Fall 2019
Technologies in a changing world
Revolutions in Local solutions Climate change in the ocean Transportation in Austin, Texas Prosthetic limbs Alternative meats
Letter Dear Readers,
from the
Editors
The future of our world is not a subject to be taken lightly. Climate Change is real and threatening our world every day. The generation that is growing up now, our generation will be the ones most affected by it if we do nothing. And so we decided to do something. Our group was brought together by an interest in science and technology, but we quickly discovered that we were all concerned with environmental issues, and so this Ezine was born. It took a lot of hard work to create the product you are reading right now: from creating ASFs to spending hours on transcriptions. In the end though, we are very proud of the message that is carried throughout all of our feature stories.
Green Wires covers every piece of the environmental discussion whether they be from the deep blue sea or the streets of our very own city. We wanted to focus on solutions, not problems, technology that is being created to solve environmental issues, and brave people who are doing everything they can for this planet. In this magazine you’ll discover stories covering, ocean conservation, artificial meat, prosthetics, what Austin is doing to combat climate change, and the transportation issue in Austin. Creating this Ezine was not easy. Most of us came into this process with no idea of how to use Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop, or even how to write a journalistic style story. There has been a learning curve, more than a few assignments thrown away in disgust, and plenty of writer’s block. But we persevered because we believe in what we are writing about. We hope that you enjoy reading Green Wires, and we think you’ll finish reading feeling more informed and more hopeful. Sincerely,
Table of Design by Claire Payne
Pages 1-4
Keep Austin Green by Claire Payne
Pages 5-6
Austin vs. America by Claire Payne
Pages 6-9
Threats to Our Ocean by Lola Gallindo de Leon
Page 10
What We’re Actually Doing with Our Trash by Lola Gallindo de Leon
Page 11
Common Single Use Products that are Being Reinvented by Lola Gallindo de Leon
Pages 12-15
Growing Pains by Ansh Sarda
Pages 16-17
The Real Cost of a Car by Ansh Sarda
Contents
Covers
by Lola Galindo De Leon
Inside Covers by Ben Josephs
Pages 30-34
Meet the Editors by Ben Garner
Pages 36
Special Thanks by Ansh Sarda
Pages 24-27
Alternative Meat by Ben Josephs
Pages 28-29
Lab Grown Meat vs Traditional Meat by Ben Josephs
Pages 18-21
A Helping Hand by Ben Garner
Pages 22-23
Prosthetics then to Now by Ben Garner
Keep Austin Green What Austin is doing to combat climate change. By Claire Payne
A
s soon as a visitor steps into Austin the difference between it and other cities is evident: bikers blow past them around Town lake, graffiti adopted as symbols of the city welcome them warmly, and the smell of unique food fusions entices them. But the city faces a grave threat, and if its citizens want to make sure future generations can enjoy their unique city, they need to take care of its environment and take responsibility for its future. Climate change is the shift in the climate usually attributed to the burning of fossil fuels which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it is often discussed in tandem with global warming and sustainability. Sustainability focuses on renewable energy, reducing emissions, and resource conservation, however Global warming is the gradual increase in temperature usually attributed to greenhouse gases. Austin is not immune to climate change. Homeowners, local governments, and businesses realize this and are all working to make Austin a green city.
available in the future,” said Murphy. Murphy is not the only one interested in Austin’s sustainability, Craig Lawrence lives in Austin and is the vice president of marketing at SolarBridge Technologies. He has worked in the renewable energy industry for years and now brings solar energy to Austin homeowners. He has his own perspective on what sustainability is. “We’re trying to create [a] pattern of how we live on the earth that will allow us to live and be healthy and thrive for forever, so that our children get the same opportunity for clean water, clean air, and a healthy environment,” said Lawrence. However, this goal will be difficult to reach. The world has become so reliant on fossil fuels for energy that fighting the battle for sustainability can sometimes feel fruitless.
Dell takes an active interest in the city’s environmental health. Michael Murphy, vice president of global product compliance engineering and environmental affairs, works to make sure things are done in an environmentally responsible manner.
“We live in an economy that is very industrial in nature,” said Murphy. “The way that we get around the city, if you have a car that’s a gas powered vehicle, you’re emitting emissions every time you drive. The way that we get electricity, some of it may be renewable but a lot of it is still coming from coal and gas. All of those things use fossil fuels. What that’s doing is changing the way that our ecosystems function.”
“A lot of people will define sustainability differently but one very basic way to define it is working to ensure that we have the resources that we have now
Phoebe Romero is the Environmental Program Coordinator for the city of Austin Office of Sustainability. The Office of Sustainability works
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Downtown Austin including a solar paneled roof. The city is making efforts to use more renewable energy including solar power. Courtesy of the City of Austin. to both mitigate the effect the city has on its environment and to make sure its citizens would be prepared if the worst were to happen. “We know that we’re already seeing the effects of climate change in Austin. We’ve had floods and we’ve had wildfires that are damaging to our communities, and we’ve also had more and more hot days.” said Romero. Austin has the unfortunate situation of being located near the Permian Basin, the home of vast oil fields. This makes finite energy sources like oil seem very appealing.
even more. “Texas has a lot of sun and there’s also a lot of land so there’s a lot of potential to build more solar and wind,” said Lawrence. Solar and wind energy are the main types of renewable energy used in Texas. They are mostly harvested in rural areas on solar and wind farms and then used in cities. Texas’s vast stretches of sunny, flat land makes it optimal for these farms. “We don’t really have much ability to do hydroelectric power here.” said Lawrence. “There’s just not enough water or not enough rivers, not enough elevation change to build dams so solar and wind energy are really our two main [renewable energy] choices.”
