In my spare time I can find enjoyment from many things, some more than others.
I like to go on walks, especially with my dog.
I like to relax by fires
I like leg days.
I like to bike.
I enjoy spending time with my siblings.
I like to read about tech and science.
I draw.
I like to daydream about space.
I like to watch spy films and tv shows.
I like SciFi movies.
I like to play video games.
I like obscure EDM music.
I like Chipotle, way too much.
I Enjoy laying in bed for no reason at all.
The Grey Wolf, Timber Wolf, or by its taxonomic name Canis Lupus. Many of us have likely never seen of wolf outside of captivity despite its habitat range spanning the nearly entire northern hemisphere. Not to be confused with its cousin the coyote who shares a keen resemblance the Grey Wolf is nearly twice the size weighing in from 80 to 100 pounds. The body length can be up to 160 cm with an additional 50cm of tail, measured from foot to shoulder it reaches 85cm. Its fur ranges from all black to all white in arctic conditions with hues of amber, brown, silver, and grey marbled into its thick coat. The grey wolf sheds fur in the summer leading to a learner appearance of its thick winter coat. With its heavy shoulders to support a large head the Grey wolf is a daunting creature if observed in nature even from a great distance. The grey wolf has longer legs than the coyote to help it traverse its wintered territories and close in on its often larger prey. To effectively hunt this larger prey the Grey has advanced pack behavior unpatrolled by few other animals within the canis genus. Capable of jumping distances of 5 meters to further enhance its hunting prowess.
Well would you look at that, I never published this and it was just sitting here as a draft. Crisis averted!
Biodiversity to me, it has collapsed. We here the talk of this accelerated extinction event that we are likely the main propellant. I have the opening scene in my head from the TV show on Fox called Terranova. A Martian landscape rolls over the screen and you pan over to a Bio-dome, as the perspective changes from the planet to a viewpoint in space you realize that this is not mars but what is left of the earth as you see the moon with the lunar landing site. The premise of the show revolved around time traveling into the past in another “time stream” so that unlike in the Back to the Future movies, altering the past does not alter the future. In the past there is a colony set up to harvest the resources from this “second earth” and send them back to the future. later on in the plot you find out there is no sense of the big wigs back in the bio dome to save this earth and treat it right but simply use it as a planetary scale super market.
It’s with a heavy heart that I don’t see this world far from it. It’s my personal opinion that we have altered this kinetic system too far in our favor. Pushed our population limit artificially higher with the advance of technology, mind you I don’t use the word progress here since I don’t see how the vast alteration of this earth is progress. To me we have push the system beyond its capabilities. A Malthusian scenario of unimaginable consequences. What happens when humans are gone? What happens when we can no longer monitor the hyper volatile systems that we have so delicately engineered? We see what has happened at Chernobyl. But nuclear isn’t the only thing we have done. Without us we can no longer monitor and attempt to remove invasive species. So in this light we are a critical part of the system too. We absolutely have a duty to this planets crucible from which we grew and took shape.
Despite the fact that I see this I must remain an optimist if I am to survive. This world is not bleak as it may seem. Sure we have incomprehensible amounts of things to do to maintain a balance. To define that point of balance may be the most difficult thing to do as well. This is where I look to people like Elon Musk, people who disrupt the status quo, dare to challenge the system. While Musk and I both dream of stepping foot on mars not just for a brief adventure but for an extended stay, my home is here on earth.
So do you understand what I’m trying to say about biodiversity here? No? Okay, I’ll sum it up. We gotta get our shit together and stop destroying everything we touch.
At the University of Illinois Champaign – Urbana campus the dawn of a new wave of thinking is beginning to rear its head. As a university well known for its engineering departments it is no surprise that we will soon lay claim to the largest LEED Platinum certified building in North America and possibly the world. This building is regarded by some as the epitome of sustainability and energy efficiency. Designing this building around net zero energy consumption with all of the tasks it was to meet was certainly no easy feat. Which lead me to ask the question, what does designing a building like this entail? To achieve this I interviewed Susan Johnson, The technical Coordinator and Specifications Writer For Muller & Muller Ltd, an architecture firm based in Chicago IL. Susan received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture at the University of Illinois in 1978 and owned a residential construction firm from 1984 through 1998. Using this experience she now writes materials specifications for projects that convey information about a material and its quality and workmanship.
