Tag Archives: rcl1415

Farmers vs. Monsanto

American has been the central of farming for several years, thanks to the fertile soil found in the heartland of our country. Unfortunately, in recent years, big companies (mainly Monsanto) have been taking over the way we farm. This may be a stretch from the typical “environmental” issues post, but it nonetheless is an issue that involves our farmland and our health. With this is mind, I have decided to make a sort of “preview post” of my advocacy project. This project will essentially work to educate the general consumer body on Genetically Modified Organisms, and explain the power that purchasers have to control what we eat. Hopefully, in the near future, action will be taken by the consumer body to encourage the labelling of GMOs and discourage the oppression of our nation’s farms and farmers.

Traditionally, when we think of the American farm, the image that has been engrained into our heads by looking at thAMERICANFarmere “Farm Fresh” logo on tons of food packages. This picture of a classic farmer and farm that is painted by the industry is almost completely gone in today’s America. The reality is more of a big open field, a suppressed farmer, and tons of emission-realeasing machines that harvest all of our food. Why haven’t we done anything about this? Do we simply not care? No. The more likely reason is that we didn’t know. There has essentially been a “veil” dropped between the producer and consumer, to the point that we have no idea where most of our foofoodinc_combinesd comes from. This is exactly the way these big overbearing companies like Monsanto want it, because an ignorant consumer is a big money maker. Well the solution seems simple, wouldn’t it just be easier to avoid Monsanto products all together, effectively improving our health by avoiding Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). The answer isn’t that simple, mostly because we don’t actually know which products are GMO Monsanto products. Monsanto and associated companies have fought tooth and nail to prevent any GMO labeling laws from being passed in our country. They are essentially saying that they don’t want the American consumer, who is spending their money and their health on this product, to know what they are actually putting on their table. That isn’t to say that Monsanto’s current method hasn’t been fought. On May 8, 2014, Vermont finally passed their GMO labeling bill into law. The specifics of the bill state that all products containing Genetically Modified Organisms must be labeled as such by July 1, 2016. Vermont became the first state to successfully pass this bill, although several other states have been working on the bill. Naturally, Monsanto wasn’t going to go down without a fight, so they sued the state of Vermont in a lawsuit costing millions of dollars and is still continuing today. Several other state, such as Maine, have passed laws that state that they will continue with GMO labeling when their neighboring states do. The purpose of this is to essentially ensure that what is happening to Vermont doesn’t happen to them, and if it does they will have the support of neighboring states to aid in their legal battle. Vermont is essentially fighting this battle by themselves, due to the fact that their law does not depend on other states. However, as legal analysts  predict that Vermont will win, we can look forward to seeing more states follow their lead. On the other hand, tons of states have a proposed bill for GMO labelling in the governmental works, but most have been shot down by the conveniently placed Monsanto ex-employees that litter our government. Thanks to these governmental ties, Monsanto has officially been above the law since Obama signed “The Monsanto Protection Act,” stating that federal courts cannot in any way stem the sale and production of GMO seeds, no matter what health risks may come into light.

While our government has the important job of ensuring our safety, we also have the quintessential role of controlling what we consume. If we look into a food market, we as consumers might seem powerless, we are simply able to by what is in front of us, so how could we have any power? Well let me ask this, what if we all stopped buying anything? Companies would go out of business; we are their source of revenue, and they know that. Sure we aren’t just going to stop going to our local Giant and magically come up with another food source, but we can control what we buy while at the supermarket. By picking and choosing exactly what we buy at the supermarket, and having an important reason backing up our choices, we control our economy. An educated and aware consumer is a danger to the very foundation of fear, mystery, and domination that Monsanto has built up over the years. It is super easy to find a list of companies that use Monsanto products online (seriously just type in “Monsanto is Evil” into Google and it will come up). Thousand upon hundreds of consumers have decided to boycott the company, effectively sending the message that they do not approve. Here is a list of the companies: monsanto_companiesTrust me, I know that as consumers it is difficult for us to change what we eat. In fact, after seeing the list, I was extremely upset to find that my favorite Fruit & Nut granola bars contained Monsanto products. It’s not always easy to take a stand, but in the end, it is worth it for the future of our farmers and our health. In fact, more and more celebrity figures are taking a stand against what may be the most hated company in America. Neil Young has dedicated a album, The Monsanto Years, to the oppression that the company has over America. In the end, our state governments has to follow the example of Vermont, and us as consumers have to educate ourselves and realize that we have an extreme amount of power over our economy.

