I am intending to use WordPress to establish my e-portfolio website. This is because it is foundationally the same as the psu.edu blog site we use. Because WordPress is the site that allows us to create our psu.edu blog site, I have a strong degree of familiarity with it from working within the program over the last two years.
In terms of my general organisation of the site, I would like to categories my tabs by topics and then filter in my work throughout these topics. The tabs I have in mind are: Fencing, International Baccalaureate, Scouting, Environment, and Resume. A lot of my writings and themes in college have revolved around these topics and these first four things have played a major role in shaping me into who I am.
For the advocacy project, I figure I might as well keep to the topic of my issue brief. I believe it is a very real issue with a very real possibility of implementation. To say it explicitly, I would advocate for Penn State to use LED lights in all future renovations and construction. I would probably do this in the form of the recorded speech. I’m not entirely sure about the level of specificity required for the intended audience but I believe looking within the PSU community is necessary. Perhaps I could direct my speech towards the intended audience of the architecture firm involved in designing ‘X’ building.
A Portrait of Abuse is a piece of advocacy. This work brings light to an issue that the author herself said is typically pushed under the rug. The images featured within the work vividly depict domestic abuse in a negative light. From an ethical standpoint, I believe this is sound. The domestic abuse would have happened regardless of the photographer present so at least it was documented with the intent of preventing abuse in the future.
I changed the intro a bit to make it more specific to relevant policy, it still needs more exigency, I plan on pressing climate approach.
LEDs: Penn State’s Power Saving Shift
Penn State is always in the process of renovating and upgrading buildings around campus. Within the 2019-2020 year alone Penn State was doing some degree of construction on ten residence halls across all five residence areas. Penn State is currently doing either renovations or reconstruction of three teaching spaces. The newest completed project on campus is the 193,000 square foot chemical and biomedical engineering, with a budget of 144 million one would think this lab space would be an environmentally conscious structure. However, this building lacks a key and dare I say easy, enhancement. It utilizes incandescent light bulbs, which are less efficient than their LED counterparts when it comes to light output per energy used. The designs are done up for all of Penn State’s construction for the next three years, but one thing is certain, Penn State construction will never stop. Penn State needs to better implement LED lighting systems into all our buildings, regardless of age.
The Green New Deal is a piece of potential legislation that calls for an extreme change in American Life. The GND primarily proposes the idea that the United States will be greenhouse gas neutral and on 100% renewable energy by 2030, however, this comes at an extremely high cost. Similar to FDR’s New Deal, the GND excludes a plethora of socialist reform ideas, classified as an “Economic Bill of Rights” which includes: the right to single-payer healthcare, a guaranteed job at a living wage, affordable housing, and free college education. These legislative reforms go beyond environmental protection and act as an economic stimulus. The GND premiered through the Green Party in 2015 and was featured in Jill Stein’s presidential platform. In light of recent global climate studies, the GND has since found itself implemented into mainstream democratic platforms, with all 7 of the remaining democratic nominees for 2020 supporting or cosponsoring the legislation.
Economics and efficiency
From an economic standpoint, It is estimated that a GND transition would cost anywhere from 8.3-12.3 trillion dollars, or the equivalent of $52,000 to $72,000 per household, this obviously isn’t feasible in the form of taxation, even over a 10 year period. This level of government subsidisation hasn’t occurred proportionally on a scale of this magnitude since World War II. World War II effectively pulled the United States out of the Great Depression. The problem here is that the Government Debt would have to increase by several trillion dollars to finance this bill, and with that, we risk hyperinflation and crashing the stock market. Of course, economically speaking, a viable alternative to the Green New Deal would be a massive Carbon Tax on companies, make the tax high enough and companies will find a more environmentally friendly way to function. Implementing a carbon tax appears more feasible in today’s gridlocked legislator.
Environmentally speaking, 100% renewable energy by 2030 is an appealing idea at its core, but definitely far off. In 2017 only 11% of our energy was renewable and 9% was nuclear. The GND holds seven environmental objectives:
In addition to its large price tag, a criticism of the GND is that it suffers from a collective action problem. The reforms and pro-environment economic movement of the GND would only take place domestically. The United States accounts for 15% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Assuming the United States went Net-0, a 15% carbon dioxide reduction would not be sufficient to stop the snowballing degradation of our climate.
