Global, Schmobel.. Who Cares If We Destroy The Earth, As Long as We Have Pretty Things, Right?

Let’s be real guys, we all know that Global Warming is happening, whether we want it to or not.  However, like in every other situation in the world, there are always those people that will make you mad in denying the obvious.  I just think they want to be known for something and that tends to be the best think they can be known for at that point in their life, a last resort type thing.

The Earth has been getting warmer for years, even before all of us humans being consumerists in today’s society.  Our recent addition, however, as humans has made Global warming occur at a much faster rate and has made it much worse since the industrial revolution, and more so in the last 50 or so years (“Key Findings”).  If we keep going at the rate that we are, by the end of the 21st century the average temperature of the surface of the earth is supposed to be double what had in the 20th century (“Future”).  This means that we need to figure things out soon, or our children and grandchildren will be doomed.

In this case we are talking about those men and women who decide to deny that our environment is slowly disintegrating and global warming is coming.  The problem here, though, in comparison to other deniers is that, if the general public begins to follow them, then global warming could get worse and soon turn into something that we not only can not reverse but something that we can also not contain.  The more the deniers are out there, the harder it will be to get people to understand that we all need to do our part in eliminating our waste that is worsening global warming and getting alternatives to the aspects that need to be changed/eliminated all together.  According to a survey by the Huffington Post, only 57% of Americans believed in global warming in 2009, in comparison to 77% in 2006 (Shapiro).  This is something that may be as a result of those anti-global warming scientists and lobbyists that are obviously intelligent men and women, but apparently can not see the inevitable.

Many of these global warming deniers are politicians and lobbyists in politics, while some are scientists that seem to ignore what their given profession is obviously showing.  Politicians like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michael Steele and news-anchors/writers like George Will, Stephen Moore and Fred Barnes are all global warming Deniers (Shapiro).  Many of these people are not scientists, so they have not done research themselves nor do they truly know the scientific background to global warming or greenhouse gasses.  They are all influential, however, because of their political side of knowing how to persuade people.  Sadly, we should all know that politicians will do anything to get what they want and much of it is lying and deceitful, so we should steer clear of listening to them.  Much of them want to not have the government spend money on alternative ways to oil or coal, since we rely so much on them and we make so much money in the industries that use them.  If we have to start putting so much money into creating an alternative, we ultimately lose money (even though we end up saving the Earth.. but who cares right?).  The real problem is those scientists that do have a background in the situation that still don’t feel that it is happening.  Many of these scientists, such as David Bellamy or Richard Lindzen, believe the same as Roy Spencer, who I talk about later.  They feel that the climate changes naturally without the help of humans and that we can be blamed for it solely (Shapiro).  Lindzen sees that it is not surprising that warming is occurring since we just came out of a little ice age in the 19th century, yet again a natural thing (Lindzen).  People like Lindzen, Bellamy,  Freeman Dyson, Garth Paltridge, and many others, are dangerous because they can either prove or disprove with their research or the lack of other scientist’s research.  It seems that many of them do not necessarily object Global warming 100%, but rather they feel that there just is not enough concrete research and information to prove that it is anthropogenic.  We all know that scientists need hard proof, not just something hypothetical or possible, so if the scientists that do believe in it can find that one little thing that will prove it to the rest, I think that the amount of global warming deniers that are scientists will go down.

Someone like Roy Spencer, a former scientist at NASA, you know, someone we think would be on science’s side, since he himself understands the fundamentals of science and can truly see the dangers of what is occurring.  He even thinks that global warming is this mythical creature.  It doesn’t seem like he is necessarily against the idea, but more so the fact that it is manmade.  He finds that we don’t have enough research or proof that it is occurring and at the hands of humans.  Spencer believes that it is a naturally occurring event in the climate system itself, because of the fluctuations within the system (Spencer).  Although I am not a Global warming denier, I can see that what he says may be true, but I don’t think its the whole truth.  From my years in robotics and seeing a lot of presentations, I remember one of them saying the same thing, that even without humans, the Earth gets warmer, albeit at a much slower pace than with the help of humans.  I think that Spencer must also see that even though it happens by itself, us humans have made it much worse than it was, and now WE, as those catalysts must fix the problem, because mother nature can not do it herself.

