The need for fuel has always been strong, and still continues to be so to this day.  So ways to to get to and transport the fuel would follow as well. The Keystone pipeline is just the proposed method to transport the fuel, but regardless it is still part of the bigger picture of the debate going on.

Mainly, the two sides are that the Keystone pipeline would mean harm to the environment and that it wouldn’t be an effective source of energy, while the other side says that it would be economically beneficial and safe.

For the side against Keystone, they bring up some valid points that you’d actively need to clear away things to get to the resource, which would effectively mean tearing up the land and changing it drastically. All of this would be done to get at a resource that apparently causes large amounts of pollution and does not make up for the “energy” spent to get to it in the first place. This also brings into question, why do we continue to go for these resources instead of trying to go toward cleaner energy. There is also the fact that not only will the land be severely affected, but so will people, animals, and plant life. The Keystone pipeline would take up a vast amount of land, which may displace a large number of those mentioned.

As for the side against Keystone, yes, the economy is important. The project would provide jobs, and in turn money for those around it, but does this necessarily make up for the cons and the risk involved? The fact that the designers say that it’s perfectly safe, and that there would be no chance of a leak is dubious to say the least. It’s almost like what they said about the “unsinkable” Titanic, and everyone knows how that turned out. The fact is, there is always a chance for something to fail, so the possibility shouldn’t be ruled out.

Overall, the Keystone Pipeline does present some opportunities and benefits, but they don’t seem to make up for the cons and risks that may occur.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/jane-kleeb-vs-the-keystone-pipeline.html

http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/

http://www.foe.org/projects/climate-and-energy/tar-sands/keystone-xl-pipeline

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/17/the-keystone-xl-fight-is-highly-partisan-unless-you-live-near-the-proposed-pipeline-route/

The trip the the Museum of Science was quite enlightening, especially with certain exhibits and displays.

For this display, it presented an issue that most households may face. That fact that households would lose via radiation through windows. The loss of heat equates to loss of energy, since it would require more energy to generate heat to replace the ones lost. At this image shows, one side has plain glass, while the other is the special E Glass, which reflects back more heat than the plain glass.

This reflection of heat is important in that it goes back into the room rather than out. This means that less heat is lost, and more energy is saved, which is the most important thing.

In regards to this display, I would rate these bulbs on a scale of 1-10. 1 being the best, and 10 being the worst. LED would be 1, since it requires less turns of the wheel, at a slow pace. CFL comes second at 4, requiring a couple more turns at a slightly faster pace. Finally, the incandescent comes in a a whooping 15, yes, 15. I lost count at how many turns done, and my arm hurt after I had only got a moderate glow from the bulb. This tells me that it uses a ton of energy to even light up.

When considering my group experiment dealing with light bulbs, this gets relatively important in that we’re using so much energy without really realizing it. While the heat generated by the bulbs clues us in, the display showed just how big an impact was made.

Energy is very important, as shown by the previous images. It helps to generate heat and light, but it is not infinite. This is what makes electricity generation just as important, since supply needs to be made to meet up with demand. What helps with the generation is the kind of structure that is being used. As with conservation of energy, what’s used greatly helps.

In the three images dealing with wind turbines, there are 5 in total, with the energy generated being shown by 2 of them. As it can plainly be seen, the former wind turbine generates far more electricity  than the latter.

When you consider everything discussed about above, planning and structuring an experiment can depend solely what it’s made of. Any knowledge can be used to further improve it. This can range from what type of materials are used, or how the experiment is done.

Trading spouses was a show that I used to watch, and enjoyed quite well when it first came out. I was young, and didn’t care much about any particulars, as long as it’s interesting. Now, after I’ve watched the episode, I cringe (and also laugh at the notion that this actually happened.

Why do I cringe, well some of the things are presented in a way that just makes it seem too “out there”. To outsiders, it really may be strange to them, unless you have some background information. Namely, I am familiar with some Jewish practices, so the fact that they don’t use electricity on one day, or that they separate everything dealing with food, does not surprise me. As a film studies major, I realized that editing made something that I was familiar with suddenly become over the top.

The same somewhat happened with the other family’s practices. While their religious practices don’t get much focus as the Jewish practices, the times anything related to it seem heavily forced. The hunting scene also seemed to be a bit much, but upon reading some guidelines regarding raccoon hunting, they were within them. It’s just that the scene was edited in a way that made it seem terrible. One such note was that the cries of the raccoon was clear and loud, almost as if they specifically sought out the sound itself.

Sound, as well as how scenes are cut together makes a different story depends on what music or sound effects are used, and also the order of where the cuts are placed. Dramatic or tense music will paint the scene to play out that way.