The GND is a solid example of the first round of legislation aimed at saving the environment. There is no easy answer to this, AOC said it best by saying, “ “So people are like: ‘Oh, it’s unrealistic. Oh, it’s vague. Oh, it doesn’t address this little minute thing.’ And I am like, ‘You try! You do it!’”
Topics to explore
The price of retrofitting (changing from Incandescent to LED)
The payback period
Learning under LED versus Incandescent (Light color?)
BANERJEE, ONIL, et al. “AN ECONOMY-WIDE ANALYSIS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY IN BANGLADESH.” Climate Change Economics, vol. 6, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/climchanecon.6.1.03.
Penn State is always in the process of renovating and upgrading buildings around campus. Within the 2019-2020 year alone Penn State was doing some degree of construction on ten residence halls across all five residence areas. Penn State is currently doing either renovations or reconstruction of three teaching spaces. The newest completed project on campus is the 193,000 square foot chemical and biomedical engineering, with a budget of 144 million one would think this lab space would be an environmentally conscious structure. From an environmental perspective, this building maximises its heating efficiency within the space but has minimal retrofitting for sourcing renewable energy or minimising energy usage. The designs are done up for all of Penn State’s construction for the next three years, but one thing is certain, Penn State construction will never stop. Penn State’s next round of construction needs to include the construction of buildings that are more environmentally friendly. It is both economically and environmentally beneficial for Penn State to build and renovate buildings with their environmental affect in mind.
I took part in the Standardised Testing Reform Deliberation and a deliberation discussing Political Correctness and Cancel Culture. These deliberations were both dramatically different in tone and approach. Both deliberations were met with similar problems, the stakeholders represented were fairly homogenous. In the Standardised Testing Deliberation, the audience and facilitators were exclusively younger Penn State Students. In the Political Correctness Deliberation, the cluster of students was exclusively Penn State Students as well. This deliberation also could play into one political ideology and I believe the room here was fairly vocal in its left-leaning disposition. Because in both these deliberations only one style of stakeholder was represented, I feel it impaired our ability to address criterion #5, Make the best decision possible. In both situations, we made the best decision possible for the stakeholders present as opposed to taking into account all the stakeholders.
A strength of both Deliberations was definitely on the front of the Social Processes involved. Neither Deliberation took a nasty turn and an air of respect and acknowledgment was present in both. The Political Correctness Deliberation was a much larger group, fifty-plus probably, and yet it was still held in a manner that adequately distributed speaking opportunities. I believe this was possible because the room was large enough to allow everyone to sit in a circle and moderators were placed sporadically throughout the ring. Mutual Comprehension and respect for participants were strengths of both deliberations as well, I think this aided by the moderators coming out in the beginning and establishing ground rules that instilled respect. The Political Correctness Deliberation and Standardised Testing Deliberation represented a limited range of key values which more or less listed or named instead of prioritized. The Standardised Testing Deliberation liked the ideas of independence and best representing the student above all else, approaches that appealed to this were prioritized. The Standardised Testing Deliberation appealed to the value of respect above free speech. It is hard to prioritise multiple or conflicting values when you have room for similar stakeholders. In conclusion, both these deliberations were interesting experiments and were overall successfully moderated conversations on important issues but were plagued by like-minded consensus.
Shifting to renewable energy is no longer a premium pricing out option, but instead a necessity. Renewable energy is both infinite and not a greenhouse gas distributor, ensuring longevity in support. Renewable energy is the most affordable it has ever been and the price to yield ratio across the board has begun seeing diminishing returns for cost efficiency. This suggests that renewable energy, barring any major breakthroughs, renewable energy sources aren’t expected to get any cheaper in the short-term. We don’t have time to wait for the long term, perfectly optimised renewable energy given our current climate situation. More people jumping on the renewable energy bandwagon would promote investment in this field potentially increasing its efficiency despite predictions. Many architecture firms are proposing their projects to stakeholders with a Net-0 or energy positive alternative while still arriving at the same budget, this is occurring at the moment for Farmington, CT’s new high school.
Audience
Everyone is a stakeholder because we are about to have a very intimate encounter with climate change. The primary audience this shift is addressed to would-be middle to upper-class global citizens. This is because it is still cheaper from a monetary perspective, not an environmental perspective, to rely on nonrenewable fossil fuels. With this in mind it is unrealistic to ask everyone to partake in this shift at this time. Climate Change poses a strong collective action problem that can only be solved through global cooperation and coordination.
