Tigers Go Green

Good News Friday 3/5/21

Welcome again to Good News Friday! Today we’re talking about sustainable shipping, the decline of coal, and tidal energy.

Image Credit: David Dibert via Pexels.com

Tire Giant Partners with Decarbonized Shipping: Michelin, the second-largest tire manufacturer in the world, recently signed a shipping agreement with the French startup NEOLINE. With ships powered by sails instead of fossil fuels, NEOLINE says its product can reduce carbon emissions by 90% per trip compared to normal vessels and eliminate SOx and NOx emissions completely. Under the agreement, the cargo on NEOLINE ships will be at least 50% Michelin products along certain shipping lines, with the first transatlantic line beginning operation in 2023. With global shipping constituting about 2.5% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions, actions by large companies represent positive steps towards making global transportation more sustainable.

*Image Credit: Pixabay via* *Pexels.com*

Phasing Out Australia’s Coal Power: You might have seen one of our earlier Good News Friday editions where we talked about the growth of Australia’s solar power sector; now there is reason to believe that such growth is more promising than initially thought. A recent report by energy consulting groups indicates that predictions of Australia’s future energy grid makeup had underestimated the influx of cheap renewable energy. As a result, up to five of the country’s sixteen remaining coal plants could be unprofitable by 2025. This would represent a substantial shift towards sustainability for the nation despite its relatively weak climate goals.

*Image Credit: Pok Rie via* *Pexels.com*

Expanding Tidal Energy: Long viewed as a promising but difficult-to-harness form of renewable energy, ocean movements may soon be a key feature of the United Kingdom’s energy grid. For years, companies like Orbital Marine Power have been using Scotland’s Orkney archipelago to test scalable tidal energy technologies. Now, the company has indicated it is ready to begin deploying tidal energy turbines and farms this year, which ultimately could produce up to one fifth of the United Kingdom’s energy. Reliable and predictable, tidal power represents one of many paths towards a greener future.

That’s all for this week! Until next time, take a look at our previous Good News Friday posts and contact us if you have any good environmental news to share!

Sustainable Meals for Busy Students: Buddha Bowl

Author: Abby de Riel ‘22

A Buddha bowl is a delicious dish of any grains, protein, vegetables, and dressing of your choosing! These bowls, usually vegan, are highly nutritious and make for a balanced meal. They are also inexpensive and help to reduce food waste by being flexible in their ingredients (for example, I’m using some leftovers!). Plus — these ingredients have a lower carbon footprint and produce can include whatever is locally sourced in your area! It is very simple to assemble and ingredients can be portioned however you’d like.

These are my ingredients for today:

Grains: ¼ cup quinoa flakes
Protein: 1 oz. pumfu, which is soy-free and made with pumpkin seeds!
Veggies (which I’m roasting): 1 cup mix of squash, cauliflower, and carrots
Leafy vegetable: 1 cup spinach
Dressing: homemade chickpea hummus & sesame seeds

Steps:

Step 1: First, I roast my protein and vegetables. I chop up a piece of pumfu and mix it with my cut-up veggies; I toss it with a dash of salt, pepper, and a few drops of oil. I put it all on a tray in a toaster oven at 175 °C (350 °F) for 10 minutes.

Step 2: Meanwhile, prepare your grains: I boil some water in a pot — 2 times as much water as my serving of quinoa — and put in my quinoa flakes at a low boil. Stirring frequently, this only takes about 90 seconds! It’s done once the water has been absorbed and the flakes look puffy and start to bubble.

Step 3: Make the dressing! This is super flexible depending on your taste buds; I used some hummus and sesame seeds, but tahini sauce is also super popular.

Step 4: Lastly, assemble your bowl. Start with the grains in the center and put your roasted protein/veggies around it; drizzle your dressing on top. Yum!

This series is brought to you by student group, Greening Dining

The Science of Sustainability: Graeme MacGilchrist

Author: Ethan Sontarp ’24

In my climate science class, GEO 202: Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate, we frequently talk about the ways human activity is affecting the planet, with increased carbon emissions, rising temperatures, and shifting atmospheric/oceanic dynamics. It always interests me to understand the positions of those so close to climate research on living a sustainable lifestyle and the current state of their research. This week I interviewed my professor, Graeme MacGilchrist, who is an oceanographer and climate scientist doing his post-doctorate at Princeton in the Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences. We discussed his relationship with sustainability and its intersection with his scientific research, specifically surrounding the ocean’s response to climate change.

