Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

photo credit: Montrasio International

If provided with another chance, would China have wanted to host the Olympics this summer?  If China knew that hosting the Olympics in 2008 would actually have a detrimental impact on its economy while bringing to the international spotlight the country’s environmental and human rights practices, would we be watching Istanbul 2008?

The International Olympic Committee selected Beijing to host the 2008 Summer Olympics back in 2001.  In generating support for the Olympics in Beijing, China argued, in part, that 2008 would be the creation of the first “green” Olympics.  Cleaning up Beijing for the 2008 games, Chinese officials suggested, would be an inspiration to other Olympic venues.  Seven years later, air quality is still a major concern to the athletes.  And if air quality was not enough to keep China from “breathing easy”, in February the United States Olympic Committee announced it would bring its own food to the Olympics.  Perhaps inspired in part by the worldwide food contamination scare for U.S. domestic pets, the decision disappointed Beijing nonetheless.  Add to that the recent scrutiny of China’s human rights and political practices, is this really what China needs right now? (more…)

photo credit: otisarchives2

In the world of medical imaging, picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are computers or networks dedicated to the storage, retrieval, distribution and presentation of images.  Typically PACS handles the gamut of medical imaging instruments, including Magnetic Resonance (MRIs, or imaging which uses a powerful magnetic field, radio waves and a computer to produce detailed pictures of organs, soft tissues, bone and virtually all other internal body structures), Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans, which accurately image the cellular function of the human body), and Computed Tomography (CT or CT Scan, which uses special x-ray equipment to produce multiple images or pictures of the inside of the body and a computer to join them together in cross-sectional views of the area being studied).

A PACS system usually includes a state-of-the-art Radiology Information System enabling images and data to be delivered to physicians anywhere in the world with access to a high speed broadband internet connection.  As the medium for medical imaging becomes more sophisticated, a PACS system is necessary to take full advantage of the higher level diagnostic studies.  Essentially, because the technological advances in MR, CT and PET imaging are so great, traditional “films” no longer suffice for an accurate patient study.

Translation: The radiology equipment in health care facilities has become so high-tech, doctors now need super-fancy machines to read the results. (more…)

photo credit: Pear Biter

To some, hypermiling is an art, not a science.  Those select individuals who choose to drive their vehicles in such a way to maximize gas mileage, however, may soon find this form of art giving way to science.

Nissan has developed an accelerator pedal designed to “push back” on the driver’s foot if the pedal detects that the hypermiler is indeed not hypermiling.  While Nissan’s new feature comes with an on and off switch, it does push this eco-friendly driving technique further into the mainstream.

To learn more about Nissan’s “eco-pedal”, visit:

http://www.greendaily.com/2008/08/04/got-a-lead-foot-nissans-new-pedal-pushes-back/

and

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUST25709120080804?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

photo credit: naama

Two years ago last month Israel and Hezbollah went to war.  To some in the outside world, and many Israelis, the 33-day battle was seen as an Israeli defeat.  Just last month Israel agreed to exchange Hezbollah and Palestinian prisoners (considered by Israel to be terrorists) for the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers whose capture in 2006 sparked the original crisis.  Immediately following the exchange, Hezbollah celebrated in the streets of Beirut showing off its power.

Seen by some in the outside world as the end of a once-legendary reputation for avenging the deaths of Israelis killed by terrorists, this most recent trade has drawn considerable criticism to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (six months before the 2006 war, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke, and his authority was immediately transferred to Olmert, then Israel’s Vice Primier and Sharon’s protégé).  Still, some see Hezbollah victorious on the propaganda front but not the Israel/Lebanon border.

For the past two years the Israeli Knesset has investigated the handling of the war against Hezbollah, including the establishment of a special commission.  Recently announcing his resignation in September, Olmert never really recovered politically from the war with Hezbollah.  And while the future of Israel’s military dominance in the Middle East may face additional challenges from Hezbollah and more recently Iran, the overall political turmoil in the region has eclipsed some very important and seemingly unnoticed significant Israeli advances on a non-military front, namely the environment. (more…)

photo credit: boliston

Other than a possible seismic issue here and there, and maybe some other obvious exceptions (we’ll just let that surgeon wash those hands and arms with the water running for a full 300 seconds, just in case), healthcare facilities around the nation are jumping on, and occasionally off, the green bandwagon.  Green is clean, and nobody likes a dirty hospital. Indeed, it is the fantasy of every soon-to-be hospital patient that he or she is greeted at the door by Florence Nightengale and then whisked away to a private, state-of-the-art patient room complete with satellite television and high speed internet.

