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6 Opinions The Pioneer Log, February 18, 2011

 My eyes are up here When the advertising companiescome a knockin’- in a personal way A weekly feminist column for everybody

Sustainability is Sexy: A weekly column dedicated to environmental dialogue

Leah Potter-Weight (’11)

“Te chocolate I haveat home.”

Logan Robertson (’11) &Laura Houlberg (’14)

“A big bowl o...”CENSORED

Te Piolog does not support 

the use of methamphetamines 

Dominique Shannon (’13)

“Seeing my 3 year-oldsister in Caliornia.”

Nathan Romine (’14)

“A little bit o’ Ska.”

Jon Satin (He’s not sure...)

“I didn’t know I hadmidterms.”

Danya Spencer (’11)

“Praying or moresnow.”

 Word on the Hill:

 With midterms approaching, what is the light at the end o your tunnel?

BY JULIA STEWART AND BEAU BROUGHTON

BY RACHEL YOUNG

Staff Writer

Global warming is the mostcomplicated pollution problem inhuman history, caused by the ex-cess emission o carbon dioxide(CO2) rom ossil uel combustionused to create energy. Halting ad-ditional CO2 emissions requiresthe implementation o every non-carbon polluting energy technol-ogy, including nuclear power.

Te International Panel on Cli-mate Changes states in their 2007report that to ensure a stable cli-mate system we need to reachan atmospheric carbon dioxidecontent o 450 parts per million(ppm). Tis was the target goalstated in the Kyoto Protocol. How-ever, many environmental groups,such as 350.org, do not think 450ppm is ambitious enough.

o hit a target o 450 ppm whilemaintaining the same level o ener-gy consumption, a massive invest-ment in alternative energy sources

 would be necessary.  We would need approximately 

16 times the amount o current wind power, ve times the amounto geothermal, an 80% increase inhydroelectric, 170 times more solarand twice the amount o currentglobal nuclear power. In addition,only 20% o all current coal plantscould continue to operate (all con-taining carbon capture and sequestra-tion technology).

If your only source of 

energy over your entire

life was nuclear power,

 your energy consump-

tion waste...would be

about the size of a can

of Coke,” said Jesse

 Jenkins.

Te task o ending our depen-dence on ossil uels is incompre-hensibly large and without nuclearpower it is about 2.5 times larger.Tereore, we cannot disregard theenergy potential o nuclear power. Without nuclear power, we wouldrender the uneasible task o de-carbonizing our energy sector im-possible.

Despite preconceived assump-tions, nuclear energy is not as dan-gerous as many environmental or-ganizations make it out to be.

Te Tree Mile Island accidentoccurred in April 1979 when a par-ticle core melted down at the TreeMile Island Nuclear GeneratingStation in Pennsylvania. It was thebiggest accident to occur in the his-tory o the American commercialnuclear power generating industry.However, nobody died during theaccident.

In contrast, there have been69 deaths rom gul drilling since2001 and the exas BP renery explosion o 2005 killed 15 people.

 Additionally, an average o 30 peo-ple die rom coal mining accidentsevery year.

  A second major concern by those in opposition to nuclearpower, is nuclear waste, but a tono uranium uel or nuclear powerplants is more than 200,000 timesmore energy dense than a ton o coal.

  According to the Nuclear En-ergy Institute, “a single uraniumuel pellet the size o a ngertipcontains as much energy as 17,000cubic eet o natural gas, 1,780pounds o coal or 149 gallons o oil.”

o put that into perspective:“Te U.S. eet o coal plants con-sumes over 1 BILLION tons o coal EVERY YEAR, while the en-tire US nuclear eet has producedonly 63,000 tons. Period. In its en-tire history. I your only source o energy over your entire lie was nu-clear power, your energy consump-tion waste through your entire lie would be about the size o a can o 

Coke,” said Jesse Jenkins, the Di-rector o Energy and Climate at theBreakthrough Institute.

In addition, caskets can saely contain the waste or hundreds o years and the waste will likely bereusable in the next generation o power plants.

In contrast, coal alone produc-es hundreds o millions o tons o hazardous ash every year. Te emis-sions aect human health in a di-rect way.

Tey are linked to smog, acidrain, respiratory inections, toxicmercury pollution, cancer andthe mining process (particularly mountain top removal); they alsodestroy quarries, homes and land-scapes.

  We have a limited time rameto make difcult decisions that willshape the outcome o our utureexistence on Earth. I the choiceis between two evils, and nuclearpower is the lesser o the two, theanswer is clear: the nuclear powerplants should be built.

