Global Warming Board Game

13/5/2016
I played the Global Warming Board Game on 13th May with my classmates during ENE class and it was a very interesting experience. Its a 2 to 4 player game and it is a game that kind of simulates the real world competition over oil control and all the players get to choose how happy their country is and how large their carbon footprint on the world will be.
All players start the game with 5 dollars in their bank and they can use the money to buy oil, or to place a consumer or environment card. A player can either draw 3 cards and discard as many as they want(max 7 cards in hand), play a card, or place an oil rig in any country that is available, buy oil from countries which they have placed an oil rig in, or lastly pass a turn, if they dont want to do anything for that turn. There are 3 barrels on the global warming track, which is an indicator for the total carbon emissions from our industrial actions in the game and there are 3 markings, on the 30, 60 and 100 point mark, when we pass the marks we have to do some actions, depending on which mark we pass. The game ends when all the oil and money has been used up or when the 100 point mark is reached, and the player whose country has the highest happiness index, which is increase by the use of consumer or environment cards, wins the game.
In my opinion, the game answered all my questions of why different countries in real life, are fighting so hard for control over oil. At one point of the game i had around 20+ dollars in the bank and i had a rig in Saudi Arabia, so when it was my turn i bought 8 barrels of oil for $16, as it was $2/barrel, this gave me a huge advantage as i was able to have more money as i was able to use the oil to carry out more industrial actions and also to increase my happiness index. Thus oil is not only a source of energy but also power. The global warming index was also very difficult to keep under the 3 marks as we had to carry out industrial actions that increase the temperature of the world for money but even though individually the temperature increase seems little it adds up over time.
I learnt alot from this game especially in terms of how important natural resources are to the world and also how each country contributes to global warming and i strongly recommend this game to all who are in the age limit:)

Reflection on Livestock and Climate Change article

Livestock and Climate Change
This article(link above), touches on the subject of GHG(Greenhouse Gas) emissions produced by livestock farming, which is the farming of animals such as poultry, cattle and pigs for consumption purposes. The article states that the livestock and feed farming accounts for 18% of total global GHG emissions and is also an industry that is destroying rain forests, which are major carbon sinks carrying up to 200 tons of carbon per hectare, compared to a degraded grassland used to feed cattle, which only carries 8 tons.
I feel that this article touches on a very good point that we overlook, that is how these livestock farming practices are destroying the environment and have a similar if not greater impact than that of fossil fuel use. The article states that aside from destroying the rain forests and all the ecosystems within it, the respiration of the livestock also accounts for global carbon emissions as there are much more animals now than there were in the past due to livestock farming. Not only that, "Fluorocarbons (needed for cooling livestock products much more than alternatives),which have a global warming potential up to several thousand times higher than that of CO2. Cooking, which typically entails higher temperatures and longer periods for meat than alternatives, and in developing countries entails large amounts of charcoal (which reduces carbon absorption by consuming trees) and kerosene, each of which emits high levels of GHGs. Disposal of inevitably large amounts of liquidwaste from livestock, and waste livestock products in the form of bone, fat, and spoiled products, all of which emit high amounts of GHGs when disposed in landfills, incinerators, andwaterways. Production, distribution, and disposal of byproducts, such as leather, feathers, skin, and fur, and their packaging.  Production, distribution, and disposal of packaging used for livestock products, which for sanitary reasons is much more extensive than for alternatives to livestock products. • Carbon-intensive medical treatment of millions of cases worldwide of zoonotic illnesses (such as swine flu) and chronic degenerative illnesses(such as coronary heart disease, cancers, diabetes, and hypertension leading to strokes)linked to the consumption of livestock products. Full accounting of GHGs attributable to livestock productswould cover portions of the construction and operation of pharmaceutical and medical industries used to treat these illnesses.", all these provide larger problems for the environment.
I agree with the article on the point that we should market a more vegan based diet to reduce the amount of livestock farming, it states in the article that forests have the ability to regenerate if we stop the farming practices. After all, we only eat meat because we are used to its tastes and not many of us are aware of the farming practices thus I feel that marketing veganism is not impossible as we just have to shake the common myths about it and also show that farming vegetables and plant based foods are much more friendly to the environment and also safer, as plants do not carry as much diseases as animals and also does not lead to chronic diseases due to saturated fat related diets which comes with meat consumption.
Why does meat taste so good?
The video above explains why we prefer the taste of meat, because we flavor our meat with plants.  It also shows that we are able to survive on a plant based diet as well and that there are many options even if we are vegans so it is not impossible to make a change. FYI, the best tasting burger in the world is a vegan burger!
However there are many people who have jobs in this sector and countries who rely on livestock for economy so they have to find alternatives to strike a balance between livestock farming and also reducing its carbon footprint.