To learn more about Monsanto and their oppression of farmers and our food source, check out the following links:

1.) The movie Food, Inc. is a great source to look at to gain basic knowledge.

2.) Monsanto’s bogus- echem, I mean “carefully worded”- response to the Food, Inc. movie.

3.) Pennsylvania‘s current stance on GMO labeling.

A Year in Sailplane: What I’ve Learned

Well, since this is the last blog post, I figured I’d reflect back on my overall experience in the Sailplane class this year, and what I’ve  learned throughout the year.

Screen Shot 2015-04-23 at 10.53.19 PMThe first lesson I learned in Sailplane, from the first day of class, was that there was going to be tons of information thrown at me, especially during lectures. Sure, this seems obvious, but the key thing I took from this mass of information, is that most of it was way over my head as a little Freshman, and that that was perfectly fine. As the year progressed, after paying attention to lectures and taking notes, even if it seemed pointless because I didn’t understand anything, I found that things were slowly starting to make sense. Even though I understood only the basic principles that my professor was writing on the board, and not the overarching background and details involved, I started building an arsenal of knowledge that I’ll keep in the back of my mind. Eventually, when I take those junior and senior level classes, I’ll have this basic and minimal understanding of these concepts. This may seem pointless, but in engineering, even a tiny bit of background knowledge or previous experience with a topic can make the world of a difference when attempting to grasp new concepts.

Secondly, I learned that not all upperclassmen are big and scary. Ok, so this may seem very juvenile of me, to say that I was “afraid” of the big kids, but nevertheless, I was certainly intimidated by their mass of knowledge and big aerospace vocabulary. As the year progressed, I began to learn how ridiculous that assumption was. With the nature of the sailplane course (having it be a four year class), everyone gains knowledge as they grow within the class. Naturally, the seniors have the most knowledge about both the design and building method of the HPA. However, when the seniors leave in May, they take all their knowledge with them, meaning that we lose our best classmates. What does this mean? It means that the seniors are eager to share their expertise with younger classmates, so that we can carry on with the class when they leave. They told us from day one that if we had questions, to simply ask them. Unfortunately, I’m typically a fairly shy person around people I don’t know, and was reluctant to ask for any sort of help. As I began to get more acclimated to lab and the work environment, I began to feel more comfortable with my fellow classmates, and began to ask them for their input. Since that point, they have been the most wonderful people to get to know, and they are a great resource to not only learn a lot about engineering concepts, but also to help you build a network.

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A nice reminder to our classmates after finishing our horizontal tail. 🙂

Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, I learned that ENGINEERING CLASSES CAN BE FUN!!! I know, it seems absolutely preposterous that any engineering class could be outright fun, but sailplane has been one of those classes that I legitimately have looked forward to going to (though perhaps not as much when the class is at 8 AM in the fall). Naturally, lab is of course oodles of fun, especially with the goofballs in my class. From using a carbon tube to hit DBF‘s Wiffle balls out the window, to tossing hand launched gliders out the window at innocent bystanders, to heating chicken wings with a heat gun (possibly cancerous?), lab has been a great experience (I promise we actually do work there). Surprisingly, even lectures are enjoyable in themselves. When you have a professor like ours (who, coincidentally, looks exactly like Harry from dumb and dumber, except he’s way more intelligent) , it’s impossible not to laugh at least 10 times every class. It also helps that he has the peanut gallery (us students) commenting on everything he says. In fact, today in class, my professor pulled a Key & Peele (if you have no idea what this means, watch the video below) and used his TA as an anger translator, and it was honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

“I really think we should have a wing section built soon – DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN KNOW WHAT WINGLETS ARE?!?”


Warning: Explicit Content (they really just say a lot of curse words).

Finally, while Sailplane was all of these things and more, the one thing that is most important to me is that it made me fall in love even more with the major I chose for myself. Going into college, you can never really be sure that what you’re doing is what you want to be doing for the rest of your life. There were times that I questioned whether there were other majors that better fit my interests or my skills, but as soon as sailplane really got into full swing, I realized that I did pick the right major. That reassurance is one of the most important things that has come out of this class. In the end, while my first year of sailplane is almost over, I know that as I continue with the class, I will continue to explore the interest in flight that my PopPop first inspired in me. And for that, I will forever be thankful for this wonderful program.

