Maine's big solar net metering case

Click to view stream in HTML5.

Vehicle Safety Report

Ten students and two instructors from Physics: Mechanics and Energy ran the twice-yearly Vehicle Safety Day yesterday between 12.30 and 4.00 pm at the workshop in the Unity House garage. Fifty-three vehicles were examined, a record.

If you planned to get your vehicle checked and were not able to because of the change of venue or some other reason, email mwomersley@unity.edu and ask for an appointment.

Most safety checks were routine. The following specific problems were noted and are reported here so other vehicle owners can learn from them:

1. While I had my head under the hood of one or another student vehicle this afternoon, two potentially dangerous vehicle conditions made it past our safety net. The first was a Honda sedan I saw only when being driven away with a bad knocking sound. This could be a thrown connecting rod. If so, this vehicle should not be driven further. The existence of a second badly defective vehicle is inferred from a big trail of oil on the Unity House driveway. This slick was discovered after the line of vehicles was gone for the day. This is catastrophic oil loss, and the engine will not go more than a few more miles before seizing. It is also polluting. It is possible and even perhaps likely that these are one and the same vehicle. If either is yours, you need to get it checked out right away. My apologies for not catching it the first time, but, unless they bring prior experience, our student safety checkers are trained only to do the minimal pro-forma safety check we use, and for whatever reason, neither of these conditions were brought to my attention.
2. Several vehicles had trouble codes, which were "pulled" and recorded for the owners to seek further help. Some trouble codes can be more or less safely ignored, but not all or even most. Even if you choose to ignore one, it's best to check it periodically to make sure a second code has not been triggered.
3. Several vehicles were consuming large amounts of oil, as determined from low oil measured on the dipstick and the owner's knowledge of the last oil added or oil change. More than a quart of oil consumption between fillings of your gas tank is too much, and it is time to consider getting a different vehicle or a new engine. The exception is if the oil consumption is due to a leak, in which case the leak should be fixed. If you suspect high oil consumption, you need to check the oil more regularly, at least until you know how much oil is being used. Check each time you put gas in for a while, then if the consumption is not too great, you might check only every second or third time. Always check the oil before a long trip, whether or not your car is using oil.
4. One vehicle had a loose primary battery connector. This was causing difficulty in starting and stalling out. It was repaired with new connections from the hardware store and our stock.
5. One vehicle had a loose license plate. The head of a plastic screw had been twisted off. The screw was drilled out, and the owner was given help to source a replacement. They have them at the hardware store in town.
6. One vehicle was consuming coolant and oil via a bad head gasket. This was identified from oil foam in the coolant overflow tank and lost coolant. This vehicle needs an immediate repair, which may or may not be cost-effective.

Thanks to all the students who assisted with this activity, as well as the Student Affairs and Maintenance Departments.

Mick Womersley

Professor of Human Ecology

Head Grease Monkey

Revision's solar cartoon gets attention

Here's the cartoon:



And here's the article:

https://medium.com/environment-america/maine-lawmakers-dim-the-promise-of-solar-energy-743da80f5896

Systems of reason, for EII

EII Third and final response assignments

Note: Your EII grade will consist of the four assignments (20%), a climate change quiz (10%), and participation (10%).

Assignment #3:

Create a script or storyboard for your final digital storytelling assignment.

1. Choose a group, or chose to work alone. 


2. Chose the environmental leader or issue you wish to highlight with a presentation. Remember, presentations may be audio, video, narrated slideshow, or any of the choices listed below. The only requirement is that the presentation play itself (or be staged, if a traditional play or sketch)


3. Prepare a storyboard and/or script


4. Each individual or group member must hand in their own storyboard or script. In the next assignment you will come together to make only one final submission, but for now, you work alone. This is so I can be sure that each of you learns the basic techniques