Aside from the way things were presented through editing, one thing really stood out through it all. I find it very coincidental that the Rabbi happened to visit right when there was a party going on.

Overall, mostly the things that seemed fake were that visiting Rabbi, and general impression being made. While there might have been more fabricated things, as a third party, I can’t really say much else.

Demand Response – Programs that allow consumers to be rewarded for using less energy during times when energy is in high demand.

These kinds of programs are very useful and important to high energy use areas. The main reason being is that energy is not infinite, and also cannot be stored in large quantities. This means that during periods of high use for energy, the supply cannot meet the demand. It also means that even if excess energy is made in times where energy use is low, it cannot be stored away for future use.

Of course not many people would go out of their way to do something for nothing, thus the reward is an incentive for them to do so. The reward being  money, or something of monetary value.

In total, this is a voluntary based program that offers a reward for participating, and is more efficient in the long run, both money and time wise. This comes from the fact that, yes, more power plants can be built to help contribute to the supply, but that in itself requires several things. Those things being places to put the power plants, money to get the workers and building materials, and then time to build them. This is in contrast with just using what already exists, and a good number of people participating in the program.

While more energy isn’t being made during this process, it simply means that the unused energy will be directed elsewhere. That is a better outcome than everyone using a lot of energy when there is less than the demand, resulting in a black out, or something equally worse. Really, the only “con” than can be taken from this is that you may not get AC during heatwaves, or something.

Overall, giving up some energy use during the specific periods of high demand is a lesser sacrifice, when compared to the potential to lose it all, or having to pitch in money, time, and resources to get more.

http://demandresponse.nrg.com/demand-response

http://www.enernoc.com/our-resources/term-pages/what-is-demand-response

http://www.pge.com/en/mybusiness/save/energymanagement/whatisdr/index.page

Trying to come up with an experiment idea shouldn’t be too hard, and yet it was. While there are so many things to test out and experiment with, trying to find an idea within a set category, and then figuring out how to implement an experiment based on it was problematic. Mainly the fact that “oh, we have an idea…how do we test it” was the general issue that was had. There was also the fact that when we did come across an idea, and sort of figured out how to try it out, the concept had already been taken.

This lead to more agonizing and scrambling to try to find something to do. I use these terms very loosely. Eventually, we did come to a suitable experiment to do. This was after we stayed certain to the theme of “sustainability”, and then focused on solar energy. A basic Google search helped to finished things off. This experiment was edited to fit the materials that were on hand, and also to possibly save time in the long run.

http://www.education.com/science-fair/article/heat-produced-from-light-bulbs/

We went through several edits before coming to one that was reasonable. These changes included omitting materials listed on the website, changing the amount of certain materials, and  changing the time period where the light would hit the thermometer, or in this case a temperature probe.

On the site, it says wait 5 minutes, we changed it to 1 minute because we felt it was too long of a wait. We soon realized that this was too short of a time frame, and increased the time to 2 minutes. The same problem was encountered once again, and thus we changed it back to 5 minutes, where the temperature did steadily rise. This was all tested with the 13 W bulb, which we knew did produce heat because an attempt was made to unscrew it from the lamp right after it was turned off. The bulb was hot and thus does produce some heat.

An obvious thing to have considered was that things take time to heat up, even when the heat source is just inches away from the probe. Overall, most the time was spent working out all the kinks, from changing aspects of the procedure, to trying to work out the LabView program that was used to record all the data.

In the end, we did get some things from this cluster of confusion. Namely that, everything works, and that even the lowest wattage bulb produces heat. Whether more wattage means more heat is left to be figured out when the entirety of the experiment is done.

(A copy of the lab worksheet is featured below)

Experiment: What type of bulb and wattage produces the most heat?

Purpose: This experiment conveys the importance of efficiency in relation to sustainability. In order to limit the impact of energy use on the environment, it is important to make educated choices about what products you use, and how you use them. This experiment will show us what type of bulb and what wattage produces the most heat, and this may show which bulb is more efficient to use.

Materials:
A lamp that can use various light bulbs, and where it’s light can be directed in one direction.
3 Light bulbs with different Wattage (150W, 43W, 13W)
3 Thermometers (Temperature probes)
Measuring tape or ruler
Stopwatch (or anything that can be used as a timer)
LabView program that records temperature.

Procedure:
1. Clip lamp on edge of table.

2. Screw in one of the light bulbs. Be sure that the lamps is unplugged and turned off. Also note what type of light bulb you are screwing in.

