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An amazingly interesting and insightful graph from EPCOR, Edmonton’s water utility for 300,000 residents, was recently published showing water consumption in Edmonton during the Olympic gold medal hockey game between Canada and the United States. Roughly two-thirds of Canadians watched the game.
 Edmonton Water Consumption During Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Game The quantities listed in the graph are in Megaliters not milliliters as Thee Globe and Mail claimed. The green line is the day before the game while the blue line is the day of the game.
The first and most obvious point to note from the graph is that everyone flushes during the intermissions. We see this behavior in public a lot, but rarely do we get to see confirmation of such collective behavior across both public and private spheres. My guess is that beer consumption probably inversely mirrors this graph.
Less obvious perhaps, but more significant, is the point that an enormous amount of water is used to flush away urine. In a world where freshwater resources are dwindling, there is a significant opportunity here for water conservation. Of course, I am not the first person to notice this potential. There’s even a behavior modification rhyme to encourage us to make better use of this potential:
If it’s yellow, let it mellow.
If it’s brown, flush it down.
We would all lessen our water footprints if we followed that rhyme. There are also variations on this theme. The most common is probably to put a brick or large rock in the tank to decrease the amount of water used for each flush. Water conservation gains can be significant by being more discriminating about our flushing.
Additionally, what isn’t apparent from this graph is that urine is a nitrogen source. Nitrogen in wastewater is an enormous and growing problem causing eutrophication of streams, rivers, and lakes as well as toxic algal blooms and anoxic dead zones along our coasts. In 2008, 817,000 tons of nitrogen made its way into the Mississippi River and was washed out into the Gulf of Mexico, creating the largest dead zone ever recorded. A lot of the attention from these problems is deservedly focused on confined livestock operations, because of the sheer magnitude and concentration of nitrogen running off of these facilities. Nevertheless, as this graph implies, there’s also a lot of nitrogen coming from our collective flushing.
One way that has been suggested by gardeners for making better use of that nitrogen is to deposit it on your compost pile where it can eventually be used by your plants. There isn’t yet a simple rhyme to support this behavior, but collectively practiced it would make a huge difference is both water conservation and pollution prevention. Tamzin Phillips, the ‘compost doctor’ at Britain’s National Trust advocates compost pile urination at their garden facilities as a way to conserve freswater and to buffer the direct addition of nitrogen in waterways, and the twenty male staff members employed at the Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire are encouraged to urinate on the compost pile.
The possibilities for water conservation and pollution prevention are real and able to be seized. It may seem like small potatoes, but it all adds up. As Edmonton has shown the world, there’s an awful lot of flushing going on.
 Steelers Legend Franco Harris During the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade. Pittsburgh, PA March 15, 2008. Photo by Matthew David Carter
Franco Harris is a Hall of Fame American football player and a famous Pittsburgh Steeler. The signature moment of his professional football career and the stuff of Pittsburgh sports legend was catching the football thrown from quarterback Terry Bradshaw down near his feet while running during one of the 4 Superbowls that the Pittsburgh Steelers won during the 1970s. This catch is known locally and throughout the NFL fandom as “The Immaculate Reception.”
Franco Harris marched in the 2008 St. Patrick’s Day parade wearing a campaign sticker for Obama during the heated Pennsylvania primary election for the Democratic candidate for President. As I recall, this marked the first public appearance by Franco, in which there was an explicit endoresement of candidate Obama. Franco’s son Dok would later run unsuccessfully for mayor in Pittsburgh as an independent in 2009.
I photographed the 2008 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Pittsburgh. This parade in Pittsburgh is one of the largest St. Paddy’s Day parades in America.
- Don Van Natta Jr. and Damien Cave report in the Gray Lady that the large, expensive, controversial, and often heralded plan to restore the Everglades in Florida is being deferred.
When Gov. Charlie Crist announced Florida’s $1.75 billion plan to save the Everglades by buying out a major landowner, United States Sugar, he declared that the deal would be remembered as a public acquisition “as monumental as the creation of the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.”
Standing amid the marshes at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in June 2008, Mr. Crist said, “I can envision no better gift to the Everglades, the people of Florida and the people of America — as well as our planet — than to place in public ownership this missing link that represents the key to true restoration.”