5. If making a video, study the You-Tube how-to here, and prepare a storyboard


6. If making audio or a narrated slideshow, prepare a script


7. Produce an introduction to your storyboard or script that explains your project, including thesis statement, evidence, and conclusion


8. Hand in the introduction, plus the storyboard or script


9. Due Thursday November 30th

Assignment 4:

1. Research an environmental leader or issue of your choice. You may work in groups or alone. Identify a thesis related to the issue and supporting evidence, as well as the environmental or conservation organizations that are working on the issue. Prepare a video, audio, narrated slideshow, or other media production built around the thesis, providing supporting evidence, highlighting the work of the leader and their organization


2. Due either the last day of the semester (Friday December 15th) or in time for the student conference (Friday Dec 4th) -- your choice. Student conference participation is optional, but may be recommended for the best products. Note: You have to register!


3. The options are deliberately wide. Don't get lost in your choices! Pick an issue and format for your presentation that you or your group feel confident you can finalize, and then stick to it.


4. Use "backwards design" to help structure and outline your presentation, and also to organize your schedule: Start with your topic, and decide on a thesis. Then decide what your want to achieve with this topic and thesis. What is the story that you want to tell, and to whom do you wish to tell it? From that, pick a media format that will best reach your audience, and then organize your schedule so you can deliver a product using this format.


5. Workshop time will be made available during class hours and by appointment with the
   instructor so that you can get help with this project. The Quimby Library Media Technician is standing by to help you with video and other formats.


6. Here is a winning example from a previous year
    

Examples of allowable media:

Video storytelling
Stage plays
Sketch comedy
Storytelling
Traditional video documentary
Narrated slideshows and presentations
Others, after timely negotiation with the instructor

NYT answers your climate questions

Here.

Boom and bust

Puerto Rico updates

Injustice:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sad-suspicion-about-trumps-poor-treatment-of-puerto-rico/2017/09/26/5a54cde4-a2ef-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html?utm_term=.606274d780a0

MEANG responds: http://www.pressherald.com/2017/09/22/maine-air-national-guard-to-help-with-hurricane-relief-in-u-s-virgin-islands/

Maine Red Cross: https://bangordailynews.com/2017/09/25/news/maine-red-cross-team-of-five-heading-to-hurricane-ravaged-puerto-rico/

Climate readings for EII

I wasn't planning to assign these readings so early, but this hurricane season kinda requires we get thinking about this sooner rather than later:

You have three readings:

1. Maine's Climate Future, the 2015 update
2. Hansen et al 2016. This is, as I mentioned, a difficult read. We'll discuss in class how this and associated work establishes the "models versus analogs" issue in current climate science and policy
3. Related, two brief news articles on hurricanes, one here, another here

Puerto Rico today

Rapid intensification

For EII: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/19/the-scariest-thing-about-2017s-hurricanes-they-got-really-bad-really-fast/?utm_term=.5c2d84ac5e07 http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0134.1

Assignment: Common Ground Country Fair

The fair is an all-around good time, so you should need no incentive to go; however, the following notes are added to help you along:

Assignment instructions:

1. You are assigned to go to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Common Ground Country Fair held Friday through Sunday September 22-24 right here in Unity, and then to complete the response paper detailed below
2. You may get into the fair for free if you volunteer. Be sure to do so well ahead of time. See the MOFGA webpage for details
3. If you are a MOFGA member you already get in for free. Check to see if your parents have a family membership
4. For those of you who were planning to go home, or who cannot attend the fair for any other valid reason, such as work or a medical appointment, your alternative assignment is to visit a local or organic food outlet, such as a farmer's market or food cooperative, private kitchen garden, or any other food source that seems likely to be able to give you the provenance information that will be needed, and complete the same assignment as the fair-goers (below). Be careful to actually get the information. Most non fair-goers who fail this assignment do so because they don't get the proper information.