 

Sailplane Fun Fact: In lab we actually do have a flying f**k. It has a propellor and  everything. It literally does fly. This is why Aerospace Engineers are awesome.

 

 

We Are. . . In Need of Carbon!

Well considering that I had begun writing this post before my last Sailplane class (Tuesday Afternoon), a lot of exciting things have happened since then. The most exciting being that WE GOT LOTS OF CARBON FROM BOEING!!! If you haven’t been following my blog all semester, let me give you a brief introduction to what on earth I’m talking about. For my AERSP 204H class (otherwise known as Sailplane), our biggest problem as a group has been trying to get carbon to use. Why? Because carbon is a magical material in the world of HPA-building. However, carbon is sort of tricky to handle, due to the fact that it has a “shelf life,” and has to be kept in a freezer to keep in from curing. To learn more about carbon and what it is used for in reference to wing spars, take a look at this website!

Carbon Tubes!

Carbon Tubes!

We use carbon for a number of things, the main use being to make carbon tubes for things such as wing spars. Carbon is fairly light and strong, so it is an important aspect for us while building the plane, especially the wing sections. Unfortunately, we were at a bit of a stand still for a while due to the fact that we ran out carbon, and could therefore not make any more tubes.

On the other hand, with the tubes that we do have, we had a heck of a job

Wahoo Angle Grinder!

Wahoo Angle Grinder!

attempting to remove them from their mandrels. Carbon tubes are baked in such a way that the ply are laid up on a metal “mandrel,” so when they come out of the oven, they are literally baked onto these metal tubes to create their shape. The problem comes when you try to remove the actual carbon tube from its metal mandrel. This is where the fun part starts. Usually to start, we tie ropes around 2x4s and put breather cloth underneath to prevent the wood from scratching the carbon. We then tie the rope in such a way that when we twist the pieces of wood, we tighten the rope’s grip on the tube. We then attach the end of the metal mandrel to some fixed station, so to create a moment on the tube in order to “pop” the carbon off of the mandrel.

*Disaster Waiting To Happen*

*Disaster Waiting To Happen*

Long story short, this isn’t as easy as it sounds, and we have broken several ropes, bent steel bars with or bare hands, and broken through half inch pieces of plywood in our attempts to anchor the mandrel and remove the carbon tubes. Not to mention the time that we literally anchored the end of the hole to the I-Beam that supports our lab. So yeah, that’s always fun, especially when you are literally putting all of your weight onto the 2x4s and the tube still refuses to twist. I have to say though, I don’t feel bad about missing tennis for lab, because attempting to remove these tubes is a workout in itself!!!

Yeah, We Aerospace Engineers Are Pretty Jacked.

Yeah, We Aerospace Engineers Are Pretty Jacked.

 

The Quintessential Role of Pop Culture on The Environment

Just as my last post was a somewhat different take on the civic issue of environmental protection, this post will further look into the various aspects of taking care of our world. While the scientific components of this concept are very important, the influence that today’s culture has on nature is surprisingly relevant. Specifically, many celebrities today have taken action, no matter how small, to raise awareness and show the importance of our environment. Whether it is through their work, charitable activities, or even through public statements, many famous individuals have taken to making their opinions known.

One of the less thought about ways of environmental protection advocacy is in the form of subtle mentioning. In other words, outright support is powerful, but just as powerful is a simple statement that speaks for itself. One can most often find an example of this in music and other art forms. For instance, the song “Don’t Panic,” which was released as a single by Coldplay in 2001, has an accompanying music video that projects an interesting idea about pollution and climate change.

The video begins with a sort of moving illustration of what one can assume is the water cycle. However, in the lower right hand corner, we can see a factory pumping waste into a lake that is then included as part of the cycle, and thus contaminates the water supply shown. While Chris, Johnny, Will, and Guy’s heads on illustrated bodies might be a bit “interesting,” I believe that the overarching theme of the video, and potentially the song as well, is that climate change and pollution can be harmful to us as the human race. Included in the song itself are lines such as “We live in a beautiful world,” closely followed by “All of us are done for,” and while these lyrics may be a bit overdramatic regarding the topic at hand, I do believe that they send an effective message. Yet, while Coldplay as a band (and especially Chris Martin as an individual) has openly supported various causes, such as free trade, environmental protection has never particularly been on that list. At the same time, Coldplay certainly projects their feelings and opinions into their work, so we can thus conclude that this particular piece is meant to send a message about the dangers of pollution and disrespect toward the environment.