“One of the challenges in Austin and in Texas, is that energy is very cheap so buying traditional energy from fossil fuel sources is very inexpensive,” said Romero, “Sources such as natural gas, coal are just very very inexpensive here so “We’re trying the energy has to be very cheap for people to adopt it.” to create a pattern
Solar panels on homeowner’s roofs are the other, more personal, way to harvest solar energy. of Since Lawrence’s job entails of how we live on the earth The alternative to the pollution providing solar panels for the released by fossil fuels, and property of homeowners, that will allow us to live and be the limited amount of them knows his way around healthy and thrive forever so that he available is renewable the technology. our children get the same opportusources of energy. But what is renewable energy? nity for clean water, clean air, and “Rooftop solar [is] solar that goes on a home a healthy environment.” “I think of renewable energy or a business’s roof and essentially as energy where the produces electricity right -Craig Lawrence, VP of source of the fuel is effectively there on the spot to be used Marketing at SolarBridge infinite.” said Lawrence “Either by that home or business.” said Technologies there’s an infinite amount of it or it Lawrence. constantly replenishes itself.” Along with the solar and wind Greenhouse gases are created by the burning companies that operate out of the city, all kinds of unsustainable fuel sources. They trap heat and of Austin based businesses are concerned with the are considered by many to be the cause of global environment and being sustainable. One of those warming. Renewable energy, on the other hand, businesses is Dell. does not produce greenhouse gases, and therefore does not contribute to global warming. This makes “We like to be a member of every community that renewable energy vital in the effort to mitigate we operate in and certainly Dell may still be the climate change. largest private employer in Austin,” said Murphy. “In all the communities where we operate, play, “The production and consumption of energy … is and work we are members of that community and probably the single largest contributor to greenhouse engaged on the initiatives that are important for that gases,” said Lawrence. “So if we can make an impact respective community.” in that area we will be on the right track.” Murphy is involved in sustainability in Austin in Austin is working to use more renewable energy. more ways than just through Dell. He gives a glimpse Currently 30 percent of the energy the city uses into some of the other organizations in Austin that is renewable, which is 19 percent more than the are interested in ensuring the city is environmentally average American city, and there’s opportunity to use friendly.
GREEN WIRES - Page 2
A wind farm in Texas. Wind and solar power are the two major forms of renewable energy currently used in Texas. Courtesy of The City of Austin. “One of the things I do is I’m on the board and have been for years for Keep Austin Beautiful.” Murphy said. But Dell is worried about more than just mitigating their own impact on the environment. They are also involved with the next generation of Austinites. “[Dell works to] not only maintain the environment, but utilize technologies for the education of students in the Austin school system around the environment and things we can do to make Austin a great place to live.” Murphy said. The Austin Office of Sustainability is also worried about the next generation. They have set out goals to make Austin environmentally stable for those same children Dell is educating. “They [The Austin Office of Sustainability] have a goal by 2023, to have 85% of all the electricity consumed in the city of Austin to be carbon neutral, so to not produce carbon dioxide.”Lawrence said . The Office of Sustainability has already started to work on fulfilling their goals. “One of the big things the
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Craig Lawrence (right) installing solar panels on a roof in Austin. Photo by Craig Lawrence.
City of Austin and Austin energy does is they have very good programs to encourage people to switch to electric cars which are much more sustainable than gas cars; particularly if you’re powering them with solar and wind electricity” Lawrence said. True change, however, would require changes in every department in the Austin government. Thankfully, departments like the Austin Transportation Department are already getting involved in sustainability. “There’s also the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan that actually was recently approved by Cap Metro and that was done by the Austin Transportation department.” Romero said, “Right now the statistic is that 70% of people [in Austin] drive and they’re [The Transportation Department] trying to make that 50% by 2039, so that means that 50% of people getting to work will use a
sustainable option.” More people using public transportation or carpooling to work will cut citizens’s commute times along with helping the environment. Shorter commute times means increases in many Austinites’s quality of life. Instead of spending time stuck in traffic they can spend it with their family or friends. “If people have shorter commutes that means they can have more personal time to do what they want to do.” Romero said. One of the
The Huston Tillitson University in Texas. Huston Tillitson works with the Office of Sustainability. Courtesy of The City of Austin.
A solar farm in Texas. Solar farms provide much of the renewable energy used by Austin Energy. Courtesy of the City of Austin.
biggest roadblocks in Austin’s struggle to be sustainable is its rapid growth. Austin is the 11th largest city in America and may continue to climb that list. Its neighbor, Round Rock, is on the Census Bureau’s list of the fastest growing cities in the United States. This presents major obstacles to Austin’s sustainability efforts.
buildings,” Romero said.
“Part of what we’re working with is thinking about the fact that Austin will continue to grow.” Murphy said.
“We’re trying to make sure that we have the resources available so that even if we’re increasing, people can still have access to public transportation,” said Romero.
The Office of Sustainability is focused on making sure Austin’s growth is sustainable. One of the ways they do this is regulating new construction so that it is environmentally friendly. Their goal is to have net zero carbon building, construction with no carbon emissions. “[We’re] Also thinking about net zero carbon building; thinking about how to build sustainable
Net zero carbon building is only a piece of what The Office of Sustainability is doing to keep Austin’s growth sustainable. They also have to think about things like waste disposal, increasing energy demand, and public transportation for the growing city.