Image Credit: Graeme MacGilchrist

What does sustainability mean to you? How do you engage with sustainability outside of your scientific work?

If you want to talk about sustainability you need to address the internalized concept of how we live our lives [and contribute to a] society that is thinking about sustainability as a core function in everything that it does. The thing that’s the most worrisome is that the effects of climate change are going to be so unequal. It’s hard to convince somebody who is in a very comfortable situation, […] so you have to tap into something deeper in people which is really about compassion and empathy. Climate justice and climate equity are inseparable from the sustainability effort. I try to be a good community citizen in the sense […] of all the classic ways of trying to limit my broad environmental impact [by] cycling and walking much more than driving.

Could you give a brief overview of your current research? What makes it interesting to you?

I really think about the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle; the amount of carbon that’s in the atmosphere has a significant impact on the […] absorption and retention of energy by the ocean. The ocean is playing this critical role in determining how much carbon stays in the atmosphere as a massive storage unit of carbon. I try to understand through modeling how ocean circulation is playing a role in determining the uptake and storage and movement of carbon, both in terms of future change […] as well as past changes. The reason I like that is that it involves every science that you can imagine.

Image Credit: Graeme MacGilchrist

With what you have seen through your research, what are the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and global temperature rise on the oceans? I did some work early on in my career on ocean acidification, so as we put carbon into the atmosphere it makes the ocean less alkaline, and the impact is felt by calcifying organisms which a lot of the base of the food chain of the ocean is made up of. In terms of the ocean, we’re really moving into the unknown in regard to the ecosystem functioning and the impact in a broad way.

Where do you see the climate in the next few centuries?

I feel like we’re at this particularly fraught moment, where we could go either way. There are some really positive indications the corner is being turned here. I think a lot of genuine conversations are occurring about carbon mutual features, […] climate change, and emissions.

Have you seen the effects of improper waste disposal in person, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? How does that make you feel?

I have not seen the Pacific Garbage Patch and funnily enough, there’s a misconception about it. It’s not all plastic bags sitting on the surface of the ocean. It’s mostly small particles of plastic that have made their way there […] and high concentrations of plastics on the surface of the ocean. I worked on a project very briefly tracking plastic waste from an island called Aldabra in the Indian Ocean […] using ocean currents to do some back trajectories to determine where these particles came from.

Are there any sustainability or climate science resources you know of that you would suggest for readers? There’s a book by […] Alastair McIntosh called Riders on the Storm. I actually ended up being like a science advisor for it. He puts together basically the spiritual keys for addressing the climate crisis.

Image Credit: Alastair McIntosh via alastairmcintosh.com

Good News Friday 2/26/21

Author: Grace Liu ‘23

We’re back again with some hopeful happenings in the environmental sector. This week, we’re looking at rainforest conservation, vertical farming innovations, and agricultural robots.

Biden’s rainforest conservation plan: A bipartisan group of former U.S. officials has formed a group called the Climate Principles. In the wake of the Biden Administration’s campaign pledge to put $20 billion toward the protection of the Amazon rainforest, the Climate Principles group has put together some policy recommendations to help achieve this goal. This plan has four primary goals: attaining conservation funding, keeping the forest in mind in trade agreements, keeping companies accountable for deforestation, and promoting international cooperation around forest conservation.

Image credit: Jerzygorecki via pixabay.com

Affordable housing meets vertical farming: Vertical Forest is a company that plans to build a vertical greenhouse inside an affordable housing development in Westbrook, Maine, with more to follow in Chicago and Philadelphia. While many vertical farms are located in warehouses or other non-residential areas, this project aims to bring healthy, nutritious food and job opportunities to communities that struggle with food security.

Image credit: picjumbo_com via pixabay.com

Robot team finds and electrocutes weeds: Tom and Dick are a dynamic duo of robots at Lockerly estate in the UK who work together to map and kill weeds on the farm. Tom uses a powerful camera to detect the weeds, and Dick electrocutes them using a “five-pronged death wand” without the use of pesticides. Since their introduction about a year ago (among other sustainable agricultural practices), the farm has reduced its use of pesticides by 41% and fertilizer by 32%.

Thanks for reading, and we hope that these news snippets have brightened your day! Tune in next week for more positive environmental news and in the meantime, feel free to take a look at previous posts or share some good news with us!