To Learn More About The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Click On The Above Picture.

In addition subtle messages in song and art, celebrity support of the environmental cause can most commonly be seen through charitable acts. Almost all (decent) celebrities either openly support a charity, or have formed their own charity; effectively using their fame and financial advantage to support certain causes. Many have taken up environmental protection as the issue that they openly support. For example, one such celebrity is Leonardo DiCaprio, whose “Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation” supports various environmental causes, including wildlife preservation and endangered animal protection. One of the most well-known projects that DiCaprio’s foundation has worked on and supported is the “Save Tigers Now Campaign.” This project which is supported by the joint efforts of the World Wildlife Fund as well as DiCaprio, has a goal to double the population of wild tigers, which has dropped to a dangerously low number of 3,200,  by the year 2022. Not only has DiCaprio pumped millions of dollars into

At Least He's Protecting Our Environment.

At Least He’s Protecting Our Environment.

this cause, he has also openly been an ambassador for the campaign. DiCaprio had featured in several video messages and appeared at various benefits, not only for the tiger campaign, for but other causes supported by his foundation as well. So clearly, with or without an Oscar (hang in there, Leo), DiCaprio’s fame is certainly being put to good use.

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Click To Learn More About Ellen Degeneres And The Environment.

Furthermore, another important method of environmental support is using fame to support an important cause. Celebrities are followed constantly, with their personal life and their own opinions being tattooed on our eyes day after day. Fortunately, some celebrities have found a way to use their excessive fame for good. With everything that famous individuals say being spread far and wide through the depths of the internet, the statements that these people make are extremely influential, regardless of the topic. However, some of these celebrities, such as Ellen Degeneres, have made statements about their belief in the environment. These individuals understand the power that their words can have, and thus use this concept to their advantage. Ellen is certainly one of these examples, as she is quoted saying, “If we’re destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there’s got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.” While this quote generally supports a lot of different causes on Ellen’s agenda, the mention of the environment in this statement provides a powerful tool. Seeing as Ellen connects the concept of destroying our earth’s natural land and animals with a lack of love, she certainly makes an important connection between ethics and the environment. Due to the effectiveness of this one simple statement, we can clearly see how Ellen, in some small way, has contributed to environmental protection.

Overall, advocacy for our environment can come in all different types and forms, including music, charity, and public advocacy. The above mentioned people and groups have used their notoriety to advance the field of environmental protection in various ways. Therefore, while the concept of environmental protection is often considered a scientific concern, one must not underestimate the power of pop culture to influence important civic issues. As is the case with any popular issue during any time period, with the right people in the correct positions, words and examples can work wonders; which is exactly what is happening due to the influence of these popular cultural icons.

Baking and Breaking

02Time for another Sailplane update! This one will be more geared toward activity in the lab. For new readers, within this class, we are split up into smaller “groups” that are responsible for different aspects of the HPA’s build and design. I am in the Wing Group (which this semester has turned into more of the Wing/ Tail Group). For this semester, our goal is essentially to have the entire wing and tail sections built. What this means for us is that we need to make a lot of carbon tubes so we can start building. So for the past few weeks, lab has consisted of a never ending cycle of cutting carbon, buffing mandrels, laying up carbon, baking carbon, removing the carbon tube (without breaking it, hopefully), and occasionally breaking the new tube in the name of science. In other words, we’ve been making a lot of tubes and then testing (so breaking) them to determine the load that they can withstand.