The Office of Sustainability is doing everything they can to dampen the effects climate change has on Austin’s environment but they aren’t unprepared for what will happen if their efforts are fruitless. They are working to be ready if climate change disasters continue to get more and more devastating. “That’s another really important part of it [The Office of Sustainability’s job] … is thinking about how prepared we are as a community to make sure that
people are safe during an emergency or a disaster,” said Romero. But Austin’s future is not nearly that bleak. It has already made very real gains towards a more sustainable city. “By growth Austin has managed to reduce overall emissions.” said Romero. Murphy, Romero, and Lawrence aren’t the only people who can help improve the environment. Everyone in Austin can help to protect it and make the city better. Romero and the rest of The Office of Sustainability can’t wait to hear new ideas. “We want to hear feedback, we have a group called the joint sustainability committee that meets the last wednesday of every month and people can always come and speak if they have an opinion on something we’re working on or if they want to make a suggestion,” Romero said. The most important part of sustainability, however, isn’t preparing for doomsday, more than anything, sustainability is about making people’s lives, and our planet better. “What most excites me about this work is the impact it can have on people’s everyday lives and how much they enjoy their city.” Romero said
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Austin
v
The average household in Austin versus the average Design by Claire Payne
246 Gallons
of water used by an average household in a year
12,000
3.6
percent of the population that uses public transport.
30%
Percent of energy Austin uses that is renewable
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kilowatt hours of power used by an average household in a year.
22%
of waste recycled per year.
2,625 pounds of trash produced per year
s
AMERICA
American household in various enviromental sectors.
400 Gallons 10,399
kilowatt hours of power used by an average household in a year.
5.1 34%
of waste recycled per year.
2,072 pounds of trash produced per year
of water used by an average household in a year
percent of the population that uses public transport.
11%
Percent of energy America uses that is renewable Source: Austin Office of Sustainabiity
GREEN WIRES - Page 6
Threats to our
Oc e ans Oceans Written by Lola Galindo DeLeon
T
he Earth is in the midst of a climate crisis. The ice caps are melting, forests are being cut down, and species are going extinct.
The ocean experiences some of the worst damage with its wide variety of habitats and wide variety of problems from coral
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bleaching, to pollution, to even overfishing.
Coral Bleaching Professor Mikhail Matz of UT Austin, a coral reef researcher with a deep passion for the oceans and their wildlife, said coral bleaching is when coral
loses its pigment and that the corals themselves are basically limestones covered with a sleeve of sea anemones. “Imagine a sea anemone, now shrink it to this very very small size and make a carpet of them, all connected together,” Matz said. “Now assume that they are able to secrete... calcium carbonate, basically limestone.”
Assorment of images of trash on the beaches of Port Aransas, Texas and pictures of coral reef wildlife in Cozumel, Mexico. These are just some of the things things that can be found in the oceans. All photos by Katalyna Hogge and Lola Galindo DeLeon. Coral is a symbiotic organism meaning that it depends on another organism to help it survive. In the case of corals, they need zooxanthellae algae. Housing this algae allows them to thrive off of each other. The coral provides shelter and fertilizer for the algae while the algae provides food for its hosts. Without this relationship to help support the corals, they could die, sometimes resulting in the collapse of reefs or even whole ecosystems.
When coral bleaching occurs, the algae leaves the coral, resulting in the whitish skeleton that gives this process its name. This often occurs when the coral is under stress, usually caused by excessive heat or high levels of acidity. But the reasons that coral responds to this by expelling its algae is unknown. Even with this said, mild coral bleaching isn’t an uncommon occurrence nor is it a big problem. It naturally happens with the seasons to some extent.
“Any severe stress on the coral will actually cause bleaching,” Matz said, “So if the stress goes away, the coral just gets repopulated by the algae, because they never leave, all of them....It becomes bleached every summer, somewhat, naturally,”. As the signals for algae to leave become more and more frequent with the increasing temperatures, more coral endures more intense bleaching almost every year.
WHAT WE’RE ACTUALLY DOING WITH OUR
PLASTICS Only 9% of plastics get recycled
8 million
tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean each year
75% of plastic that is thrown away ends up in landfills
GREEN WIRES - Page 8
In some oceans, if ocean temperatures and acidity become more suitable, corals won’t endure any long term effects. In certain oceans, like the Indian and Pacific Oceans, coral populations will bounce right back. “You could bulldoze the reef completely by hurricane force,” Matz said. “Nothing left, not a single coral. Seven, ten years later you will not even see the difference, they just grow back.” Unfortunately this isn’t the case everywhere. For reasons not yet known, in some places, coral populations will bounce right back
destroyed stays destroyed,”
“They think that everything is ok as long as long as there are some fish. It’s not; it’s a graveyard.” - Mikhail Matz, coral reef researcher
but others the reefs don’t return. “In the Caribbean, whatever gets
Matz said. “What’s happening right now, whatever corals are there right now, are basically the last of their kind.”
Plastic Pollution The issues the ocean are facing aren’t solely centered around climate change, there is also the issue of plastic pollution. With the rise of reusable products, a popular topic has been microplastics. Imogen Napper, a professor at Plymouth University, compared two kinds of plastic responsible for ocean pollution, macroplastics and
Sources: Recycling Guide The Balance Small Business Plastic Oceans National Geographic
50% of
plastics produced are single use plastics Page 9 - GREEN WIRES
300 million tons
of plastic are produced in a year
Cozumel Mexico is known to have some of the most vibrant corals on Earth. Photos by Lola Galindo DeLeon. microplastics.
