Green Options

You’re waiting at a red light, your engine idling lightly. You check the crosswalk signal: 20 seconds, you have some time. You turn your classical music up a notch to the perfect volume and you close your eyes, relaxing on your way home from work. But your moment of relaxation is interrupted by the thump thump of bass coming from the car next to you. You look over at the car, the tinted windows keep you from seeing the driver. [...]

The conductor walks on to the stage and mounts the podium with applause from the crowd. He bows to the audience, then turns to his orchestra and, with one fluid motion pulls music from the vast expanse of silence. Each musician moves, almost mechanically, in perfect time, in perfect concert. The violin section becomes one great body, no longer individual musicians. Together, as one, the orchestra ebbs and flows in crescendo and decrescendo. Melody. Harmony. Symphony.

We’ve all heard the legend of Johnny Appleseed, the legendary apple tree planter of the United States. He walked across the country with his walking stick, and a bucket of seeds, just walking and planting as he went. Everywhere he went, apple trees sprouted up. And he was a hero. It is such a hero that Yosemite is looking for now.

The number of large trees is falling in Yosemite National Park, but no Johnny can be found. And the decrease is bad news for many species, including spotted owls, mosses, orchids and fishers (a carnivore related to weasels). These species, as well as others, are losing their habitat with the loss of the trees.

There is a new force on the wave-energy front. It’s called the Oyster. If it is successful in its debut this autumn, it could change the face of wave energy forever. You see, this giant electricity producing machine is different from conventional wave-energy machines. And those differences could make it extremely marketable.

Wastewater treatment facilities end up dumping a lot of mud that is extracted from the in-flowing water. And, like everything else, that mud takes up space. Space that could be used for other things, even at the dumping yards. But researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) have suggested, and successfully shown, that the waste mud doesn’t need to be taken to a dumping ground; rather, it can be used as fuel.

If the trend of extinguishing coal-fired plants continues, more and more mines will be shut down, not to mention mines that simply up and quit. But what is to be done with the abandoned mines? It isn’t as though we can just dispose of them at some hi-tech facility. These mines will become useless scars.

I remember the good old days, playing backyard baseball. Every now and then the perfect pitch would come, and, no matter how terribly I’d been hitting up to that point, I’d knock that ball out of the park. And the crowd would go wild…until everyone saw where that ball was headed. And with a crash it was realized: right through Mr. Saunders window. And then I had to fess up to old, grumpy Mr. Saunders that I, yes I, was the Great Bambino who had smashed his window. And he let me know darn well that I, yes I, had to pay to fix it. I, yes I, had to clean up my mess.

Cleaning up after ourselves is nothing new. And yet, if this be the case, why, then, do outsiders always have to ask companies and industries who affect the environment adversely, to clean up after themselves? Didn’t their mothers (and fathers) teach them that if they make a mess, it is their responsibility to return everything back to how they found it? Didn’t anyone tell them that the broken window won’t fix itself?

We’ve all done the elementary school math story problem: Would you rather have $10,000 right now, or a penny doubled every day for a month? Well, in the end, those of us who were greedy enough to take the $10,000 right up front ended up poorer than those who took the penny.

This problem seems silly to us though. Now what about this one. Would you rather take $1,000 right now or $4,000 three years from now? Chances are, you chose the immediate cash. Psychologists use the term ”delay discounting” to describe our inability to resist the temptation of a smaller immediate reward in lieu of receiving a larger reward later. Most people choose the smaller, more immediate reward over the larger “patience is a virtue” reward.

And no matter what the context, discounting stems from three factors: a bias for the present; uncertainty; and projected resources. We are a people who thrive on instant gratification; that’s one reason we love TV so much. It is also a contributing factor to the current economic crisis (and debt in general).

It is estimated that man has been in Oceania for up to 125,000 years. The land was there before man. And for a long time a balance has been found between man and nature. Perhaps that balance was achieved because man and nature were not separate entities, but one and the same. However, in the recent past, that balance has been disturbed by population and consumption. Man became an invader rather than an aboriginal. And with that, habit loss for other species has been a concern. And now life isn’t what it used to be in Oceania.

It is such an invasion, not just by humans, but species of both flora and fauna that threatens aboriginal life in Oceania. A new study, which was published in the international journal Conservation Biology expresses the need for governments to act quickly in order to halt the loss of biodiversity and the extinction of species.

In 2002 the Coca-Cola Company used 3.12 liters of water to produce every liter of poduct. The company, which has captured the taste buds of drinkers worldwide used .57 megajoules of energy and averaged 12.54 grams of waste per liter of product. It’s no wonder that the Coke Kingdom has been less than popular among environmental groups.