Monday, November 26, 2007

Green Experience

After more than three months of Monday morning blogging, my time with Cat Scan and this blog (as an assignment) is coming to an end. I plan to continue to update with information you may or may not find interesting. In the end, I do think it was a good idea. Not only did we have to find out another new thing about Green Living every week, it forced us to have to write a few hundred words or so. If you want to make it in writing, from what I'm told, you have to do a lot of it. It's cliched to say but I really did learn a lot and saw and did some things I would never have done on my own. Not because I'm lazy but because I never knew they existed. I'm thinking of the Segway tour and being at a Green Party Party on election night. Those two things stand out in this semester for giving me completely new experiences. Politics is just crazy, which is one of the reason I love it.

I just can't get over the fact how much spotlight the green movement is receiving right now and our little online publication is right in the middle of it. To be honest, in the beginning of the semester we had the options for this year's Cat Scan narrowed down to two choices: Green Living and Science, and I voted for Science. Not that I didn't think Green was important, I just envisioned writing articles about the Space movement at the UA if Science ended up as the theme. One of the reasons I didn't want Green was it felt, at the time, like our stories would not be newsy. I saw us writing a bunch of feature articles about conserving water. Yes, you can call me an Anti-Greenite, but I had no idea there would be as many story ideas as our class came up with, and they were definitely newsy. I'm talking about stuff "real" newspapers haven't even reported on.

The best part about the whole thing was how Tucson is near the edge of the Green movement frontier. I would never have thought that our city is doing things that many other, more popular cities are not. In terms of conservation, environmental awareness, politics, recycling, Tucson is near the forefront in American cities. It is great to see people that are passionate about changing the way we do things in order to help the Earth. I think if this blog, or even the Cat Scan as a whole, made one person Greener after reading it, than I think we have been successful.

Check out the Cat Scan for all your Green information.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Green Party Politics

I have been in contact with several Pima County Green Party this past week including Co-Chairs Claudia Ellquist and Andrew Spencer. I talked to them about the importance of having a third party in government elections and it really got me thinking about why the American public does not take true stock in third parties. There have been times when a third party has recieved a lot of nation-wide coverage, such when Ross Perot ran for President against Bush and Clinton all those years ago, but recently, especially in the 2008 Presidential race, it has been a publically accepted fact that the next President will be Democrat or Republican. This got me thinking. Why is it that Green Party, Independent or Libertarian candidates are not, and probably will never be truly considered viable as a President for the United States? I think Jon Stewart said it best, don't quote me on it, but he said something like Democracy is better than a Dictatorship because we have one more option to choose from.

Ellquist said what the Green Party needs to do is establish their goals and values on a broader scale that will attract the masses. There are probably quite a few reasons why we won't see a Green President or Independent President in our lifetime. One of the reason I can think of, and Spencer mentioned it to me as well, is the fact that the media does not give third parties equal coverage. If CNN or even local publications were to give the same amount of space or time to a Green as a Democrat, list values and goals of each, people might become more aware of their similarities and differences and establish them as a "real" political party, at the very least it would give us more to think about. Thinking is good, right? Ellquist told me that, as we as a nation are moving toward environmentalism and all candidates are being forced to identify their stance on things like conservation, people are beginning to realize what the Green Party has stood for for a long time now.

The best example is the past Tucson City Council elections. The word "sustainability" was used by candidates of all parties. Because we are in, especially Tucson, a time where there are a lot of questions to be answered about the future of water, growth and conservation actions, it is forcing politicians into awkward situations in which they must take a stance on where they stand on these issues. It is a tough place to be in, no question about it, but these are very important issues for our future and without proper planning it could turn out to be a disaster.

Look at the Atlanta suburbs for example. There was an article in the Daily Star this weekend talking about how these places are running out of good drinking water. They're are almost in crisis mode because the lake they were taking the water from is down "to the dregs," the organic-rich lake bottom. They can treat it but it is still poor quality. Where was the planning by these town councils?

