Volume 25 · Number 1 · Fall 2007
Letters
In our last issue of UC Davis Magazine, we asked readers of our cover story, “Future Power,” to send us their ideas for fighting global climate change, for reducing their carbon footprint or for a new product or practice that could make a difference. Here are a few responses received by the magazine or posted on the UC Davis research blog Egghead. To read others or add your own, visit Egghead at eggheadblog.ucdavis.edu and type Future Power in the search box.
Future power
The efforts of UC Davis scientists to help conserve and produce alternative energy sources are a laudable and necessary contribution to our energy needs.
However, the only proven technology that can replace fossil fuel burning in the next 20 years is nuclear power. Modern pebble bed reactors are meltdown-proof, and fuel recycling eliminates 95 percent of radio-active waste. Nuclear power is the only economical source of carbon-dioxide-free power for plug-in cars. It also provides energy independence. Nuclear power has been endorsed by many environmentalists, including Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace.
If Japan, England, France and Germany have found nuclear power to be a safe and reliable source for most of their power, why is it continually opposed in our country?
Ed Kahl, M.A. ’72, Economics
On Aug. 1, 2000, the New York Times published my letter suggesting that online booksellers put the first few pages of the book, the table of contents and the index online. By providing the Internet user with enough information to make an informed decision, we can reduce the number of shopping trips. Less travel means less carbon in the atmosphere.
Richard Bruce
Imagine if everybody does a little bit to reduce the carbon footprint in daily life — we could achieve a lot as a community. Examples:
• Drive one mile less every day.
• Wear a sweater in the winter and turn down the thermometer.
• When you drive for pleasure, think about Mother Nature.
• Take a bus and save all the fuss.
• Dry your clothes outdoors orindoors and shove the dryer out the door.
• Think smart, think green.
• Don’t leave the lights on while you’re moving on.
• Treat a paper towel as if it were a semijewel.
Chung Fung
I found the recent article lacking.
Thirty years ago I learned through my studies at UC Davis that wide use of solar power was just over the horizon, maybe five years. I helped organize a solar fair on the Capitol grounds. In the ensuing years I have learned that alternative energy (and most environmental advances) will remain forever a dream so long as giant corporations and their political operatives continue to run the show. I wish UC Davis would advocate more for change.
Dan Hoyt ’79
My grand idea to help our energy future is this: Let’s grow sugarcane to harvest ethanol on thousands of hydroponic rafts located in the Gulf of Mexico. The great promise of ethanol is that, if processed renewably, it can be a carbon-neutral fuel system. Present efforts have focused on corn as the preferred source crop in the U.S. Yet sugarcane provides up to five times the ethanol yield per acre compared to corn. . . .
The floating sugarcane-ethanol system would likely consist of crop-rafts and processing-rafts. . . . The ethanol harvest from the processing-rafts could be piped to receiving tanks along Gulf Coast communities, much as offshore oil is pumped to the mainland today. Alternatively, small tanker-boats (ethanol-powered, of course) could bring the alcohol ashore.
Steve Urmston
“Future Power,” unfortunately, does not address the key factor in controlling global warming. That factor is actual removal of some of the excess carbon-dioxide poisoning the globe already. All proposals so far put forward keep allowing some carbon-dioxide emissions to increase.
The one process that can actually remove some carbon is pyrolysis, basically what Kingsford does, which produces charcoal to be buried or spread as soil amendment. Such a process can be applied to almost all our organic wastes and distills off an organic mix and water that can be refined for vehicle fuel.
James Singmaster, Ph.D. ’75
My dream? To have a truly off-the-grid log home in the Smoky Mountains -- or restore an old gristmill into a combined general store/residence with its own hydro-power. But in the meantime...
We drive a flexfuel Taurus. Refitted all the lamps in our home with compact fluorescent bulbs and gave them out to all our relatives last Christmas. Send $4 a month to support NC Greenpower via our monthly energy bill. (Two wind turbines have gone up recently at each end of the state. It's a start.) Support local farmers' markets, and grow some of our own food (polebeans, basil, okra, tomatoes, and bell peppers -- the latter two grow well in containers).
We use rechargeable batteries, windup flashlights and recycled paper for the printer. Correspond with state officials about energy issues -- asking questions and passing along info or names that might be useful. Of particular interest: encouraging a cross-state passenger rail system run on biodiesel. Research is being done on this at NC State.
Watch congressional debate on energy issues. Read, read, read. Two recent standouts: Worldchanging (and its accompanying Web site worldchanging.com) and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, extolling the virtues of local foods.
As stated so well by a representative of Blue Ridge Biofuels at a recent Energy/Environment Expo: "It's gonna take, not a 'silver bullet' approach, but a 'silver shotgun' approach," incorporating all kinds of technology along with energy conservation.
And to our college senior, studying archaeology in Greece this fall: Explore those coastal sites while you can, son, before the oceans rise!
Ramona (Newcome) Shepherd '78
Environmental Design
I would like to add one more thing to Chung Fung's list of activities we can all do "to reduce the carbon footprint in daily life": Have SMALL families! What pollutes the environment? What uses energy? PEOPLE! Over Population can be prevented. Why not "have" one child and adopt the rest? There are plenty of children in the world that need extra love and attention. Over-population is a issue that most people shun. It is a world wide issue that needs to be addressed NOW!
