Energia’s Quantitative
Experiments and Surveys
Upon her return to Energium for a break, after three months of absence, Energia organized a big party to celebrate her return. She invited her former classmates in high school and college. The event turned out to be a big gathering with fifty-five of her friends. At the party, the guests were excited to listen to the host share her research adventures. Energia skillfully used the opportunity to inform them about her upcoming departure for a vacation in a strategic location called Choice City, another coastal city next to Energium.
Mr. Experiment, a famous research strategist, had developed Choice City as an environment for experimenting how the use of renewable energy could affect the human beings in their choice of activities and health, in comparison to their use of non-renewable energy. It turned out to be a popular destination for vacation. Choice City was on the pathway of a major river crossing the region. The city was the site of a powerful hydraulic barrage used to generate electricity for its citizens. Choice City was renowned for running on both renewable energy and non-renewable energy sources. The city gave its residents and neighborhoods the freedom to choose consistently between hydraulic energy and energy generated from the fossil fuels.
Energia would seize the opportunity of the party to announce that she would pay fully for the stay of any friend who was willing to join her for an experiment in Choice City during her vacation.
“I may be willing to join, if you are willing to explain what you mean by experiment,” interrupted Ms. Heat, one of her closest friends.
Chercheur was in attendance, and he stepped up to meet the challenge.
“An experiment,” he said, “is a scientific method for understanding reality and obtaining knowledge through testing and comparing.”
“Thank you, sir, for the definition!” Ms. Heat exclaimed. “It is helpful, I am all in, and I am definitely for it.”
“But aren’t there different types of experiments?” asked Kabi, another guest in attendance. “Would you mind clarifying the different types of experiments for our information?”
“I am glad to do it,” replied Chercheur. “My typology of experiments would classify them into two major rubrics. The first rubric would encompass any experiment conducted with a control group; the second rubric would include any experiment performed without a control group.”
“What are some characteristics of each grouping? Be more specific, sir!” Kabi said.
“Please tell us amply about each category,” Ms. Heat beseeched Chercheur.
“The process of any experiment in the first rubric would require a control group and a treatment group,” Chercheur replied. “The treatment group is the one receiving the treatment or intervention in an experimental design; you can also call it the study group. The control group is the standard group to which the experimenter compares the treatment group. In the event of a random assignment of cases from the control group to the treatment group, we call the procedure a random assignment experiment or a classical experiment. In the absence of a random assignment of cases, we call it a nonrandom assignment experiment.”
“What should we understand by a random assignment?” Ms. Heat asked.
“A random assignment,” Chercheur answered, “occurs when the experimenter randomly assigns a number of cases from the control group to the treatment group in the process of an experiment.”
“Some illustrations would help us tremendously,” suggested Kedu, a well-informed guest in attendance.
“Suppose I bring two large identical cages C1 and C2 alongside a liquid product P,” Chercheur replied. “The cages were made with the same materials, by the same artisan, on the same day, at the same time, and in the same context. Their internal environments and conditions are exactly the same. The first cage C1 has twenty healthy mice inside, and the second cage C2 is empty. All twenty mice were born on the same day, at the same time, in the same year, and from the same genetrix. They have everything in common and share the same phenotypes. They were all raised in the same farm and fed similarly. Right here, in your presence, I randomly assign ten mice from the first cage C1 to the second cage C2. At this point the mice in both cages keep jumping happily. Then, I decide to inject the liquid product P to the mice in the second cage C2. Each mouse in cage C2 receives the same dose of P and starts sleeping immediately afterward. Meanwhile the mice in cage C1 keep jumping without exception. I will conclude that P is a sleeping pill.”
“If I understand correctly, C1 hosts the control group and C2 the treatment group,” Energia interrupted.
“Well done! You got it!” Chercheur confirmed.
“I think the random assignment in this case occurs when you randomly assign ten mice from C1 to C2. Is that correct?” Kabi wondered.
“You have nailed it down. Good job!” Chercheur declared.
“This is obviously a classical experiment, because we have a control group, a treatment group, and a random assignment,” Ms. Heat stated.
“That is correct. Congratulations!” Chercheur exclaimed.
“Not so fast!” Ms. Heat reacted. “I continue to struggle with understanding the notion of random assignment.”
“What is the difference between a random selection and a random assignment?” she asked.