There are plenty of ways for regular people to protect nature, big and small. From using less single use plastics, to cutting back on meat, to using less electricity in peoples’ houses. Overall, anything will help, and that’s what matters.
“Macroplastics are anything bigger than 5 mm in length which is... about the size of your nail in your hand.” Napper said. “And microplastics are smaller than 5 milimeters in length, they are smaller than a nail on your hand.”
“The biggest tip for me is tell people to go outside and take a walk - fall back in love with nature. Then they will want to protect it!” said Dr.Napper.
Plastic pollution has gained a reputation of being solely plastic bags and straws, but conservation is now shining a light on microplastics.
A type of microplastics being acted upon are microbeads. These are the small beads that are often found in certain beauty, hygiene, and other cosmetic products. A more specific type of microplastic are called nurdles, which are various types of plastic about the same size as a single styrofoam pellet. According to Britannica, nurdles never fully break down and just continue to get smaller as the years wear on, possibly resulting in the death of animals that try to consume them or even contaminating the air that we breathe. There can be obstacles when trying to make an impact on the oceans since not everyone is a scientist. Thankfully, you don’t need to be.
Overfishing Humans have been the main cause with the problem of overfishing. This occurs when a species of fish or other organisms humans eat are caught in such abundance that it throws off the balance of an ecosystem. According to Alan Friedlander, professor and director of the Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, the problem isn’t that fishing technologies aren’t advanced enough to detect healthy and unhealthy colonies or to know how much is too much to fish, it’s
more so their inability to take into account how these decreases will affect the inner workings of fish communities. “Where fishery science sort of lost its way,” Friedlander said, “was when they got too hung up in the mathematics about it and forgot about the fact that these fish or other harvested animals live in a broader ecosystem.” As fishing runs out the near coast, more and more fishing expeditions can travel outward into deeper sea where less is known and fishing has riskier consequences. “In a trawl fishery, where you’re just digging up the bottom,” said Friedlander, “as we completed the near shore, we go farther off shore and then we’ve got these deep, slow growing cold water corals that can live hundreds if not thousands of years.” In such situations, valuable parts of the oceans’ history and ecosystems gets bulldozed in with the sole purpose of finding more fish. As methods like this become more
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Cozumel, Mexico is one of the few places where jellyfish and fish can roam healthy coral habitats. Photos by Lola Galindo DeLeon. common, the overall health of ecosystems deteriorates creating a chain reaction, resulting demolished habitats. “We need to build in a buffer for the future,” Friedlander said, “so if we think we need to do ‘x’, we need to do ‘x’ times two in the future because we need to be more cautionary in our approach ‘cause we don’t know what’s gonna happen in 20, 30 years.”
Addressing the Problem There aren’t any ground-breaking solutions that have been invented, but thereare definitely some new ideas. According to the UT Research Showcase, there is a team at The University of Texas that is working on discovering plastic-eating enzymes that can disintegrate plastics on the spot. Environmental inventors have developed contraptions working on eating away at plastic near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a congregation
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of plastics big and small totalling up to be twice the size of Texas. The Ocean Cleanup Project makes inventions such as nets like System 001 made by Boyan Slat to focus on concentrating large amount of plastic debris to be readied for extraction. A new technology giving corals a fighting chance at survival is what Endgadget described as a “sun shield” and is 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. This device, when placed over a coral reef, can decrease the level of sun exposure during risky heat waves by up to 30 percent. Another approach to fighting coral bleaching is to deal with the coral itself. Many coral research teams are taking certain thriving coral species and placing them in other areas that could use them. Other teams are taking lab-raised coral larvae and putting them in damaged patches of the Great Barrier Reef. Fishing technology is one of the oldest forms of technology but is still advancing. New types of
fishing equipment are also being designed to make fishing safer for the health of fish populations and for the bystander organisms that can sometimes get caught in the middle. The simplest advancements are better quality fishing nets that are better at catching only what should be caught. A way fisheries are making sure that populations being caught won’t be damaging to a species or ecosystem is through satellite technology. With satellites, companies, and anyone really, can see the amount of fish in a school and where in the world it is. With the additions of these technologies and more like them, society can work on fixing the wavering earth before it reaches the point of no return. “We really need healthy ecosystems on land and sea to survive, ‘cause humans are part of this ecosystem, and even though we think we can live without nature, we really need nature. And a lot of it.” Friedlander said, “And we need a lot nature that is [not] impacted by humans ‘cause we just don’t know what the future’s going to look like.”
Common Single Use Products that are Being
V E N T N N E D N D I R Typical Products R E
Typical products
1.) Dryer sheets They are often laced with many chemicals and artificial fragrances.
2.) Plastic wrap Can easily form clumps and trap organism when exposed to natural habitats.
E
By Lola Galindo DeLeon
A popular discussion is that of plastic bags vs. reusable bags and which ones are actually better.
Their reusable counterparts
3.) Snack bags They are used very often and can’t be recycled, so when they are used they must be thrown in the trash, most likely going to a landfill.
1.) Wool Dryer Balls they are often made solely of organic wool, can be used up 1,000 times, and also cut down drying time.
4.) Straws One of the most common single use plastics, and therefore one of the most common that animals end up injesting.
2.) Bee’s Wrap a product made from beeswax, natural oils, resin, and cotton. It is reusable, compostable, and can be used for around a year.
The controversy is there because it uses significanlty less resources to make a plastic bag than a resuable one, but if a resusable bag is being used more than just once, it uses overall less resources than a lot of plastic bags. So use a resuable bag a lot, or a plastic bag just once?
