Gardening The Future.

I have now presented my poster to the class about my window farm. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to learn about window farming. Showing my window farm to people gives me an opportunity to educate others about creative gardening and producing/buying local organic food.

I was asked many times today about what I was going to do with window garden now that the class project is over. My garden will live on so do not worry. My window farm will be moving with me to a Boy Scout summer camp that I run. There it will hang in a window in the dinning hall. With this prime location I will have around 1500 people walk by it during the summer and I am sure that many of them will stop to take a look.

The possibility of having 1500 people learn about local food is an exciting idea that I cannot turn down. Exceptionally sense most of that 1500 will be middle school kids. Teaching kids at a young age is the easiest way to make meaning life changes.

And after camp the garden is moving with me to Chicago where I hope to expand it.

I hope that many of you are think about making your own window garden, and if you do please let me know. Here are a few things that I have learned from making my own can could help you.

First, herbs are the best to plant in a window garden because many of them do not grow to big. This style of gardening is not good for large plants. Also herbs allow you to continually harvest them without completely killing the plant.

Second, do forget to water them. The bottles themselves are not very big and with that they cannot store a lot of water. I have to water my garden every two days or it will quickly dry out. I learned this the hard way and my lettuce has not fully recovered from it yet.

Last, come up with a design of your own. You could simply build one close to mine or you could be creative. Being creative with your garden makes this project such a fun to do. A good friend of mine is now making one out of old sections of plastic plumbing of different sizes. Some of the pipes even have right angles in them so he can be even more creative with the design. He is planting wild flowers in his.

Over all this has been a fantastic project. I have truly enjoyed designing and building my garden and learning about environmental issues at the same time in class.

Random Window Farm Thoughts

This last weekend my window garden took a turn for the worse. I had to be out of town to finalize some post graduation plans in Chicago, where I am moving to, and while I was out of town my garden did not get watered. The red lettuce and chives both are not looking so well, but I believe that they will pull through. I have always had plants growing in my room and have seen them look worse then this before and they have always came back. I am hoping that this happens this time as well.

This does bring up a problem with my design of a window garden. The amount of soil in each bottle is small and therefore the amount of water it can hold is small as well. This means that I have to keep up with the watering or the plants will quickly die. I have been watering every other day or so, but over the weekend they went four days with out water. Just these four days made the plants look sick.

The window farming website does have some plans for building an automated watering system for those who are to busy to water everyday.

Also my last post I talked about a new question that I had come up with. I wanted to know how many trees would I have to plant to cancel out my CO2 emissions. That way I could eliminate all my CO2 emissions and be carbon neutral. Here is what I have found from reliable sources.

The average person in the United States emits 10,185lb of CO2 per year. (International Energy Agency 2009) And a tree absorbs on average 48lb of CO2 per year. (U. S. Department of Energy 2008) Which means I would have to plant 212.2 trees, a huge number but doable at the same time. Please note: This is rough average calculation with many variables not taken in to account and this is also for only one green house gas. With that said this still shows an interesting solution.

I find this to be a fun idea to play with in my head, trying to figure out if this is truly doable.

One last thing, last week I had an unexpected surprise come out of my garden. In with my red lettuce I had a foreign plant start to grow. After it got large enough I was able to identify it as a sunflower. A seed must have gotten mixed in with the potting soil. A sunflower is way to big to grow in a bottle, so I am trying to decide what to do with it. This is one of the things that I love about gardening. You never know what is going to happen.

Invisible sucking Vampires! :O

Hellooooo! My dear classmates!

It is I the Invisible sucking Vampire Slayer! ohhhh yeeaahhh… J.K… I am not good jokes…

Any who, I have begun with week 3! and that is to save energy!