Nuclear power is the answer to uel dependence

BY JERRED

BLANCHARD

Staff Writer

Tere is thisstrange notion o the“personalized adver-tisement” that reaksme out. Personalizedadvertisements arebasically companiestaking a gander at what you do on theInternet and thencatering to your spe-cic interests withtheir product plugs.

On the one hand,it is quite conve-nient that the dog-lovers, or instance,are presented withthe latest deals on kibble. On theother hand, it seems quite terriy-ing that the agencies and corpora-tions know our interests and canproperly brainwash us accord-ingly.

I remember those sweet days  when my precious Internet wasvoid o those incessantly naggingadvertisements and I could check my email without learning aboutthe latest deals on carburetors.Nowadays, I can’t even watch a  Youube video without some-body telling me how white my shirts can be. I don’t need bleachright now, and when I do, I’ll goout and buy whatever is cheapestat my local Saeway.

I mean, I used to wish that

those companies could at least ca-ter to my interests based on my search history; that they wouldread over my Facebook interestsand advertise to me based on them. Well, be careul what you wish or.

Now, every time I check Face-book, I’m harassed by a sea o personalized annoyances. Tesecompanies know that I’m a singlemale who likes music and risbeebecause o my prole. I’ve been o-ered muscle growth ormula, In-ternet dating sites, risbee leagues,recording schools and all o theseridiculous, superuous accesso-ries that people eel I need to buy.It turns out that personalized ad-vertisements are scarier than Ithought.

But maybe I need to lighten

up and see this as an opportunity.I don’t care i the Internet knows Ilike science ction movies, becauseI do. I these advertisers want topush the products that they know I like, that’s cool. But what scaresme is the idea that the opportunity to spy on us is so easy. When I be-come an important businessman with a reputation to uphold, I de-nitely won’t want people spying onmy Internet activity.

 At any rate, advertisements areobnoxious and a nuisance, wheth-er I want the product or not. Tenotion o having my history con-stantly checked is a little right-ening, but the reality o it is thatmost people don’t really care whereI’ve been on the Internet; they just want me to buy their merchandise.

BY MAGGIE HENNESSEY

Staff Writer

Once again, Valentine’s Day hascome and gone. Te chocolate iseaten, owers and alse eyelashesare tossed, restaurants can nally shrink back to their normal capac-ity and Hallmark stays in businessor yet another year. But this Val-entine’s Day, I’ve been thinking abit about what we’re actually cel-ebrating.

It’s not that I’m against Valen-tine’s Day, but I preer more di-verse portrayals o everyday love.Feb. 14th is cliché! Ater seeing aew thousand commercials sell-ing ugly jeweled pendants, I cameto the realization that I was totally sick o being sold America’s avoritelovey-dovey holiday.

Mainly, I take issue with the actthat our practices on Valentine’sDay are heteronormative: it pro-motes heterosexuality and to a cer-tain extent, monogamy as the ulti-mate ideal everyone should seek.

Never have I seen a jewelry orchocolate advertisement that tar-geted a queer man or woman buy-ing a bedazzled trinket or his orher lover. I also must have missedthe one with the disabled man giv-ing a bouquet o roses or his part-ner. I hate to have to break this tothe marketing world, but straight,

  white, able-bodied and upper-

class men and women are not theonly people who all in love.

My other substantial gripe  with this holiday is that it sup-ports the idea that on this day, a woman needs a man. Even thoughI am in a relationship and am asel-proclaimed romantic, I stillcan recognize the subversively sexist oundations o this holiday.I nd that the whole ordeal seemscontrived and orced, and I eelcaught in the awkward grey areabetween my eminism and my adoration o chivalry.

But eminists or not, we arestill aected by society’s not-so-hidden messages to all singles onValentine’s Day: you are incom-plete.

 Just over a year ago, the New York imes  cited Lewis & Clark as having a “pronounced” genderimbalance, and thus validated thethoughts o lonely women acrosscampus. Add a couple-centricholiday to the mix, and you havea slew o unhappy emales be-moaning the lack o decent and/or datable men on this campus.

 And with that act, I supposemy only consolation is the catch-phrase o the beloved drag queenRuPaul: “I you can’t love your-sel, how the hell you gonna lovesomebody else?” Amen, sister.

Valentines Day: Hetero-

normativity at its fnest?

ILLUSTRATION BY KYLA COVEY

Every Wednesday Julia and Beau set out with a fresh question for y’all.