Ecological Footprint Reduction

Ecological Footprint Reduction

Ecological Footprint (From the Past)
We would need 4.4 planets if everyone lived the way I do. Services contribute the most to my ecological footprint, making up nearly half of it; while food contributes the second most.

My Reduction Plans
In order to reduce my weekly carbon footprint during the quarter I will:
1. Recycle as many of my products as possible when getting rid of them, as well as purchase more recyclable goods. In general purchase less material goods, and try to consume less.
2. Use my utilities more efficiently: cutting back on the excess use of heat, water, and electricity. Making sure I turn lights off when I leave a room, take shorter showers and only use as much water as I need. Using less heat should be easier with the upcoming spring weather.
3. Buy more food locally and know where it is coming from. Also buy less packaged and processed food to eliminate the amount I waste from packaging as well as help eliminate toxins from entering my body.
4. Reduce the amount of time I drive alone, and car pool as much as possible. Also take the bus more often especially to and from campus.If I am able to implement all of my reduction plans, even a slight bit, I can better help the Earth and its resources to sustain. I hope taking these steps can help me become a stronger advocate for promoting sustainability and make myself and others become more aware of the affect we can have on the planet.

If I am able to implement all of my reduction plans, even a slight bit, I can better help the Earth and its resources to sustain. I hope taking these steps can help me become a stronger advocate for promoting sustainability and make myself and others become more aware of the affect we can have on the planet.

Ecological Footprint Reduction (Present)
At the beginning of the quarter my ecological footprint and impact on my environment was fairly large. If everyone lived like I did, I found that it would take 4.4 Planet Earths to provide us enough resources. After retaking the ecological footprint at the end of this term I have found that I’ve been successfully able to reduce it from 4.4 to 4.1 planets needed.

I was able to reduce my Ecological Footprint by:

• Eating more local and buying less packaged food
• Reducing the amount of trash and increasing recycling
• Carpooling more often, and utilizing the bus system instead of driving
• Making sure I save more electricity by turning lights off more often
• Saving water by taking shorter showers

Services and Food still account for the majority of my footprint, making up about three quarters of it. In the future I will try to eat healthier, organic, and locally in order to reduce my footprint. However services will be very hard to reduce as I will most likely need to commute more for work as well as rely on things such as electricity to maintain my lifestyle and accomplish what I want. I will look into forms of alternative electricity and reduce the amount of items I have plugged in, as well as switches I have turned on, in order to reduce the amount of global acres of Earths productive area it takes to support my lifestyle.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/
I think the footprint I used (link above) was not very accurate in its calculations because it asks very vague questions, such as do you have electricity? Without questioning where the electricity comes from, or how it is generated. I think a more detailed survey that includes more issues would be a better example of my true ecological footprint.

Western Solar comes to Bellingham

Western Solar Inc. has been providing alternative forms of energy to Washington State since 1979. They focus on selling and installing solar panels to provide money and Earth saving energy.

The company's mission :

With offices in Bellingham and Seattle, we are a leading provider of residential and commercial solar electric, solar hot water, small wind systems and solar space heating systems in Washington State. We strive to design and install the most cost-effective energy-saving solutions for our clients. In so doing, we hope to contribute to decreasing our country's dependence on fossil fuel and its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Yes, as mentioned the company has finally come to Bellingham, WA. While riding the bus to the downtown station i noticed the business out the corner of my eye. It is located at 319 E. Champion St.

Key Benefits to Installing a Western Solar Electric System
Western Solar Systems are custom designed to greatly reduce or eliminate your annual electric bills
Western Solar Systems include the top solar modules, inverters and solar racking systems in the industry
You are automatically eligible to receive annual production payments at twice the current utility rates ($0.15/kWH)
Annual production payments are in addition to the monthly savings from your utility
Save thousands with Federal Stimulus Package Tax Credits equal to 30% of the entire system cost
Earn 6 to 15% per year on your investment, after taxes
All Solar Electric Systems are tax exempt in the State of Washington
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
All Solar Modules include a standard 25 Year Production Warranty
Online Monitoring Systems are available that allow you to monitor your savings 24 Hours per day, from anywhere in the world.

Green roofing

The Solaire, New York, United States (First residential green roof in North America)

Green roofing over a long period of time has already become more of a standard for many
countries such as in Germany where 15% of buildings have green roofing currently. That percentage is expected to increase as should the rest of the worlds. There are numerous reasons why new architects and constructors should incorporate more green roofing into designs.


Green roofing:

• Reduces global warming by lowering city temperature up to 10 degrees F.
• Reduces damage from storm water (60-95%)
• Promotes Biodiversity
• Improves urban air quality (removes carbon and pollutants)
• CAN STILL BE AESTHETICALLY PLEASING SO NO EXCUSES...

CHECK OUT THESE GREAT EXAMPLES

What would you do to save the world if you had 50 billion dollars?

Our Priorities for Saving the World:
Yet another great TED video. Bjorn Lomborg takes a very interesting approach to improving our world. There are many, many very large problems that our world faces today; However we cannot help everyone with everything and must prioritize and focus on the problems where we can make the biggest difference. He and his team look at the big problems we face today in our current environment and prioritize them into categories (bad ideas, fair ideas, good ideas, and great ideas)to establish which ones we should avoid for now and which ones we should try to act on immediately. Starting at minute 6:30 Bjorn Lomborg lists these categories starting with the bad ideas. While all the problems that are brought are still very big ones, there is issues about how much costs must be made to get what benefits. With bad ideas it costs a very large amount of investments to get very little benefit. Great ideas on the other hand have incur huge benefits from very little costs. At minute 10:20 Bjorn mentions the number one priority we should focus on, Aids, $27billion will prevent 27 million new cases over the next few years. It is apparent that disease and malnutrition are our top priorities while climate change is at the bottom of the list in our current environment.

