Demand Response is the modern way of consuming enemy where the consumer plays a significant role in the operation of the electric grid. This power consuming technique is based on regulating the amount of power the grid has to provide at the peak times. The reduction of the consumed power can be done by temporarily reducing non-critical systems such as heating, cooling, and lighting; or turning on standby generators for short periods of time in businesses and homes.  These short periods of time represent the peaks in which the grid has to run on full capacity during extremely hot or cold weather, and some spot event. The Demand Response technique, thus, prevents the grid from block outs, reduces the number of old-inefficient power plants that are needed for keeping the grid up running at the peaks, and increase the reliability of green energy source.

Many organizations, nowadays, offer Demand Response management to businesses and pay them for participating. These organizations use a very advanced real time monitoring system to track energy consumption. And based on the information they get, the organizations contact their participants so they start to lower their power consumption and level down the peak. This technique results in lower price and more sustainable grid.

http://energy.gov/oe/technology-development/smart-grid/demand-response

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Demand+Response/

http://breakingenergy.com/2014/12/12/new-development-in-demand-response-ruling-signals-possible-supreme-court-review/

The Sawyer library offers a very good environment for studying in which I strongly need as a student. I personally like to do my assignment at the library where I have complete access to everything from the database to the huge collection of books to the tutors in the center for academic success. What I love about the Sawyer library is that it is inclusive with all that I mentioned beside the group rooms, computer tables, and big tables that make the perfect setting for completing whatever assignment I have whether it’s writing, reading, online researching or even watching a movie.

Personally, I like to think of the library as my second home where I spend much time that might be more than that I spend in my own room. There is an Arabic expression that says “the most loyal friend a man can have is a book”. And books are the friends I turn to when I’m not feeling alright. I keep reading about different thing and travel to where the reading takes me; away from stress and anxiety, away from harsh cold and heat, and away from school and long homework. And even though I’m sometimes not at the library physically, I am in the library online. The Sawyer library has a huge collection of electronic books that is almost equivalent that of hard copies.

In short, the Sawyer library is a perfect library for me as a student and as a person.

GMOs! I knew nothing about them growing up, until my father once came from a business trip to Argentina. And since he loves gardening, this trip was a golden opportunity to discover new types of fruit and vegetables and bring seeds home. He brought a bag filled with seed packages labeled with pretty pictures of different kinds of plants. When I saw all the packages, I got so excited but my father seemed disturbed and caught up in reading the back of the packages. He, then, started dividing them into two groups, one on his left hand side where I was sitting and the other on his right. He kept dividing till no more packages were left in the bag. He then looked at me playing with the packages round me and said “we’re burning those”.

As you expected, the packages went to hill were for genetically modified seeds, or in my father’s words, “unreal manipulated plants.” Since then, GMOs were nothing more than a scientific breakthrough that is fun to read and watch documentaries about. My parents prevented us from GMOs as much as possible. They would only cook what we grow in the house garden and the farm and the food from local farms. Mom always said “if you want to stay healthy, stay with organic food”, and that makes perfect sense to me. However, it’s not the same sense Margaret Wille, the sponsor of the ban on GMOs, establishes in her move to ban GMOs from the island of Hawaii.

GMO technology is used mostly on corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets to make them more resistant to weeds and pests. However, Mrs. Wille is adapting the idea of that GMOs are putting the public health at risk. She supports her claim by real world facts of the cancer rats are developing, the rise in childhood allergies, the out-of-control superweeds, the genetic contamination, the overuse of pesticides, and the disappearance of butterflies and bees. Such claim is strong enough to make GMOs in Hawaii a big national controversy where the majority stands against GMOs. However, the scientific community of the World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science found no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.

The controversy on GMOs has supporters how believe that this biotechnology has saved some of the locals’ businesses in Hawaii and it might save not only businesses, but lives also in other places in the world. In Hawaii, the local papaya farms were in danger of a virus that devastated papaya varieties. And in In the Philippines, for example, genetically engineered rice is being tested to address Vitamin A deficiency among the world’s poor.

The two sides of the controversy about GMOs will keep going even though all the scientific evidence supports GMOs. Though, when my mom talks about organic food, I know it’s healthier for me. Most organic food comes from local farms which they have adapted the environment in which the plants live in. The harvested crop, thus, include all the antibiotics and vitamins my body needs to stay healthy in the same area.