As my class was shown around the new ECE building by our tour guide Ankit Jane we learned of some of the design elements that pushed the buildings qualification to LEED Platinum certification. These included showers in the basement to encourage cyclists to bike to work, LED lighting, A Solar panel array set to be installed on the roof of the building and more. But what exactly is LEED? Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED for short is a scoring system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council or USGBC. LEED is not a Code that a builder must adhere to. LEED is something beyond code and LEED certification is something that an entity must seek when building or renovating a structure. As Susan states “Although the standards in all the International Codes are the minimum standards that must be met, a design professional can increase the energy efficiency of the structure they are designing.” This is what has been done at the new ECE Building. As one might expect designing for increased energy efficiency and sustainability can add costs due both to increased design complexity and material costs, demonstrated by the 95 million dollar budget of the building.
Designing an energy efficient building in itself presents a challenge due to the nature that everyone individuals, companies, and governments alike all have limits. Asking Susan what difficulties are encountered with sustainable design the immediate answer was “The client’s budget.” Underlying this message though was the client’s desires. Some clients simply may not have much money allocated for sustainability, they may want a larger floor plan, more lavish materials in the design, or some compromise of those three aforementioned aspects. “The most common materials and equipment that are changed are increases in insulation values of the buildings thermal envelope along with more energy efficient glazing for the exterior envelope.” Susan continued. In short this means things that reflect more heat on the outside and transmit heat they don’t reflect slower into the building. This could be achieved through systems like green walls that have trellised plants adjacent to the main structure to shade the building by absorbing energy, a passive solar system with windows that let less sunlight in during the summer but more during the winter to help regulate heat, or better insulating materials such as fiberglass insulation or other preferred materials. Designing the building for sustainability does not mean only better insulation as Susan points out, “There is a point though in adding insulation to a structure where it levels off to nearly no actual gain in net building performance… the mechanical and electrical systems can be upgraded also.” This would entail systems like lighting and HVAC. Perhaps the most important thing to consider though is trying to build a structure that both looks good and stays within budget.
Designing for sustainability and energy efficiency is a multifaceted endeavor that is much more than choosing the most ecofriendly product on the market. As my interview uncovered a client’s budget is often the constraining factor limiting the potential of certain aspects of a building. In the Case of the ECE building a large budget allowed for almost no expense to be spared in its design and construction. Something the university is proud to report in regards to the budget is that almost 50% of the funds were donated by various sources making the building even less of an impact on the continued budget of the state institution.
Every day in the United States millions of people begin there day with a beverage, food, or some combination of the two. I am a person who often follows the last of the options presented. My breakfast is the epitome of repetition; 6 strips of bacon, hash browns, and six eggs. The rest of my diet does not stray far from what you may expect having read my typical breakfast. I am not far from a strict carnivore eating almost solely animal products. The environmental and ethical ramifications of my diet go beyond just choosing to recycle the packaging my food comes in. Dissecting the staples of my weekly diet, a larger, more complex image begins to manifest.
When thinking about the eggs in my diet and the environmental impact of eating them I can look at the chicken as a whole as an analog. At one time in the past chickens would have roamed free pecking on the ground and chasing down insects. Today we often chose to keep them in the dark of a ventilated feed house. These feed houses resemble a long stable but are filled end to end with chickens eating grains. Aside from not eating a more natural diet and living in a closed pen this may not seem entirely terrible. Stepping aside from concerning ourselves with just the chicken though we might look to the farmer. If you watch the 2008 documentary Food Inc. you will be presented with a fact that the average chicken farmer will invest $500,000 but on average makes only $18,000 a year. That’s a 28 year turn over if we assume no interest and the farm spends zero, an impossible scenario. Sum these few factors and you might consider chicken a quasi-environmentally friendly product but I would argue that for most it is an unethical choice.
Taking a look at the all American staple, beef, we can lay a thick brush stroke on our canvas. Beef in America has become the equivalent of a car assembly line for rib eyes. As Michael Pollan learned firsthand when he wrote Power Steer, calves used to be 4 to five years old at slaughter, now, they are 14 months. In order to do this we have fundamentally changed the way cattle live. Instead of grazing the pasture they are penned in and fed corn with a blend of antibiotics to get them to market as fast as possible. Trace amounts of these chemicals will wind up in the beef you eat, all in an effort to curb sickness caused by the change in diet of the cow from grass to corn. You may even have fresh in your mind a recent recall of over 90,000 pounds of beef in Texas this month. Stringing these factors together we can see a clear environmental concern with beef and its highly technical production in today’s world. All made possibly by the grains that now feed the livestock.