Nearly two years later, the governor’s ambitious plan to reclaim the river of grass, as the famed wetlands are known, is instead on track to rescue the fortunes of United States Sugar.
The proposal was downsized only five months after it was announced. By April 2009, amid the deepening recession, the state said it could afford to purchase only 72,800 acres of United States Sugar’s land, for $536 million. The company would stay in business and the state would retain the option of buying the remaining 107,000 acres at a future date.
United States Sugar dictated many of the terms of the deal as state officials repeatedly made decisions against the immediate needs of the Everglades and the interests of taxpayers, an examination of thousands of state e-mail messages and records and more than 60 interviews showed.
- Historiann answers a junior scholar’s question on the merits of switching focus from France to Argentina, which in academic history is akin to switching from being a Yankees fan to a Red Sox fan — by and large it just isn’t done. From her thoughtful reply:
But, I am sure that even mid-career and senior scholars whose interests migrate have some frustrations with getting into conferences and publishing in journals outside of their original fields of expertise. I’ve been hearing about some of these lately from friends whose interests have either moved around in time or through space, or both. One friend has found that journals in his new field have resisted seeing his new work as “counting” in their field, and another friend is undertaking serious retraining in other historical fields, and has been schooled in public at conferences by scholars in the fields ze’s trying to move into. (That’s a kind of resistance–and even rejection–that most Associate Profs think they have left behind!) I admire their determination and ambition–and it makes me wonder how much more fun and interesting history would be if more of us were equipped with more than one or two analytical lenses or Big Questions motivating our research.
- Francine Garrone reports that the Pittsburgh-area Steel City Rowing Club’s new LEED certified boathouse will open this Spring.
Tompa said the boathouse, at the south end of Arch Street, has a geothermal heating and cooling system and rain water capturing system to recycle water. It uses a lot of natural day light and is constructed with natural building materials.
It has community rooms, meeting space, workout rooms, office space, and boat storage.
“We work with about 500 individuals throughout the year,” Tompa said. “The goal is, once the boathouse is open, to expand to 1,000 or more.”
- Katherine Harmon reminds us that our sunshine-impoverished Vitamin D deficiencies, at least for those of us who spend very little time outdoors during the winter, have significant health effects from virus susceptibility to heart disease. Recent research, mentioned earlier, begins to tell us why:
A new discovery demonstrates how the vitamin plays a major role in keeping the body healthy in the first place, by allowing the immune system’s T cells to start doing their jobs.
- Sara Karami and her team, following on the link between vitamin D and cancer prevention, just published a study in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society Cancer that those men whose occupations require them to be outside have less kidney cancer than those men whose jobs do not.
The findings suggest that sunlight exposure may affect kidney cancer risk, although the authors have no explanation for the apparent differences in risk between men and women. They offer several hypotheses for the observed differences. Biological or behavioral differences between men and women may play a role. For example, hormonal differences may influence the body’s response to sunlight exposure, females may have a higher tendency to use sunscreen on a regular basis, and men may be prone to working outdoors while shirtless. It is also possible that the observed gender differences in risk were due to confounding by other unmeasured kidney cancer risk factors, such as recreational sunlight exposure and physical activity levels.
- In a well-researched article for the New York Times, Elizabeth Green explores how to build a better teacher without resorting to the usual litany of better incentives and higher qualifications. Most of it boils down to classroom management — how to get their attention and hold the floor throughout the instruction period.
But when it came to actual teaching, the daily task of getting students to learn, the school floundered. Students disobeyed teachers’ instructions, and class discussions veered away from the lesson plans. In one class Lemov observed, the teacher spent several minutes debating a student about why he didn’t have a pencil. Another divided her students into two groups to practice multiplication together, only to watch them turn to the more interesting work of chatting. A single quiet student soldiered on with the problems. As Lemov drove from Syracuse back to his home in Albany, he tried to figure out what he could do to help. He knew how to advise schools to adopt a better curriculum or raise standards or develop better communication channels between teachers and principals. But he realized that he had no clue how to advise schools about their main event: how to teach.
