Fecha:
9 de abril de 2015
Autor:
Kimberly E. Vázquez Arocho
Resumen:
Este ensayo explora desde una perspectiva científica algunas tecnologías hechas posibles por distintas energías renovables, entablando una relación fácil y clara entre la tecnología y la ciencia para juntas crear una gama de posibilidades ecoamigables donde no se afectan las actividades del día a día a la misma vez que se mantiene un ambiente saludable.
Texto completo:
Across the years our planet has suffered many changes, changes that are not necessarily beneficial, changes that are mainly caused by us. Our main problem is Global Warming. Because of this event we have lost beautiful creatures, amazing views, we have endangered many species to the point of extinction, the poles are melting and a numerous of other consequences. Why? Simply because we see this beautiful forest and all we can think about is how great a Victoria Secret Shop would look there or we see a breathtaking coast and all we can think is how epic would be to have a 5 star hotel right there. We are selfish, for the past hundreds of years we’ve only been thinking on how to make our lives easier, technologically better, we have been focused on the world’s tallest building or which computer is better instead of thinking ways of protecting our planet. I’m talking on behalf of the group of people that worries about the health of our beautiful planet, we need to start thinking, we need to stop being selfish because we aren’t the only ones living in this world there are creatures in the oceans, in the forests, and in the sky that are counting on us not to kill our home.
Because of all of those things we need to start thinking about ways of improving our contaminating ways of life. Over the past years scientists have become more and more aware of our problem and have used every way possible of communicating those concerns with the rest of the people. Thanks to that, our world has consciously and mindfully opened up to the idea and people have come up with new inventions that can help decrease the contamination we send daily to the atmosphere. These new inventions originate from the basic renewable sources of energy: solar energy, eolic energy, geothermic energy, hydroelectric energy, wind power and biomass. Thanks to these renewable sources we can come up with different ways of helping our world. As we all know the sun is the greatest natural energy we have, without the sun our world wouldn’t be as we know it. Why not use the sun to produce electrical energy? Just a couple of days ago the airplane called “Solar Impulse 2 landed safely in Oman on the first leg of its quest to be the first plane to fly around the world fueled by the sun’s rays” (CNN). Made of carbon fiber, has a 72 meters wingspan and it weighs 2,300 kg, the 17,000 solar cells built into the wing supply four electric motors with renewable energy. During the day, the solar cells recharge lithium batteries, which allows the airplane to fly at night (solarimpulse). Hundreds of airplanes fly in the sky daily, imagine the difference in the world if at least half of them were powered by our sun.
As mentioned before, the sun is not the only one that produces energy, our own body is capable of releasing energy daily. Why waste that energy? The human body at any giving moment produces energy equivalent to 100 watt light bulb (Smithsonian). A 15 year old girl from Canada thought about this and invented a flashlight powered by our own body heat, she called it “Hollow Flashlight”. As incredible as that sounds, it is not the only manually-powered product that exists. Many have used the idea of kinetic energy to power something, kinetic energy is the energy of motion or movement, all moving things possesses kinetic energy. For example, the nPower PEG is a baton-like device of 10 inches long, weighing 14 ounces, that harvest power from the movement of your body when you walk, run, ride in a bus or car or even shaking it up and down, storing it in a battery for later use when you want to recharge an electronic device (sectionhiker). This device was mainly invented for hikers, bikers and people that while doing such activities don’t have an easy access to an electrical outlet.
In class we discussed that helping our planet didn’t meant to stop using fossil fuels and just focus on renewable energy, that would be great but, who says we won’t end up wasting those too? At first we can start by learning to use our energy wisely. The Oregon Scientific advanced wireless appliance manager it’s a device that allows you to break down your homes electricity use on an outlet by outlet basis to pinpoint energy hogs. It can track energy use for up to eight outlets at once form a single display, allowing you to lower the use of energy and your bills. Not only should we take care of the environment but we should take care of us too, eating healthy it’s important and it should be one of our priorities. AUG Living Goods Program it’s an app for the eco-conscious foodie, you can take it with you to the grocery store scan any product’s barcode and the app will automatically give you information on its producer, how far the food has traveled, whether it’s in season, historical pricing, detailed consumer ratings and even your own purchasing history.
All the inventions mentioned before are great ideas that can and have revolutionized our world. This proves that we have the capacity of creating new inventions to help our planet. I’m sure everyday millions of more ideas come to mind and in a couple of years a powered solar airplane or car will be as normal as having a phone nowadays. That said I believe we can work together to learn about better ways and head towards a better life.
Fuente:
Este ensayo fue un trabajo elaborado en la clase de CIFI3036 de la Profesora Lorna Jaramillo en el Año Académico 2014-2015 y fue presentado en el 47 Certamen Literario del Departamento de Inglés.
Licencia:
Creative Commons Reconocimiento-Compartir Igual 4.0 Internacional
Palabras clave:
calentamiento global, energía renovable, tecnología ecoamigable