It is important not to overlook that without the mass conversion of land into hyper productive fields of green that the prior two livestock options wouldn’t even be feasible. Today we see corn everywhere driving through the Midwest. No longer does the saying “knee high by the fourth of July” hold any value when the corn is often taller than I at 6’2” in July. Of course these advancements haven’t just come from finding a new breed of corn. This corn is a genetically modified organism, or GMO for short. These GMO’s may entail a gene from another plant or animal spliced into its own genetic sequence or a gene developed in a lab to make the crop resistant to pesticide. The practice of growing GMO crops commercially is banned in the U.K. and that might raise a few red flags. Compound all the changes made to the land and the crop itself and the image may look rather bleak from one side or quite colorful from the other.
The composite of the grain beef and chicken industries can be viewed in many different angles and lights. Brining out shining advancement in technology or casting shadows on business seemingly tailored in the interest of profit. The picture is clear from my perspective that while certainly the mechanization and efficiency of these industries is to be praised the ethical and environmental concerns warrant a great deal of scrutiny from the public eye.
In recent years you may have noted while traversing the campus of the University of Illinois that a cluster of weeds has taken root in several locations, in some areas they don’t even mow the grass. Has facilities and services run into a man power problem? No. These areas of unkempt lawn and so called weeds (that are actually only partly weeds) are a new effort to increase biodiversity, restore habitat, and native species all while curbing emissions from upkeep of turf grass on campus property. As I mentioned before these weeds are not all actually weeds, ideally most them are native tall grass prairie species that once thrived throughout central Illinois. The Florida Orchard Prairie Planting next to the universities presidents’ residence where I met retired botanist Kenneth R. Robertson, retied biologist John C Marlin, and along with reading “Understanding Prairie in the Prairie State” by James Ellis allowed me to gain knowledge the student body here at the university might be happy to know.
The Florida Orchard Prairie Planting was bursting with color even for the cool overcast September day that we met. Vibrant shades of purple were visible past the tall yellow grasses I learned to be called prairie golden rod. As we exited the planting we passed a deep red flower, an uncommon hue for prairie as noted by John. Beyond the variation in color the variety in plant structure was immense, some plants only knee height while others reached well over 6 feet. This would be atypical of natural Prairie since “completion would limit height in a natural Prairie” according to Ken. the flowers themselves were a geometric frenzy with pentagonal blooms to single straight flowering arms branching off a central stalk. In total this one planting was home to about 30 species of prairie grasses, only about 3.5% of the 851 species left in Illinois (Ellis 9). Another interesting fact I learned from Dr. Robertson is that the golden rod I had previously mentioned was an insect pollinated plant, good news for allergy sufferers, as the wind won’t drive the pollen into the air causing reactions, as is the case with most prairie plants. After walking out of the prairie grass Dr. Robertson prompted us to look at our pants, not so much as a single bur or plant had stuck to them, or any part of us unlike and avid backwoods hiker who will emerge covered in burrs. All these attributes make for a great garden of natural plants that could be planted in low traffic areas on campus, like the less shaded south and or engineering quad. Our student body could even get a sense of involvement and accomplishment if more prairie plantings were undertaken.
Not happy with what the university is doing, perhaps I can change your mind. Every time you walk past some of this Prairie whether it be here on campus or perhaps maybe in your local town, you pass the natural landscape of central Illinois! These prairie plantings restore land back to pre-agriculture conditions in turn creating habitat for animals like birds and smaller mammals as humans plowed the land to provide for ourselves. As of 1978 only .01% of native tall grass prairie was left according to (Ellis 16). Do not however think I want prairie grass covering the quad itself, as I too grew up in suburbia and enjoy all the benefits a lawn can provide. Consider though walking to class in the morning and instead of passing grass that you can find with ease virtually anywhere in the country. You instead find a plant supporting insect populations that in turn support birds and small mammals. Even if you enjoy the glass and concrete jungle I think we all can find a little pride and enjoyment from an occasional finch hopping out from the bushes, cocking its head before it pecks a seed from the ground and flying off to its home.
Understanding Prairie in the Prairie State Reading Quiz
1) What percentage of Illinois was covered by tall grass prairie in 1820?
a) 90%
b) 75%
c) 60%
d) 40%
2) Australia is the only continent that does not have grasslands
a) True
b) False
3) A Biome is a _______
a) Greenhouse
b) A group of plants and animals distinct to an environment
c) The earth
d) A country
4) Grasslands cover about ___ of earths total land area
a) 32%
b) 17.8%
c) 16%
d) 10%
5) Grassland can only exist and thrive within a very narrow range of climates
a) True
b) False
6) About 70% of food production is on land that was once grassland
a) True
b) False
7) The word Prairie Is of French origin
a) True
b) False
8) Prairie plants can survive a brush fire because ______
a) The growth node is below the ground
b) Their water content is too high and they don’t catch fire
c) The soil insulates the root system from the fire
d) Both a & b
9) What animals did / do not graze on prairie vegetation
a) Foxes
b) Deer
c) Bison
d) Grasshoppers
Continues on back
10)What percentage of prairie plant species are listed as threatened or endangered?
