You would think storms are a good source of water, right? It’s a natural part of the water cycle, the evaporated water coming back to replenish the rivers and streams. But in an urban environment, stormwater is actually a bad thing. The water in itself is not bad, but what happens when after it hits the ground and before it gets to streams is bad. The reason why: mort urban environments are covered in layers impervious to water. Impervious surfaces are things like concrete and asphalt that don’t let water soak through them. These materials may take up to 80% of the surfaces found in most cities. So why are impervious surfaces so bad? Well, water can’t go through them, so it has to run off of them. The problem with this is the water picks up contaminants from the street as it runs across. Streets are filled with trash, and chemical treatments. For example, think about how much salt and chemicals are put on the roads in the freezing winter temperatures. That salt can’t go through the pavement, it sits on top, waiting for water to come along and dissolve it. Once the water dissolves it, the water runs off of the pavement and into local streams and water ways.

There are two main problems. One reason why pervious ground is so superior is because the water can flow onto it and the earth (dirt, grass leaves, worms, etc.) will filter out the chemicals naturally as the water seeps lower and lower into the ground until it finally can replenish underground waterways and aquifers. With a limited amount of grassy surfaces in cities, there is not enough natural filter for all of the contaminated water; this is also one reason that a quick rain heavy rain can cause disastrous flooding in developed areas. The other problem is the infrastructure we have to collect the water fails as well. The grates below the sidewalks that water is supposed to flow into often get too full. Furthermore, when trash and debris from the streets get washed into them they get clogged and overflow. This makes more maintenance because they constantly have to be cleaned out. More work is also required to clean the water that flows into the system. The waste water management systems in cities spend a lot of money to clean the chemical-laden water that runs off of our buildings and streets.

Now that you have heard about the problem, I bet you are thinking, but wait, there is a simple solution! And you are correct, there is: instead of spending money on constant repairs of current infrastructure and spending money to clean very dirty water, spend that money to transition to greener, more efficient infrastructure. There needs to be more pervious surfaces. For example, the tops of buildings are pretty much useless, so why not cover them with a natural plant and earth filtering layer. Not only would the plants provide more oxygen, they would also decrease urban heat conditions in the summer and they would catch the water before it hit the streets and had nowhere to go. Not only do buildings make up a large portion of impervious surfaces, so do schools. Much new technology has come out recently in finding materials for playgrounds that are safe for children to play on and still permeable to water. Furthermore, schools could plant trees and shrubs as a natural fencing around their school yards while at the same time using the newly implemented infrastructure to teach children about the environment and waste water management. The final natural structure that city planners are looking to build is small grassy areas on the streets and sidewalks. For example there is the stormwater bump out (1), which is a curb that protrudes into the street either midblock or at an intersection and had plants planted there to soak up water runoff and stop erosion of the dirt underneath that will filter the extra water. Another street invention is the stormwater planter (2). This is slightly below ground level and is designed to catch runoff from the street and sidewalks. The planter is lined with a permeable fabric and filled with gravel and dirt. These planters are big enough to fit plants as well as small trees.

1. 

2. 

There are so many other water-saving methods including flow-through planters, rain gardens, rain barrels, pervious pavement, and stormwater tree-trenches. If you are interested you can go to http://www.phillywatersheds.org/what_were_doing/green_infrastructure/tools to learn more. (This is also where I got these pictures.)

There are no drawbacks to using natural infrastircture to prevent stream and freshwater contamination. These methods will cost money to implement of course, but they will save money, and the environment in the long run. A cleaner and greener Philly is in our future if we can help get these initiatives actually put into place.

A few days ago, I attended a deliberation about Healthcare at Penn State, specifically at UHS. Before attending the deliberation, I had only been to UHS once and my experience was excellent. I went onto the UHS website and easily scheduled an appointment. So the next day I went in, checked in at an automated kiosk (there were four, so I didn’t have to worry about any kind of line. I merely filled out a short survey and it instructed me on which floor I was supposed to go to. I only waited for ten minutes (I was 10 minutes early for my appointment) before my name was called. A PA talked to me right away, then a few minutes later the doctor came in with my test results, asked me a few in-depth questions about my health, and then proceeded to write me a prescription. I was out of there in about 40 minutes. I know my problem was routine but I hadn’t expected such good, efficient service.

