ASTHETICS
- On page 198-200, the persons answer to creative sustainability was John Tallmadge, because what really hooked me was his first line. He said that sustainability is not a problem, or a condition, or a problem, it is a way of life. We need to have that relationship again with us and nature because right now we are hurting nature and the environment more and more each day
- The author says that graffiti and art on campus are important, because art shows emotion and shows really how you feel (p.201), and I have to agree with him. Some people do not like graffiti that much because it ruins the buildings, which I get, but art is really showing all your emotion
- On page 207, he talked about some of the wind turbines and if they are ugly of beautiful or too big or annoying to people, and if they are aesthetically appealing. Some creative sustainability that may be aesthetically appealing to people on campus are some wind turbines, some people love wind turbines when they spin around. I also liked the idea of graffiti or an art show/design class about sustainability, which would be cool.
INVESTMENT chapter
Internal strengths of capital
- Natural Capital: It says on page 104 “Natural capital is thus the stock of natural ecosystems that yield a flow of valuable ecosystem goods and services into the future.” That means that, the campus, growing fruits and vegetables near the campus to be more sustainable
- Human capital: he says on that page a couple of important words that stood out to me; “economically relevant” meaning we need to be more sustainable and use more renewable energy to be more carbon neutral
- Social capital: they said that we can “solve common problems”, with strong people on the throne can be vocal and loud and get people known to these little problems so we can be more sustainable (using solar panels on campus)
- Intellectual capital: People in a group or an organization really have the biggest voice out of different other people, they can get people to open their eyes to make campus’ more sustainable or carbon neutral with ways to make it better
- Financial: “present assets in the future” for example, some ideas some campus’ have are solar panels, and some are becoming more carbon neutral in the future, so there are some financial things
Internal weaknesses of capital:
- Natural: some weaknesses for the campus’ to overcome, is its a bit expensive to open up your own little garden area (financial capital), and grow fruits and veggies. people need to monitor it, and it needs to be seasonal (or in the greenhouse in ACHS)
- Human capital: some weaknesses for the campus for human capital is to overcome is that higher up people will not listen, or will not choose to listen to human peoples mind to become a more sustainable campus, because, for example, they do not believe in climate change and its costs a lot.
- Social Capital: Some weaknesses for the campus to overcome is its hard to solve some of the problems to be more green on a campus because it takes a lot of work and takes a lot of time out of your day, and it will be a long time (year or so)
- Financial Capital: A very big weakness for this campus to overcome is a budget, theres a lot of things the students and the faculty want on our campus, but it may cost a lot of money (solar panels, wind turbines, carbon neutral) and more that they really do not want to pay
External Opportunities of capital
- Natural: some opportunities for this campus is to grow more crops and farms for fruits and vegetables for people, rather than get them shipped somewhere from far away, if we do have some areas of food growing on campus, grow more areas!
- Human capital: Some opportunities for the campus it to get more movements going around, we started this and we need to fix what we did. if the humans dont even try, we are screwed.
- Intellectual Capital: Some things we can do to improve, going off of human capital, is to start more movements to see the people really open up their eyes since it is a very big deal
- Financial Capital: Some inporvements for our campus is basiaclly to be more affordable and buy things to make our campus more green like Carbon Neutral, solar panels, etc.
External Threats of capital:
- Natural capital: Some threats that can hurt the campus is spending too much money on the gardens and then the plants dying because we live in New England, where it gets cold often, and that can hurt the campus
- Human capital: Some threats that can hurt the campus is that the people do not believe in climate change so why bother protest when you do not believe in climate change in the first place.
- Financial Capital: some threats that will hurt the campus if we buy something to make the campus more green, and it does not work, or it breaks for some reason. also, getting hate from other political parties that do not agree with what the campus did.
ENERGY chapter
The main idea of the chapter “Energy” was to make college campus’ more sustainable, make it more environmental friendly, with that, eliminating fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases
In the beginning of the Chapter, they touched upon John Muir, and even though I knew a bit about him, I became even more aware that John Muir climbed trees in the middle of snow storms. That really stuck out to me because he is a guy who appreciates nature all the time, when it is snowing, raining, or when its freezing cold. If we get outside more like what John Muir was doing, we can see the true beauty in the nature and we need to conceive energy.
It is very important to find “common ground” so you can work towards a resolution. If people do not have the same ideas, you need to work with them in order to find a resolution. The way I might do is see their side story and see if I can agree with them in some parts and “respectfully disagree” and share my ideas so we can come up with a resolution
The energy map would be a great idea for UNE. The energy map traces how much Greenhouse Gas Emissions we release. If we have this map, we can open the eyes of the people in charge of how many GHG emissions we are releasing, ans think of a way to go green (solar panels, wind turbines etc.) The way we get one is talk to the people in charge of UNE and say that we want this energy map so you guys can see how many emissions we are releasing, and if its a big number, we will change in a better way.
A large-scaled renewable energy project would look great for UNE. Our slogan is “University of New England, Innovation for a Healthier Planet” and if we actually get solar panels and wind turbines and do not have to rely on energy, it would make a huge improvement, not just for UNE, but for other schools as well, because if they see what we just did, they would want to do it too, and if more people find out ways to go green and do not use fossil fuels, they will do that to their campus
One “ah ha” moment when I was reading this is that Unity College was actually my top school to go to because I really loved the campus for its vast woodsy areas, and I was ready to go there until I saw this campus with a bird guy named Noah Perlut, so I am very happy i came to UNE and make this a more sustainable campus.