“Your concern is fair, and your question relevant,” Chercheur acknowledged. “A random selection happens at the very beginning of a study, when the researcher selects a subset of a larger population for study, by giving everyone an equal chance of being selected to partake in the study. The random assignment occurs later in the process of the study, when the researcher assigns randomly a number of cases from a previously selected sample to a treatment or study group. In short, the random selection is from a population, whereas the random assignment is from a sample.”
“I am grateful to you for a very helpful explanation, sir!” Ms. Heat said.
“How about the second rubric of your typology?” Kabi asked politely.
“Every experiment in the second rubric intervenes on a single group, as in a logic of pretest and posttest,” Chercheur affirmed. “For instance, when a study compares how a group of subjects deals with personal conflicts before their exposure to meditation and how they handle conflicts after practicing meditation. This form of experiment has no control group; it does not involve any random assignment. You could call it a single group experiment.”
Awestruck by Chercheur’s intelligible responses, Sanjo, another voice in attendance, would ask him out of curiosity, “Any additional words for us on the role of the research hypothesis in an experiment?”
“The hypothesis,” Chercheur explained, “is actually the general opinion (the affirmative or negative tentative answer to your research question) that your experiment or study will test in an attempt to confirm it or reject it. Its structure reflects the relationship or the lack of relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable. The independent variable is the predicting variable; you could also call it the grouping variable or the predictor. The dependent variable is the outcome variable or the predicted variable, it depends on the independent variable; you can also call it the test variable.”
Energia was grateful to her advisor for clarifying the concepts so meaningfully; he solved the puzzle wisely and satisfactorily. She gave every guest an equal chance to be selected for the vacation. At the news, some friends offered spontaneously to join her for the vacation in Choice City. She handed each volunteer an informed consent form explaining the purpose and procedures of the experiment. The purpose of the experiment would be to confirm or reject the research hypothesis that the type of energy source the participants relied on would affect their lifestyle and health. A random group of twenty guests signed the consent forms to formalize their intention to participate in the experiment.
A week later, Energia and her twenty friends traveled to two famous resorts in Choice City. The twenty friends had the same living standards, they were of the same age, and shared the same spending habits. After reaching Choice City, Energia randomly assigned ten friends (the treatment or study group) to spend the month of vacation in a resort that ran one hundred percent on hydraulic energy. Meanwhile, the other ten friends (the control group) would spend the same month in a similar resort that ran one hundred percent on the fossil fuels.
Mr. Experiment owned and ran the two resorts. He was accredited and respected for his high sense of fair play. He had designed the two resorts carefully, and his team had built them to be identical to some degree. The houses in the two resorts had the same dimensions, they were designed and built by the same builders with identical materials. However, the two resorts carried different names; they were located in two different neighborhoods. Mr. Experiment called first resort by the name of Renewable Energy Resort (RER), and the second one was the Non-Renewable Energy Resort (NRER). The RER was in a neighborhood that ran on hydropower, also known as water power, and the NRER was in a neighborhood that ran on the fossil fuels. The two resorts were about fifteen miles apart.
At the end of the month, the friends in the treatment group (the RER group) reported a lower spending on electricity. The monthly amount spent on electricity for the control group was three times higher than the one for the study group. Individuals in the treatment group also reported lower stress levels compared to those in the control group. At the end of the month, the systolic blood pressure, the pulse pressure, and the mean arterial blood pressure were significantly lower for the individuals in the RER treatment group in comparison to those in the NRER control group. At the end of the month, the experiment recorded a higher mean in the blood pressures of the individuals in the NRER control group, when compared with the mean of the blood pressures of those in the RER test group.
The study group reported they had spent more time sleeping, walking in natural gardens, playing social games together, and telling funny stories, than watching TV or spending time on the phone or on the computer. They had slept at least eight hours every night, and they had taken a nap for at least one hour every day. Due to the fact its neighborhood operated on hydroelectric power, and mindful of saving energy, the RER group put in place a number of policies for regulating their energy use, by promoting what they called a rational and moderate usage of energy. Such policies would not allow any activity or game involving heavy machinery (such as the roller coasters) on the premises of the RER or its immediate vicinity; they would not tolerate cars and motorcycles in and around the RER. They only permitted bicycling and walking in their beautiful gardens. They would promote swimming activities and circle discussions for social networking and support groups, but not video games. The neighborhood of the RER enjoyed the reputation of having clean air and of being a healthy place to live.