The fair/local/organic food response paper:

1. Obtain food for a meal at the fair, at some local food outlet, or from a friend's or relative's kitchen garden. Be sure to find out where each ingredient comes from
2. Make and eat the meal. (If you live in the residence halls and otherwise eat on the meal plan, the meal can just be a snack.)
3. Describe the meal and track the ingredients geographically and ecologically in a short informal essay. Focus on the food chain. Explain why this was (or was not) a good meal. Humor and/or pathos are optional
4. Due Wednesday October 4th in class or via email
5. This is the first check-in opportunity for me to evaluate your writing and critical thinking skills. Be sure to do your best, or you may find yourself getting unexpected remedial attention!

NASA photos of Irma damage to tree cover on the islands

Click to enlarge.

Captives on the farm

Aimee, Edana, and I hosted two van-loads of first year "Captive" students to our farm in Jackson, ME to learn some sheep care skills. As per the regular protocol for this event, which has been happening for almost a decade now, we added some animal scientist boot-camp and general attitude adjustment material.

You may think you're there to learn how to care for fuzzy sheep, which are admittedly cute. But when the sheep whose hooves you need to trim and whose eyeballs you need to check for signs of parasites turns out to weigh twice what you do, has an attitude of his own, and decidedly negative opinions about you and what you plan to do, a little internal adjustment may just possibly be required.

This may indeed be the moment when you discover whether or not you are really cut out for a career in Captive Wildlife Care and Education.

It is also perhaps the moment when you realize that, in order to properly understand what you are doing, it is necessary to actually use some of that oh-so-boring high school and early college biological science.

Let's face it, if you don't actually care what Haemonchus contortus is, or what causes anemia, or if you can't be bothered to study the physiology of nematodes, life indeed might be a little easier on you and possibly more pleasant. Classes, books, slideshows, the teacher droning on... blah, blah, blah...

But, if that is the case, if that is the person you are, and there's nothing you care to change about that, do you have any business looking after animals?

File all this under "How to change someone's mind."

SAR material for VRP, 9/9/2017

1. Intro to SAR slides
2. Lockerbie
3. Gerry Largay search
4. Largay search map and another

Texas wardens dealing with Harvey

Relief for Texas?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/us/politics/hurricane-harvey-shifts-political-winds-in-washington.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region

Houston evacuees talk about their ordeal

Hurricane Harvey

We'll be talking about this disaster in appropriate classes later this semester and likely for years to come. Our hearts and sympathy go out to all those who have lost homes and loved ones. Here for the sake of climate education is a digital "souvenir" of this emerging human disaster that the National Weather Service has called "unprecedented. Although we're used to weather warnings and alerts here in Maine, I've never seen this many layered weather warnings on a single NWS forecast page. Click to enlarge.

A new semester begins

Check your canvas page to see about syllabi and books.

Important new Nature article on sea level rise over millennia

https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2923.epdf?referrer_access_token=0gp6WdDH4HDF1AU1YuUpg9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0P7bBCydl3XkC-iEMeXdnEdZyapaEsweyzuEOIDhjyT2GKEs95Aqal-zTFeF2gmyXtSos1ylR4FIVQAUebuxLqSc7va8_O-qGSZXQpWGU-OrGo71rtoWr7Bh2z-uomk9slDBtbpJ-7VchJ_abzfdoZhWIMpKSeg-ND70au-GdenYgCa3UahjAsTGYk8SIEC64fGUSmxsJFtNMfacbYzJNGV&tracking_referrer=www.realclimate.org

The latest on the Paris Accord and the Trump Administration

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/climate/trump-paris-climate-accord.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Vehicle safety report

Eleven students and one instructor from Physics: Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism ran the twice-yearly Vehicle Safety Day today between 12.30 and 4.00 pm. Twenty vehicles were examined, about half of what would be expected if there had not been rain, and if the activity were held at the SAC. However, it was useful to have the shop and vehicle lift available.

If you planned to get your vehicle checked and were not able to because of the change of venue or some other reason, email mwomersley@unity.edu and ask for an appointment.