Murray Gell-Mann seems to say it best, essentially summing up all of these denier’s thoughts.  Even though Gell-Mann is a believer, he sees what everyone else says in that it is a naturally occurring event in that it is cyclical, this warming I mean, as well as the random fluctuations that are natural.  He, unlike the deniers, however, sees that there is also an anthropogenic side to it.  This human effect portion is just as important as the natural side of it, and it is something that the public should understand and something that the whole world needs to change.  I feel that Gell-Mann put it best when he said “Can people really not grasp this trivially simple idea? That you have the sum of these three terms, and if we wait until the secular term, the anthropogenic term, gets really, really big, until it drowns out the other two, is that really so hard to explain?”  With that, it is prudent that these deniers and heretics understand that not only ONE thing can affect something, but rather MULTIPLE things can.  The world and climate change is not white and black, there is some gray in there.

References

Revkin, Andrew. “Can Better Communication of Climate Science Cut Climate Risks?” The New York Times. 11 Jan 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2012. <http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/can-better-communication-of-climate-science-cut-climate-risks/?src=recg>

“Key Findings”. Globalchange.gov. 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2012.< http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/key-findings>

Shapiro, Lisa. “Most Dangerous Climate Change Deniers”. The Huffington Post. 18 March 2010. Web. 27 Feb 2012.  <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/22/most-dangerous-global-war_n_330614.html?slidenumber=14#slide_image>

“Future Temperature Changes”. U.S. EPA. 14 April 2011. Web. 27 Feb 2012. <http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/futuretc.html>

Spencer, Roy. “Global Warming”. 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2012. <http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/>

Lindzen, Richard.  “The Climate Science Isn’t Settled”. The Wall Street Journal. 30 Nov 2009. Web. 27 Feb 2012. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html>

Lightning in a Bulb

Let’s just say, I am not good at science…Never was … and probably never will be, sadly.  Even though I don’t really understand it, I’m still really fascinated by it, well the cool stuff like blowing things up or making things light up in weird ways that you would never could happen.  I was really bad in physics and chemistry in high school, but we got to do some awesome experiments in that class, like having a Van de Graaff generator or getting to make gummy bears light up/spark and shoot through a tube with some chemicals. Those kinds of things are cool and getting to see them in class or getting to experience them is the best part of science in my opinion.

When Thomas Vales came into class, we got to see some really cool things that had to do with how renewable energy can work and the Tesla Coil.  Tom Vales is the lab coordinator at Suffolk, and is a Tesla enthusiast.  He has worked at numerous companies and helped out many places like the Museum Of Science, building and working with machines and electrical experiments.  Tom came in to show us a couple of things, they were the Peltier Device, the Sterling Device, and the Mendocino Motor.  In addition, he brought in the Tesla Coil as an extra fun and interesting experiment/topic.  He simply and quickly showed and explained how all the devices worked.

The Peltier Device/Effect, or a thermoelectric device/effect, is an interesting concept to learn.  The device consisted of two cups, on with hot water and one with cold water (two different temperatures),  with a metal contraption that had two panels, each jutting out into the water in the separate cups.  The way that this device creates electricity is that voltage is created because of the two different temperatures, the metal touching the two cups of water generates the voltage and then energy.  We saw this because there was a windmill-like fan on the top of the metal that would spin as a result of the two different temperatures touching the metal and generating that voltage.  We also saw that by the end of the demonstration, the wheel had stopped spinning because the two cups of water had now reached the same temperature.  Because of this, no voltage was being created.

Like the previous device, the next one, the Sterling Device/Engine is run by heat energy that turns into mechanical work.  Air or gas is compressed in a cyclical way and at different temperatures so that there is a conversion of the heat energy created to mechanical work, that will run the engine or machine attached.  The engine has been around for a long time and in the later 20th century it was used in some radios and products made by Philips, the electronics company.  Now the device is used to power generators and have solar components as well.  The last little device that Tom Vales showed was the Mendocino Motor.  The motor has solar cells that are attached, and when light hits the solar cell it creates an electrical current which then creates a magnetic field that will interact with the magnets that are alas attached at the ends.  This interaction makes the other solar cell go into the light and this repetitive motion makes the motor turn and work.

