inflating tires, inflating dreams

while jogging around in the cold of boston, i noticed a number of cars with visibly low tire pressure. i wanted to leave a note for these folks -- not only can you save on gas, but you can save yourself (neha once blew out a ridiculously low tire on the highway!). a lot of fun has been made of obama's call for people to inflate their tires. but it is something small that can make a difference. from a government efficiency site:

You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.3 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires. Properly inflated tires are safer and last longer.

then i got thinking: what if joggers had a little note they carried around with them that they could drop on any windshield they saw. the green joggers! but that might be annoying for a jogger. then i thought of something better: what if parking enforcement officers had such a little note? they could drop it on the windshield of cars with visibly low tires. not only would they be helping the driver in more ways than one, they'd be helping their image -- no one likes these enforcers! sure, this might mildly slow the officers in doing their work, but i can imagine a city like san francisco thinking this was a good thing to do.

prius goes mainstream?

in the past week i've seen a zipping-in-and-out-of-traffic prius driver, a reckless prius driver, and a smoking-while-driving prius driver.

none of these behaviors are things i associate with goody goody prius drivers :)

the prius is going mainstream, and that's a good thing. 

paper or plastic? how about both

while shopping today i observed the most annoying and interesting thing in the checkout line. the cashier asked the patron "paper or plastic?" she thought for a moment, and then said "both." both! the cashier looked at her funny and then she said "you know, paper inside the plastic." -- ah it's for ease of carrying, very nice.

oy.

waste -- we don't even think about how much we waste. today while shopping i thought "huh, it's sort of dumb to use these new plastic bags for my vegetables when i have the same ones just sitting at home." well, at least i took a canvas bag to the shop -- ease my conscience a tad.

oy.

on my birthday my net stuff accumulation was +12 toy horses - 10 marbles.. give or take. oh, and of course gifts of wine. and a poster.

oy.

looking around my room now, i realize i have so much junk, and i wonder if anyone would find much of it useful. like, what the hell is that easter egg basket with the frizzy pieces of string going to do to improve anyone's life? waste. though, maybe i can get raja to ride in it.

hmm... maybe it is better that it just inhabits a spot in my room -- who knows, it may end up in the landfill otherwise.

oy.

on a sustainability campaign in my building

"they" are running a sustainability campaign in my building. it's an interesting idea, but the execution could use some work. anyway, "they" posted all these papers around the building giving information to inquisitive people. in the elevator, you can see that the info sheet was defaced:

in fact, on the left hand side "they" write that consuming less (just not buying) would be best if it were possible. someone scrawls "recession" around that point. another person hits them for a grammar mistake. lots of "wasting paper" comments. this is tough work!

in the bathrooms, "they" put stickers near the lights which attempt to encourage you to turn off the light if you're the last one inside. our lab discussed these stickers briefly, and i've been watching this one. i wander into the bathroom at various times of day just to see if the switch is off when i go in. it hasn't been off for the past few days. this campaign has been ignored.

what would i have changed in their campaign? first, i think they've have a great start. they've got the building manager behind them, which is fantastically important. next they need more people from the lab spaces in the building to come on board. they need to consider whether the messaging is appropriate for the audience -- are those blank white sheets with tear-offs in the elevator actually appropriate? why not make the whole thing a bit more fun and irreverent? undergrads and grads love that.

well, i'm just happy they are trying. as they say in industry: "ready, fire, aim"

finally, i love the "they" construct

earth week and me

it was a busy but productive earth week for me. lots of things happened at berkeley. last semester i worked with a group of students to help identify areas where the campus could improve energy efficiency and lower its greenhouse gas emissions (see our report here). last monday, i presented those results at the chancellor's sustainability summit. you can read about the summit here, but let me tell you one story that really resonates with me.

the doe library reading room is a beautiful place to study on campus. here's a picture:


notice the skylight at the top of the picture, it's a bit hard to see. what's harder to see is that there are actually lights all around the skylight. and those lights, until very recently, were on, 24 hours a day. why? well, the switch for those lights was up a ladder, through a room, and behind a locked cabinet. would you want to be the one to turn them on and off?

that just shows you how different a time it was, even only a few years ago. the completely needless waste of energy just wasn't important. but that has changed. a campus group fixed the library lights by installing wireless controls that made it very easy to turn the skylight lights on and off. similar measures are popping up all over campus, not just for lights but for all kinds of energy inefficiencies.

TGIF Grant

in other news, me and my friend sam borgeson won the flagship grant from the green initiative fund at berkeley for our project titled UC Berkeley Campus Dashboard. we're going to make a centralized store for consumption data, broadly construed, for all the berkeley campus. electricy, water, steam, waste, etc.. all in one place! don't you want to get your hands on this data? then we will create some compelling person-facing applications that use the data. we're very excited!

earth hour thoughts

yesterday, from 8 to 9pm, people all across the world turned out their lights and celebrated earth hour. san francisco was one of the headline cities. i'm interested to know if any of my readers participated, and if so, what you did. i'll tell you what i did:

i decided that i wasn't just going to turn off my lights, but try to minimize my consumption completely by doing as little as possible that required electrical energy.

at 7:55pm i was hungry and i realized that with all the lights out i was going to have a hard time making food (not to mention that i didn't want appliances running from 8 to 9pm) so i rushed to make some toast. tasty! but this reminded me of anecdotes from campus energy saving competitions, where students would shower and use their computers in other buildings to reduce their consumption in their own building, which was the object being measured. since 8 to 9pm is what mattered, i pushed ahead my cooking -- so did i really make a savings?

from 8 to 9pm i can honestly say i did very little that used energy, but i still consumed! i became bored and so i started eating snacks. but two good things happened: i practiced my didj. i was belting out eighties hits on my didj, no small feat :) i also sat in the dark and day dreamed. very amusing scenarios played out in my head, but i'm not going to share them here..

