Environmental Science =]

          With “going green” being the new cool thing to do these days, many people are looking for ways to make their transportation methods more environmentally friendly.  Some naïve people turn to Hybrid cars as their solution, considering its great gas mileage and lesser amount of fossil fuel burning into the atmosphere.  However, if one was to compare all of the relevant factors of a Hybrid car to those of a regular mid-sized car, many opinions would alter.  I want to find out whether Hybrids are really worth it, so I am going to take into account the sticker prices, gas mileage, and other operating costs of a Hybrid Toyota Prius and a Chevrolet Aveo, assuming that gas prices are consistently $4.00 a gallon and the average driver drives 12,000 miles per year.  Here is what I calculated:

Toyota Prius→12,000 mi / 45 mi per gallon=266.7*$4.00=$1067/year

Chevy Aveo→12,000 mi / 34 mi per gallon=352.9*$4.00=$1412/year

Sticker Price Difference=$21,500(Prius) – $11,460(Aveo)=$10,040 difference in price

Cost of Gas Price Difference per year=$1,412(Aveo)-$1,067(Prius)=$345

Where do they break even? $10,040 sticker price difference/$345 gas price difference per year=29 years.

Chevrolet Aveos are on display at a dealership in Stockton, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006.

A Toyota Prius Hybrid is seen Tuesday, July 1, 2008, at a Chicago dealership.

          Overall, unless making economic decisions is something you are not concerned, most would choose the Chevy Aveo based on my results.  It would prove difficult to drivers simply to keep and maintain their Toyota Prius in order to finally reap the benefits of paying an extra $10,040 for a car.  In my opinion, until Hybrids are modified to save more gas or become less expensive, they are NOT the way to go. 

Images from the AP Photos Archive.

With sustainability becoming an increasingly important concern, many people are aware of what environmentalists have labeled “the carbon footprint.”  The carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc.  Now that you can calculate your “carbon footprint,” how about finding out your “water footprint”?

According to an article from ScienceDaily.Com, six global allies including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and UNESCO (the University of Twente in The Netherlands) will found the Water Footprint Network  today on October 16, 2008. The water footprint, developed by UT Professor Arjen Hoekstra, gives a comprehensive insight into the water consumption of persons, corporations, and countries.  The main goal of the Water Footprint Network is to encourage efficient usage of water all over the world. 

Calculating one’s water footprint takes into account not only the water withdrawn from surface as well as ground water and soil water, but also this includes the water needed to produce goods.  You may be finding it hard to believe that our water intake is that astronomical, so here are a few examples that were given in the article:

'The Water Footprint' placed the cups in front of the Brandenburg Gate to illustrate how many cups of coffee the average German drinks during his lifetime. (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)

For every one regular cup of coffee, an average of 140 liters of water is needed.  To make one standard cotton t-shirt, 2,700 liters is needed.  16,000 for a kilo of beef.  Considering all of these water usages on a global scale, we calculate a water footprint of 7,500 billion cubic meters a year.   This is an average of 1,250 cubic meters a year per person.  These numbers took me by surprise, and I predict that many others are as mistaken and naïve as I, which is why I feel passionately about the success of the Water Footprint Network and hope they can inform and alter the way people perceive and act in regards to water sustainability.