Being a green hospital, however, is not so easy, and many of the suggested green practices may actually compromise patient care.  Green cleaning products, mercury, lighting and basic hospital equipment are just four of many examples currently waiting at that crossroads where “green” public policy and generally accepted healthcare practices collide. (more…)

photo credit: otisarchives3

California hospitals will spend about $100 billion before 2013 in order to meet state seismic safety standards.  On top of that, the nation-wide mortgage and credit crisis more or less doubles that $100 billion price tag in the event that these hospitals do not have the cash on hand.  With construction expenses reaching an all-time high, a 100-bed hospital may spend close to $100 million to build a replacement facility.  That same facility will be lucky to break $50 million in revenue (revenue, not profit) in any given year.

This incomprehensible financial dilemma, only five years away but the result of a shifting in the earth’s core somewhere around Northridge in January 1994, is yet another example of inconsistent public policy concerns converging in the health care sector.  If this $100 billion expense was not bad enough, hospitals now face increasing pressure to be more “green”.

Caught in the middle of a financial crisis, a healthcare crisis, a gas crisis, an ever-present earthquake crisis, and now an environmental crisis, will tomorrow’s hospitals in California be yesterday’s 8-track tapes?  While the ultimate fate of California’s hospitals has yet to be written, there are a handful of facilities throughout the state actually trying to be both seismically sound and green.

(more…)

photo credit: merfam

Tracing its origin as far back as 16th Century England, “Townball” was a game involving 20 to 30 boys in a field attempting to catch a ball hit by a “tosser”.  The tosser used a four-inch bat with a tapered handle.  The bat was designed to improve leverage and control for the tosser.  Although unconfirmed, baseball folklore believes this is the beginning of the baseball bat.

The baseball bat evolved during the 19th Century, but there were very few limitations imposed upon the instrument.  1884, however, marked the beginning of the wood baseball bat business when a woodworker and his father teamed up with a Louisville player who had just broken his favorite bat.  After providing the player, Pete Browning, with a custom baseball bat made of white ash, the Hillerich family’s baseball bat business began and the official Louisville Slugger was born.

Without dispute, baseball bats are big business.  Even with 100 years of evolution, wood baseball bats used today in Major League Baseball are similar to the ones used by Honus Wagner (the first player to autograph a Louisville Slugger for money).  Even metal and aluminum bats, first patented in 1924, never made a debut in MLB. (more…)

photo credit: merfam

Tatsuo Yoshida died a year before Mario Andretti won his first and only Formula One Championship in 1978 (Andretti was 38 years old).  Andretti was the United States Driver of the Year in 1967, the same year that Yoshida’s Japanese animated series Mach GoGoGo debuted in the United States as Speed Racer.  Speed, the main character in Speed Racer had it all – an overly obsessive father, a submissive and practically non-existent mother, a long-lost brother who turns out to be the mysterious and flamboyant Racer X, and a girlfriend who just happens to fly around in a helicopter during Speed’s races. Speed Racer is a modern-day-ish odyssey about a teenage boy struggling to become a man, through his car.  Speed Racer was so good, that the episode in which Racer X (Speed’s brother) reveals his identity to Speed was selected by TV Guide as one of the most memorable moments in television history.

The history of race car driving dates back to the 1890’s, although the modern era of Formula One Grand Prix racing began in 1950.  By 1960 Mario Andretti had already started winning races.  By the time Andretti retired in 2000 (after originally retiring in 1994), he had raced stock car and NASCAR events, and he also competed in open wheeled and midget car races.  Andretti was well into Sprint and Indy Car races by the time Speed Racer first aired in the United States, and a year later, he mastered the Formula One, the highest form of open wheel racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).  Mario Andretti was the best, and in 2000 the Associated Press and RACER Magazine honored him as “Driver of the Century”.

I will admit that I spent much more time watching Speed and his Mach 5 than I did Mario Andretti.  But if television has taught me anything, it is that fast cars are good, and Speed had the best.  Twenty-seven years after Speed Racer’s series finale first aired, Speed made it to the big screen, albeit in a live-action adaptation.  With me throughout my entire life, Speed Racer really can do no wrong.

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photo credit: Matt McGee

The life expectancy of a baseball is about six pitches. While most baseball games average between 250 and 300 pitches, Major League Baseball estimates between 60 and 72 baseballs can be used during a game (which would be considerably more than 300 pitches). That means during the regular season games, the 30 MLB teams can collectively go through somewhere between 111,000 and 175,000 baseballs.

I caught a foul ball once, although family superstition necessitated me to hand it over to someone nearby immediately. With enough time, I could probably calculate that foul ball’s place in comparison to the 150,000 or so other balls used that year. Instead, I prefer to focus on how that ball serves as a metaphor for the trend in our everyday consumption, and the focus of this Web site. (more…)