3.) Reusable snack bags there are many different brands of snack bag just like the disposable ones except that these can be washed and reused as many of them are made from recycled and/or eco-friendly materials. 4.) Metal or reusable straws lately recieving attention, one of the most common plastics being exposed to natural habitats are single use plastic straws. To combat this, many brands are making reusable straws that are also diswaher safe.
Sources: Greenideal.com Tern Goods The Homemade Experiment Green Living Detective Kitchn Epicurious Wisebread
GREEN WIRES - Page 12
Growing Pains What Austin is doing to combat the ever-increasing traffic and it’s strain on the environment
by Ansh Sarda Cars, bikes and people all share lots of movement spaces. Photo courtesy of Movability.
G
ridlocks are not fun.
Anyone who’s lived in Austin can relate to the hour hacking traffic of our own major roads, taking time away from more important things, like tacos and friends. (In that order) Austinites are adapting, however, with new technology to prevent the more longterm effects of increased traffic on the growing city. Ranging from changing the ways to move around or improving o u r
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efficiency in the cars that are driven, taking the next step in saving the environment is essential at a time where climate seems to be a very hot topic on everyone’s minds. Jacob Berret, information specialist for the Branch of Transportation, says that expansion in the city is crucial now more than ever with
Austin’s booming population and more cars on the road. Traffic in Austin continues to expand in major roads such as I-35. In a January article in the Austin AmericanStatesman, almost 74 percent of all drivers were by themselves on the road. Photo courtesy of Aquila
“It’s always a challenge” said Berret, “In terms of keeping up with that, it’s really about managing demand. So making sure that even as new folks appear that we can move more people that may not necessarily mean moving more vehicles, but getting people to take transit, to bike, to walk, to work from home a few days. There are a lot of different methods you can use to manage the demands that are placed on the roadways by an increasing population.” Austin’s government is working to solve some of these problems through lots of different methods, including actual mobility upgrades in the form of better roads and lanes. Countless projects are currently being
Private companies like Uber and Lyft also help to lower the number of cars on the street. The Austin Government communicates with these companies in order to help solve parking and maneuvering problems that occur,
“It’s all about behavior change” - Lisa Kay Pfannonstiel, executive director at Movability
relinquishing traffic’s control on the city.
“Whether it’s like taking an Uber and Lyft and having a dedicated drop off zone at a certain location rather than the parking space” built, Berret said, “or adding working with bike and the scooter walking areas companies like to allow for timeout, hey, this more alternative is a place where a transportation, lot of people are as well as riding maybe we creating special should be putting bus lanes some dedicated for public parking their, transportation. Electric Scooters, such as this or any sort of “The city’s doing one by Bird, have become com- mobility provider a lot of work coming into the mon sightings in Downtown to improve city, we definitely Austin. Photo by Ansh Sarda. want to want to mobility for work with them everyone. So our to improve mobility for all because goal is to be the most sustainable, cost effective roadway, bikeway, or they can help us out a lot.” walking system for everyone. We’re really working to connect people with the places that they want to go.” Berret said.
Austinites have taken a special liking to electric scooters as well-they’re fast, cheap, and effective in going
s h o r t distances. Companies like Bird and Lime have a great foothold in the city, which is visible simply by walking around downtown and finding hundreds of scooters. “If you look at the number of miles traveled on scooters, it’s upwards of 21 one way trips to the moon.” said Berret. “It is definitely a mobility solution that people are using. And it’s interesting because they are using them for those short trips so getting to a restaurant or getting from home to the bus stop or getting from the bus stop downtown to their place to work.” These scooters are slowly being joined by a much bigger alternative to cars which is just starting to really take off in Austin. Buses as public transportation
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CapMetro uses buses and trains to transport people across Austin. These alternative forms of transportation are helping to stop single driver cars and lower overall emissions Photo courtesy of CapMetro have-in recent years-gained a surge in popularity, just as the CapMetro bus line expands to include the entire metropolitan area of Austin. These buses may take a bit longer, but according to Movability executive director Lisa Kay Pfannonstiel, that may just be worth it.
driving yourself, or you can be on public transit, and it might take you a couple more minutes and you could be listening to podcasts, you could be sleeping. There’s a variety of things that you can do.”
“We have admitted that
Movability itself is a non-profit which w o r k s
we are a contributor to climate change. And we believe that it’s our responsibility and we’ve made a commitment to do better for the planet” - Becky Martin, environmental specialist for Toyota “ T h e r e ’s always a trade off in time versus quality.” Pfannonstiel said. “So you can be sitting in a car driving yourself and getting frustrated
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with other companies to provide mobility solutions for going to and from the workplace. Currently, they have over 80 member companies which represent almost 40,000 employees.
“We help them develop policy processes and benefits to pass along to their employees to keep them out of driving alone to work in a car. We do that by finding out first what the business goals are, and it could be saving money
on parking or facilities it could be recruitment and retention. They could have any interest in the environment. There’s a variety of reasons.” said Pfannonstiel.
Using companies which are mobility providers and companies requiring solutions, Movability acts
Toyota’s headquarters use solar panels to provide almost 30% of all energy to the facility. Companies like Toyota using renewable energy are helping the world to become more sustainable. Photo courtesy of Toyota.
as a sort of broker between the companies, allowing for a better deal and quicker solution to the problem. The impacts are quite large on the companies affected, not only reducing transition time but increasing job value.