One of the tubes that we made came out fairly well. Once you bake the tube, you have to remove it from the mandrel it is attached to. To do this, we attached two pieces of wood- one to the bare mandrel, and one to the tube itself- and tied them with rope. We tied the knots in such a way that when the two pieces of wood, when twisted in opposite directions, will tighten the knot holding them to the tube. After twisting the pieces of woodCF_wingtubes slowly (in an attempt to not break the tubes and waste carbon- a precious resource in the sailplane lab), you can hear a small “pop” when the tube is finally free from the mandrel. Then it’s just a matter of playing tug of war with the tube (literally, that’s exactly what it feels and looks like). With this tube in particular that we made, after removing it, it was then used for testing. However, the test was very informative, as we did some tweaking to the tube before this test. We found that the carbon tube was breaking under tension, which is something that it shouldn’t do, due to the nature of carbon itself. Nonetheless, this first test found that the tube withstood a bending moment of 29 ft-lbs. This gave us a (conservative) factor of safety of 1.5. This is fairly good, however I’ve been told that with the HPA we usually try and aim for a FOS of about 2. To reach this goal, we tried covering the tube with fiberglass, as an added form of strength for the tube. After testing this, we found that the modified tube held 77 ft-lbs, which is a FOS of 4. While this may seem like it gives us an obvious direction to move in with making our tubes, adding that one fiberglass layup to the tube is extremely time consuming. In the end, we are thinking of possibly just adding another layup of carbon. This might not prove to be as effective as the layer of fiberglass, but it will do the job without wasting too much time. If you would like more information about carbon tubes (and especially if this post looked like it was in another language) you can check out the interesting links below.

*Interesting Links*:

http://www.nanocyl.com/jp/CNT-Expertise-Centre/Carbon-Nanotubes

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/Uploads/Buildingcompositetubes.pd

Video of Carbon Tube Breaking

The Dark Side of Nature

Tornado_in_southwestern_Oklahoma_on_November_7,_2011For this edition of my Civic Issues blog, I figured I’d venture out a bit from the typical “Save the World” environmental issues discussion. Some of you might recognize the title of this post as the “slogan” from the 1996 movie “Twister.” Yup, this week we will be looking at climate change and the effects it may or may not have on Tornado frequency and strength. I find this to be a fascinating topic (partially because I’d wanted to be a tornado chaser since I was 5 until I changed to engineering) so to make this post more relatable, I thought we’d take a particularly close look at America’s Tornado Alley.

There has been debate for some years now between climatologists, meteorologists, and geologists (so many “-ologists,” I know, bear with me) over whether climate change is creating an environment filled with greater, more powerful, and ergo more disastrous storms. While the debate mostly concerns all natural disasters, America sees more tornadoes than any other country in the world, and we are therefore more concerned with the connection between our changing world and these deadly storms.

Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 3.45.20 PMWhen looking at the relationship between climate change and tornado activity, one must first look at exactly what these “changes” in climate are. One of these main changes (and one that is also heavily debated) is global warming. With temperatures on the rise, the conditions for a tornado become more and more likely. More specifically, for us to understand how this relationship occurs, we must understand how tornadoes form. Tornadoes are truly the result of only “perfect” conditions, including the presence of warm, moist air to create convection in the lower level of the atmosphere, which in turn creates unstable air that then generates the supercell thunderstorms required for tornado formation. Based on this information, it is easy to see why there is a correlation between what can be considered global warming and the number of tornadoes seen. In recent years, America has seen a significant increase in average yearly temperature, which could therefore be associated with the increase in tornado activity that has also been seen in recent years.

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Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 3.28.55 PMWhile this correlation is seen by most climatologist to be definitive proof that climate change impacts tornado activity, others are skeptical that the correlation between these two trends is simply a coincidence. In fact, many argue (and truthfully) that global warming is simply an over-exaggeration designed to scare us into treating our planet with respect. One of these arguments includes the basis that compared to others time periods in earth’s development, our climate can be considered relatively cool. On the other hand, while this is obviously true- based on research done by climatologists- we must also consider the temperature changes relevant to our era. In other words, while this time period of the earth’s history can be considered one of the coolest compared to past eras, within this period, our earth’s temperature is rising indefinitely.

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In addition to the frequency of tornadoes seen, we must also consider the strength of tornadoes seen. For those of you that are not familiar with how tornado strength is measured, the process uses something called the Enhanced Fujita Scale.  This scale ranks tornado severity from EF-0 to EF-5 (EF-0 being fairly weak and EF-5 being catastrophic) based on the damage caused from certain windspeed. This scale is essentially just a slight change on the basic Fujita Scale, which has been used for years to rank tornado severity.

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Based on this scale, meteorologists have been able to record the severity of tornadoes for years. Looking back through records of tornado development over the past century, we can find the exact number of EF-5 tornadoes that have occurred each year from 1950 to 2013.