The coolest thing in probably everyone’s opinions was the Tesla Coil.  By turning it on and putting lightbulb like contraptions near it, they would light up and look really awesome.  It looked like a bucket with a lot of wire wrapped around it, with the rest of the components inside the bucket I presume.  The coil is meant to be a wireless form of energy to those light-bulbs.  Nikola Tesla invented the coil as a wireless form of alternating current electricity.  When you put the lightbulb near, the gas in the glass turns to plasma as a result and lights up.  It looks like a a lightening bolt in a glass tube, which is probably the coolest thing ever.

As we watched him put different things near the coil we all wondered if he could feel the electricity and current that went into the pole, because you would think he could.  When he asked if anyone wanted to test it out, my hand shot up so quickly, I thought it was detached from my body.  I love participating in experiments and getting to actually experience them, so I tend to always volunteer myself for things like this.  In physics in high school we had an experiment with a bowling ball attached to the ceiling that we would let go at a certain point and would swing right in front of the person’s face, but would stop before hitting the person who was sitting down on the floor.  That was a scary moment of my life because you think its seriously going to hit your face, and I certainly thought so when I was the person sitting there.  So getting to use the Tesla Coil was really exciting for me.  When I put the pole near the coil, I couldn’t feel a thing running through the pole or through me, but the light bulb was lighting up.  Pretty awesome in opinion, if I do say so myself.

A Rainbow of Possibilities

Last class we conducted an experiment that dealt with Voltage, Solar/Light Power, and Filters.  The purpose was to figure out how much voltage the sun, or in this case a lightsource can really provide and whether a different color filter would affect the amount of voltage created by the same amount of light.

We began by setting up the experiment and then runninNXT and its sensor to meaure what happens when there is no light.  After that we started off at low light (amount of light coming out of source) and at 1 cm and progressed to 30 cm away at the same light level.  By doing 5 different levels of distance we are able to see what distance does to the intensity of the light that the sensor is catching.  Graphing these numbers, we see that the farther the light is, the less intense it is when something like the sensor catches the light.  For example, the average at 1 cm away is almost .3 V more than the one at 30 cm away.

With this, we can see that although the sun provides extensive light and is so large, the distance of the light makes it less intense here on earth for creating voltage or energy.  This is not to say that it is not still intense or harmful for people, or that it does not create energy, it is a HUGE ball of hot plasma, lets be real.  But just that if it was closer it would make more.. and at the same time probably kill us all.

We then kept the light at the same distance but placed different colored filters ontop of the sensor to see what would happen if you were to change the wavelength (which occurs when the color is changed).    As we can see the most intense light when there is no filter, and then the yellow was the second most intense one.   This seems like it would be right the right order so far in the fact that we did not have red or orange filters.  But I would think that pink would have a higher intensity than yellow becuase it is higher in wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum and thats what I would assume correlates.  And then the rest of the colors would follow, meaning purple would be at the bottom becuase it has the shortest wavelength and is the darkest so it would seem that the light would be less intense after passing through it.  But instead our results which were created exactly the same way the first set was, so we would think that they were created correctly as the first was, are completely different than what I assume would happen.  Our results seem to have a random order of the colors, not really correlating to the wavelength spectrum below.

What The Frack?

As the years have passed, scientists have found out how destructive, we as humans, truly are to the environment and how if we do not change our ways, we will keep destructing it.  Along with figuring this out, they have discovered and engineered more ways to create and harnass energy.  Unlike coal, many of these new ways use clean and efficient methods to create all that energy we use.  Some examples are solar, wind, or nuclear.  There is also another, hydrofracking, which is at heart, a natural process that we essentially just speed up and alter to get the gas, oil, or other substances that we want.

Hydraulic Fracturing (hydrofracturing), is a method for extracting natural gas for the purpose of creating ‘cleaner’ energy (“What Is Hydrofracking?”).  The method is different then the typical drilling for natural gas that we are used to becuase of both the mechanics of it and that is more economical than the other (“What Is Hydrofracking?”).  Its pretty basic to understand, especially if you ever took earth science.. Which I hope we all did if we passed elementary/middle/high school and are in college at this point (at least thats the standard in NJ).  But anyway.. We all know that rocks (in this case shale) and all that other earthy good stuff is beneath us and all these 50 story buildings we’ve built on the surface.  It goes deep and its everywhere… Which can be good in some ways for us, like being able to steal some gas from it.  When this shale settled down into its nice little place, it naturally fractured and created air ways/pockets that can then fracture some more with the help of us little humans (“Natural Gas”).

