I am so grateful to have known Brian Ellis for the past school year. He was such a humble spirit... just doing whatever he wanted. I feel like even though we only spent an hour or so together each week, I saw that he would be a fun hiking guide or a great person to be outdoors with. As I'm sure many of you also know, he simply just wanted us to challenge ourselves and our habits in our daily lives to work towards a more sustainable lifestyle. He wanted not only for us to make lasting changes in our own lives but he wanted us to see how they were feasible in an LA lifestyle, so he changed with us.
The day before this past Valentine's Day one of my friends passed away during a skiing accident. Just as Brian passed doing what he loved, my friend Richard passed doing what he loved -- skiing. It's kind of a full circle thing for me... the reason why I signed up for the Global Environment cluster was because I took a month long summer camp at UCSD (I lived there too) and learned about the effects of climate change on marine life at the Scripps Institue of Oceanography. That was the summer after my freshman year of high school and was wholeheartedly one of the best months of my life. Richard was in that class with me.
I think Brian reached us all. We were all inspired by his awesome toe-shoes, his adventures into the wild, his free spirit. I think we've all learned a lot from him and I'm sure that was his only goal.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Your Ecological 'Food'print
It is inevitable – any college student loves to eat. At UCLA, we are presented with a plethora of food options daily. From the Italian bistro at Café 1919 to the sandwich bar in De Neve, Bruins have no excuse to be left with an empty stomach at the end of the day. Beyond the organic salad bar in Hedrick Hall, UCLA has taken many steps towards having sustainable dining halls.
As most students have noticed, trays have slowly started to disappear from certain dining halls. Going trayless not only helps conserve the water and energy that would have otherwise been used to wash the trays, but also benefits the students. Without a tray, a student will be more compelled to eat what he can carry and not overeat. With less food wasted, too, less waste travels to landfills. The effects of going trayless have proved exceedingly successful; in January 2009, over 6,300 gallons of water were saved because of such green initiatives. Within the dining halls too, the chefs separate food waste from other waste. The food waste is then sent to a composting site in Los Angeles.
As we have learned from Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and from our lectures and readings last fall and winter, the higher up on the food chain we eat, the less eco-friendly our options become. Cows are not the most eco-friendly animal to consume and raise, as they release methane gas, one of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Beef also requires thousands of gallons of water to produce. UCLA is aware of this fact and initiated “Beef-less Thursdays” in all of the dining halls on campus beginning last spring. Through voting with their dollars and restraining against purchasing and consuming beef, Bruins are showing how taking small steps, such as cutting beef out of one’s diet once a week, can work towards a more sustainable future.
Out of the dining hall and into the cafeterias and restaurants on campus, UCLA has also made eco-friendly efforts within the past few years. ASUCLA offers many organic food options on campus, including organic teas in the coffee houses on campus. During the past year especially, the E3 club on campus has worked with these same coffee houses to increase the amount of fair trade coffee offered to customers. The hospital cafeterias at UCLA have all done away with Styrofoam; these cafeterias now offer biodegradable, paper insulated cups and eco-friendly utensils to their customers. Also during the past month, ASUCLA has presented new trash cans and recycling cans on campus. With only two cans – one for trash with food waste and one for recyclables of any other material – it is now easier for students to dispose of their waste properly as the separation process will happen on behalf of UCLA’s facilities services.
Although UCLA as an institution has done their part to choose options for the dining halls that are more eco-friendly, students also must make extra efforts to utilize these choices. As for the future, UC-wide policy calls for 100% of food waste to be diverted by 2020 and projects are being implemented that will increase the amount of organic and locally grown food (from within a 100 mile radius of UCLA campus). UCLA is becoming greener, one plate at a time.
What can you do?
1.Don’t waste your food. Try and take what you can only eat from the dining halls. This will ultimately save how much is carried to these composting sites and how much waste UCLA generates. It does take much energy to rid of the waste accumulated from such a large campus, so reduce the amount of waste you produce to be greener.
2.Eat lower on the food chain. As I just explained, eating higher on the food chain not only causes more energy and water to be wasted but also gives you less energy since you are eating a higher tropic level. If you don’t feel comfortable cutting meat out of your diet completely like myself, at least try to take this beyond just “Beefless Thursdays” – try to eat meat only every other day. This will open up healthier options to you too!
3.Don’t buy products that come in plastic wrapping. You may be a Trader Joe-aholic, however this store and many other markets sell their produce in packaging. Refrain from buying produce with such extra packaging and bring your own reusable shopping bags when you go on your grocery store runs.