Bellingham's push for "Green" Businesses

The Northwest is known for being on the cutting edge of introducing and promoting sustainable practices. This is especially true with cities such as Bellingham where more and more environmentally responsible businesses are entering the market. Businesses such as the hempest are focused on providing customers apparel and other hemp related products made from renewable materials that are much better for the environment compare to what is readily available.

Barbo Furniture is another Bellingham Business that supports sustainable practices in every action of their operations.

“The Barbo Furniture store is where you will find some of the world's finest, well-made pieces of furniture. Many pieces are designed and artfully crafted in our own shop, bearing the well- deserved title "custom," since no two are ever alike."..."Our custom pieces are "Green/Sustainable," using FSC certified woods and time-honored construction practices. The manufactured furniture in our store is "Green" or "Emerging Green," because we believe we don't have the right to waste our natural resources or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. We are also founding members of the Sustainable Furnishings Council.
-Holly Barbo

After walking through her store and speaking with Holly Barbo, co-owners of Barbo Furniture, I could not agree more, that her furniture is amazingly well crafted and unique. It is unique not just for its style and craftsmanship, but also for the ecologically friendly processed used during its production. The craftsmenship and qulity that goes into each piece of furnitue increase its longevity, and promotes it being past down from generation to generation rather than disposed of after a few years.

Rethreads is a used apparel store that both buys and sells clothing of all types. Increasing the life of clothing that would have been previously thrown out, and helping the community support itself by buying and selling to eachother, locally.

Food Co-op ues banners on the side of their building to display how the business differentiates itself vs. competeing grocery stores. They are making more pushes towards a community based on getting food that is organic, fresh, and harvested sustainably.

Also on the tour of sustainable businesses in Bellingham i stumbled across a family who had been getting around using a electric car. They mentioned to not notice a difference in their electrical bill after using the car, which in turn makes the car free eco-friendly transportation.

Volvo believes that “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Brundtland (Our Common Future, 2007)

http://www.volvocars.com/intl/corporation/Sustainability/sustainable/Pages/Default.aspx

After looking at numerous car companies i see that Volvo is on the fore front of pushing for more ecologically friendly practice in their vehicle manufacteuring, parts, and drive. Not only are they stepping up by using better materials for their interiors such as substitutes for leather but they're also offering customers new value with their cars. Volvo has continued to pursue their brand trademark of being the safest car company around by adapting technology to their cars that helps prevent collisions before they happen.

Tardigrades for flame resistant materials

Flame retardant materials are not just used for Firefighters and stuntmen although they also certainly appreciate the fire resistant capabilities of modern textiles. The business has expanded, and chemicals used as flame retardants are to be found practically everywhere in our lives. Most structural wood elements such as paneling are treated with products and chemicals to make them more fire resistant. Plastic is also flammable and is the dominant material replacing traditional materials like wood and metal. So it too is often sprayed with chemical products to become more fire resistant.
The main chemical families of flame retardants are inorganic chemicals (including antimony, aluminum and tin compounds); primarily the products used are bromine, phosphorus, nitrogen, and chlorine based retardants. The use of some of these chemicals in flame retardants has come under increased scrutiny due to their suspected negative health and environmental impacts, especially the use of brominated flame retardants in polymer formulations. Firefighters, for example, are at risk from potentially toxic chemicals that are created when products containing flame retardant burn. These same chemicals are also potentially dangerous even to children who are at risk from many plastic toys they play with, also covered with similar flame retardant chemicals. 

Tardigrades, commonly known as “water bears” because of the way they walk with their stubby legs and claws, are water dwelling, very small microscopic animals (adults are between 0.1 mm to 1.5 mm long), and found everywhere, from hot springs at the Himalayas to more than two miles beneath the sea. They are polyextremophiles, meaning the can survive in harsh environments that would kill most animals, and can survive temperatures from above 300 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly absolute zero, making them the toughest animal on Earth. More than 1000 species of tardigrades have been discovered and they date back thousands of years.
Recently these "water bears" became the first species to survive in space’s harsh environment, flying aboard the European Space Agency's FOTON-M3 spacecraft in September, 2007. As part of the flight the animals were exposed to the vacuum of space as well as unfiltered solar radiation 1,000 times greater than that at the Earth's surface. Amazingly the little animals survived. Scientists were able to find that the tardigrades even retained the ability to reproduce after the spaceflight. Perhaps, the scientists speculate, the tardigrades did this by somehow repairing their DNA, but also evidence about the species skin, behavior, and composition gives suggestions to how this is possible. This also is amazing because it shows that life could have been created somewhere else in the universe and traveled through space to Earth.
Using microscopic images to a study the many different species of tardigrades that live in harsh hot temperatures and becoming more knowledgeable about the ways the species survives in such environments can help lead to the design and creation of a more organic product that acts as a non-toxic flame retardant. The animals salty cells are able to better retain water even when exposed to high concentrations of salt water, special enzymes, dubbed extremozymes, resemble regular enzymes but have a much stronger bond, and special sugars, called trehalose’s are rapidly produced when faced with dry conditions acting as substitutes for water molecules. These Tarnigrade attributes, as well as others, found from studies provide useful knowledge that would be very helpful in developing this product.
The product would be used as an alternative to the commonly used flame retardant chemicals we presently are stuck with using. It would help eliminate many of the harsh toxins currently found in available products and would lead us to advance in keeping not only our fire fighters more safe, but also our society as whole, who is constantly in contact with materials treated with flame retardant chemicals.