EF5Tornadoes

Chart based on data found from: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/f5torns.html

If we look at this chart, it seems as though the number of EF-5 strength tornadoes is simply fluctuating from decade to decade. Based on this, one could conclude that tornado strength may not be increasing at all, let alone being caused by climate change. However, while this small subset of data that I analyzed may not point toward climate change, we must also consider that fluctuations in weather patterns are perfectly normal.

However, as we look deeper into storm strength and climate change, we can find one year in particular that fits this trend: 2011. Many of you probably remember the devastating events of May 22, 2011, when an EF-5 tornado struck Joplin, Missouri and its surrounding areas. What many don’t realize, however, is that an unusually active April preceded this major event. In other words, the midwest essentially got bombarded for a month and a half before the Joplin Tornado struck. This is a documentary regarding the events in Joplin and before (I’m not going to lie, its hard to watch, but the science behind it is interesting):

While these events were truly catastrophic, they speak to something bigger. 2011 saw the most tornado activity since 1947. This may seem like just a weather fluke, but there is a certain correlation between the increased tornado frequency and the average temperature. According to reports given by NASA, 2011 was the ninth-warmest year on record since the year 1880. 2011 was roughly 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer than the baseline average for the 20th century.

While this may not seem like a significant change in temperature, when one looks at the large spike in tornado events that occurred that season, it is clear that this is enough of a change to be concerned.

Overall, the correlation between tornado activity and climate change may seem very controversial for the time being. However, the relationship between the two can be considered both inevitable and potentially catastrophic. While tornadoes are just one subset of the larger category of natural disasters, we can see more or less the same trends occurring with other major storms as well (hurricanes, blizzards, etc.). In fact, for those on the eastern seaboard, and even as far inland as State College , we can recall a relevant example in Hurricane Sandy. While it was not a tornado, there was still a definite debate over the connection between this super storm and the climate change that had preceded it. This storm, like the Joplin Tornado storm, was also a record-breaker. Superstorm Sandy now holds  the record for lowest internal barometric pressure for an atlantic storm that passed north of Cape Hatteras. Again, while this may not seem significant now, each record-breaking storm has a potential connection to the climate change that is occurring on our planet, and therefore must be examined as such.  In conclusion, as apocalyptic as it sounds, storms like these could potentially become more common as our climate continues to change, and if the conditions are right, we might find ourselves thrown Into the Storm.

For More Interesting Information Regarding Tornado Chasing (Fun Fact-I actually have this NOVA Documentary on that obsolete thing called VHS):

 

Interesting Links (and Bibliography):

*Thank You to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for being an amazing source for information that was then available for analysis.*

Also, This NOAA Website is just awesome: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/envbrowser

http://www.spc.noaa.gov

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html

http://nrc.noaa.gov/sites/nrc/Documents/SoS%20Fact%20Sheets/SoS.Fact.Sheet.Tornadoes.and.Climate_FINALv2_May2013.pdf

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/f5torns.html

 

This I Believe

I Believe In The Snoopy Barn

snoopy barn

Littering: A Pointless Activity

flateyri-beach-3It’s extremely difficult to walk down the street without seeing a bit of litter on the side of the road. Even in a rural town like were I grew up, it wasn’t uncommon to see tobacco waste haphazardly tossed onto lush green lawns. Furthermore, it’s no secret that littering has a negative impact on our environment, not to mention the fact that it is simply disgusting. Unfortunately, littering is not the only issue that is currently harming our environment. Over the course of the next three months, I will be focusing on the everyday activities that American Citizens do that negatively impact our natural world.

Littering is clearly an issue that is rampant throughout the United States, with over 51 billion pieces of foreign objects being blown around the side of our roadways each year. To put that number in perspective, that is roughly 6,729 items of litter per mile of roadway. Granted, much of that is less than 4 inches across, but it makes an impact nonetheless. Furthermore, not only is smoking in particular a disgusting thing to partake in (more about this particular environmental health concern in a later post), but it also creates more litter than any other activity. In fact, about 38% of all litter found on the side of highways and other roads is some form of tobacco waste. Following tobacco products are paper and plastic. Both of these items are not only products that could be thrown away properly, but items that could be recycled. So instead of having them be reused, they are ending up on the side of roads, laying in our front lawns, and running down our once beautiful rivers. Sadly, while it is simple to say that we aren’t guilty of this monstrosity, littering is far to easy to do. Specifically, over 76% of litter is created by cars passing by or by pedestrians roaming the street.