“ Wi t h this very competitive job market recruitment and retention is a very real thing for most employers here in Central Texas. So any benefits that they can provide to their employees give them you know, kind of a leg up.” Pfannonstiel said. “It’s really important that employers start kind of realizing the needs of that generation and formulating their benefit plans around that. Oftentimes, Millennials think of mobility benefits as highly as the Baby Boomers think about health and health benefits.” It’s
not just the everyday
worker that’s making this changeeven bigger companies like Toyota are taking place in
this major shift. The company itself has pledged to fight back against climate change by reducing it’s carbon footprint in the U.S. by 40 percent by 2020, and they’re on track to complete that. “We have admitted that we are a contributor to climate change. And we believe that it’s our responsibility and we’ve made a commitment to do better for the planet through our environmental challenge.” said Becky Martin, an environmental information specialist for Toyota. Toyota has pledged to an “Environmental Challenge 2050,” which is to have a net positive impact on the planet by 2050. It’s cars are becoming more and more electric, but even as this technology is in it’s newer state, the cost of improvement remains high.
“When you make them more sustainable, there’s usually a cost associated with that.” Martin said. “And so, with a lot of these technologies, we’re in the beginning stages, and there’s still pretty expensive. And there had to be influence associated with them. But we are still committed to those technologies.” These companies are banding together to solve a problem that could plague us for centuries if we don’t stop it early. Austinites are ready to stop the taco-blocking and enjoy our parks by investing time and energy into different methods of relief. As Martin said, “We’re committed to reducing carbon from all of the things. And if we weren’t, we think that we wouldn’t be doing what we should be doing.”
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The Real eal
of a car of a car by Ansh Sarda
There’s more than meets the eye when it by Ansh comes to the cost of a car. Explore beyond the than meets the eye price tagwhen to someitof the hidden costs that we don’t beyond actually see. cost of a car.often Explore the
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Lithium Ion Chassis Battery
34% of a car’s lifetime emmisions are in manufacturing. That’s about 7.7 tons of carbon on average!
hours a year immobile in traffic on average costing austinites almost 15 hundred dollars a year!
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design by Ansh Sarda
6.6 of of all allemissions emissionsinin Austin Austin come comefrom from cars Transportation
percent of Austin households don’t have cars, which is one of the best rates in the country.
source: Austin Office of Transportation GREEN WIRES - Page 18
A Helping
Hand How prosthetics are changing the way limb loss is handled By Ben Garner solve this. Among these people is DARPA. The Defence Advanced Research Project Agency launched its Revolutionizing Prosthetics project in 2005 with the goal of creating more advanced and accessible prosthetics for those who round the experience limb loss some time in world and throughout their life. history, limb loss has Over the early 2000’s, several arms affected countless have come out of this project. people, and the Among the most advanced limbs restoration of those among them was created in missing limbs has collaboration with DEKA Research & been a large challenge. Development. Known at the time of Overcoming the its creation as simply the DEKA arm, challenges presented it would later be commercialized by by limb loss is hard to Mobius Bionics. say the least, but there are many working to Mobius was founded by Dean
A
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Karmen, the same man behind DEKA, with the intention of bringing the DEKA arm to the public. “Once it was completed, nobody wanted to pick it up, to be able to bring it to the market, because it was such a high cost, low volume product,” said Jarrett Porter, former employee of DEKA and technical engineer at Mobius Bionics, “Dean said, ``well I’m not just gonna shelve the technology that we spent so much time and money creating, so he created Mobius Bionics, and he took and few of us from DEKA to come run the company ``’’. The DEKA arm is the only full arm prosthetic that allows users to reach over their shoulder with its
radial arm configuration, an action that hasn’t been possible in the history of prosthetics. In addition, myoelectric control, the ability of the arm to respond to natural muscle movements and mimic them, is a very expensive and rare feature in the market. The DEKA arm would soon be rebranded as the Life Under Kinetic Evolution (LUKE) arm and put up for sale. The myoelectric control
scheme of the LUKE arm combined with the radial arm configuration, makes it the most advanced prosthetic on the market. That said, there is a very difficult
learning curve associated with any prosthetic, and myoelectric arms are no exception. “It can take months for somebody to get approval for any prosthetic,” Porter said, “ never mind a LUKE arm”. The
delays and challenges
Finished design of the Modular Prosthetic Limb which spent four years in development, seen here next to a life- like skin cover for the hand. Photo courtesy of the US Navy. associated with such an advanced arm are a large driving force behind the stagnancy of the prosthetics market. For the last thirty years, options for arm replacements have been very limited. The two- pronged hook, a pair of prongs attached
DARPA’s thought- controlled prosthetic arm being used to pick up a ball, a common prosthetic control test. Photo courtesy of DARPA
directly to the arm, has been the most popular prosthetic for a long time. It’s functional, but it just doesn’t cut it for most tasks. In the 2010s, many advancements have been made in the field. Spearheading this leap is, once again, DARPA. In 2016, they unveiled the products of the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program. Among them were the LUKE arm and another, the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL). The MPL is a neurally controlled arm able to be attached and removed easily via a socket embedded in
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Some neurally connected arms are able to recieve signals of touch and transmit them to the brain. This arm was created by DARPA and was able to send specific signals for each of the individual fingers, allowing the implanted wearer to pinpoint which finger is being touched. Photo courtesy of DARPA the skeleton of the wearer. The first of these limbs was given to Johnny Matheny following several years of testing and development. The groundbreaking control scheme of the
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MPL has yet to make its way into the market due to its high production cost, but once made more available, neurally controlled arms could become staples in the industry. With new technology being developed and a new age for prosthetics just over the horizon, it is easy to gloss over the human in the equation. Without proper training and education regarding
prosthetics, amputees can end up hurt and unable to pay repair fees. One of the reasons it is so difficult to get a LUKE arm is the extensive, multi month long training process required to use one. “It’s pretty common for amputees and people who don’t work with prosthetics in general to just end up worse off, so you don’t get the right training, or control scheme, and
that’s the biggest thing we’re trying to prevent,” Porter said. A high risk of serious injury is one of the risks that can come with such advanced prosthetics. Some of the largest factors in the potential for injury can be traced back to the inability to actually feel what the prosthetic is touching. But even that can be overcome.
