I don't know how I've done it but I've found myself tutoring math and taking an engineer course. Not bad for the gal that scraped by math in high school!
This class tackled different forms of treatment of hazardous waste... The big thing I noticed was how complex handling both hazardous and solid waste is. I've always known waste management was within the scope of engineering, but it was really nice to see how it is applied. As a social scientist, I feel somewhat limited with my knowledge of waste management, it's really nice that I've found a Professor who has so warmly welcomed me into his class. Given, I am auditing, it's kind of a nice way to listen in on class lectures without the stress of performing will.
That said instructor is Professor Brajesh Dubey, a Civil Engineer born in India and has bounced from New Zealand to Florida to East Tennessee, finally meeting me here in Guelph. His research has recently focused on e-waste and landfills of many sorts. It's really interesting to hear the technical side and Professor Dubey definitely has a few tid bids he can share.
Engineers seem to make the choice that I have come to study. Pretty jazzed.
I just started auditing the class, they're just over a quarter of the way through the course. Sadly, I missed a lot of waste management policy content, basically the stuff that I could really hang on to. I however walked in on the wealth of different methods of handling waste. We tackled a multitude of different methods such as neutralisation, precipitation, oxidisation/reduction. Additionally, we addressed some biological change methods such as stabilisation and solidification, aerobic and anerobic, thermal and chemical bio treatment. I find myself a little confused with the processes, but for the most part, feel pretty at ease with what was presented at the lecture because of my studies on this field to date.
I personally found his talk on incineration to be most fascinating. He stated that there was a lot of resentment towards waste-to-energy methods of handling rubbish. This came as no surprise to me from my research on the recent approval of an incinerator in the Durham Region. However, Professor Dubey emphasised these risks very explicitly in stating that the process of burning waste is very sensitive and needs to be agitated often to ensure that pockets of trash are not being neglected. He stresses the practical role of turbulence for proper air distribution.
I also find it funny that he cited Toy Story 3 and Wall-E as pop culture visuals of incinerators. He validatated that they were real.
Land Disposal Restrictions or LDR were highly being abused by US-Canada transfer... Between 2003-2004, just over twelve years ago, the US were heavily shipping waste to Canada because Canada's land disposal restrictions were significantly more lax than Canada.
He also dropped the name superfund, which I recently encountered from putting together my context paper. Superfunds are sites where waste has been improperly disposed of.
We also broke down the construction of the different layers that a landfill is composed of... There are five or six very complex layers that make up the barrier between the waste and the ground.
He also mentioned soil and optimum moisture content or OMC, which is a measure of disposal of water to best compact it.
Adsorption - the accumulation of molecules of a gas to form a thin film on the surface of a solid.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Class time: (over) population thoughts and thinkers
It took three years of post-secondary schooling for me to realise that I can study things I'm passionate about. For some odd reason I started in history, probably because it's a "hard" discipline we are trained to think will take you somewhere. By "hard" discipline I mean that most, if not all schools teach some form of history and additionally, maths and sciences. These are methods of study we are expected to know some form of.
My point here is in my fourth year of post-secondary education and my first year in environment-related studies, I got to thinking about human impact and population levels. My undergrad was a time for me to have simplistic thoughts about very complex issues, I looked at ideas with a lens that I would refer to as "my own ideal world." Now, three years later, a little jaded, but in all honesty no less hopeful. The only real difference is I am a little more hesitant to throw down any of my very bold statements.
In my fourth year of undergrad, I started to subscribe to ideas that paralleled Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich - the world was going to face devastating consequences if population levels continued to rise. I would throw out bold comments stating that people shouldn't live in areas that were simply not sustainable, usually alluding to those who live in the Global South. Again, not so simple.
It's seems like a real economic crunch, although, I really don't want that to be the focus about what I took away from Dr. Evan Fraser's lecture today. I really walked away with a well-rounded perspective on the different interpretations of the population problem. I academically met a fellow by the name of Julian Simon, a Professor of Business administration in the US. He sadly kicked fourteen years ago at the tender age of sixty five. Simon challenged American Biologist Paul Ehrlich in 1980 to a bet that contested resource scarcity over the span of ten years. Simon asked Ehrlich to choose five metals that they would purchase, in turn they would allow their value to mature. Simon claimed that the value would decrease, while Ehrlich believed they would rise. The winner was to receive the profits of the metals, whatever it may be. In those ten years, the world's population grew an astounding 800 million and the price of the select metals dropped significantly. In October 1990, Ehrlich mailed Simon a cheque for $576.07.
The span of this humourous debate is not an accurate capture of the flux of the value of the select metals. The time span really doesn't give justice to value. Not much more to say about it, just good academic chatter.
Cassandra metaphor is a concept that is applied in situations in which valid warnings or concerns are dismissed or disbelieved.
I=PAT does not resonate with me. I have many criticisms that I wish I had the time to drop down on here!
I feel the more I study over-population the more I stray away from fatalism. I am however very afraid of overpopulation and exponential population growth. It's on the back burner for certain.
My point here is in my fourth year of post-secondary education and my first year in environment-related studies, I got to thinking about human impact and population levels. My undergrad was a time for me to have simplistic thoughts about very complex issues, I looked at ideas with a lens that I would refer to as "my own ideal world." Now, three years later, a little jaded, but in all honesty no less hopeful. The only real difference is I am a little more hesitant to throw down any of my very bold statements.
In my fourth year of undergrad, I started to subscribe to ideas that paralleled Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich - the world was going to face devastating consequences if population levels continued to rise. I would throw out bold comments stating that people shouldn't live in areas that were simply not sustainable, usually alluding to those who live in the Global South. Again, not so simple.
It's seems like a real economic crunch, although, I really don't want that to be the focus about what I took away from Dr. Evan Fraser's lecture today. I really walked away with a well-rounded perspective on the different interpretations of the population problem. I academically met a fellow by the name of Julian Simon, a Professor of Business administration in the US. He sadly kicked fourteen years ago at the tender age of sixty five. Simon challenged American Biologist Paul Ehrlich in 1980 to a bet that contested resource scarcity over the span of ten years. Simon asked Ehrlich to choose five metals that they would purchase, in turn they would allow their value to mature. Simon claimed that the value would decrease, while Ehrlich believed they would rise. The winner was to receive the profits of the metals, whatever it may be. In those ten years, the world's population grew an astounding 800 million and the price of the select metals dropped significantly. In October 1990, Ehrlich mailed Simon a cheque for $576.07.
The span of this humourous debate is not an accurate capture of the flux of the value of the select metals. The time span really doesn't give justice to value. Not much more to say about it, just good academic chatter.
Cassandra metaphor is a concept that is applied in situations in which valid warnings or concerns are dismissed or disbelieved.
I=PAT does not resonate with me. I have many criticisms that I wish I had the time to drop down on here!
I feel the more I study over-population the more I stray away from fatalism. I am however very afraid of overpopulation and exponential population growth. It's on the back burner for certain.
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