There are many examples of this in today's news. We need politicians who know changes need to be made and have the backbone to get things done. That's why I am voting for Al Gore in 2008, he is running, right?.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Green Party Election Party

Last Tuesday was election night for the Tucson City Council. What other place would I rather be than partying it up with Green Party candidates Beryl Baker and Dave Croteau. Myself and three other classmates went to Croteau's house to talk to prominent green people of Tucson. There were quite a few people there to support Baker and Croteau, including Claudia Ellquist, the co chair of the Tucson Green Party, who talked a lot about sustainability, what the Green Party means to not just local politics but national politics as well, and she also told us her thoughts about alternative fuels such as corn-based ethanol. It was interesting to hear her thoughts because, if you have been following my blogs at all, you know that alternative fuels is something I have done a lot of research on. She said pretty much what I have posted about before, that using corn-based ethanol does do damage to the economy because instead of using it for food, it is now being subsidized for other things like fuel, which is raising the price world wide. She said that there are areas in Mexico that cannot even afford to purchase corn from the United States anymore because of how much the price has skyrocketed.

The other topic that was referenced many times that night was the local media's coverage of the election. Many people thought the Citizen, Star, and Weekly were all biased in their reporting coverage. The biggest gripe was that the Ten Key Green Party values, which is prominent on their website was not even mentioned in articles by those three papers. A couple guys there were really hating on Nintzel of the Weekly for his Election 101 coverage a couple weeks ago. It seemed, from their perspective, that he said something like Croteau thought Tucson did not have a big meth problem. They told me that what they thought should have been said was how Croteau did not think Tucson's biggest problem was meth, but rather crimes against humanity, certainly meth would be a part of that. I do not really have an opinion on it because I have not read the article in question.

One other thing was that in these articles, the other party candidates would use words coined by the Green Party, the biggest one being sustainability and it was interesting to see how the other candidates incorporated it into their own campaigns.

Just a side note, there were a lot of people there drinking beer and wine and having a good time. It was an experience I have never had before and something I would do again in the future.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

BMW Hydrogen 7

BMW makes great machines. Period. The M3, 5,6, and 7-series are powerful, sleek, but made pretty much just for those of us with extremely well-paying jobs. When you watch Cribs or any other show that feature celebrity's rides, there is always a BMW in there somewhere. Now, you hear a lot about Honda, Toyota and Chevy as being at the forefront of lessening our dependence on foreign oil through electric vehicles, biodiesel-powered or ethanol-powered vehicles, but not so much as automotive companies that stranglehold the pricey market. BMW is trying to change that with the introduction of their Hydrogen 7 car. With a 7-series body, this car can run on both liquid hydrogen and gasoline. The switch can be made with a push of a button, according to BMW. Although there are only five hydrogen fueling stations worldwide with two more coming to the US, along with 100 Hydrogen 7's, BMW thinks hydrogen could be a great way of turning away from petroleum.


Photo from Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 and Sachi Gahan

This could very well be true if improvements are made on the current standing of the vehicle. As it stands now, the car has a 12-cylinder engine that puts out 260 horsepower. Here you can read BMW's thoughts on the car, including this arguable statement, "[hydrogen] is the only fuel that can allow for a reduction in the overall emission cycle, while meeting our energy needs in a sustainable way. Besides, not many fuels can be produced from renewable sources such as sun, wind, water and biomass." I do not know how they can say hydrogen is the "only" way to reduce the overall emission cycle, but they do and I argue that because, as I have talked about in previous posts, biodiesel looks much better at this point than hydrogen, especially the algae type. Maybe when we are in "I,Robot" times and can fuel our Audi's easily with hydrogen at specified locations will hydrogen take over. But think about how much work and research will have to be done to get us there. A lot. As of now, being able to get hydrogen to a point in which a car can convert it, as in hydrocarbons, for energy produces more emissions than gasoline-powered vehicles.

Here is Wiki's article on hydrogen powered cars which has a lot of great information about the whole process. It talks about the negative impacts including the fact that producing hydrogen uses fossil fuels.