Jackie Leonard-Dimmick '73
Having a “cow”
My generation was at Davis in 1948–50. Things were different then. We knew that cows have calves, either a bull calf (that’s a male) or a heifer calf (that’s a female).
What prompts these remarks (educational, I hope) is the article on page 41 of the spring issue of UC Davis Magazine — “Having a Cow.” From that it is easy to assume James Webb and possibly the alumna he talked with don’t know much when it comes to livestock terminology!
If the students at Davis are going to refer to themselves as “Aggies,” please, they ought to know/be exposed to the barest minimum of basic agriculture! When people ask me where I went to school I simply say Davis. Since then, I’ve worked in Samoa and Siberia and places in between, all having to do with agriculture — and cows and bulls and heifers and steers.
Keith Severin ’50, Cred. ’51
Warrenton, Va.
Arneson, a friend and teacher
It was with great pleasure to read your article on my old art professor Robert C. Arneson [“Photo Egg-cellence,” summer ’07]. I took classes with Professor Arneson in the mid-1970s at UC Davis in TB-9. He was a master in clay and was a superb technician in glazes. I recall his critiques were fearsome — he told me about composition, usage of clay and how to make my ceramic artworks better! He was a friend, teacher and dedicated father. The times I “snuck” into his art studio in TB-9 were priceless.
Your article was concise, informative and paid tribute to a fine man. I only wish Professor Arneson had installed one of his own ceramic heads on campus!
Arturo G. Fallico ’77
Pledge of honor
[Received in response to “A Matter of Honor,” summer ’07]
It was 1943, and I was about to take my final exams prior to graduation. I completed all my exams during Monday and Tuesday of exam week except one that was scheduled for Friday. Since I wanted to visit my family back in New York before reporting for Army enlistment the following Monday, I appealed to my professor to let me take his final exam early on Wednesday. He agreed and put me in an empty study with his exam paper and left me alone with the exam paper and my book bag full of books. I never opened my book bag. I signed the exam paper with an honor pledge and turned in my paper. Then I went on to New York for a visit and to enlist for active duty in the Army. After I had turned in the exam, I went back to the fraternity house where the boys asked me how the exam was. I told them not to worry as we had been prepared well. They accepted the fact that I was not giving out any hints!
Arthur Chalmers ’43
Produce dangers
“On the Trail of a Killer” [spring ’07] by Pat Bailey, describing the epidemiological detective work about E. coli and describing Mr. Winter as the Elvis of E. coli, was very interesting.
One issue that was never mentioned regarding food safety is this: human hands as a vector of disease. Walk into any market and watch people touching the food, every apple, every cherry, to pick the best. Their hands are probably loaded with germs. To make it worse, did you know that oftentimes one’s fingernails inadvertently poke into a piece of fruit? Can you imagine the germs lurking under the nails? Last, watch the little children playing with the fruits and vegetables.
I suggest that we start to follow the European model, where you tell the vendor you want a kilo of oranges, for example, and the vendor picks out the fruit and bags it for you.
Lou Ann Bassan
San Francisco
Band-uh clarification
In our attempt to shed some light on the new athletic rules and regulations accompanying the campus’ switch to Division I, we inadvertently added to the confusion — at least about the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh’s role. Our item reporting that Big West Conference rules limit the band’s numbers and travel didn’t note that those rules do not apply to football games, since the Big West does not sponsor football (the UC Davis football team belongs to the Great West Football Conference).
An old rocker remembers
[Received in response to “The Summer Of Love Lives On!” summer '07]
And bows his head in homage to his pen pals who fought in Vietnam.
I graduated from high school in 1963 in Bombay, India. Through a pen-pal club, which later blossomed into a tape-talk club, I made friends with several persons of both sexes in Europe and the U.S. War escalated in Vietnam, and one of my penpals became a Green Beret. My friend was a tall all-American guy from Lancaster, Penn. We continued our correspondence all through Vietnam. One day (this is my theory) he parachuted behind enemy lines. I never heard from him again. I owe him a lot. While I was at school, he introduced me to Rin Tin Tin comics and a new sensation that had hit the U.S. -- Elvis ‘The Pelvis’ Presley. Another pen-friend was from Reno, Nev. He was drafted. So he dutifully put his 1969 gray Porsche 914 on blocks, packed up his Simon & Garfunkel, Harry Nilsson and Paul Mauriat records in storage, and went off to Vietnam. We used to exchange chit chat and music on small three-inch reel-to-reel tapes, and years later, after his return, he told me how much it meant to him to hear from a friend in India while he was in the jungles of Vietnam. I finally met him in person, on my first trip to the U.S., in 1978 at his home in Reno. He passed away in San Francisco suddenly in 2002 from thyroid cancer. Was it caused by exposure to "agent orange" during his years of service? Nobody will know.
And then there was the Woodstock festival (every Whole Earth Day at UC Davis I am reminded of the event). It was in the newspapers, even abroad. And I read all about it in Time magazine. In December 1970 Woodstock the movie hit theatres in Bombay. I took my then girlfriend, now my wife, to see it. It was an experience akin to almost being there! “Time it was, and what a time it was, it was; A time of innocence, a time of confidences. Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph. Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you…..” from Simon & Garfunkel’s "Bookends Theme."
Adi Damania
UC Genetic Resources Conservation Program