Environment – Lee Trampleasure's Blog

May 27, 2021

Fuel savings calculator for driving 55 on highways

When my school returned to in-person teaching in May, I started a short daily commute with about 13 miles on a highway with no traffic slow-downs (teaching has its advantages: early start means before most commuters). I started recording the fuel efficiency (miles per gallon) during the highway drive each day. We have a Ford C-max Energi plugin hybrid, which...

Environment Comments: 0

November 23, 2018

Thanksgiving 2018 at Año Nuevo State Park

People sharing their thankfulness at Año Nuevo State Park, Thanksgiving 2018.

Environment/General Comments: 0

October 15, 2018

The pleasures of a relaxed morning commute

A commute can be what you make of it. Here is an example of one of my typical morning commute.

Environment/General/Peace Comments: 0

February 20, 2018

Swords to Plowshares at the national weapons labs: Late 70’s/early 80’s

1979: “Shaping Alternatives at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory: A Preliminary Analysis.”

Berkeley politics/Environment/Peace/Politics Comments: 0

October 21, 2017

Beach cleanup daily — without leaving your home

Collecting trash around your house helps keep your neighborhood clean, and keeps trash out of our waterways.

Environment/General Comments: 0

July 12, 2011

The value of multi-modal trips

In transit lingo, “multi-modal” trips are those that use different modes to get to a destination. A common version is bike to bus/subway/rail, either taking the bike on the vehicle or locking it before one gets on. Today I had a wonderful trip that was multi-modal by accident. The “out” trip was planned as multi-modal: I live in Berkeley and...

Bicycles/Environment Comment: 1

October 14, 2010

Drive 55 MPH on Spare the Air days

With the batch of Spare the Air days in the San Francisco Bay Area in the last few weeks, I came up with an idea that would probably save a lot more gas than trying to get people to carpool and take transit (not that I’m suggesting we stop this, but I’m not sure how many people really switch on...

Environment Comment: 1

September 12, 2009

“Progressive” thermostats to save energy

Sitting in my cold, air-conditioned classroom the last week, while it was 85-95ºF outside, a design for a new thermostat came to me. Currently, thermostats cool (or heat) a building to a desired temperature. My new design would create a floating target temperature, that moves up and down as the outside temperature changes. The goal would be to target a...

Environment/Science Education/Weather Comments: 2

August 9, 2009

Great “raw” video footage from typhoon in China

The video below is just “raw” footage from CBS News. There is no narration, just a collection of images. I really enjoy this format, you can focus on the images and not on what the newscaster is saying. Powerful. Typhoon Slams China Sun Aug 09 11:26:08 PDT 2009 “CBS News RAW”: Millions evacuated the area after typhoon Morakot slammed into...

Environment/Science Education/Weather Comments: 0

June 25, 2009

200 people can commute in:

Great poster from Seattle demonstrating the space it takes on a street to move 200 people in various modes.

Bicycles/Environment/Summer 2008 Comments: 0

Category: Environment