So I lower our temperature in our apartment from 75 degrees to 65-67 degrees, you can’t really tell exactly put assume its in there, we have the old retro thermostats, so It’s in between those numbers. I get cold really easily so I am always wearing a sweater now and days, as well as I feel like a baby because I carry my blanket with me everywhere in the apartment because I’m cold, but It is all worth it! It’s not killing me or my roommate, I actually think my roommate loves it! Why? she is warm blooded and is always hot. Me I am always cold…

Another thing, that we do is ( hence the title for my blog) unplug all appliances that we are not using, so that way they won’t be sucking on energy! as I will post this video, if you hear the last part, It is shocking on how much energy they consume and how much we pay for that!!! So I’m sure some of you guys knew and some did not. My mouth drop when he mention how much money we spend on those sucking little buggers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGAOZllghYo

I have also replace my regular light bulbs to energy light bulbs, ( not in roommate room just mine),  I also turn off all the light that may be on when we don’t use it. We also open windows for light during the day, and then lights for the night.

Reducing my water usage: So I was finally able to take a 10 minute shower!!!! I acomplish that on Friday! I time myself (started timing when the water was turn on and off) I was so happy! I was able to wash my hair 2 times, and scrub my body 2 times as well, and shave half my legs, so not bad eh?! I was impressed so I hope I can keep that up! I wonder if I can do a 5 minuter shower… maybe that will be my next goal… seems too short of a shower time… but I shall try!

Oh oh I am not starting to get better at turning of the water while brushing my teeth! WOOHOO for me

Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian: So I finally went to the store to get the ingreadients for the cheese… well that was the plan… as I read what was needed I realize I don’t know some (1 or 2) ingredients… so I have to research… It looks really easy I just did not realize it was hard at the same time?? So again I must push that for another week… But I did took a picture of my awesome omelet! I have been eating more eggs than normal… So my omelet has, cilantro ( love it), onion, tomato, cheese, and aguacate with a green salsa. Its soooo good! you guys should totally try it!

Well that’s all for now!

Final blog for Renewable energy

Well it has been great but here is my final blog and I am going to start by discussing a scientific view of renewable energy sources and leave you with my parting thoughts for the project/blogging experience. Now for the scientific view of renewable/green energy. Renewable does not mean green, the environment can be destroyed by building to many dams, wind farms, or growing to much biomass to meet global energy demands. When you consider the renewable energy in terms of watts per square meter the greenest energy is nuclear energy. Biomass energy is extremely inefficient and destructive to nature, biomass energy drains nutrients from the soil, and takes away from nature, it is good to subsidize the energy market with biomass energy but we can’t fully support the energy crisis with biomass energy even if we could for a little bit we would eventually dry up our water and drain all the nutrients out of our land. Solar power is not the best solution for renewable energy either, based on the huge surface area they require to support them. Renewable energy may be renewable but remember renewable doesn’t equal green. So in order to minimize the rape of mother earth we should consider options with the smallest footprint on nature, other than the waste storage nuclear seems ok, as long as it is well supervised and not another Chernobyl. In closing for this blog posting I would like to say renewable energy isn’t always the best thing. Make your own opinions and decide for yourself weather green energy is renewable and what renewable is the best choice. I think you should consider nuclear energy as an option and I think that the green energy has a direct effect on ecofeminism because by the green energy we respect our environment more, which in turn will lead us to respecting women more. In the same way the abuse of fossil fuels leads to the abuse of the environment which oppresses and abuses women, like through the rape of mother earth.

Economics of renewable energy

Hi everyone, I am sure you are all as excited to read this as I am to post it but here is my blog posting for the economical aspects of renewable (green) energy. Well to start out with lets talk about wind turbines. The electricity produced has a higher up front cost of production from wind turbines than it does from more traditional methods like fossil fuel consumption. However as with all things economic you must look past the up front cost, and consider long term cost, opportunity cost, and environmental cost. When wind turbines are built they cost a large sum of money for each unit, but in the long term they are saving fossil fuels and are producing a good amount of energy for the world. On the down side if you are a bird watcher you will hate these because well birds seem to fly into the turbine blades and kill themselves. However, a few birds to save the over consumption of fossil fuels like coal, a fair trade in my opinion. In exchange for the loss of a few birds though we will reap the following benefits:
one unit wind turbine will offset the emission of 7,100,000 pounds of CO2
33,000 pounds of SOx (an contributor to acid rain and smog)
10,000 pounds of NOx (a leading component of smog and cause of asthma)
the amount of pollution saved annually is the equivalent to planting 83,000 new trees, or driving 75,000,000 miles less in a conventional automobile each year.
This kind of put it in perspective about how green the renewable energy can really be, these numbers are annually so this is just one years worth of accumulation.