3. Lay down a 15 inch ruler, from base of clamp lamp. (1 being near clamp)
4.  Put thermometer tip at the 6 inch mark. (see picture)

5. Bend lamp to be 3 inches over the thermometer.
6. Turn the lamp on and start the stopwatch as soon as the light turns on.

7. Once 5 minutes have passed, take note of the temperature on the thermometer.

8. Turn the lamp off, and let the bulb cool a little before unscrewing it.

9. Switch to another thermometer before continuing on with the experiment.

10. Repeat steps 2-9 until all the remaining light bulbs have been tested.

N.B

– Let the light bulbs cool down so that you don’t burn yourself

– Make sure that the distance between the bulb and the thermometer remains the same for each test.

– Make sure the lamps is unplugged and turned off when switching bulbs. You don’t want to blind yourself.

The lab sheet itself may be subject to change after this post.

In class, we did an experiment revolving around Faraday’s Law. This law states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generates electricity. The larger the change in magnetic flux, the more electricity that will be produced.

Since the magnet passing through the coils is what produces the electricity, then how many times the magnet passes through the coils would determine would determine how much us produced. In theory, the more times the magnet passes through, meaning faster shakes would mean more electricity, while the less times it passes through due to slower shakes would mean less electricity.

From this, the independent variable would be the “shakes” while the dependent variable would be  the level of electricity produced.

The control would be no shakes, so that there is a baseline to work off of, From here, set paces for shakes would be determined, while the number of times the “generator” is shaken.  In this case the generator is a shake light.

Here are the results:

From looking at these results, there are some issues to be seen. This can be a result from several things, which would be human and equipment error.

The human error would be that the shaking is done by human hands, and isn’t precise in shaking at an exact speed. As for equipment, the electricity is measured at certain points, but that doesn’t mean it measures it when the magnet is passing the coils, when the change in magnetic flux is happening. As a result, nothing is perfectly done, but nevertheless, a clear picture is made.

There is a positive correlation. As the amount of shakes increases, so does the electricity for the most part. While this experiment wasn’t without it’s faults, it does answer the question of whether more shakes means more electricity.

So much time has passed since cars were first made. They have continued to be remade and improved. Although, cars aren’t the only things that have changed. Technology and standards have also made changes with the passage of time.

With time, people have become more aware of consequences that can potentially arise from their actions, and will most likely get worse if left attended. This is most likely where the stricter standards come in place, and while they don’t directly help increase gas mileage, they help push for it. For if the standards had remained as lax as they were decades ago, cars today would probably be so much different.

As it is, they are what they are today, and continue on more positive path. Technology has helped shape the cars further along that direction. Things such as batteries and complex engines are more readily available. They help to lessen the amount of gas used.

Technology isn’t the only thing to help lessen the need for fuel. Car design and weight also come into play as well. A more aerodynamic design produces less drag, allowing the car to go to higher speeds without consuming more fuel. Weight also creates it’s own drag, and less weight equates to less consumption. Of course there are big and small cars, with small cars being the big choice to go with when considering gas mileage, as they will obviously weigh less than big cars. This can easily be managed by using lighter materials to make the cars, which really help both big and small cars.

Overall, everything is evolving all at once, some faster than others. Although what really matters is the future. These changes create a sort of safeguard, where the will be less pollution, and a lesser need for fuel.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/cars-in-the-u-s-are-more-fuel-efficient-than-ever-heres-how-it-happened/

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/auto-industry-makes-strides-toward-improving-fuel-economy/article_2d050408-95db-561b-97fc-b84c708829d4.html

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/auto-industry-makes-strides-toward-improving-fuel-economy/article_2d050408-95db-561b-97fc-b84c708829d4.html

The topic concerning health seems to be coming up a lot lately, of course, everyone has worries about health. Sickness and disease are the main enemies against health, not including death, which is just an end. People can’t do anything against the end, but they can at least do something about sickness and disease.

There are many ways to try to prevent oneself from getting an illness, and vaccines are just the direct way of doing so. Although vaccines are not a definite guarantee, they help to increase the odds in people’s favor. Despite that, some people decide not to take those vaccines due to various things, ranging from religious beliefs to personal beliefs.

Most choices in life come with pros and cons, some weigh heavily to one side. This also contributes to why people decide not to the vaccinations. The people who are against vaccinations believe the cons outweigh the pros. They hear that vaccinations increase the chance of autism, and that even if you are vaccinated, you can still get the sickness. So in their minds, they avoid something risky, and nothing changes about the situation.