Earthopoly Board Game

Played Earthopoly board game with my course mates Elias and Gabriel. Earthopoly is a game like monopoly where you roll the dice and move along the board, there are different properties for us to buy along the way and whenever someone lands on our property they have to pay rent to the owner of the property. Similar to monopoly, we can cannot buy property in the first round around the board, and we collect $200 everytime we pass the starting point. We are all given the same amount of money at the start of the game to spend on property. The properties are color coded and we are allow to buy houses if we own all the properties of 1 color. There is also a place on the board known as pitch in, and whoever lands on that area gets to collect the money in the middle of the board, which is all the money used to pay for the properties. There is also a dump where if a player lands there, he has to roll a double( 2 same values on the dice) to get out of the dump, he is given 3 tries and if he fails he has to put $100 in the middle of the board.The game continues until someone runs out of money.
We played the game for around 2 hours and i was the one who ran out of money as i did not get a single pitch in and i kept buying properties so i could not pay rent when i landed on someones property.

Watched the movie "The Last Mountain" in class

22/4/16:
Watched "The Last Mountain" in Energy and Environment class and was given a quiz that we were supposed to complete during the course of the movie including 2 personal opinion questions at the end of the quiz.

Review
The movie was a documentary on the Appalachia Mountains and the people who are living in these mountains, which they call the Coal River Valley. The people of the Coal River Valley are protesting against a company called Massey Energy as they are responsible for the mountaintop removal of over 470 of the Appalachia Mountains and in the process polluting the rivers with sludge and the air with coal dust. These made the conditions of the Coal River Valley unsuitable for living and caused many health issues for not only the adults but the children who are studying in the area.
The activists in the movie state that even though around 50% of the electricity in America comes from coal mining, there are other alternatives such as wind turbines that produce the same output but do not harm the environment, which is something that cannot be replaced once it is destroyed.

They show in the movie that the activists have protested many times to the government but to no avail as the coal mining industry is a source of economy in their country and a source of jobs for many people. Thus, the CEO of Massey Energy has enough wealth and power to violate safety rules for his workers and also environmental regulations and only get away paying a small fine.

Robert F. Kennedy, John Kennedy's nephew is also on the activist's side in the movie and supports their idea of building a small scale of wind farms on the top of what is left of the mountains that were removed and maintains that " The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind", hoping that it would reduce the reliance on coal mining and therefore reduce the pollution and other harmful effects that the coal mining industry brings.

The film concludes showing that the protest is still ongoing and that " the fate of the River Valley Mountains is still in the balance" and that " we are all connected to coal, whether we know it or not".

Personal Opinion

In my opinion,i think that certain actions of the activists are not required and that they should have focused their effort on the implementation of the wind farms or other alternatives because the coal mining industry, like any other industry, generates income and jobs for people thus the government, which usually rely on these numbers to gain the recognition and popularity among citizens, would not take any action against them unless a similar alternative is produced. Therefore, the activists are making the lives of the riot police and the coal miners difficult as they are just doing their job and that is their livelihood, they are not responsible for the greed of the company's plans. The movie is informative and shows the effect of human activities on other humans and their environment and also shows the effect of greed, but it is still biased. Nevertheless, i still recommend it to all as it shows the side of the coal mining industry that the companies would rather not let the general public see.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Mountain
Watch the full movie on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6neSdVOh_BM

Details of the Assignment and Score Sheet.

Attached are the details such as the requirements and "rules" of the assignment and also a score sheet which we use, along with this blog, to keep track of our progress.