find more details on the coalition overall here:

http://savethedelaware.wordpress.com/

-Thomas Cullen

Suburban Sprawl

On Wednsday I watched Sprawling from Grace on CNBC. It really drove home the various points we made in class and the points in the readings about how we have developed our cities and how this has hurt our ability to maintain this way of living and sustain ourselves at the same time. the key point that the experts, including Kunstler, kept stating was that we as a society needed to become less reliant on the automoblie and find ways to reintroduce mass transit and pedestrian communities. i never considered how living in suburbs could be seen as a detriment long term to our economy and the community. One issue that i feel did not get quite enough attention on the program that we discussed in class was the emergence of suburban ghettos. it is important, as the documentary states to make our communities sustainable for everybody and not just a select few. we already see this trend occuring in the form of gentrification and white flight. segregation and discriminatory practices already isolated poorer communities from the more affluent ones. The question I have is does going to mass transit and building communities that favor pedestrianism fix the entire problem? There has to be a way to make these communities all inclusive while not eliminating the freedom the automobile provides. the biggest fix to this problem is to realize that it will not be fixed overnight. as the saying goes, those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Bryan Jones Jr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPS1y81b1Bw&ob=av3e

Toxic Air

Here is an article I found on NPR today regarding air pollution and government being passive to the problem. This is like the example given to us in one the the earlier readings of the unit (can't remember who the author was). The lady has lived a healthy lifestyle, never smoked a cigarette, but has developed cancer and now takes mad pills to keep up. She's only 57 but has been living in a polluted area for 30 years and is now seeing the consequences. The EPA did not challenge the factory's reports on emissions and now people in Tonawanda have grown sick. Luckily a coalition has emerged.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/10/142189390/tonawanda-provides-lessons-for-fighting-toxic-air

Thomas Cullen

Severe Weather Response and Preparation

It is no surprise that our country has faced much devastation due to severe weather.  Hurricane Katrina is perhaps one of the most critiqued disasters due to the failure of rapid government response.  In May 2011 a tornado hit the town of Joplin, MO and killed at least 140 people.  In the previous month more than 100 tornadoes struck the southern states.  Although tornadoes are terrible, they cannot be prevented.  However, there are many measures that can be taken to reduce the number of casualties.  President Obama said the federal government had pledged its assistance and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been mobilized throughout the devastated areas.  Also, after a disaster hits, the community should come together in order to help locate and treat victims.  Clean up efforts are also very important after a severe weather disaster.
I believe that more efforts should be made to warn citizens of oncoming severe weather.  Preparation before severe weather can be as, if not more crucial than the response.  If stronger efforts are made to warn, prepare, and evacuate citizens, more lives can be saved.  Time is also one of the biggest obstacles. Time can be a challenge in evacuating people before a storm and time can also be a challenge in deciding the best and most effective way to respond after the disaster.
Do you believe that the United States have been more effective in responding to severe weather since the criticism of Hurricane Katrina?  How can we better prepare and respond to severe weather disasters?

Tornadoes. June, 2011. "New York Times." <www.nytimes.com>

7 Billion

Hey guys,

I found this short video recently and I think it explains our growing population in a really user friendly way. As Grace told us in class, our population reached 7 billion on October, 31. Influenced by a lot of the technological advances in medicine and food production, as we've learned, our population keeps growing at astronomical rates. However, it can't continue this way, as the video states. I'm not sure what measures should/could be taken in order to slow our growth, but it seems something needs to be done. What do you guys think?

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/31/141816460/visualizing-how-a-population-grows-to-7-billion?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20111106

Katherine Heppard

A New Area of Sustainable Development - Cody Monnier

(James H. Berchert Photography, via Hutton Architecture Studio)

What do we think of when we hear “Sustainability?” More often than not we will begin to think of our country’s limited resources and how they must support our rapid rate of consumption and growing population. We think of electric cars, solar-powered homes, wind turbines, and many more energy-efficient ways of living. What about sustainable schools? 

Students in Mosca, Colorado are experiencing this phenomenon first-hand with the newly constructed Sangre de Cristo K-12 School. According to Paul Hutton, a sustainability consultant, “The new [school] offers plenty of natural daylight and other design features intended to create a better learning environment while reducing energy costs for the school district.”

In addition to specially designed rooms that allow more natural sunlight to be let in, reducing the need for lights, the school employs a “geo-exchange system” that uses underground pipes to heat and cool the building without using fossil fuels. The project was funded by the recently launched BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today) program. According to Ted Hughes, the BEST program director, “the program received $122 million in the last fiscal year, 85 percent of which came from oil and gas companies that operate on state lands.” Even though this is a great step in the right direction, there are only 30 schools across the nation that are as sustainable as Sangre de Cristo. With any luck this kind of sustainable architecture will begin to spread, along with the influence of the BEST program, in the interest of a more sustainable future.

Below is a video that features various people talking about 

their construction of an energy efficient school.

References:

1. Witkin, Jim. "From Oil and Gas Revenue, the Greenest of Schools." New York Times October 14, 2011. n. pag. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.