Recapping #3: Garbage Warrior

My last movie review, I was introduce to an amazing man named Michael Reynolds and his Earthships. Michael Reynolds has been an architecture for 35 years, and he been experimenting with radically sustainable living houses in New Mexico of Taos. He beileves that progress evolves through making mistakes, but not everyone sees it that way. On one view, he did not believe in the past or current standards of architectures. He believe in his own sustainability living houses for the future. Throughout this movie I learned it's not an easy way to pursue sustainability living standards with any city council, government, and the state.

The beginning had Mr. Reynolds introducing us to one his sustainability house called, "The Phoenix", it has nothing that comes into this house. There are no no usage of energy, power lines, gasoline, sewage lines going out, water lines coming in. There are 6,000 of water and food growing, sewage internal lines, 70°space year round, taking every aspect of life, and putting into our own life. A family of can live in it and not have to visit a store. Food production, birds, and insects flying around, goats, chickens, and ducks, Amazon jungle with 24 ft tall trees, and plat forms to hangout with all types of birds and insects. The "Thumb House" is the house Michael Reynolds and his wife lived there for 20 years later, and with their kids are still there because good working conditions. His home is the first house made from beer cans formed into bricks. This was possible by the wires, foil for reflectors, and 2 - 3 other houses were made this way. Thrown away tires are another product used for create his houses. His house was very simple, easy to build, beer cans and plastered over, no door, no walls,windows, u- shaped rooms, and all connected with the Greenhouse, glass faces sun, low winter floods the house and absorbs into the tires wall store, their no heating or cooling system, and under Fahrenheit causes stress on a person and off the planet.

Michael Reynolds will show you to different testing sites called "Castle Compound" and "Reach Community". Castle Compound, Texas built 1976-1986 30 years. It was the testing site and just the evolution of his work, can't worry about what it looks like and just wan it to. Pretty much it's a place for trial error, and experiments, and learning situation from the buildings. Reach Community, Taos the first sustainable testing site, successful and going further,650 acres this time around. $1,000 + was spent on this process of getting a house on a land fields. This houses are good because there are no mortgage bills, utility bill. One thing needs to know is that their contract will say they agree to live in an experimental houses. Hence, mention that people can complain all that goes wrong, and his crew will be there to make sure all the problems be solved out.

Greater World Community located in Taos and found 1990, it's a community that Michael Reynolds was able to established as a whole. Everyone came from a downside life from the reality of regular house living, but they were able to help lead Mr. Reynolds into doing great work. Some people were homeless or wanted a new way to live. They were designated a lot of 10 acres, memberships of share, turn into building lots, paid the same amount and drew number of hat, and got the lot they got. It was a fair and equal deal, and no richer person couldn't afford the better lot, people got in affordable price like a fancy restaurant night out. I enjoyed how they worked it out, and they inspired people to keep on moving this sustainability of living. The crew became a great family, so nothing harmful happened. The house can take care of it's own self that it provides power, heats itself, plants provide food, water comes from roof. Michael Reynolds words with put on websites, magazines, and attracted people to work for him and eventually the crew.

Towards the end of the movie it got kinda messy with knowing what was going on from taking notes. I can just say that Michael Reynolds lost his architecture license, and hit rock bottom for awhile. He was told that he was not following the architecture safeties and the book rules, yet Michael Reynolds did not like it at first. Then he wanted to continue his life, so he just gave in and allowed a certain rural city living.  Construction were done to make things good regarding the rules. Then one thing to keep in mind is that a prospering country will not change their living standards of sustainability, but when a third world country loses all they got with the a disaster hitting them. When everything is destroyed and have to stared back over, it will allow a new sustainability of living happens. This was when Michael Reynolds started to help some countries who got a lot of their living houses wiped out. Finally, he allowed his license back for helping third world country who lost everything.
      

The Grand Finale of Environmental Science Blog

This will be the last blog assignment for the environmental science course, so I was told to bring forward what are the most important environmental issues of today. I will let you in on my thoughts of the important environmental issue, why they are important (supporting it with data/facts/examples), what we can do about it as a society, what can you can do individually, and what I believe is/are the most interesting thing/things I have learned throughout the semester. Throughout the course, I can say as for planet Earth, we are pretty much destroying our self into a massive extinction. There are no important environmental issues because they are equally horrible for our general planet. If you want in on knowing what are some environmental issues, so they be anything that humans would be doing in our daily life and what products we may buy. Because finals is around the corner I would just use Climate Change as my focus point.