So when you weigh the benefits vs the cost of renewable energy just using the example of wind power it seems to be an easy decision to me, wind power is great. This is just using one example of wind power, there are multiple different types of renewable energy that can be utilized. For more information about them and facts about them visit the following link: http://www.aresearchguide.com/energy.html

Artistic views of green enrgy

Hello again everyone. Well today I am going to talk about the artistic effects of green energy. Well if you are like me your wondering “how artistic can energy be?” well the answer is very artistic. It can be the cool angles of pictures and paintings of the wind turbines, or as direct as the silicon forest in Portland, Oregon.
Well I would say some great examples of how green energy can be viewed as artistic are shown by the following link.
http://www.lope.ca/artrenewable/index.html
Hey it is also a really cool sight to see the wind turbines in the distance as the sun is setting behind them, it is a neat picture. Some of the forms of renewable energy are designed with art in mind when they are built like the Interstate/Rose Quarter Station
Lamps these are solar powered street lights that look somewhat like a tree does. They were designed by the artist Brian Borrello. Shown Below.
This is the silicon forest artwork by Brian Borello.

I don’t think they look to bad, kind of expensive and artsy but they do utilize the use of solar energy that is collected by the solar panel and stored in a battery pack and then burned throughout the night to help keep the area illuminated and well lit.
I suppose this is an example of how just about anything can be looked at in an artistic view if you are willing to think outside of the box a little bit. This is connected back into what we have learned in class by the principle of ecofeminism. I would say that renewable energy is more friendly to the environment then fossil fuel energy and by respecting our environment we will thus respect women more because women and the environment have a direct correlation with each other.

Exploring my horizons with Global Warming

For my project, I decided to try and help the world and myself by trying to do things that will help global warming. I know one day in class I got yelled at because I was not that sincere that people would change to help out global warming so I’m taking that chance to prove people and fellow peers wrong. I have looked at a website which is this one right here http://reference.aol.com/globalwarming/_a/top-12-ways-you-can-reduce-global/20050802173409990001.
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Every week I’am going to pick one thing to do from the list. and see if it changes my mind to help save the environment. I’m going to be looking at my energy bill every month to see if I have used or saved electricity. I figure this would be a challenge for me that is why I chose this project to do. Since everyone is realizing that the environment is in danger. I figure doing these actions from the website, I will have a better understanding of why I should try and continue helping the stop of global warming. I’m a democrat so I should be more concern in these types of situations, but I have then mind set even if I try other people would ruin it for me. But for these 8 weeks I will post every week what type of project I did to help global warming. I will tell you the outcome if I like it or not. If it is effective and why all of you guys should know about it. I plan on having a positive attitude towards this project even though I might be irritated by it. I really want to understand more about global warming and how it can help me and others out. Another goal of mine is to prove to myself and people that I do care about the environment. By doing this project I think I can convince people that global warming might be a great idea or not.

Go Green

Hello again, first I would like to start by saying thank you for the great ideas you left in the comments section they were great ideas of where to go with the research! I would like to expand upon the political views of green energy, these views include what the Kansas is doing with energy, what our close neighbor Missouri is doing with its green/renewable energy, and kind of how all the state are ranked as energy consumption/production including a ranking of the states on who is the most earth friendly with green energy.
First, I will delve into what the Kansas Energy Council; herein known as KEC, is doing/planning to help Kansas develop and maintain green energy. Chapter 6 of the Kansas Energy plan is about wind energy, the state is setting the goal of 1,000 megawatts of energy to be produced by wind by the year 2015. The USDA is also providing grants for $250,000 for energy efficiency projects, and grants for $500,000 for renewable energy systems. Chapter 7 covers renewable energy sources and it tell in great detail ways Kansas is supporting going green.

Check out the link for more information and cruise around on the KEC Kansas energy plan at http://kec.kansas.gov/ and click on Kansas Energy Plan tab.

Secondly I will discuss Missouri and what they are doing for green/renewable energy. First off Missouri is loaning money to schools for energy efficiency upgrades. They are also big in renewable energy, for example wind energy, solar energy, and biomass energy (plant/animal material conversion like ethanol) the money incentives seem like a nice way to get people on board for the renewable and green energy.