- Pittsburgh pizza legend Vincent Chianese, creator of the famous ‘Vinnie pie’ at Vincent’s Pizza on Route 30 in Forest Hills near Turtle Creek, died at the age of 86 today. From KDKA:
For almost 50 years, pizza lovers flocked to Vincent’s Pizza Park in Forest Hills to indulge in the famous “Vinny Pie.”
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People, not just from Forest Hills or Fox Chapel, but from all over loved his work, so he started overnighting pies around the country.”When the Steelers were in the Super Bowl, I sent out 150 pizzas for the super Bowl.Texas, California, Arizona, Minnesota, South Dakota. There’s a guy from Flowermound, Texas who always orders our pizza. I know him by name now.”
 Trampled Obama Campaign Sign Following St. Patrick's Day Parade March 15, 2008 in Pittsburgh, PA. Photo by Matthew David Carter. On March 15, 2008 I photographed the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Pittsburgh. This large annual parade in Pittsburgh is one of the largest in the country, and this year it fell in the midst of a Democratic primary for President in Pennsylvania that was surprisingly unsettled by this point. Both the Clnton and Obama campaigns were out in force among the crowd during the parade. In fact, Senator Hillary Clinton walked in the parade. These green O’bama campaign signs were being handed out and waved about by very sincere young campaign volunteers. This one was left on the sidewalk where it was walked on by revelers leaving the morning parade.
- Professor Douglas Brinkley profiles Tom Hanks and Hanks’ love of history:
He wants Americans to understand the glories — and the iniquities — of American history. How did this shrug-prone comedic actor transform himself into our most ambitious champion of U.S. history? And how is his vision of history shaping the way the past informs and, yes, entertains us?
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What differentiates Hanks from the academic past masters is his conviction that the historical experience should be a very personal one. He harbors a pugnacious indignation against history as data gathering, preferring the work of popular historians like McCullough, Ambrose, Barbara Tuchman and Doris Kearns Goodwin. He wants viewers to identify with their ancestors, allowing them to ponder the prevalence of moral ambiguity, human willpower and plain dumb luck in shaping the past.
- Auntie Beeb reports that a community of yellow-spotted Bell Frogs have been found on farms in New South Wales, Australia. Notable, because these frogs were thought to be extinct.
“I’m advised that finding this frog is as significant a discovery as a Tasmanian tiger,” he added.
“This discovery is a reminder of the need to protect this environment so future generations can enjoy the noise and colour of our native animals.”
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It is the first sighting since 1973. Mr Sartor said the location of the frogs would remain secret to ensure the survival of the species. There are plans to breed the animals at Taraonga Zoo for re-introduction to the wild.
- Richard Robbins reports in Pittsburgh’s Tribune-Review that dairy farmers in western Pennsylvania are caught up in the Wall Street initiated credit crisis with many facing the loss of their dairying businesses.:
Alvin Diamond of Nicholson, Fayette County, who entered the dairy business in 1957, said farmers weren’t prepared for last summer’s prices in the $10-$12 [per 100 pounds of milk] range. Now, he said, banks are “patting farmers on the back and saying, ‘Good luck to you.’ “
- The American Society of Landscape Architects notes in their dirt blog several global design-based innovations on the process of handling human and livestock sewage waste, none of which sound particularly promising to a growing environmental and public health problem. As an entomologist, I wonder why there’s no mention of black soldier fly composting? Maybe it’s time for an article on the wonders of composting and getting to zero net waste:
However, not all are convinced. UNICEF advisor Therese Dooley said local governments and non-profits will need to step up and invest in improved sanitation servies, because “the private sector can play a major role, [but] it will never get to the bottom of the pyramid.” The bottom of the pyramid refers to the underserved four billion who make less than two dollars per day. Education, behavior change, and government support will be also needed.
- Dr. Joseph Romm highlights new research about the melting of frozen methane in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf that is accelerating climate change:
“It was thought that seawater kept the East Siberian Arctic Shelf permafrost frozen,” Shakhova said. “Nobody considered this huge area.”
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A lead researcher of that work said, “Our survey was designed to work out how much methane might be released by future ocean warming; we did not expect to discover such strong evidence that this process has already started.”
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