Climate Change: 
In a movie review and a blog assignment, I have learned that Climate Change can be a devastating issue on current Earth.The site Climate Change at the National Academies  stated that Earth average surface air temperature has increased by about 0.8°C (1.4°F) since 1900. There are evidence from thermometers records, tree rings, ice core, melting of ice into ocean, rising of sea levels, and increasing temperature. Average surface temperature on Earth it shows that 1983-2012 was probably the warmest 30 years period in more than 800 years. Green house gases had risen global temperature by about over the 20th century. Studies had shown that CO2 increased by 40% from 1800-2012. Additional activities that humans help make matter worse are agricultural, road construction, and emission of small particles, known as aerosols. Potential climate change can impact areas, species and natural environment. In the future average sea levels will be predicted to rise by 9 to 88cm by 2100, and mainly due to thermal expansion.James Balog from the movie "Chasing Ice" made a great film on Climate Change. He tackled the focus area on ice because it's the foundation of glacial melting. His crew and his self had some eye popping  photographic and films that can't lie to people that Climate Change is warming up. Store Glacier was the biggest calving event to happen and to be filmed. It was the longest film record at 75 minutes, it cabin faces 300 ft - 400 ft tall pieces of ice were shooting up 600 ft and falling. Pretty much imagine the city Manhattan breaking up in front of you. This is a must see film because if your curious about Global Warming.

What The Society Can Do World Wide:
From the SF Gate newspaper site and article called, "Top Ways to Stop Global Warming", showed four great ways to stop global warming. As a society, we must reduce fossil fuel use because it's the main source of burning that increase levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Planting more trees and plants can be a way great way to slow or stop global warming. Plants and tress are amazing because they use carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Chegg is great site to rent textbooks because they plant new trees when you buy textbooks from them. Notable society methods can be to reduce waste and conserve water.

What An Individual Can Do:
From the website Union Concerned Scientists and article called, "What Can You Do About Global Warming", had a list of individual things a person can do overall. Here is some ways to reduce global warming such as taking personal action reduce the amount of gas you burn (by better usable transportation from not burning fossil fuels), buy efficient appliances that useless electricity (look for Energy Star, awarded by the EPA), and reduce everyday electrical usage. Other noticeable task can be to reduce lawn size, recycle whenever possible, eat locally, produced food, and eat vegetarian meals.

What Caught My Interest In The Course:
This whole 2014 Spring Semester, I had a great experience on learning a lot throughout this course. In the course, I loved everything that I learned and was inspired how great Dr. Tonya Huff have a brilliant mind. She taught the class so well, and surprisingly each week on a Wednesday night was way more fun than I expected from other 3 hours night class that I had in the past. All the blogs that I done were equally exciting to find out all lot of facts, so this made me more of a brighter person in the field of environmental science. This may be from the chemicals that manufacturers put into our daily products, so the government can kill us off. Just being around alone in peace with the nature was pretty cool, knowing the fact that tap water is safer than bottle water, finding out about your ecological footprints and you would need a lot more planets to be sustainable, how you can take action to make your campus way more sustainable, and how plastic never goes away and just biodegrade down into small pieces.      

24 Hours Challenge: No Energy Consumption

For blog assignment #11 in my environmental science course, I was told not to use any energy consumption for a 24 hours time limit. In order to finish this task, I was suppose to unplug any technological devices during my 24 hours period. I was not allowed to use my cell-phone, iPod or radio players, computers, television, my graphing calculator for my math class, my G-Shock watch, my amp for the bass guitar, and anything that were electronics. Additional energy consumption around the house should not be in use either such as my blow dryer, toaster, cloth dryer, blender, juicers, electrical tools, mower, fridge and freezer, night lights, lamps, and so on. All the vampire plugs shall be unplug for no energy usage. My family should respect this rule whenever I was around them with the electronic usage, and they were allowed to scold me while I was tempted to use it at all. Memorial weekend was the worst time to do assignment because I around my dad's girlfriend niece going away party to Humble State College, Sunday I was around my nephew who is two months old, and I needed the computer for my homework assignments. Monday my dad hold a BBQ at my grandparent's house, so on Sunday evening and Monday morning I was used the electrical tools to get yard straighten out. 