Again look at the following link to see for yourself just what Missouri is doing for green/renewable energy because there is no way I can go in depth enough to describe it all, so surf around this site. http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/renewables/index.html

Now for how the whole US ranks for green and renewable energy. I know I said I was going to post a rank but this is almost impossible due to the fact that some states have more financial incentives, some have more laws, some have more or less policies. I will however go ahead and tell you were you can spend hours upon hours of time comparing Kansas to the rest of the states and even U.S. territories for financial incentives, rules, and regulations. For example KS has 5 state provided incentives for renewable energy, but Missouri has 15 incentives for renewable energy. (oops Kathleen Sebelius appears to currently be behind Missouri)

The website is http://www.dsireusa.org/Index.cfm?EE=0&RE=1
Definitely check this one out.

Go Green

Well looks like I’m back at it again blogging about my findings with green energy. This week I will be talking about the political view of green energy (I was going to talk more about the scientific but that will be later to come I haven’t received a reply yet from the professor working in that area). In the logic of keeping this blog somewhat short I will refer to a few links that I will also post into this blog.
One of the ways that politics are getting involved is tax breaks for renewable energy companies, in fact a bill was just passed 2-18-2008 in Oregon to expand the states tax credits for renewable energy companies. They increased the budget from 10 million dollars to 20 million dollars for tax breaks to present to renewable energy companies. But you can further read about this at:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2008/02/house_approves_renewableenergy.html

Another way politics are involved is for example Gov. Chet Culver from Iowa, he wants to have 25 percent of the United States of America’s energy to be renewable by the year 2025. Representative Janet Petersen is the key player in this plan because of her position heading the house commerce committee. As far as presidential candidates that support green energy/non-renewable energy I found that as much as I don’t like her other policies Hilarly Clinton seems to support renewable energy sources and wants to see us curb our energy demand, at least on oil, before it is to late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301968.html

The state of Iowa seems to be the leading state in the United States in going green they seem to have great political leaders in the state and are leading by example they have programs supporting ethanol, more efficient homes, and wind energy. Iowa is the leader and they are encouraging their local residents to participate in going green by research, education and demonstration.

http://www.kcci.com/sponsors/14888783/detail.html

I would also like to add that John McCain supports enviromentalism and you can check that out for yourself at the following link. John McCain also is paving the way for renewabel energy by bumerouse methods includeing support for hydrogen cars. check out the following links.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/John_McCain_Environment.htm

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/John_McCain_Energy_+_Oil.htm

Go Green, Save Green

Hi, I will be doing the informed citizenship style project. The title implies that going green with energy will save green and indeed it will (but will it save just the enviroment or will it save you some cash too). I will be researching about green energy with an emphasis on bio diesel and other energy sources that can power automobiles, and even be used to produce electricity instead of fussil fuel use. I will try to contact a professor here at the university that is currently working with bio diesel and I will see if I can interview him and possibly even try to help him with his research. I will be researching other energy sources as well such as wind energy, solar energy and even hydrogen energy. I will be researching all of these green forms of energy from the following five perspectives: scientific, political, economic, cultural, and artistic.
I will relate these green energy sources to the class by showing what women are doing in the development, backing, implementation, and improving of these green energy forms. I will talk about how women and men alike are working on these new green energy forms and I will specifically look into if/how women are exploited, deceived, discouraged, or stereotyped against in any of the process. I would wager to say that the women are the only real reason for there being a great artistic aspect to green energy but I could be wrong. (it sure wouldn’t be the first time, and won’t be the last.) I am interested to see how the politics are backing the ideas of green energy and if there are any current programs being funded by the government for new energy sources besides ethanol and soy diesel.
It will also be interesting to see what kinds of alternatives there are out there for automobile fuels in the future, and what the future of electric energy will be in 5 years or maybe even 20 years, I anticipate a few potential problems in this research, they are as follows: not being able to efficiently communicate with the professor at the university, not being able to find a artistic view of energy sources, but I think art is vaguely defined, and finding the true economic cost/benefits of green energy.