As it turns out, not everyone’s experiences are as good as mine. In fact, it seems as though I got lucky because everyone else seemed to have a terrible experience. Many students were misdiagnosed, mistreated, or made to wait a long time. One girl had mono and they told her to still go to class where she proceeded to pass out and then she had to eventually go home because her mono got so bad because the steroids they gave her were such a low dosage. Also, the way the insurance system is run is a problem. Apparently, UHS only takes a few types of insurance and many students go in thinking they are covered then later return to see a large medical bill on their bursar account. The solution the deliberation came up with for this was to tell students explicitly which health insurances are accepted by UHS. However, personally I went online (when I was scheduling my first appointment), looked under the insurance tab and found which insurances they took. Therefore, I don’t really think that this is a problem. The real problem is that the UHS does not take all insurances that people have. It is really unfortunate that a parent can pay for insurance for their college student, then find out that their student’s college doesn’t accept it. Many people get their insurance through their work so they can’t just change their insurance to something that UHS accepts. This means that the student will have to buy Aetna insurance through UHS and that is very expensive. Therefore, the first issue we discussed was is it fair to mandate that all Penn State students to have health insurance? We decided unanimously that it was not because we thought a university shouldn’t make students be insured because some students can’t afford it, and if they want to not be insured then that is their choice. The drawback to this is that if they seek medical attention at UHS, then cannot pay the bill, other students are forced to pay the deficit in a section of their tuition. We agreed that this slight rise for everyone was better than making some students have to drop out of school for medical bills. Also in the future if Obamacare works, then everyone will have health insurance anyway.

The second topic we discussed was preventative measures for sickness. Basically the group asked us if it was important that Penn State spend money to prevent students from getting sick in hopes of healthier students in the long run who make less trips to UHS. We decided that preventative options are important but the University cannot be expected to change the lifestyles of unhealthy students. Penn State already has ample opportunities to better the health of students. First of all they have multiple gyms, they have nutritional information on all the food in the buffets, and they have dozens of clubs who give out things like free condoms. The only thing that we thought the university could do better was to clean the bathrooms and community spaces a little bit better. Students who share bathrooms with a whole floor can’t be expected to clean their shared spaces, therefore Penn State staff should be responsible for disinfecting things more often. And an interesting idea that one student came up with was to get sports and health-food companies to sponsor Penn State students in a program much like the app Pocket Points. The idea was to use an app to clock a student’s time spent in the gym and each minute would contribute to a score which could ultimately qualify them for discounts on things that they want to buy that are healthy like 15% off of protein powder down at GNC or a free cliff bar or something.

The last thing that we deliberated was efficiency and how UHS could be more efficient. People complained about three hour wait times then later revealed to the group that they didn’t actually have an appointment. If you go to any hospital without an appointment I guarantee you will have to wait that long. Also they talked about lack of appointment times, which there is no way to fix other that have UHS staying open longer. It would be nice if UHS had more hours during the week and weekends however the cost of that would not even be feasible. As you may have gathered from my previous recount of my trip to UHS I don’t see efficiency as a true problem and therefore I do not know how to solve it. Some members of the group agreed with me saying no matter what health care center or hospital you go to, there will always be some sort of wait; if there wasn’t then sometimes the doctors would have nothing to do and time and money would be wasted. In my opinion, the group holding it did not come up with a difficult type two or three problem and their organization was also a bit confusing. I do however think that the group members were very knowledgeable, prepared, and did a good job facilitating the event. The discussion was also very open and everyone felt comfortable speaking (which is a lot more than you can say about how my deliberation went!). I learned a lot, enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories and opinions, and overall had an excellent time.

First, what is global warming?

Basically, a layer of greenhouse gases (primarily water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) absorb infrared radiation and trap heat inside the atmosphere of the earth (like a blanket) and it causes the surface to be a little bit warmer.

Methane is a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide. However, methane negatively effects the climate 23 times more than carbon dioxide does. So what does this have to do with cows? Well, cow gas and manure contains a lot of methane. All ruminants, or animals that regurgitate their food and then re-chew it produce methane.  Combined, these animals emit about two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.

On average, a cow releases 70-120 kg of methane per year. So after doing the math, if a cow produces 100 kg of methane in a year, that equals 2,300 kg of carbon dioxide. But how much is 2,300 kg of carbon dioxide?

The average car had to drive 7,800 miles to produce 2,300 kg of carbon dioxide. That means you could drive 7,800 miles per year and produce the same effect on the environment that a cow does in one year of just pooping.

The average American drives 13,476 miles per year (according to the Federal Highway Administration).

So two cows have a larger carbon footprint than the average American driver.

There are about 1.5 billion cows and bulls on the earth right now.