To get the gas that we want, we take a wellbore and drill it all the way down to that shale, but unlike normal drilling we turn it horizantally in this case so that it can go into the fractures in the shale and make them open, releasing that gas that was already there (“Natural Gas”).  In addition to the drilling, to further the fractures and to keep them open the companies use water and chemicals mixed with sand that they inject into the veins and pockets (Kaplan). These chemicals are meant to make the process more efficient and economic, but can ultimatey hurt the people’s health and the environment (“What Is Hydrofracking?”). Now this is where the method gets all its haters… like many other things in the world.  There are always people that will be against something, many of those times for goo reasons, sometimes not so much.

In this case, residents in the states, or area of a hydrofracking site, tend to hate the method and are campaigning against it.  The residents find a problem with the high volume use of water, which can be 6-8 million gallons and what that use of water can do to both the water supply and the environment as whole (“What Is Hydrofracking?”).  Also, the chemicals that the companies use as ‘proppants’ can be rather harmful instead of ‘clean’ or environmentally friendly.  So the question now is, is this method good or bad? Worse than coal or oil use? Or worth the somewhat detrimental effects that occur?  When you read about why the activists are so against the method you start to wonder these questions and may start to side with them. But you also start to think about that method.. that one thats nuclear.. and that if goes wrong can harm many.  We still use that one, even though we have seen the harmful effects (Chernobyl, TMI, Fukushima).  In the case of nuclear energy, we apparently find that the benefits outweigh the dangers; which is something that I fully believe becuase as long as we build the plants properly and are prepared for events such as earthquakes, it is fine and more helpful than harmful.

If these chemicals will end up harming us in the process of this method, is it really worth it, or can we think of any other ways to gain gas and energy? I mean we all know that universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (don’t forget all the foreign equivelants too!) are turning-out hundreds of scientific geniuses yearly.  Engineers, biologists, researchers, etc., with the amount of knowledge these men and women have, I think we can find other methods, or further this one to be more environmentally friendly.  All methods at the beginning were not 100% full proof, and have all been improved and are now much better; something that I think is possible for hyrofracking as long as we put the time and energy into it.

References

Kaplan, Thomas.  “Millions Spent in Albany Fight To Drill for Gas.” Nytimes.com. 25 Nov 2011. Web. 13 Feb 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/nyregion/hydrofracking-debate-spurs-huge-spending-by-industry.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all>

“What Is Hydrofracking?” Peacecouncil.net. 2012. Web. 13 Feb 2012. <http://www.peacecouncil.net/NOON/hydrofrac/HdryoFrac2.htm>

“Natural Gas Hydro-Fracking in Shale.” CitizensCampaign.org. 13 Dec 2011. Web. 13 Feb 2012. <http://www.citizenscampaign.org/campaigns/hydro-fracking.asp#frack>

Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake Your Flashlight

Any one who has a dad like mine, has already seen self-powered flashlights for a long time.  I mean, my dad is one of those that lives, I mean lives, at Home Depot or Lowes. And becuase he has that disturbing relationship with a store, like make of us girls do with our respective stores, I have seen every type of tool, old or new in my 21 years.  This includes that flashlight that you shake a little and, Voila! It lights up the room like you have 4 of those big circle batteries ( C or D) in it.  What a snazy little concept engineers in the world have thought of, an everyday product that we can all use without having to ruin the environment even more.

Okay so, the point of that little blurb was just to get you into the topic a little..  Now we get to the juicy stuff of generating electricity simpley by shaking a flashlight.. or having a turbine’s blades spin.  In class we did a lab that revolved around this concept of generating energy without having to harming the environment like with coal.  In the lab we had a flashlight that generated energy by shaking it back and forth.  We took the flashlight and attached it to the NXT ‘brain’ and that to the computer so that we could read the energy output from the flashlight.  Once we had everything hooked up we had to shake the light at 4 different paces, from no shaking, to slow, to fast.  With this we can see the difference that the pace and amount of shakes will make in creating energy.