Both the LUKE arm and the MPL have been shown to be able to be outfitted to provide a sense of contact and touch to the user. The LUKE arm in particular was able to provide a total of 119 different responses back to the user to help distinguish size, texture, and much more. “We were able to sensitize the
“We can sensitize the palm, the back of the hand, and the fingertips to be able to give the user a sense of touch, a sense of feel, so heat, cold, stuff like that.” - Jarrett Porter, technical engineer at Mobius Bionics
palm, the back of the hand, and the fingertips to be able to give the user a sense of touch, a sense of feel: so heat, cold, stuff like that,” said Porter. The ability to create a sense of touch is one of the final frontiers in prosthetics, and it’s entirely possible that full limb restoration is just over the horizon. That said, efforts haven’t slowed, and the idea of these newly designed prosthetics becoming commercially available is a concept that hasn’t ever been feasible before. In spite of all this progress, prosthetics have become less and less available. Prices continue to climb, leaving many amputees with few options when it comes to prosthetics. Proper training can cost thousands of dollars, and it simply isn’t practical for most people to pay that much. For limb replacement to become widely available , manufacturers will have to do their part. Price reduction and better training are essential if such advanced prosthetics are feasibly going to be available.
Mobius Bionic’s LUKE arm holding a grape between two fingers to demonstrate its dexterity. The LUKE arm is currently one of the most advanced commercially available prosthetic limbs. Photo courtey of DARPA
The field of prosthetics has a long way to go, but the future looks bright as support grows and efforts increase.
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Prosthetics First powered prosthetic design 1919 proposed in Germany Myoelectricity The electric signal generated when you expand or contract a muscle.
60
19
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red e ow the p ic ilt in r t c u ele m b o my tic ar t s Fir sthe pro SR US
First myoelectric powered prosthetic made comercially available in the USSR
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Many new advancements in prosthetic
Design by Ben Garner
Then to Now
2015
DARPA produces thoughtcontrolled prosthetic arm
2005 DARPA
launches Revolutionizing Prosthetics program
technology, increasing public availability GREEN WIRES - Page 24
er? llback foddph fa r o t n e m sh ri s u o n se novel Written by Ben Jo
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M
sustainable for the future. Eating a burger in near years may be less meaty and more mossy. illions munch meat, but this may not be
Plant-based meat companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are now mainstream. These companies attract consumers because of both health and environmental reasons. Additionally, cell-grown meat, also known as labgrown or cultured meat, is being looked into as a
more environmental alternative to traditional animal meat. The Good Foods Institute is a nonprofit that is trying to encourage meat alternatives by helping startup companies that sell alternative meat. An employee there, Blake Byrne, said that the Good Foods Institute’s goal is to supply people with food through sustainable meat. “What we want to do,” Byrne said, “is basically to feed the world with a more sustainable supply of protein which today comes from animals [by] essentially transitioning our world’s food supply towards plant-based and cultivated or cell-based meat.” Byrne said plant-based meat is more efficient, comparing how plant-based and
The Impossible Burger, a plant based burger made by Impossible Foods. Courtesy of Impossible Foods
Background images above courtesy of Larry Hoffman and Pixabay
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Ingredients from plants such as coconut oil (represented to the right by pieces of coconut). These ingredients make up Impossible meta. A package of this meat is inset behind the things that make it up. Ingredients and package courtesy of Impossible Foods.
animal meat are made. “It's better for the world the way that it’s produced,'' Byrne said, “So the meat that comes from an animal, it requires an animal and the animal needs to eat plants. It then converts those plants into protein for its body and then people eat the animal. Instead of Page 27 - GREEN WIRES
taking an animal, having it eat plants, and then having humans eat the animal, we can just directly eat the plant because we can gain the same nutrients without needing the animal.” Ciara McAfee, a graduate student at the University of Texas, became a vegan at first because
of dietary restrictions but remains for different reasons. “I don't like the idea of killing animals,” McAfee said Another reason for her diet was environmental: the more people who follow a plant-based diet, the less emissions would occur.