In 2011 the number of cars reached 1 billion in the world (sorry I can’t find anything more recent than 2011).

Therefore (if I did my math right): All of the cows on the planet make ¾ as much green house emmisons as all of the cars on the planet make.

However, that is only compared to the cars that people drive personally, that does not account for all of the planes, trains, and trucks that are constantly transporting people and goods around the world.

The official statistic that I found was from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said: agriculture is responsible for 18% of the total release of greenhouse gases worldwide. (This is more than the whole transportation sector).

There is another reason why this number is so large that I have yet to mention: with all of these cows, there is a need for more land for them to graze. The clearing of tropical rain forests to get more grazing land is responsible for another 2.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Livestock take up 30% of the earth’s entire land surface. Plus, 33% of all farm land is used for producing food for livestock.

In Latin America, about 70 % of former forests in the Amazon have been cleared for grazing. Having more cows leads to the production of more greenhouse gases and having more cows leads to less trees and forests. But trees and forests are essential because they are what removes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air! Basically cows are harming the environment from two angles.

But why are there so many cows that this has actually become a problem? Today more people have more money to buy more food. There has been a considerable increase (62% since 1963) in the available food consumption of meat worldwide. While many developed countries meat consumption has stayed relatively stable, there has been an increase in developing countries. Most developing countries such as Brazil, have seen a threefold increase, but China has seen a dramatic ninefold increase in their total meat consumption. (Kearney J., Food consumption trends and drivers. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 2010; 365:2793–807.)

A Japanese study showed that producing one kilogram of beef leads to the emission of greenhouse gases with a global warming potential equivalent to 36.4 kg of carbon dioxide.

It is also interesting to note that it also consumes 169 mega joules of energy. This is enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Table: http://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2 (Take this table with a grain of salt; I don’t know how reliable this source is, I just wanted to capture the overall trend.)

So what conclusions can we gain from this?

While it is not a fact that cows are the cause of global warming, it is a fact that they contribute considerably to the amount of greenhouse gases emitted. What we also know for sure is that it is environmentally friendly to eat less meat and dairy products. It is one of the simple ways that you can reduce your own personal carbon footprint and your own negative impact on the environment.

For my environmental issue today, I will talk about fresh water and how it is a limited resource. There are rarely stories in the news about water shortages until there is a drought, but it is a fact that right now, globally we are using almost all of our fresh water. Plus, it is estimated that we would need 3.5 planet Earths to sustain the global population if everyone used as much water as the average European or North American.

Globally, about 75% of all freshwater use is devoted to agriculture. Many rivers and arid regions have been reduced to trickles by the diversion of water for irrigation. This negatively impacts the plants and animals that use this water.

Surprisingly, the primary source of irrigation water is not surface water but underground water reserves called aquifers.

In many parts of the world, including the U.S., the rate of water removal is exceeding the rate that the aquifers naturally refill themselves.

The result is land subsidence, which is a gradual settling, or sudden sinking of the Earth’s surface.

Here is a picture depicting land subsidence:

The land in year 1925 used to be all the way up to the very top of the very tall telephone pole shown here in the picture.

This is a scary sight. Land subsidence has many terrible impacts on the environment and therefore humans. Land subsidence alters drainage patterns, causes damage to human structures, contributes to loss of underground springs, and increases the risk of flooding. Many times when you hear about a sink hole in an area, this is its cause.

Irrigation from underground water can also cause soil salinization, or the addition of salts to the soil that make it too salty to raise crops. Obviously this is really bad!

Many people and farmers are very aware of the water shortage and are trying new techniques to conserve water.

For example, irrigating crops by the flooding of fields is extremely wasteful, because the water evaporates. Therefore to use to water more efficiently many farmers use the technology of drip irrigation. If the farmers understand the water holding capacity of their soil and the water needs of their crops, they can slowly release the perfect amount of water into the soil drip by drip. There are plastic tubes also covering the dirt in order to decrease evaporation rates.

There are many ways in which regular people, and not only farmers can conserve water. There are obvious ways that we all know to use less water, for example: taking shorter showers, turning off the water when brushing your teeth, using high efficiency dishwashers and washing machines, and general things like that.

But there are some unique ways to save water that you might not be familiar with:

1. When cleaning out fish tanks, use the nutrient-rich water to water your non-edible plants.
2. Use a rain barrel to harvest rainwater from gutters for watering gardens and landscapes.
3. Put buckets in your shower to catch the extra water and then use that water to water your plants (try not to get soapy water in the buckets).