Most safety checks were routine. The following specific problems were noted and are reported here so other vehicle owners can learn from them:

1. Several vehicles had trouble codes, which were "pulled" and recorded for the owners to seek further help. Some trouble codes can be more or less safely ignored, but not all or even most. Even if you choose to ignore one, it's best to check it periodically to make sure a second code has not been triggered.
2. One vehicle had uneven wear on the rear tires, down to the canvas on both inside edges. The same had also been in a recent front-ender, making a twisted chassis a real possibility. The owner was advised to get new tires, not to exceed 50 mph until he had done so, then to get an alignment, and not exceed 70 mph until he had done that.
3. One vehicle was running rough and consuming large amounts of oil, as determined from low oil measured on the dipstick and the owner's knowledge of the last oil added or oil change. More than a quart of oil consumption between fillings of your gas tank is too much, and it is time to consider getting a different vehicle or a new engine. The exception is if the oil consumption is due to a leak, in which case the leak should be fixed.
4. One vehicle had a loose dipstick mount, requiring a new 6mm set screw.
5. One vehicle had a loose heat shield above the catalytic converter. This was easily and permanently repaired using self-tapping screws, thanks to our new vehicle lift.
6. One vehicle had a loose hood gasket. This was refitted using pop rivets.
7. One vehicle was consuming coolant. Using the check engine code reader we were able to narrow the fault to a lean fuel mixture, likely the cause of overheating, boiling away coolant. A visit to a competent vehicle diagnostician was recommended, to correct the lean mixture. If a vehicle is made to run with consistently lean fuel mixture, overheating will cause premature engine wear.
8. One vehicle's wipers required adjustment.
9. Three vehicles had lights out, requiring new bulbs. In future we will begin to keep a range of standard bulbs in stock. This generally won't cover headlights, which are specialized to vehicle make and often even to model, but it will cover some, if not most, reverse, brake, tail, side, and turn signal lights.

Thanks to all the students who assisted with this activity, as well as the Student Affairs and Maintenance Departments.

Bill McKibben on climate and Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/opinion/the-planet-cant-stand-this-presidency.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

Climate change quiz for EII

The quiz will be given in class on Tuesday, April 25th. It is worth 10 points. There will be ten multiple choice questions (60%) and a short essay (40%).

The multiple choice questions will be based on our class discussion, as well as on the booklet Maine's Climate Future (2009) and the 2015 update, both available at this website:

http://climatechange.umaine.edu/research/publications/climate-future

The essay question prompt will be "Describe your own climate philosophy." You should prepare this essay ahead of time, and will be allowed to use one ordinary flash card of notes (three by five inches) for the purpose.

EII third and fourth assignments

Note: Your EII grade will consist of the four assignments (20%), a climate change quiz (10%), and participation (10%).

Assignment #3:

Create a script or storyboard for your final digital storytelling assignment.

1. Choose a group, or chose to work alone. 


2. Chose the environmental leader or issue you wish to highlight with a presentation. Remember, presentations may be audio, video, narrated slideshow or any of the choices listed below. The only requirement is that the presentation play itself (or be staged, if a traditional play or sketch)


3. Prepare a storyboard and/or script


4. Each individual or group member must hand in their own storyboard or script. In the next assignment you will come together to make only one final submission, but for now, you work alone. This is so I can be sure that each of you learns the basic techniques


5. If making a video, study the You-Tube how-to below, and prepare a storyboard


6. If making audio or a narrated slideshow, prepare a script


7. Produce an introduction to your storyboard or script that explains your project, including thesis statement, evidence, and conclusion


8. Hand in the introduction, plus the storyboard or script


9. Due either Friday April 28th.

Assignment 4:

1. Research an environmental leader or issue of your choice. You may work in groups or alone. Identify a thesis related to the issue and supporting evidence, as well as the environmental or conservation organizations that are working on the issue. Prepare a video, audio, narrated slideshow, or other media production built around the thesis, providing supporting evidence, highlighting the work of the leader and their organization


2. Due either the last day of the semester (Wednesday May 10th) or in time for the student conference (Monday May 8th -- but there's an earlier deadline to apply) -- your choice. Student conference participation is optional, but may be
   recommended for the best products. Note: You have to register!