a) 90%
b) 72%
c) 27%
d) 10
11)All of the following are examples of types of prairie except
a) Sand prairie
b) Hill prairie
c) Dolomite prairie
d) Tree prairie
12)In 1978 how much of original prairie was left in Illinois?
a) 10%
b) 1%
c) 0.1%
d) .01%
13)What are the three main courses of action listed for bringing back the prairie?
a) Preserve and Protect existing prairie
b) Rehabilitate degraded prairie
c) Reconstruct prairie habitat
d) All of the above
Bonus question
Where are the last original black soil prairies located today?
____________
Answer key not available, read the material!
As a student I have always dreaded the English classroom, I could speak, text books from other classes taught me new words, so what did I need English for? By in large I still despise writing. Of the classes I am in enrolled in this semester I was most anxious about this one than the others combined. Though I have never failed an English class I have never excelled. My ACT only reinforced the fact that I am not a writer. Perhaps this may stem from the fact that I as a child was unable to read even into the first grade. Since I was unable to read I was placed in a program for reading recovery… aptly named reading recovery. While I’m proud to report back to you that yes I am able to read now, I’d rather report this in verbal form. Despite the fact that I was late to gain literacy when compared to my peers I was soon far beyond my class reading at “high school” levels in 5 and sixth grade. Through high school I can’t say I remember much from my classes other than writing about a book or writing a research paper. I do remember in my community college one teacher who made a comment on one of my introductory paragraphs, she liked my comparison of the earth to a delicate kinetic sculpture. Truth be told that is currently my proudest achievement of writing.
In the future I can’t say how much writing I will encounter. Data entry no doubt I will encounter much of that. I know in the field I will write in my field book, however that could almost be considered analog data entry. If life’s path takes me down the road of a researcher writing will no doubt be a good deal of my life. Other than maybe a dissertation or a best man speech. Otherwise I’m content writing as little as I do currently.
After reading the Climate Action Plan for U of I, I was left rather pessimistic. The first thing that set the tone of my reading was the overall goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. While 2050 is relatively close considering how long we been pouring carbon back into the environment at greatly accelerated rates, the date still feels far. I realize this change is going to have be slow as most of the buildings are historic land marks and in use most of the time, but 2050? I feel we could do at least 5 years better than that. As stated in the plan one of the largest things to overcome was Abbot power plants emissions. To negate this by 2017 it is planned the coal fired boilers will be offline replaced with increased capacity for the combustion of natural gas. A decent alternative as natural gas will burn just a bit cleaner than the coal. To further negate the effect of carbon emissions a utility scale wind turbine was to be installed on the south farms. While I take it that this has been done it was very hard for me to find information of the details of the project, something I found odd considering the scale of the project. More turbines could be installed as the project states but I wonder when there is a wind farm not far from campus why more attention is not given to wind energy, aside from the issue of intermittence. It seems that even small scale vertical access turbines could be deployed readily on newer buildings, I can only imagine that it would be difficult and possibly prohibited to deploy rooftop wind or for that matter solar on the historic building of the UIUC campus. It seems a good deal of work has been done in the department of solar on newer constructions such as the BIF and plans for retrofit are easily found on the iCAP webpage. It seems the iCAP has done a great deal and I can only imagine the strains this project has with the nature of the campus being used often and as mentioned limitations brought about by the historic nature of the university. I only wish every student would take climate change as a serious issue. That said. Can we get some damned recycling bins ON the quad?
After reading the two articles by Michael Pollan and Derrick Jensen titled “Why Bother” and “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change” respectively, I believe a frothy beverage of undisclosed alcohol content with Pollen would be more enjoyable. While Jensen does bring up good points in his numbers arguments, I feel he unfairly diminishes an individuals responsibility for causation to climate change. While no one individual today can be held responsible, collectively as a global community we can. Yes as Jensen says we don’t necessarily have the power to change anything that governments can do much more effectively but as Pollen argues we do have the ability to set an example. Maybe this example will go unnoticed. Maybe your neighbor will come and ask why, giving you a great opportunity to lightly explain why you do something, and why they might consider following suit. In addition Pollen does not discredit policy makers power to help spur forward progress as shown in this quote “For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing.”