The Kyoto Protocol was the first international climate agreement. The Protocol was first adopted by Kyoto, Japan in 1997 with the objective of reducing CO2 emissions. Unlike the other climate agreements that have been evaluated thus far, the Kyoto Protocol didn’t leave concrete entry space or guidelines for developing countries to join in.
This piece of climate legislation was on the stricter side given the political time period it was ratified in. Under the Protocol Developed, industrialized countries made promises to reduce their annual hydrocarbon emissions by an average of 5.2% by the year 2012. Collectively this number would represent about 29% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Countries still set their own individual hydrocarbon emission goals. The European Union, and the countries it is comprised of, pledged to cut emissions by 8% while the U.S. and Canada promised to reduce their emissions by 7% all by 2012.
What made the Kyoto Protocol so strict was that If a country emitted more hydrocarbons than its arbitrary goal allowed, then that country would be penalized by being forced to take a harder emissions goal the following goal period. In practice, this would mean that if the United States only managed to reduce greenhouse emission by 6% in 2012, and our goal was 7%, then the following year they would be asked to reduce it by 8% by 2020.
Unlike some of the other agreements evaluated thus far, the Kyoto Protocol allowed Carbon Trading which is the practice of buying and selling carbon emission permits. This meant that a country could pay another country to take some of their carbon reduction goal if they were going to fail to reach it. It was effectively a carbon tax on goals that wouldn’t be met.
When the first round of hydrocarbon goals came to end in 2012, a net negative environmental impact still occurred. Hydrocarbon emissions were still on the rise. The European Union and its conglomerate managed to meet their goals but both the United States and China fell short, both of whom happen to be the largest carbon-emitting countries. They produced enough greenhouse gases to mitigate any of the progress that was made by nations who met their targets. Ultimately, there was an increase of about 40% in hydrocarbon emissions globally between 1990 and 2009.
In December of 2012, the Doha Amendment was ratified which marked the beginning of the second goal period with new goals assigned. This was a short-lived amendment because in 2015 the United Nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement which had a more feasible framework and acted as a stronger guide for the countries involved.
Work Cited
Clark, Duncan. “Has the Kyoto Protocol Made Any Difference to Carbon Emissions?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 26 Nov. 2012, www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/nov/26/kyoto-protocol-carbon-emissions.
The Paris Agreement is a monumental environmental accord that has been adopted by 197 nations, present company excluded, with the goal of mitigating climate change. This is done by attempting to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The primary goal of this accord is two-fold, first and foremost it is to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees celsius, when compared to preindustrial levels. Secondly, it aims to provide the framework to ultimately limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. What makes this climate accord unique is that countries set their own emission goals based on what they believe is feasible. This accord also has parameters for developed countries, the primary greenhouse gas emitters, to assist developing countries in establishing environmentally sustainable infrastructure.
The United States chose to remove ourselves from the Paris Climate Accord on the basis of it potentially costing upwards of $3 trillion dollars by 2045 and a potential loss of 2.7 million jobs, these numbers were based on a study done in March 2017 which has since debunked. This March 2017 study drastically overestimated the pricing and potential job loss for the United States. More recent studies have suggested that the cost of climate inaction far outweighs the cost of reducing carbon pollution. Studies have suggested the opposite in fact, instead proposing that if the United States failed to meet its Paris climate goals, it could cost the economy as much as $6 trillion in the next 20 years. On a global front, the Worldwide GDP could fall more than 25% by the centuries end, if the goals of the accord aren’t met. By abiding by and over exceeding the Paris climate goals, through more efficient and sustainable infrastructure and clean energy, the global returns on this are projected to be upwards of $19 trillion.
With 197 nations involved, this is the largest climate saving legislative accord ever established. What has deterred large scale climate change in the past has been the problem of collective action. This is the belief that because country x is C02 minimising, and hurting themselves economically, country y, who isn’t being environmentally conscious will gain an economic advantage. The accord reflects the global reflective belief of the 197 nations involved that climate change is up to us to fight. This casts America’s climate change sceptics, Trump included, in the hot seat, by identifying them as global outliers.