3. The options are deliberately wide. Don't get lost in your choices! Pick an issue and format for your presentation that you or your group feel confident you can finalize, and then stick to it.


4. Use "backwards design" to help structure and outline your presentation, and also to organize your schedule: Start with your topic, and decide on a thesis. Then decide what your want to achieve with this topic and thesis. What is the story that you want to tell, and to whom do you wish to tell it? From that, pick a media format that will best reach your audience, and then organize your schedule so you can deliver a product using this format.


5. Workshop time will be made available during class hours and by appointment with the
   instructor so that you can get help with this project. The Quimby Library Media Technician is standing by to help you with video and other formats.


6. Here is a winning example from a previous year
    

Examples of allowable media:

Video storytelling
Stage plays
Sketch comedy
Storytelling
Traditional video documentary
Narrated slideshows and presentations
Others, after timely negotiation with the instructor

ESS second take-home exam

Environmental Scenarios and Solutions

Second Midterm (Take Home) Exam

Professor Womersley

(Worth 20% of final grade)

Due Friday April 22nd by email or hard copy. Do not submit via Canvas. I will not grade examinations submitted via Canvas.

Instructions

Answer all questions. If you don’t know an answer, put down what you do know.

You may research answers. Give diagrams if needed. Cite important research other than material given in class or in the texts for the class. You must work alone.

You are an environmental social scientist working as an informal advisor in conservation policy for a moderate New Vermaineshire state legislator. A more radical legislator has proposed a policy to begin privatizing state conservation lands. It seems to be gathering support with your colleagues. One attractive facet of the proposal is the reduced cost in taxation, once lands that do not produce tax, access fees, or logging revenue are off the state books. You are asked for help in countering these arguments.

Applying social insight
What social and psychological insight can you give your legislator as to how to pitch the status quo (non-privatization) to the public. What general social understandings should she use to build and sustain support among her constituency and the state residents as a whole. Can you, for instance, apply cognitive dissonance or Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Hint: Consider how the public typically uses conservation lands of different kinds, including state parks, forest, and wildlife management areas and how this will change after privatization.

Applying cultural cognition 
How can you apply the findings of Kahan et al, 2011 to this problem? How are constituents and residents likely to feel about the proposal to privatize, if they respond as did the subjects of the cultural cognition study? How might your legislator respond using insights gained from the study? Hint: Be sure to consider the different responses based on the cultural axis diagram (below)

Sustainability 
Which is more sustainable, privatization or public ownership? Explain why in detail.


Resources:

1) A similar, less far-reaching, but real proposal:

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/03/03/our-view-dont-mess-with-success-at-maines-state-parks/

2) Kahan et al,

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549444

 

3) Maslow:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Material on the executive order for GL 4003 and ESS

President Trump's executive order on energy independence and economics:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/03/28/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-and-economi-1

Massachusetts vs. EPA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Protection_Agency

OMB Circular A4:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/circulars_a004_a-4/

The political economy of solar geoengineering

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/29/criticism-harvard-solar-geoengineering-research-distorted?CMP=share_btn_fb

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/mar/27/trump-presidency-opens-door-to-planet-hacking-geoengineer-experiments

GL 4003 second take-home exam

GL4003 Global Change

Second Midterm Exam

Professor Womersley

Due Wednesday April 19th in class or by email

Instructions

This is a take-home exam. Answer all questions, showing work where necessary to demonstrate skills or learning, diagrams if asked or if it helps. If you don’t know or can’t work out an answer, put down what you do know. You may research answers.  You may discuss them with the instructor. You may not confer with other students. Submit electronically, multiple files allowed including statistical files in JMP, Excel, or Smith’s.