Unfortunately, they don’t consider the consequences of what should happen if they get the sickness. Measles can lead to brain damage, or other sicknesses, which can ultimately lead to death.  From this, the considerations should be changed from “chance to get autism vs chance not to get sickness,” to “chance of death vs chance of not getting sick.”

While autism in itself is not much of a good thing, when weighed against death, it’s the lesser of two evils, but that assuming that vaccinations do lead to autism. At present, there isn’t much to support the claim. All that needs to be considered is what vaccinations entail.

Yes they do have some side effects depending on the people, no they don’t guarantee protection, but the when weighing the sides again, those small side effects don’t compare to the consequences. There is also the matter of probability to think about. A person’s chances of being protected is in the high ninety percent, while the chance of getting it is less than five percent.

For example, there are balls in a jar labeled 1-100. 1-5 are the losing numbers, and the rest are winning numbers. The chance to get the losing numbers is there, but you’re more likely to get the winning numbers. The vaccines are what give people these chances, and to not take them simply leaves you with worse chances.

To summarize, vaccines entail higher protection chance, uncertain chance for increased autism, and small side effects. While measles presents no real benefits, brain damage, death, and other possible negative things.

There is not much to lose from taking vaccinations.

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/measles-outbreak-swells-121-cases-year-cdc/story?id=28830089

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/02/11/measles-outbreak-in-dollars-and-cents-it-costs-taxpayers-bigtime/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/02/09/measles-outbreak-spreads-to-three-more-states-121-people-now-affected/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/measles-outbreak-vaccine-questions_n_6648086.html

As the saying goes, any help is better than no help, but it seems it’s not the action of helping that really matters, rather it’s how much that help really contributes to the situation.  One question that is easily answered, is that yes, the aid that the US sent is doing something.

With the US aid, there is more money for supplies, more people to help, and the potential for countless more people to join up. No one can say that all of this aid is not helping, because without it, well there would be no gain in the situation. The people that would benefit from the aid, would have found themselves in worse situations had the aid not existed in the first place. The same would go for the supplies, there would be even less to go around with the extra funding.

Then there are the amount of people. With Ebola being  contagious, the people helping can find themselves in need of help, thus cutting the amount of people helping in the effort. This aid of 3000 people, along with the intent to train more people leads to more people helping the cause against Ebola.

Despite all of this, there are some that don’t see all the progress that’s been made. Instead some doubt it all, or simply argue that it’s not enough. There’s just so much wrong with those statements that it seems perpetual cynicism is in place. They don’t seem to see any good in what’s been done, and it makes them seem somewhat impatient.

As stated, change will not happen immediately. A plant will not grow immediately after the seeds have been sown.  While it’s true that there are many people suffering from Ebola, but no amount of money or troops will instantly make things better.

Taking a step back, considering the situation, and waiting, one will see that US aid is making a difference, and that’s good enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/world/africa/obama-to-announce-expanded-effort-against-ebola.html

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-ebola-us-africa-20141117-story.html#page=1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-military-to-lead-ebola-fight/2014/09/15/69db3da0-3d32-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html

The topic of GMOs is an interesting one, but it’s not something I would really concern myself with.  Despite that, the article written by Amy Harmon presents all the beliefs and thoughts revolving around it. The main things that seem to be important are people who don’t support the bill, people who do support it, and people who are unsure about it all.

The supporting and nonsupporting people both present reasons that are entirely justifiable. Concerns of health and concerns of money are things that everyone are more than likely to face at least once in their lifetime.

For the health concerns, no one wants their health to decline. The notion is further supported if people know  they can prevent the decline by altering something. In this case, it would be removing GMOs from the picture entirely. This solution may make the difference if GMOs really do cause all the negative health issues, but it still doesn’t change one particular consequence.

Namely, money. As it is said in the article, GMOs are in a variety of foods, and one particular GMO is grown and attributed to that area, which is the Rainbow Papaya. While the papaya won’t all be removed, with such a large majority against GMOs, the economy is affected, and it’s not the small businesses that are the only thing affected. With so many things containing GMOs, a lot of major businesses who use them also affected.

Making the choice between the two would undoubtedly be difficult to make, as Greggor Ilagan clearly showed. The decision is even more difficult to make because like almost everything, there are flaws. The supporter’s “evidence” is flawed in that the evidence is possibly not credible, even the non-supporters stance is flawed in that there may be ulterior motives. The article itself is also flawed, and almost seems skewed toward not supporting the bill to ban.

The article puts the supporters in a somewhat negative light, but overall, they do present key things. The important thing is getting attention to GMOs, and the secondary things are things that revolve around it. While GMOs aren’t detailed in what their effects are, readers can take the initiative just like Illagan.