2020 Climate Check-in

Author: Wesley Wiggins ’21

2020 is a year that many of us will remember as one of the most monumental and frustrating years of our lives. The biggest reason for this is the coronavirus pandemic that kept us trapped in our homes for the majority of the year. However, there were several important climate-related events that happened last year as well that can help to inform how we move forward into the future.

The most surprising change was the 10% decline in annual greenhouse gas emissions which is one of the biggest drops in the emissions since the recession in 2009. The primary reasons for this drop are the pandemic and the economic decline associated with it. Also, the decrease in both air travel and vehicle travel when the pandemic started has the biggest individual contributor to the decline as well. The 10% decline in emissions is significant, but also may only be temporary as life returns to “normal” after the vaccine is distributed. This decline, however temporary, still proves to us that if such a huge, unplanned, societal shift can impact emissions so dramatically, then a massive, planned shift towards sustainability could also allow us to dramatically reduce emissions. The same emission changes in the major sectors like transportation, energy, and industry we saw in 2020 are the same changes we want to start seeing in order to deter the worst effects of climate change.

Plane, Flight, Sunset, Sun, Sunlight, Silhouette — Image credit: ThePixelman via pixabay.com

Along with the pandemic-caused decline in emissions, this year also showed us what could be the beginning of a long-trend of climate-induced catastrophes. Even before the pandemic, Australia experienced record-breaking wildfires which led to many fatalities and displaced many human and animal communities. Later in the year, we saw more unprecedented wildfires on the West Coast of the United States which burned over 3 million acres of land. The 2020 hurricane season was also deemed to be “extremely active”, so much so that the normal alphabet of Hurricane names was exhausted and Greek Letters had to be used to identify new hurricanes and tropical storms. These natural disasters may not have been directly caused by climate change, but they could have been intensified by the warming oceans, increasing global temperatures, and changes in regional precipitation patterns.

2020 has been a strange year for the climate. With the increasing harmful impacts of climate change and unexpected reductions in emissions, the fight against the climate crisis has suffered losses but gained some unexpected wins. But the question remains, what can we take away from climate news last year? Looking forward, in 2021, we can probably expect that there will be more climate-related disasters and emissions will rise again once we move past this pandemic. However, it is clear that we can bring down our emissions with the right changes. It feels weird to call this year’s emissions drop as hopeful considering what it cost, however, it strangely fills me with the hope that our emissions can go down. It’s one thing to see these changes in a climate model and another to see these changes in the real world.

Even though we cannot congratulate ourselves on the 2020 emissions reductions, we can do our best to replicate or even continue the emissions trends that started last year. Part of that change has to come from governing bodies, but it can also start at the personal level. Drive less, use less electricity, use less water, eat less meat. Eat more plant-based meals, bike more, use natural light when you can, use reusables. As 2020 has shown us, lifestyle changes, no matter how sudden or unexpected, can lead to big changes in our emissions.

Good News Friday 2/19/21

Author: Camellia Moors ‘22

Welcome to another rendition of Good News Friday! This edition (somewhat unintentionally) focuses on sustainable advances in the travel industry. As COVID-19 vaccines roll out across the country, I hope these stories will make you hopeful about the possibility of sustainable travel in the future.

Hybrid Planes Could Reduce Air Pollution: In addition to greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, airplanes emit a variety of harmful pollutants such as fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides (NO_X). In terms of aggregate environmental impact, some estimates place the damage caused by these emissions as twice as harmful compared to carbon emissions. Now, however, some MIT engineers have designed a hybrid airplane engine that could come close to eliminating this problem by almost removing NO_X from the equation altogether. The engineers envision their engines being used in common commercial jetliners like the Boeing 737. (To read the full report on the engine proposal, click here).

2. Ford to Increase Electric Vehicles in Europe: After General Motors (GM), America’s largest automobile manufacturer, recently committed to a rapid expansion of its electric vehicle fleet, the pressure has been on for other automakers to compete against GM’s vision for a more sustainable future. At least one of them has now taken steps to do so. On Wednesday, Ford announced that its entire European passenger vehicle fleet will be “zero-emissions capable” and exclusively electric by 2030. These moves by the two automakers, along with President Biden’s push for more electric vehicles, have the potential to shake up the auto industry and pave the path for a more sustainable transportation future.

*Image Credit: Anugrah Lohiya via* *Pexels.com*

3. First Synthetic Jet Fuel Flight: KLM Airlines recently trialed the world’s first passenger flight powered in part by “sustainably derived synthetic aviation fuel.” The plane went from Amsterdam to Madrid, and the fuel was created by Royal Dutch Shell (commonly known as Shell). Shell has long had plans to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which could help European airlines like KLM meet European Union airline emissions offset standards (the United States has also taken some limited steps to reduce airplane emissions).