As most students have noticed, trays have slowly started to disappear from certain dining halls. Going trayless not only helps conserve the water and energy that would have otherwise been used to wash the trays, but also benefits the students. Without a tray, a student will be more compelled to eat what he can carry and not overeat. With less food wasted, too, less waste travels to landfills. The effects of going trayless have proved exceedingly successful; in January 2009, over 6,300 gallons of water were saved because of such green initiatives. Within the dining halls too, the chefs separate food waste from other waste. The food waste is then sent to a composting site in Los Angeles.
As we have learned from Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and from our lectures and readings last fall and winter, the higher up on the food chain we eat, the less eco-friendly our options become. Cows are not the most eco-friendly animal to consume and raise, as they release methane gas, one of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Beef also requires thousands of gallons of water to produce. UCLA is aware of this fact and initiated “Beef-less Thursdays” in all of the dining halls on campus beginning last spring. Through voting with their dollars and restraining against purchasing and consuming beef, Bruins are showing how taking small steps, such as cutting beef out of one’s diet once a week, can work towards a more sustainable future.
Out of the dining hall and into the cafeterias and restaurants on campus, UCLA has also made eco-friendly efforts within the past few years. ASUCLA offers many organic food options on campus, including organic teas in the coffee houses on campus. During the past year especially, the E3 club on campus has worked with these same coffee houses to increase the amount of fair trade coffee offered to customers. The hospital cafeterias at UCLA have all done away with Styrofoam; these cafeterias now offer biodegradable, paper insulated cups and eco-friendly utensils to their customers. Also during the past month, ASUCLA has presented new trash cans and recycling cans on campus. With only two cans – one for trash with food waste and one for recyclables of any other material – it is now easier for students to dispose of their waste properly as the separation process will happen on behalf of UCLA’s facilities services.
Although UCLA as an institution has done their part to choose options for the dining halls that are more eco-friendly, students also must make extra efforts to utilize these choices. As for the future, UC-wide policy calls for 100% of food waste to be diverted by 2020 and projects are being implemented that will increase the amount of organic and locally grown food (from within a 100 mile radius of UCLA campus). UCLA is becoming greener, one plate at a time.
What can you do?
1.Don’t waste your food. Try and take what you can only eat from the dining halls. This will ultimately save how much is carried to these composting sites and how much waste UCLA generates. It does take much energy to rid of the waste accumulated from such a large campus, so reduce the amount of waste you produce to be greener.
2.Eat lower on the food chain. As I just explained, eating higher on the food chain not only causes more energy and water to be wasted but also gives you less energy since you are eating a higher tropic level. If you don’t feel comfortable cutting meat out of your diet completely like myself, at least try to take this beyond just “Beefless Thursdays” – try to eat meat only every other day. This will open up healthier options to you too!
3.Don’t buy products that come in plastic wrapping. You may be a Trader Joe-aholic, however this store and many other markets sell their produce in packaging. Refrain from buying produce with such extra packaging and bring your own reusable shopping bags when you go on your grocery store runs.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Project Progre$$
Doing research for my "How to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle in the Dorms" is going well. I have actually been very surprised at how green UCLA is; we are undoubtedly becoming more sustainable every day.
So far, I have focused on how UCLA as a university and the UCLA student body use water and energy. Measures taken by the Facilities Management on the Hill have proved immensely effective in making UCLA a greener campus. For example, solar panels on the roofs of major dorms on the Hill have helped reduce UCLA's carbon footprint, as less energy is needed to heat the water on the Hill. In my responses below I have many more examples of the ways that UCLA has become a role model within the eco-conscious world. I also have realized that as UCLA improves its energy efficiency, it will also save hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars per year. UCLA's decisions to be more sustainable may be driven by the economic benefits. Even if this is true, it is certainly a justifiable reason to why UCLA should become more green and will only open push UCLA down an even more sustainable route.
As I find more tid-bits about how to live a sustainable lifestyle in a dorm, I will add them to my blog. I was realizing how it would be ironic if I printed out a pamphlet of how to live sustainably (wasting paper isn't so green...) so now I am actually thinking about presenting my project by using a slide show of pictures and doing a voice-over speaking of the information I learned and more. I would love to hear if this seems like a good idea, so please let me know!
So far, I have focused on how UCLA as a university and the UCLA student body use water and energy. Measures taken by the Facilities Management on the Hill have proved immensely effective in making UCLA a greener campus. For example, solar panels on the roofs of major dorms on the Hill have helped reduce UCLA's carbon footprint, as less energy is needed to heat the water on the Hill. In my responses below I have many more examples of the ways that UCLA has become a role model within the eco-conscious world. I also have realized that as UCLA improves its energy efficiency, it will also save hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars per year. UCLA's decisions to be more sustainable may be driven by the economic benefits. Even if this is true, it is certainly a justifiable reason to why UCLA should become more green and will only open push UCLA down an even more sustainable route.