Exam is 20% of grade for class, 10% given for each problem below

1. Test the hypotheses that change in average annual temperature is a function of the phase of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, the level of deposition of volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere, the amount of solar energy hitting the top of the atmosphere, and the combined effect of anthropogenic influences, following the method pioneered by Judith Lean and David Rind (2008). Timelag manipulation is no longer required. Report the results, with all statistical parameters explained. Provide a discussion of the meaning of the results.

2. Using the model or estimator produced by the above method (i.e., using the full equation), and Microsoft Excel, compare the predicted time series to the actual (HadCRU 3) using a graph. How accurate is your model? To what use might it be put?

EII second response paper

This assignment is an exercise in research, critical thinking and informal writing.

Follow all instructions. Due Friday April 7th by email or hard copy.

1. Identify two extant US environmental organizations, one you generally agree with and support, and one you don't
2. Research their missions, goals and methods carefully, using online and print resources, as well as any other social science case study methods you like. Be sure to ask the instructor ahead of time if you choose to interview human subjects
3. Identify some of the different types of careers that are possible within both institutions, and determine the qualifications and experience required
4. In an informal essay, compare and contrast the two organizations and summarize these career pathways
5. Conclude with your own considered viewpoint of each organization
6. Cite your research sources. No particular citation format is required, but your citations should be consistent and give complete information to the reader in case they wish to review your sources.

Mick's 2004 article for ULSF

http://ulsf.org/preaching-not-to-the-converted-why-sustainability-courses-should-be-required-for-all-students-at-all-colleges-and-universities/

Today's question (for ESS, and perhaps posterity)

Ruling on the second travel ban

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3518057/Order.pdf

ESS readings week 8

Cultural cognition:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549444

Global Warming's Six Americas

http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2009_05_Global-Warmings-Six-Americas.pdf


and update

http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/six-americas-2016-election/

TGIF

           TOADS   by Phillip Larkin

Why should I let the toad work

 Squat on my life?

Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork

 And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils

 With its sickening poison -

Just for paying a few bills!

 That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:

 Lecturers, lispers,

Losels, loblolly-men, louts-

 They don't end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes

 With fires in a bucket,

Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-

 they seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,

 Their unspeakable wives

Are skinny as whippets - and yet

 No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough

 To shout Stuff your pension!

But I know, all too well, that's the stuff

 That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like

 Squats in me, too;

Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,

 And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney

 My way of getting

The fame and the girl and the money

 All at one sitting.

I don't say, one bodies the other

 One's spiritual truth;

But I do say it's hard to lose either,

 When you have both.

Videos for EII: The sixties and seventies in the American Zeitgeist

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002566509/love-canal-a-legacy-of-doubt.html

Vostok Ice Core video for GL4003

BBC - Horizon - 2000 - The Lost World of Lake... by DocumentaryHD2014

Jim Hansen reading for ESS

This reading is to substitute for the Jeffrey Sachs reading.

https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_ha00410c.pdf

Thomas Moran, for EII

"Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone"

Smithsonian Institution

ESS first take-home exam

Environmental Scenarios and Solutions

First Midterm (Take Home) Exam

Professor Womersley

(Worth 20% of final grade)

Due Friday March 3rd by email or hard copy. Do not submit via Canvas. I will not grade examinations submitted via Canvas.

Instructions

Answer both questions. If you don’t know an answer, put down what you do know.

You may research answers. Give diagrams if needed. Cite important research other than material given in class or in the texts for the class. You must work alone.

Microeconomic applications

You are a policy staffer working for New Vermaineshire state government in the Fish and Wildlife Division. You are asked to prepare an analysis of a proposal in the legislature to regulate moose permits using an online bidding system (similar to eBay) instead of the existing lottery. The same number of permits will be issued, only via open bidding. The only requirement to bid is that the bidder be a US resident and have taken a certified hunter safety course. The proposal is conceptually comparable to others advocating the privatization of natural resources and use of competitive bidding.