Not convinced? Well then lets take a look at how that dropped piece of McDonald’s wrapping takes its toll on you. The U.S. government spends over $11.5 billion dollars a year in its attempt to wage a war on littering. And unfortunately, that money doesn’t even get close to truly cleaning up our community. Furthermore, as American citizens, we all pay taxes (well, for now, our parents do), and this excessive cost that the United States government must fund is not doing any good for our wallets.

However, for all of you getting upset about these events, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are several wonderful organizations that are responsible for combating litter and the act of littering. One of these, perhaps the most renowned of the lot, is Keep America Beautiful. This is an organization that does numerous different activities under various categories to help America in particular stay clean. Their anti-litter campaign, known as “Littering Is Wrong Too,” is one program in particular that draws attention to the issues associated with littering. This subdivision of Keep America Beautiful focuses on establishing different events, missions, and advertisements to try and put a stop to littering. In fact, as reported by Keep America Beautiful, littering has decreased by 61% in the past 40 years. Now don’t get me wrong, that is a significant change, however it is clearly not enough completely rid our roads of pieces of garbage.

Sadly, though progress is being made, many individuals are still in denial about the state of our environment. As shown in this opinion article, published by a teenager from New Jersey, not all are onboard with taking a stand against littering. This teen, whose school wanted to punish the student body after recent problems with excessive littering, believes that the school board is over doing it. While this is certainly not something everyone should be punished for, it is an issue that needs to be addressed, especially with those in their youth. Considering children are very impressionable, not to mention the fact that they are the future of our country, it needs to be pressed upon them the seriousness of littering and other environment-destroying activities. Keep America Beautiful has also made an attempt to reach out to young individuals with their anti-litter campaign, “Littering Is Wrong Too.” This social-media driven program (which can be found here) involves allowing young adults and children enter what they believe is “wrong” onto their website, and then posting it with “Littering is wrong too” following the posts. This subdivision of Keep America Beautiful is especially geared toward children, especially with the added technology factor.

ciglitFurthermore, just as many individuals, if not more, believe that littering is a problem. This can be seen in several opinion articles written on the topic, including this one about cigarette butts and their harmful contribution to litter. The article was written by a University of Illinois student, whose campus went “smoke-free” on January 1, 2014. In this paper, the author addresses the supposed “exception” many smokers often feel toward the littering rule. Many find that disposing of their cigarette butts on the ground is not litter. However, it most certainly is. In fact according to this article, a campaign known as “Blooms Not Butts” collected almost 22 pounds of tobacco litter in a two-hour period. Fortunately, Keep America Beautiful also has a program geared toward tobacco littering, known as the “Cigarette Litter Prevention Program.” This branch of Keep America Beautiful mostly focuses on educating individuals about the excessive amount of tobacco litter, along with its most commonly found locations.

In conclusion, while there are many environmental concerns in today’s world, littering is clearly one of the most fixable. It is quite possibly one of the only problems with such an easy solution: simply dispose of your trash properly. While this environmental concern has continued to improve, and can be expected to improve further in the future, there is clearly more work that needs to be done. Outside of littering, many further environmental issues exist that need to be brought into light, and hopefully many will be looked at and responded to within the upcoming years.

 

Works Cited:

http://www.dailyillini.com/opinion/columns/article_07cb7416-45be-11e3-adda-0019bb30f31a.html

http://preventcigarettelitter.org/venues/city_centers.html

http://www.kab.org/site/DocServer/LitterFactSheet_LITTER.pdf?docID=5184

http://www.teenink.com/opinion/school_college/article/223077/A-Litter-Problem/

http://www.litteringiswrongtoo.org

 

Sailplanes: A History

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1902 Wright Glider

So sailplane (if you have no idea what that means be sure to check out this blog post) started up again this past week! Since I haven’t been back to lab yet this year, I thought I’d share what we learned in lecture the past few days. This week we learned all about the history of sailplanes and the development in their design. I found this to be fascinating, so I thought I’d share some of the notes I took regarding the topic (assuming I can read my own handwriting). So lets start with the basics. For those that don’t know, a sailplane (or glider) is a plane that flies with no engine. It essentially uses external means (i.e. a towplane) to get into the sky, and then glides and uses different methods of gaining altitude (thermals, ridge lift, etc.). When thinking of early flight, many consider the Wright Brothers, and rightfully so, as they did contribute greatly to the development of the sailplane. However, most of the evolution of the glider occurred with the “Akafliegs.” These organizations – which as you might have guessed, originate in Germany – are essentially groups of German technical students that meet to design aircraft.

