Archives for Getting to Green

I’m in Madison, Wisconsin and yesterday was our first day above 51 degrees since November. The snow is off the ground (except for the piles left from a record 100 inches of snowfall) and the big lakes are all still frozen over, although the ice looks pretty bad by now.

This year will go down in Wisconsin history as one of the best on record for skiing, skating, and ice fishing. There have been about three months of good, solid ice this winter, which is better than most recent years.

I’m a pretty conservative guy in terms of venturing out on frozen lakes, but I was out there an awful lot this winter. So your friend should either move to traditional ice fishing territory or get some weekends off so he can get out on the ice.

Robert, PhD Student, at 4:05 pm EDT on April 5, 2008

High-Efficiency Bulbs on Campus

At my institution, we are slowly transitioning to high-efficiency light bulbs (at least in the residence halls). In my particular residence hall we have a supply of bulbs to replace any burned out bulbs between now and the end of the academic year at which time the staff will change all bulbs in student residences (or so I’ve been told). In my own on-campus apartment, I used some of my hard earned graduate stipend to purchase high-efficiency bulbs for all the lamps in my apartment which I intend to leave behind for the future adviser. Yes, the bulbs are more expensive, but it’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Aurora E. Israelson, Graduate First Year Adviser at Miami University, at 10:20 am EDT on April 9, 2008

Counting Copies & Reusing Scrap

The main printer/copier/fax in our office has a counting feature. Someone from our business office comes down once a month or so and tallies how much we’ve used our machine. Whether it records number of pages printed or number of sheets printed is still up for debate, but provides a rough estimate.

I also encourage my office mates to contribute any paper that they don’t need (extra copies, old memos, the infamous one line page from printing emails) to a pile that I then use for my printing or for cutting into quarters to create message pads.

A, at 7:00 pm EDT on April 9, 2008

Why isn’t this done already?

A university should know exactly who is travelling where on their dime. I’m not worried about the carbon emissions, but I am concerned about universities spending money on unnecessary trips that could be better spent on faculty and departments.

Robert, PhD Student, at 5:15 am EDT on April 10, 2008

All “green” types like you should be required by law to suffer a restriction of your own desires and free will to the exact extent that you propose the limitations on the desires and free wills of others. In your case, for every one of your suggestions that is adopted, your own freedom of movement is correspondingly restricted. I suggest a “free will” test for all green proposals: are the people who make the proposals wiling “to pay the price?” No paying the price, no success for the proposal.

Michael McCanles, at 5:35 pm EDT on April 14, 2008

Let’s also ban them in faculty offices, while we’re at it.

Robert, PhD Student, at 3:55 pm EDT on April 10, 2008

prioritize!

I just can’t believe that you think this is the most valuable way to spend your energy (no pun intended). I heard on the radio today that the plane flying the olympic torch around the world will have produced 11,000,000 pounds of CO2 by the time that silly thing lands in China. And you’re spending time worrying about dorm room ice boxes and light bulbs?

small potatoes, at 10:20 am EDT on April 11, 2008

Order of priority

The Olympic torch relay will probably put more than 11 million pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, if you count all the spectator and protester travel.

But, to put things into perspective, the dorm rooms at Greenback U. put about that same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere every two years.

And, unlike actions of the Chinese government, that we have a living shot at being able to manage.

“... the courage to change what we can, the serenity to endure what we can’t, and ...".

GRendell, at 12:50 pm EDT on April 14, 2008