Climate change is the result of human action. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which is the leading international scientific body studying climate change, the concentration of these greenhouse gases has increased substantially since preindustrial times to a peak that has not been seen in at least 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to climate change, is up by 40 percent, nitrous oxide is up by 20 percent, and methane is up by an astronomical 150 percent since 175. All of this is primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels. The IPCC says it’s, “extremely likely” that these increased emissions to blame for the rise in global temperatures since the 1950s. On top of all of this, deforestation and forest degradation, have limited our climate’s ability to combat this increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Participation in the Paris Climate Accord is voluntary and countries can choose their degree of participation and the ambitiousness of their greenhouse gas reduction goals. Studies have shown that with the current climate goals in place, the accord will fail to meet its limiting increase of 2 degrees celsius by the end of the century.
Citations:
Burke, Marshall, et al. “Large Potential Reduction in Economic Damages under UN Mitigation Targets.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 23 May 2018, www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9.
Denchak, Melissa. “Paris Climate Agreement: Everything You Need to Know.” NRDC, NRDC, 2 Dec. 2019, www.nrdc.org/stories/paris-climate-agreement-everything-you-need-know.
Romm, Joe. “Trump’s Abandonment of Paris Climate Deal to Cost U.S. Economy Trillions, New Study Reveals.” ThinkProgress, 29 May 2018, thinkprogress.org/trump-climate-policies-cost-us-economy-6-trillion-new-study-575120a5870a/.
The Green New Deal is a piece of potential legislation that calls for an extreme change in American Life. The GND primarily proposes the idea that the United States will be greenhouse gas neutral and on 100% renewable energy by 2030, however, this comes at an extremely high cost. Similar to FDR’s New Deal, the GND excludes a plethora of socialist reform ideas, classified as an “Economic Bill of Rights” which includes: the right to single-payer healthcare, a guaranteed job at a living wage, affordable housing, and free college education. These legislative reforms go beyond environmental protection and act as an economic stimulus. The GND premiered through the Green Party in 2015 and was featured in Jill Stein’s presidential platform. In light of recent global climate studies, the GND has since found itself implemented into mainstream democratic platforms, with all 7 of the remaining democratic nominees for 2020 supporting or cosponsoring the legislation.
From an economic standpoint, It is estimated that a GND transition would cost anywhere from 8.3-12.3 trillion dollars, or the equivalent of $52,000 to $72,000 per household, this obviously isn’t feasible in the form of taxation, even over a 10 year period. This level of government subsidisation hasn’t occurred proportionally on a scale of this magnitude since World War II. World War II effectively pulled the United States out of the Great Depression. The problem here is that the Government Debt would have to increase by several trillion dollars to finance this bill, and with that, we risk hyperinflation and crashing the stock market. Of course, economically speaking, a viable alternative to the Green New Deal would be a massive Carbon Tax on companies, make the tax high enough and companies will find a more environmentally friendly way to function. Implementing a carbon tax appears more feasible in today’s gridlocked legislator.
Environmentally speaking, 100% renewable energy by 2030 is an appealing idea at its core, but definitely far off. In 2017 only 11% of our energy was renewable and 9% was nuclear. The GND holds seven environmental objectives:
Shift 100% of national power generation to renewable sources.
Construct a national energy-efficient “smart” grid.
Upgrade all buildings to become energy efficient.
Decarbonize the manufacturing and agricultural industries.
Decarbonize, repair, and upgrade the nation’s infrastructure, especially transportation.
This would call for a vast redesign and upgrade of our public transportation systems, which is the most expensive objective of the GND, costing billions in urbanised areas.
Fund mass investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases.
This calls for the installation of government incentives to encourage corporations to either invest in carbon offsets or directly decarbonise themselves.
Adopting these goals would make “green” technology, industry, expertise, products, and services a major U.S. export. As a result, America could become an international leader in helping other countries transition to completely carbon-neutral economies.
In addition to its large price tag, a criticism of the GND is that it suffers from a collective action problem. The reforms and pro-environment economic movement of the GND would only take place domestically. The United States accounts for 15% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Assuming the United States went Net-0, a 15% carbon dioxide reduction would not be sufficient to stop the snowballing degradation of our climate.
The GND is a solid example of the first round of legislation aimed at saving the environment. There is no easy answer to this, AOC said it best by saying, “ “So people are like: ‘Oh, it’s unrealistic. Oh, it’s vague. Oh, it doesn’t address this little minute thing.’ And I am like, ‘You try! You do it!’”
BANERJEE, ONIL, et al. “AN ECONOMY-WIDE ANALYSIS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY IN BANGLADESH.” Climate Change Economics, vol. 6, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/climchanecon.6.1.03.
