Now the objective is to find traces of these changes present in the current environment and to interpret their significance. Many of you were attracted to your site because of some anomalous features that puzzled you and made you wonder why they were there and what had caused them to be. This is an opportunity to explore some answers to such puzzles.
While you are free to construct your house entirely on the basis of your design and modeling skills and your physical intuition, please consider making use of provided software to guide you in choices about windows and insulation. We will use several versions of this software throughout the lab to compare prediction with performance. The elf house should be ready next week to be placed on the roof for an initial, one-week test period. Please come to lab next week prepared to finish the construction during the first half of our session. We’ll then activate and insert the temperature loggers and place the houses on the roof . We’ll also work with the data from the potatoes and continue to work with the software.
Select one of the readings from Mancall and explain the environmental assumptions implicit in its author’s response to the New World and his understanding of the possibilities it presents. These possibilities should include agriculture and natural resources, but may also extend to mercantile, military, and cultural issues. In addition, you should compare these early responses to the New World to a modern interpretation, either the one offered by William Cronon, or that of Judith Carney or J. R. McNeill (or a combination of the three, if you are feeling ambitious). In either case, don’t just offer abstract generalizations—be sure to refer specifically to the texts.
A critical part of creating policy is the data gathering process. What data can you find quickly and analyze? What do the data mean? What story can you tell using reliable data? What data do you need?
Using your hometown as the subject of your investigation, assume that you are a policy analyst and you work for the new mayor or the new town or city council.
What data can you use to tell a story about your hometown? Where is it located? How many people live there? What does it provide in terms of resources to the state?
The global energy balance is important for Earth's climate. When visible radiation from the Sun reaches the Earth, some of it is reflected or scattered directly back into space as shortwave radiation (the percent reflected is known as albedo) and some of it is absorbed. In the absence of clouds, absorption happens mainly at the surface. The absorbed energy warms the Earth's surface, which, in turn, emits this energy at a longer wavelength (infrared rather than visible light).
The purpose of this assignment is to get you thinking about the Earth's radiation budget and the sorts of phenomena which may influence that budget. The description of the datasets is taken from a class taught by Schlosser, Pfirman and Ting at Columbia University.
Small group project exploring the urban/planning implications of water, food, “nature” (however specifically defined), energy, and communications in the Boston area. Each small group will be assigned an “element” to research and document.
In his essay, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," Singer argues that there is a close analogy between POND and CHARITY (see p. 38 of FES).
What are the relevant similarities between POND and CHARITY for the purposes of Singer's argument?
Do you think that the analogy supports his conclusion? Why or why not?
Suppose someone objected: But in POND, there is one drowning child. In CHARITY, there are too many starving children to help by a single action, so I would have to give something additional up daily for my whole life. This is too much to ask. How would Singer respond?