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1930 Fafnir

These Akafliegs mostly originated with Otto Lilienthal, whose 1894 Monoplane utilized a design based on the flexibility of bird wings. From, there, the Germans continued to expand their knowledge on flight. The Wright Brothers came into the picture around 1902, with their “Wright Glider.” This is what comes to mind when people think “First to Fly,” however this craft was certainly not the peak of the brothers’ design career. One of their most effective gliders, the Wright Model A, was developed in 1908. Following that, in the year 1921, The Vampyr (Vampire, auf Deutsch) was developed, and was then considered the first modern sailplane. After the Vampyr, came a long series of Gliders developed just before the Second World War (circa 1930- 1938). The first of these, the Fafnir (1930), actually used a bungee as a means of getting the glider into the air. Sounds pretty epic, right? Think of the glider as being a giant, flying water balloon that’s being launched at the top of a hill. Anyways, following the Fafnir came the Minimoa (1935), which was one of the first gliders that was designed for thermal soaring. For a little background, a thermal is one method that a glider pilot can use to gain altitude without an engine. The thermal itself is a column of rising air created from the surface below the thermal  being heated. After that came the 1938 D-30 Cirrus. The D-30 used a pre-cursor to aluminum for much of its structural aspects, but what really set it apart was its experimental relation with dihedral. Long story short, the dihedral on an airplane is essentially the sloped angle the wings make relative to the fuselage (in very simple terms).

Furthermore, the Post-World-War-II time period also saw great glider development. In 1957, the FS-24 Phönix became the first composite sailplane, closely followed by the Phoebus, which in 1965, became the first fiberglass sailplane. Overall, while this may not seem the most exciting topic for many of you (and thank you for reading until the end, if this is true), but I think the fact that humans can now fly like birds- and that this development occurred in only a little over 100 years- is extremely impressive. Way to go Germans! Oh, and the Wright Brothers. . .

Cool Video of a Glider Flight (with really annoying music in the background): http://youtu.be/kqawMYEHW2c

More About the Akafliegs (In German!):
https://www.akaflieg.uni-karlsruhe.de

 

 

TED Talks: A Shift in the 3D Printing World

TED-logoThis past Wednesday, for ENGL 137H, I presented a TED talk to a few fellow classmates regarding a paradigm shift that has occurred in recent years. My topic was the shift in 3D Printing from an industrial to a consumer field, and the therefore shift from positive to negative effects of 3D printing. Well, if you remember back from my post after doing our first speech for the same class, you’ll remember how many times I explained that I simply HATE public speaking of any sort. So essentially a speech where I was required to put on a performance to transform a mundane lecture into an exciting talk, was pretty much a recipe for disaster. I might as well have gone into ANGEL and put my failing grade for English in now, because I had a feeling this was not going to be good. Well, naturally I did not want to fail this project, so I took a lot of time and practiced in the One Button Rooms to try and rehearse what I was going to say and when. I also practiced several times in my dorm the morning of the talk, which probably made people on my floor think I was talking to myself about 3D printing. However, after both performing my talk, and listening to others’ talks, I think it is safe to say that they were pretty good. I especially liked when people used humor to break the tension, and when I was presenting, when I got a chuckle out of the audience, I found that it relaxed me and made me more at ease. What I think I could have changed about my talk is the amount of slides on my powerpoint. I felt I might have had a bit too many, and I was worried that it would be distracting while I was speaking. All in all, I think it turned out alright, but I’ll want to keep this in mind in any future presentations I give. Overall, the last hurdle (besides the accompanying paper due Friday) before Thanksgiving break is over, and I am grateful that I can go home thinking I might (shockingly) have done decently well. Posted below is a video of my TED Talk (don’t judge too much while watching, I was extremely nervous).