McAfee also believes that more meat alternatives in restaurants will benefit people transitioning to a plant-based diet. “I think that it’s very helpful there are other alternatives out there that they will know how to incorporate into the foods better and that kind of stuff,” McAfee said, “Burger King, Carl’s Junior, Subway all of those have some of the meat mimicking type foods [from] either Beyond Meat or Impossible Meat. I think that will also make it easier for people because then they won’t have to cook everything themselves.” McAfee is also interested in cellgrown meat and its emissions relative to regular animal meat. “It would be interesting to me,” McAfee said, “if environmentally-- because it would be grown in a lab so it would be in an industrial type setting-- if the CO2 emissions would be a lot lower or if they would be about the same.” The Good Food Institute has been researching this very subject. “There have been some initial studies that have been conducted that suggest that producing meat directly from the cells of animals instead of raising an animal and having it eat
plants, and produce waste, and take up land,” Byrne said, “uses roughly 90 percent less land, 90 percent less water, around 90 percent less energy in order to produce the same product.” Julia Chafkin, another graduate student at UT, talks about her experience with a plant-based diet. “I went to a college, “Chafkin said, “where there was not a lot of meat eating going on so I was exposed to seitan [meat substitute made from wheat gluten] and soy protein substitutes.” Chafkin thinks that a plant-based diet, one that involves food straight from the ground without going through a factory, is very sustainable. But she has doubts with more processed plant-based food. “When you’re talking about something like the Impossible Burger,” Chafkin said, “it’s really hard for me to tell whether eating food like that is sustainable because its gone through so much processing in order for it to become that from what it originally was.” Byrne, however, thinks that this processing is a necessary evil.
“We would love it if everyone chose to eat raw plants instead of meats,” Byrne said, “however, decades of learnings show us that it is extremely hard to convince people to change their diets. People simply do not change their behaviors when presented with information that their diets may be harming ourselves and our planet.” Byrne suggests that the best way of helping the world would be instead of changing people’s behaviors, meeting people where they are. The Good Foods Institute is doing this by creating and researching alternatives to meat in a way that does less harm to the environment than attaining meat in a traditional way. Byrne believes that creating these alternatives is essential if we want to stop exacerbating the issues in the world that traditional meat production causes. “Because animal agriculture is such a large contributor to climate change and the fact that we see plant based and cultivated meats as probably the best solution to fixing animal agriculture,” Byrne said, “we think that it's imperative that we pursue the solution as quickly as possible.''
"Instead of taking an animal, having it eat plant, and having humans eat the animal, we can just directly eat the plant because we can gain the same nutrients without needing the animal." -Blake Byrne, Employee of the Good Foods Institute
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Strands of muscle fiber is taken from the animal. Stem cells are the extracted from this fiber.
The muscle fibers are formed into a patty and cooked.
These stem cells are multiplied and form into muscle fibers. Sources: Scientific American and BBC News Page 29 - GREEN WIRES
The cow is fattened, killed, then skinned.
Traditional and lab grown meat end in the same state but go through very different processes to get to there.
The ground beef is shaped and prepared.
Certain parts of the animal are ground-up. Graphics created by Ben Josephs GREEN WIRES - Page 30
Meet the Editors
Graphic by Ben Garner
Ansh Sarda
Ansh really doesn’t like traffic. He may not be able to actually honk the horn at other drivers (yet!) but he really wishes he could. Ansh really hasn’t achieved that much, but he has managed to anger Ben a couple times. He lives in Austin, was born in Austin, and goes to LASA High School (same as Ben). Ansh has a great dog, likes tigers, and has spent almost too much time on angering Ben (and Claire for that matter). He really hopes that the magazine makes you feel really warm and fuzzy inside because he wanted to share what us humans are doing right.
Lola Galindo DeLeon Lola is a springy scuba diver student who loves ocean conservation and wants to someday make a big impact in solving the climate crisis. She’s sort of new to this whole concept of highschool and everything that comes with it but is ready to see what she can do! She’s a born and raised Austinite who lives in downtown so she can be a part of everything as it all happens. You can often find her at the Austin Central Library admiring the fun architecture or doing homework and chomping on a snack at her favorite cafe.
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Claire Payne
Claire Payne lives in Austin and has since the day she was born. She goes to Lasa high school and plays lacrosse. You can find her sitting on her back porch reading a book and drinking lemonade. She enjoys watching the same three shows over and over again. She lives with her wonderful parents, her adorable dog, and her sisteriest sister. She has enjoyed making this magazine and hopes that you will enjoy reading it.
Ben was born here in Austin and has spent most of his life here. He is mortal enemies with Ansh and will do anything to stop his rampage. He lives with his parents and doesn’t do much outside of video editing and homework. Ben has two cats and they insist on terrorizing him at the worst times. He keeps a colony of ants and rarely leaves the house. His brittle brain prevented him from working on the ezine for long periods of time (same as Ansh), and as a result, has spent far too much time angering Ansh and Claire.
Ben Garner
Ben Josephs is passionate about technology Ben Josephs and animals. He was born in Houston, but has lived in Austin for most of his life. Like the other writers of this ezine, Ben goes to school at LASA highschool. He has a cat and little puppy who he pets for hours daily. His parents always tell him to stop petting the animals, but he just cannot stop. If the time he spends petting was instead used to make his bio, it might have actually been good...
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We here at Green Wires would like to give a special shoutout to all those who helped make this magazine possible, starting with our teacher and mentor, Mr. Garcia. Thank you for teaching us how to use these programs and helping us work through every technical error. This has been one of the most creative and fun classes this semester, and much of it is because of you. To all the interviewees who agreed to talk with our editors: Your opinions and backgrounds are the basis for many of our feature stories. The incredible quotes and photos provided by you are what allowed us to make our magazine with a different point of view. Thank you. For all of our classmates and supporters: Inspiration from you all has been a major driving force in leading us to create this magazine, and we can’t thank you enough for the countless laughs and unlimited help. You continue to inspire us to keep working and moving forward. And finally, to all the people reading this: We really appreciate you reading our semester-long project. We hope you were moved by it in some way, and inspired to think we can stop the menace of climate change. Sincerely, Ben Josephs, Lola Galindo DeLeon, Ansh Sarda, Ben Garner, and Claire Payne Thank you.
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