Specify in plain English, using diagrams if necessary, the effects on state revenue, on the price of permits, and which sections of the public will be either winners or losers as a result. State whether or not, in your own opinion as an experienced staffer, this policy is likely to be successful, reasoning from the available evidence and what you know of the local culture.

Macroeconomic applications

If the legislature of the state of New Vermaineshire chooses to implement the above policy, what would be the general macroeconomic effects to the state’s economy? List and detail these. Use diagrams if necessary.

Sustainability

Which is more sustainable, the lottery or the open bidding system? Explain why.

NASA cloud visualization

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3723

Physics first lab report

1. Prepare a lab report detailing any of our experiments so far, including any of today's.
2. Use the descriptions and data in your lab notebook.
3. Use a typical lab report outline (introduction, methods, results, conclusions discussion)
4. The grading rubric below applies
5. Ask the laboratory instructor if you have any questions or concerns
6. Due by hard copy in lab or by email before lab March 1st 2017
7. No Canvas reminder will be made

Item/Level of Achievement	Does not meet	Meets	Exceeds
Is there a research question?	No question or wrong question	Logical question, not narrow enough	Logical, well-stated and narrow question
Identifies materials and quantities?	No/inadequate materials list, incorrectly I.D. of materials	Adequate but minimal details	Expanded, complete, relevant details
Drawing or sketch?	No/poor sketch	Labeled, clear, concise	Labeled, clear, concise, neat and organized
Procedures (narrative)	Missing steps or no procedure	All steps present, could be better explained, more specific	Complete, relevant, well-worded explanation

EII first assignment

Write a short essay (of four to five pages, double-spaced) tracking the food chain for two comparable items of food, and comparing these food chains. Be sure to pick items whose provenance that you can easily track, for instance, a loaf of bread from a local bakery whose proprietors give such information, versus one from a major national company whose website also provides such information. If you come up with blanks, make reasonable assumptions based on what you know of our food system.

Compare the two food chains. How do they rate, in terms of social and environmental impact? Can you find any ecosystems or communities that are affected? How are the ecosystems and communities affected?

This class is about logic and rhetoric. In particular, we need to work to make sure students improve their rhetoric. I want to see a lot of work done on sentences in these papers. Be sure to either 1) provide a final copy free of sentence errors, or 2) go through a drafting process to fix or remove sentence errors.

I am available during office hours or by appointment to coach you through an approach to sentence-level proof-reading techniques.

This paper is due in class in hard copy, or by email before class time Tuesday, February 28th.

Do NOT submit via Canvas.

Global change first exam

Global Change

First Midterm Exam

Due Wednesday March 1st

Instructions

Answer all questions. If you don’t know an answer, put down what you do know. This is a take-home exam. You may research answers. You may discuss them with the instructor. You may not confer with other students. Email your exam to the instructor at mwomersley@unity.edu when complete, or hand in a hard copy. Do not submit through Canvas.

Part 1: Questions 1-5 (10% each)

• Explain the role of the polar jet stream in Maine's winter climate.
• What drives the Gulf Stream? Explain.
• What is earth's energy budget? What would happen if some climate phenomena added a watt/meter square of additional energy on the output side while leaving the input side the same?
• Explain how a greenhouse works. Relate this to the climate "greenhouse effect."
• Explain how a climate anomaly is calculated.

Part 2: 50%

Access climate data using one of the web sites shown in class or use this data set here. Explore the data using a data analysis package such as Excel, .jmp or Smith’s Statistical Package (Links to an external site.). Develop a hypothesis relating to the data that can be tested using the package. Perform an inferential statistical analysis to test the hypothesis. Report the results, including the exploratory statistics. Discuss