That’s all for this week! Until next Friday, take a look at our previous Good News Friday posts and please contact us if you have some news you would like to share!

Meet the EcoReps – Ethan Sontarp ’24

Hometown – Long Island, NY

How do you engage with sustainability?

I always try to shop second-hand and reuse items in creative ways before recycling.

What do you study and why?

I study Geosciences because I love learning about anything related to the Earth through a scientific lens.

What other campus groups are you involved with?

I’m an ARCA in New College West.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I like to paint, go on walks, and hang out with my friends.

Share a fun fact about yourself!

I collected river water from a 300 mile stretch of the Rio Grande for my internship last summer.

Meet the EcoReps- Isabel Schoeman ’24

Hometown – Brooklyn, NY

How do you engage with sustainability?

Outside of the EcoReps program, I try to engage with sustainability through my individual choices. I love taking classes at Princeton about the environment, reading literature that makes me feel connected to the world around me, spending time outside, and, of course, trying to reduce my own impact through small scale actions. I get so excited when I find a new way to reduce the waste I produce and love to share these habits with friends and family!

What do you study and why?

I study politics! I’m really interested in education equity, and understanding political channels seemed like the best way to enter that field. Plus, I really like the classes.

What other campus groups are you involved with?

I am a Peer Academic Advisor and I co-organize Princeton’s Splash conference!

What do you like to do in your free time?

I love to do puzzles and word games! The New York Times Spelling Bee is my favorite. I also enjoy spending time with my friends, family, and dog (her name is Clementine).

Share a fun fact about yourself!

I think I’m really good at Just Dance but a terrible dancer.

Meet the EcoReps- Naomi Frim-Abrams ’23

Hometown – Pittsburgh, PA

Spring Location – On Campus

What is your favorite EcoRep project that you’ve done?

I really loved meeting with Zee groups last year to talk about sustainable practices on campus and hear everyone’s ideas and questions. Overall, one of my favorite parts of being an EcoRep is getting to interact with students from all parts of campus to discuss a topic about which I am very passionate. Whether in-person or virtual, I am excited to be a resource for anyone looking to develop more sustainable habits!

How do you engage with sustainability?

I try to be intentional with my smaller actions and behaviors in order to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. Whether this means making sure lights are turned off or air-drying my clothes as often as possible, I want to develop sustainable habits that I will carry into the future.

What other campus groups are you involved with?

I am a member of the Sunda Rainforest Project, as well as the Religious Life Council. I also love doing theater and have been fortunate to be a part of the CJL Play for the past two years.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I play violin, enjoy reading, and try to be outdoors as much as I can! I’m also a big fan of horror films and love watching with friends.

Meet the EcoReps- Bobby Shell ’23

Hometown – Shreveport, Louisiana

Spring Location – Princeton, NJ

What is your favorite EcoRep project that you’ve done?

I’m a new member this year, but I am very excited and cannot wait to begin working on projects this semester and beyond!

How do you engage with sustainability?

I carefully watch the products I buy, observe my habits around the house (i.e. electricity usage, water use, and make sure my appliances and devices are maximizing efficiency and minimizing waste). When I am on campus, I stay on top of my recycling, make sure I reuse as many non-recyclable materials as possible, and attempt to engage with others to make them aware of what they can do to be sustainably conscious and environmentally friendly.

What do you study and why?

Right now, I am looking at majoring in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) because I feel a strong passion for domestic public policy and affairs and how to maximize the good we can do from addressing inequitable education to systemic issues such as racism and poverty. All of this and my drive to help people is why I have decided to major in and study all I can about policy, domestic and foreign problems and affairs because we will need to address many things to move forward in our progress toward a brighter future.

What other campus groups are you involved with?

Before the pandemic, I was an employee of Campus Dining working at the Whitman dining hall, which I hope to return to after we get through this, and I was involved in intramural sports like soccer and dodgeball, but now that those have been halted, currently I am active in the Princeton chapter of UN-USA and my local chapter of College Democrats.

What do you like to do in your free time?

In my free time, I love to go on runs or hikes (or now socially distanced walks). I enjoy writing poetry and reading any work I can to keep my mind sharp! Recently, I have been reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama.

Share a fun fact about yourself!

I have an obsession with soccer!