As I find more tid-bits about how to live a sustainable lifestyle in a dorm, I will add them to my blog. I was realizing how it would be ironic if I printed out a pamphlet of how to live sustainably (wasting paper isn't so green...) so now I am actually thinking about presenting my project by using a slide show of pictures and doing a voice-over speaking of the information I learned and more. I would love to hear if this seems like a good idea, so please let me know!
To efficiency and beyond!
If you live on the Hill, you certainly pass by the copious amounts of flyers posted by the elevators in the dorms. During winter quarter, you may have noticed the creatively titled “Do It in the Dark” poster. This poster was a calling for environmentally conscious students to challenge themselves and to see how they could reduce their energy consumption for one month. Over 1,500 students, including myself, pledged to the energy saving competition and we ALONE reduced the energy consumption on the Hill by 52,980 KWH. The efforts by these individuals reduced the entire Hill’s energy consumption by TEN PERCENT. I live in Hedrick Hall, and my dorm’s energy reduction amounted to 24%. Not too shabby, if you ask me.
To begin my energy conservation venture, I had to pledge to abide by certain actions from the Office of Residential Life. If all of these initiative (some of which I will list below for you to consider) were enforced upon the rest of the student body or at least suggested to them, the Hill’s energy consumption would decrease dramatically. Since 2005, UCLA has measured the average energy consumption per resident in each dorm on the Hill. Although the overall energy consumption in all of the buildings has decreased (for example, the average student in Hedrick Hall in 2005 used 200 KWH per month while in 2007 the average student used 150 KWH per month), there seems to be no correlations between building types, age of the buildings and average monthly energy consumption per student. While Sunset Village’s energy consumption per resident is dramatically higher than any other buildings, I believe this can merely be attributed to the fact that Sunset Village represents a grouping of many buildings and communities.
As we have learned in class, communities that have low densities find themselves drowned in issues of sprawl, including higher rates of pollution and energy usage. The same ideas has been applied to UCLA – as UCLA’s student body has grown within the past decade, more and more buildings have been built to accommodate for the higher number of students. Within the next three years, four new buildings are supposed to emerge. If imaginable, these new buildings will allow for an even higher density of students to live on the Hill. Although building new dorms and renovating older buildings like Hedrick Hall and Dykstra seem like unsustainable doings, the new buildings will incorporate greener appliances and efforts and will, in the long term, make UCLA a greener campus. Also on a grander scale, with more buildings on campus and a 4-year housing guarantee, UCLA will be more sustainable because it will be able to house those individuals who would otherwise commute from apartments or other areas surrounding Westwood.
Although I am mainly focusing on how living a green lifestyle while in college is indeed possible, I must acknowledge the initiatives UCLA has undergone in the past few years to be more sustainable on campus. By converting the current 30 to 50 year old HVAC air systems to more modern fan systems, UCLA will save $4.2 million in expenses each year and decrease its annual carbon footprint by 17,000 tons of carbon. Since 2007, UCLA Facilities Management has been studying how occupancy sensors, day lighting controls and bi-level stairwell lights (where lights in stair wells will only turn on 2 floors at a time) will decrease UCLA’s energy consumption. Since its installation in 2003, the Thermal Energy Storage Tank, which serves as the foundation for LaKretz Hall, has allowed UCLA to store chilled water at night. This chilled water is distributed all over campus (except not buildings on the hill) to use during the day when energy prices are higher. This has helped UCLA save over $600,000 annually. Also, UCLA has made tremendous efforts to replace all older fluorescent bulbs with energy efficient bulbs – over 112,000 efficient bulbs and 3,600 low energy exit signs have been installed campus.
Overall, UCLA is a pretty green place and is becoming even more sustainable. By doing your part, you can help lower UCLA’s annual carbon footprint:
Take the stairs! Although we get a lot of walking in (Hedrick Hall to Humanities is one mile!), the elevators in the dorms make up a large portion of UCLA’s energy consumption.
Turn off your lights. Why leave the lights in your room on when you go to dinner or take a shower? Try turning off your lights at any chance you get. As ORL suggests, “do it in the dark!”
Use air conditioning VERY sparingly. Living in Hedrick Hall, I have realized that air conditioning is a luxury. Opening your windows not only provides you with the nice, fresh air but also allows you to reduce your carbon footprint! That’s what I can a win-win situation.
Take showers in the afternoon. By doing so, you will maximize the use of the solar heated water (check out my water section). This reduces the amount of energy needed to heat the water.
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