During class we learned that the Faraday’s Law states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generate electricity (currents and voltage).  With running the laband creating the below spreadsheet and graph, we see that the more time we shook it in that 30 second interval of the NXT reading, the more energy we created.  This occurs because the more times the magnet within the flashlight passes the coil that is also in the flashlight, the more times the magnetic field has changed (or the polarity), and thus energy is created.  So if you shake the light 10 times in the 30 second interval, not much energy would be created becuase the magnet passes the coil only 10 times, but when you do it 70 times, the sum of the square of the shakes (becuase some numbers ended up negative, it was necessary to square it) is 112, a much higher voltage than with the lower amount of shakes.  The increasing motion of the trendline shows all of this in a simple visual.

Mass and Speed and Acceleration! Oh My!

This past week in class we did some physics-type experiments… some of my most hated moments in high school were in physics. Trying to learn all the equations and plugging them into each other? Not a fun day for me… Blowing things up and making rockets though? Way more me. This experiment was much more simple in comparison though, just a pulley system where we calculated things like acceleration, mass, battery discharge, speed, power level, etc.

To get all of these numbers, we took the pulley system (a pole, with a NXT arm, with a string going to the top where there was another wheel) and added weights to the string at the top.  First we left the same weights on there, which was .2 kg of mass.  With this we changed the power level 4 times to get some different results.  We then did the opposite where we left the power level at 50 and changed the mass 4 times.  You can see the results in the picture below.

The following graphs will show what we ended up comparing and what those results were.  Many of these results are obvious things that we see on a daily basis but don’t really think about.  Like if a girl who was 15 were to try and pull a piano across the city by hand vs. Bruno Mars, a grown man doing it in his music video.  Obviously Bruno (A grown man with more weight and strength) could do it, well he could do it easier at least, than the 15 year old girl that weighs no more than 120 lbs.  All of these results will be common sense when you look at and think about them.

When comparing the acceleration to the power level, we saw an increase.  This graph to to the left shows that with the trendline obviously moving up rather than down.  When we increased the power level on the motor, the acceleration increased as well.  This is becuase something will accelerate faster if there is more power behind it.

Next we compared the acceleration to Mass (w/fixed power level).  This showed us that when you increase the mass of something, the slower the acceleration will be, as the trendline shows in its decreasing motion.  Somewhat like the graph above, but with mass now, obviously if you add more mass to something its going to take longer to start moving.  Like in that Freddie Munez movie on the Disney Channel when we were 10, he put weights into his box car and it went slower.

In this graph, we see that the trendline is increasing again like the first one.  This shows that when we increased the power level from 25 to 55 the power used increased too.  This is something that more obvious than the rest.  If you are going to make something go faster or more powerful, in this case the motor pulling the weights, than the power that is needed to do this will also increase.  Like when we try to heat our apartment, the bill goes up an arm and a leg when we increase the heat becuase the heater needs more power to the system to heat the apartment more.

This last graph goes along with the one from above where we showed that the higher the power level, the more power is needed behind it.  This, however, shows it differently.  Instead, now we have increased the mass in increments.  Like above, when you increase the power level, the power used increases, here though, it is when you increase the mass.  The more something weighs, the harder it is to pull/push, and the more power you’ll have to put into it.  Now that I explained that, we can get into the actual point here.. When you use more power (even if the power level stays the same more power is needed becuase of the mass increase), that motor uses more of its battery to back that power used.  So here we increased the mass and it used more of the battery becuase that little NXT arm couldn’t pick up .2kg all that easily, it needed some extra help with power, using more battery.

These graphs are pretty easy to understand just by looking at them, even without my wordy explanations.  If you just look at them and think about it, you can see it.  With that, you could easily look back onto your day and pretty much use any of these rules we just showed to explain things that happened.  Like why that T bus took forever to go when the light went green, but that line of little smart cars next to you all hit their pedals and moved like the speed of light. If you didn’t get it… Its becuase that T bus had more weight in it and took longer to accelerate. Well now you’re all ready to explain your daily complaints in a scientific way and why you’ll never pull up behind a T bus in Boston again!

