Month: March 2014 (Page 4 of 4)

During class today, I did bring up the observation in New York City where there are large piles of garbage cans. In a city that attracts a lot of tourists throughout the world, the garbage pile damages the reputation of NYC. This is a concern. I personally not have a picture of it, but I did find a news article: http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140218/williamsburg/new-yorkers-raise-stink-over-mountains-of-trash-piling-up-after-snowstorms

The news articles also mentioned that the garbage trucks focus more on snow removal during snowstorms. Focusing on snow removal is actually a good thing but mountains of trash leaves nothing but complaints from New Yorkers. First, it smells. Especially in the summer. Second, my concern is that this can be a health risk. And third, as Prof. McGuire brought up, this can attract rats, which then rip off the garbage bags and cause the sidewalks and streets to be littered with trash.

Here is another link: http://www.myfoxny.com/story/24565851/sanitation-dept-promises-to-finally-haul-away-piles-of-garbage-from-upper-east-side

Thankfully, NYC Sanitation Department is taking action. We all know that safety is our #1 priority but we should also factor in our health too at a similar level as safety.

At an annual shareholders meeting, Tim Cook purportedly told the NCPPR to “get out of the stock” if they opposed Apple’s sustainability efforts so much.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/03/at-apple-shareholders-meeting-tim-cook-tells-off-climate-change-deniers/

Not that I’m a diehard Apple fan, but I did enjoy seeing this.

Here’s an article from today’s NY Times.

How will people react when they see their gas prices rise by $.09 per gallon? The health benefits from sulfur reduction in gas is apparent, but this will cost oil companies billions of dollars on new equipment to clean sulfur out of gasoline. This is a huge health and environmental achievement, but will the majority of the population see it this way?

Recently, we have been discussing our connection to food and the natural environment. All of us spend a lot of time, perhaps too much time, consuming and creating data on the internet and over phone networks. While data production and consumption doesn’t directly gobble up trees or burn coal, it does require a lot of hardware… and lots of electricity. Take a look at the link to the slideshow and New York Times article describing what goes on in a modern data center. Large data centers consume as much power as a decent sized town.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2219188/Inside-Google-pictures-gives-look-8-vast-data-centres.html