Then I started my 24 hours challenge on Tuesday because I can get a great chance at the challenge. My morning usually start off at 7 am, and the sunlight always brighten up my room. This was when I was able to open up my curtain, and to let the sunlight come in. This mean I was not able to use the bedroom light, so each morning I can save energy by  this way. My grandparent already got a new fridge that was energy saving, so I just ate Honey Nuts and Oats with almonds. Normally, I get my mind warm up with either a word puzzle or Sudoku. The time was 8;30 am, my friend Alex got me into a bible study the week before. Now I was going to spend some time with the word of God, so I prayed to God to be guidance on this challenge, gave thanks for good stuff that happened on the weekend, and the let me understand the book of John. I spent a good 1:30, so the time leads me to 10 am. When I take a shower it normally takes me a good 15 minutes together with the shower and dressing myself. I just bit the bullet and took the shower like a man because I told myself to not be a girl and be a true man. 

After I got ready without any technology, I just went to school in my truck and drove a little bit because the task required it. This meant no radio usage, so I put it on mute and left with just my thoughts. I drove to school, so I can go get tutoring for my trigonometry course. The time was 11:20 am when got to the MLK tutoring building. I spent a good two hours on my math homework, and I went to get lunch of pizza and Pure Leaf Sweet Tea. Next I was able to go to my math class at 2:45 pm to 4:50 pm. There are normally bible studies at school around 4:30 pm, so I went near the student store for half an hour. At this time of 5:20 pm, I regrouped my thoughts on my energy usage, so I can say it was going well. More ways I can reduce my energy usage can take the bus more often or buy a bike, so I do my traveling around the city. I can try to find a carpooling with my friends too or a being drop of with my parents or grandparents. Sometimes I can walk to certain places such as the convenient stores, parks, and friends or family houses. Now my times is way 6:15 pm when I got home from school, so I had to use the microwave to heat up my BBQ from the day before. This broke one of the rule of the challenge, so I was sad at this moment. Then I had to use the lights at the moment too. However, I was to notice that in the rule I can use the light whenever is  necessary and night time was a good time too. Except the no microwave was not suppose to be use at all.  After my dinner it lead me to 6:35 pm, so I let my grandmother to wash my dishes. I drank tapped water because I learned from my environmental science course that it was pretty much safe to drink from. My next task of the day was to do my reading for my environmental science course and microeconomics course, and it required light to do the reading. 

My reading ended at 9 pm, so I just jumped back into thinking about the energy consumption challenge. There was where I wanted to end my day, and enjoy a new one that God hold for myself. I turned off my bedroom light, and went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth with cold water. Then said goodnight to my family. Now I woke up at 7 am where I was relieve to get the challenge done. There were a few more question that I had to answer off such as alternatives how to manage the indoor temperature control. Look around my house, so I can find ways to increase energy efficiency without having to give up convenience or technology. For the managing the indoor temperature, I can get some curtain for my patio sliding door for when it's hot. This would allow more cool for summer or hot spring seasons. Open the windows more often and deal with the heat as too use no conditioner, and learn how to deal with global warming. For cold season, I can just bury myself with some blankets or wear some warmer clothes. In order to increase my energy efficiency, I believe a new stove, dryer, washer, and electrical tools can be change in respect. My grandfather already bought a new stove, but I think he is waiting for something like a deliver time to happen and it's energy efficiency. Washer and dryer it's money and time that matters on this equipment. The electrical tools can be manage buying more energy efficiency, so once again the money matters. We already have some lighting that are energy efficiency, so this part is good. 

I can say this was a difficult task to attempt because there are some stuff I did not want to give up at all. I love my cell-phone, computer, and iPod. I listen to music everyday, sometimes on phone for important phone calls, and computer is use for a lot of  school work. I need my amp for my bass guitar because I can listen to my progress of notes being strung together. I use a blow dryer for my spiking my hair, I need hot water for coffee when I am less energized, hot water for showers or washing dishes, electrical cords when doing yard work or fixing my car in the garage. There are some stuff I can give up like the online social sites, messages, and if I have to or want to do it all over again.