Helicopter Mom Here for Good Reasons

We all know that there is this saying of how the government controls everything we do, see, and hear…  In some ways that is 100% true, even with gas mileage. Who would have ever thought?  Most of us think the government’s “helicopter mom” persona is ridiculous and always bad, but in this case it turned out, shall I say, awesome?  The guidelines from Obama’s administration have only tried to help both us as people in saving money and the world in saving gas emissions.  These new standards are supposed to lower carbon dioxide emissions from cars by 1/3 in the next 4 years, while lowering the amount of oil barrels used by 1.8 million (“Obama Unveils”).

Making a U-turn on Auto Emissions

When first reading about this it sounded like it was a bad thing, where the industry was trying to increase the gas mileage across the country to add stimulate the economy by buying gas and increasing gas prices.  That’s just my pessimistic, politics oriented brain though.  When you actually start to read the information and the regulations, you understand that is meant to be a good thing to help lower gas emissions.

One of the actions that Obama took when he came to office was to create stricter regulations in the automobile industry regarding gas mileage.  This was allowed by the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations, that began in the 1970s.  long time ago, the automobile industry would have hated this and revolted against it, but this time they were right with Obama, whether for selfish reasons or environmental reasons, it helps us all (Vlasic, “Carmakers”).  For the long-term, Obama’s new regulations require an increase from 27 miles per gallon to 54.5 mpg by 2025 (Vlasic, “Carmakers”).  For the short-term the government is hoping for an increase of 30% from 27 mpg, approximately 35.5 mpg on average for cars and light trucks (“Obama Unveils”).  These regulations were put in place for both economic and environmental reasons, to decrease consumption of and expenses on gas while at the same time decreasing the emissions into the air and, overall the negative effect that car usage has on the environment.

To meet these standards, most automobile companies have worked harder on their ‘small’ fuel-efficient and hybrid cars more than other models.  “An electric car is powered by an electric motor instead of a gasoline engine.  The electric motor gets energy from a controller, which regulates the amount of power—based on the driver’s use of an accelerator pedal. The electric car uses energy stored in its rechargeable batteries, which are recharged by common household electricity (“Electric Cars”).  While the electric car runs only on electricity, the hybrid is fueled by gasoline and uses electricity to make it more  efficient (“Electric Cars”).

We have seen electric, fuel-efficient, and hybrid cars for years already, but they keep getting better with the adjustments necessary for the failing environment.  I remember watching 7th heaven when I was in middle school and it having an electric car, something somewhat new back then.  Now you see every other person with that or a hybrid car, hoping to help the environment.  It has become one of the easiest ways to help save the environment without breaking the bank for the average person.  It ends up being a win-win situation because most people actually end up saving money with them.

In reality, much of America’s cars have already been above the standards in Miles Per Gallon.  In 2009, cars averaged 32.6 mpg, a rather large difference to the expected 27 mpg (Vlasic, “Obama Reveals”).  Knowing this, we can see that the industry has already met and exceeded the standards, and will probably keep pace with this.  But as we all know, just because the industry will be able to meet the standard, does not mean, we as consumers will see this.  More likely, we will see the cars that are up there in mileage, around 43 mpg, but not the highest (Vlasic, “Obama Reveals”).  This is because those cars will be too expensive both to manufacture and to buy, so many of the cars on the market will average 43 mpg, respectable in both mileage and most likely, price.  Either way, as these regulations get stricter, emissions will lower and the effect on the earth’s atmosphere will become less negative.

References

“Electric Cars: A Definitive Guide.” Hypbridcars.com. 2012. Web. 5 Feb 2012. < http://www.hybridcars.com/electric-car >

“Obama Unveils Mpg Rule, Gets Broad Support.” MSNBC.com. 19 May 2009. Web. 5 Feb 2012. < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810514/ns/us_news-environment/t/obama-unveils-mpg-rule-gets-broad-support/#.Ty7MUBzyH3U>

Vlasic, Bill. “Carmakers Back Strict New Rules for Gas Mileage.” New York Times. 28 July 2011. Web. 5 Feb 2012. < http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/business/carmakers-back-strict-new-rules-for-gas-mileage.html?pagewanted=all >

Vlasic, Bill. “Obama Reveals Details of Gas Mileage Rules.” New York Times. 29 July 2011. Web. 5 Feb 2012. < http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/business/energy-environment/obama-reveals-details-of-gas-mileage-rules.html >