From Best of Austr...

overall, i found the experience quite trying, and i'm actively attempting to reduce my consumption. candle light would've been nice, but i didn't even have that.

summary: of course, no one is going to live in such darkness, so the experiment was more about raising my own awareness of my highly consumptive behavior, and trying to be at peace with doing less, having less. the collective action of 8 to 9pm is also quite important, because hopefully SF is going to go to the power company and get some numbers (for instance, sydney supposedly saw 10% less energy draw last year during earth hour).

building awareness in the dark, that's a funny idea eh?

denver's driving change program -- almost!

read the following then see my commentary:

Denver hopes to reduce car emissions by encouraging better driving

from Grist News

The city of Denver has unveiled a "Driving Change" pilot program designed to reduce vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions by encouraging drivers to ease off the lead foot. Starting in May, 400 public and private Denver vehicles, including that of Mayor John Hickenlooper, will have a device installed to monitor time spent braking, idling, accelerating, and speeding. Analyzed results and personalized recommendations for reducing fuel consumption will then be posted on the internet. Vehicles account for approximately 30 percent of Denver's greenhouse-gas emissions, and the program hopes to cut fuel consumption 20 percent among Driving Change participants.

sources: Denver Business Journal, The Denver Post, Associated Press

ok. here's the big problem! the feedback needs to be immediate, and it needs to be relevant. they have relevant ("personalized recommendations") but they don't have immediate ("posted on the internet"). dear lord. have they learned nothing from the prius? prius people drive so strangely because they are playing this game where they are changing their driving behaviors in ways they think might optimize the gas mileage. with these additional indicators, the prius drivers (or the mayor, whatever he's driving) could do a much better job.

put the indicators in the car. they don't have to be dangerous.. which is one comment i hear from some prius drivers who turn off the dashboard because they find it distracting. the indicators can be ambient. use colors! i am going to send this idea to the people administering this program...

UPDATE: i emailed the mayor and the green program staff. hopefully someone sees my email!

gavin newsom on green movement

this is a good interview with gavin newsom reflecting on the current state of the green movement. here's an apt quote:

Right now we're almost seeing the movement increasingly trivialized by everything turning green...every single magazine and newspaper and TV program.

It's important and powerful because it raises awareness, but it misses the point that needs to be raised, one of accountability, transparency and measurement, the hard work that needs to be done. And it's not just buying organic cereal with a recycled tote bag. So when I talk in terms of (San Francisco's) 70 percent recycling rates, the highest in the nation, I feel good about that but not great.

i like his point about accountability, transparency and measurement. i think these are three things we really need, and there isn't a lot of talk about them in the general media.

plastic bags: why so bad?

after reading that australia plans to phase out plastic bags by the end of 2008, and a multitude of other anti-plastic bag initiatives (like here in san francisco), i decided to do some research: why are plastic bags so bad?

the answers didn't completely surprise me. the main problem with plastic bags is likely the negative impacts if they are disposed of incorrectly (essentially a human behavioral failing) -- and that might be surprising to you!

ok, so we want to analyze the life cycle of plastic bags. let's compare plastic bags to paper bags, which is often what people do. here are a few things to consider:

• energy to create, and environmental impact of creation: plastic wins. plastic bags are a derivative of the oil refining process, whereas paper bags are made of trees, and sometimes from forests that are not sustainably harvested
• transportation energy: comparing the bags by carrying capacity, it'd take about 7 trucks of paper bags to transport the equivalent of 1 truck of plastic bags: plastic wins
• disposal: this is the kicker
• effects on natural environment: plastic bags, if not disposed of properly, can harm wildlife when ingested. paper bags don't have this problem
  
• effects on built environment: plastic bags can clog drains and have caused floods in numerous places. you, like me, likely see the plastic bags swirling around everywhere as a blight on our environment
• garbage dumps: plastic might win here. from what i've read, neither paper bags nor plastic bags do much decomposing in land fills, and since plastic bags are quite compressible, they actually don't take up that much space. BUT, a lot more plastic bags end up at the landfill than paper.. which leads to:
  
• recycling: generally people are far more likely to recycle paper bags than plastic bags. the plastic bag disposal programs are typically cumbersome (isn't it annoying to take that plastic bag back to the store!) and hence not utilized by individuals

in fact, on this recycling point i want to show you a figure from a relatively old study that, while the numbers may not be right, does a good job of conveying the importance of recycling in deciding if plastic bags beat paper:


Table 1 - Choice table. Determines bag preference at varying recycling rates. Either was used when the difference between energy efficiencies are inconsequential. (from Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment: Paper vs Plastic Bags)

now, we should also note that governments and stores banning plastic bags aren't in love with paper, but instead are also trying to get out the message that paper vs plastic is a false dichotomy:
- what about reduction: using neither, instead using your own bag
- what about reuse of paper and plastic bags?
- what about alternatives: biodegradable plastics?

my overall conclusion is that we wouldn't be very concerned about plastic bags if people properly dealt with them. that's why i think biodegradable plastic and programs that make it easier to recycle plastic bags are important (like new york is doing). you could just ban them, but then you have to think about what is filling the void. of course, getting people to use their own cloth bag would be fantastic -- but causing that kind of behavior change, namely getting people to have the cloth bag around right when they need it, is likely quite difficult.

here are the resources (they are few, sorry only have so much time!) i examined:

• The Environment Literacy Council: Paper or Plastic?
• Plastic Shopping Bags in Australia: National Plastic Bags Working Group Report to the National Packaging Covenant Council
• Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment: Paper vs Plastic Bags
• How Do You Say "Plastic Bag" in Australian?

Google Queries:
[what's wrong with plastic bags]
[environmental impact plastic bags]