On the contrary, the control group had spent at least two hours watching TV every night before bedtime. They had slept only six hours at night, and they had spent a good amount of time during the day playing video games or riding on roller coasters and boats, instead of taking a nap. Each participant in the control group had also spent a minimum of six hours daily on the phone or around a computer. They would spend hours riding on motorcycles, cars, and buses in and around the NRER neighborhood. The neighborhood of the NRER hosted a large farm with tractors and other farming machines running on diesel around the clock. It also housed a chicken plant with heavy equipment. The NRER neighborhood was known for its pollution. The air quality in the NRER was poor or polluted, in part due to the emissions from the heavy equipment and the large number of buses, cars, and motorcycles traveling across the NRER neighborhood daily.
The results of the experiment showed that the type of energy source the participants depended on conditioned their lifestyle or habits to some degree, which ultimately affected their health. Their reliance on renewable energy source did not allow the participants in the treatment group long exposures to television; they washed their dishes manually, instead of using a dishwasher; their house had a small refrigerator to preserve food, and the renewable energy source made them run their heater low to save energy. They also enjoyed physical activities and cleaner air in the absence of motorcycles, cars, or heavy machinery.
Meanwhile, the participants in the control group could afford long hours watching television, due to perverse habits of lavish energy use encouraged by the non-renewable energy sources. They relied on a dishwasher for washing dishes, and they depended on a washer and dryer for laundry. Their house had a heating and cooling system running on high around the clock, and a huge refrigeration system served other related needs in the household. They also breathed a polluted air, in the midst of motorcycles, cars, and heavy machines.
Amazed by the differences or gaps between their experiences, Energia and her friends decided to spend another month in Choice City to replicate the experiment, by swapping the treatment group and the control group. The results were consistent for the next month, when Energia switched the two groups by assigning to the NRER neighborhood the subjects who spent the first month in the RER one and vice versa.
As per the first month of the experiment, at the end of the second month, the friends in the new study group (the RER group) reported a lower spending on electricity. The monthly amount spent on electricity for the new control group was three time higher than the one for the study group. Individual participants in the treatment group also reported lower stress level compared to those in the control group. At the end of the month, the systolic blood pressure, the pulse pressure, and the mean arterial blood pressure were significantly lower for the individuals in the RER neighborhood in comparison to those in the NRER control group. At the end of the second month, the recurrent experiment recorded a higher mean in the blood pressures of the individuals in the NRER control group, in comparison with the mean of the blood pressures of those in the RER treatment group.
In light of the results of the repeated experiment, as to how they confirmed that the type of energy source the experimentees relied on influenced their lifestyle and health, Energia would conclude mindfully in a significant statement:
“Maybe, the adoption of hydraulic energy could be a cornerstone to promoting or developing healthy sleeping habits. To some extent, energy source (or the type of energy we run on) contributes to the quality of some habits we develop with regard to lifestyle.”
The results of the experiment reminded Energia of her ancestors’ lifestyle in terms of how they had relied on the flowing waterbodies of rivers to produce clean energy for farming, and to grind grain in the olden days. She also remembered how her ancestors had developed good and healthy sleeping habits by following the cycle of the sun. They would go to bed with the sunset, and wake up with the sunrise. They felt healthy doing just that. Because they did not have sunlight at night, they did not work at night, they were not tempted to work at night, and they rested better. Their nights were more restful, for their nights were for sleeping and not for working.
The results of the experiment also inspired Energia to follow up with surveys for validation. At that turning point, her advisor would remind her tenaciously: “Be mindful that a survey is a quantitative method for acquiring knowledge through closed-ended questions or techniques in data collection and analysis.”
With Chercheur’s assistance, she designed a series of surveys to investigate the extent to which the citizens of Choice City would agree with increases in the city spending in the two areas of hydraulic energy and fossil fuel energy. She prepared a questionnaire that defined and coded the variables of her survey. The two main variables were an increase in the city budget for hydraulic energy and an increase in the city budget for fossil fuel energy. She would use a four-point scale to code the two variables respectively, with:
One (1) meaning to strongly disagree,
Two (2) meaning to disagree,
Three (3) meaning to agree,
Four (4) meaning to strongly agree.
On the questionnaire, she invited the participants to consider the two kinds of energy carefully and decide their level of agreement with a decision of the city to increase spending in either case. The participants would indicate their level of agreement in each case by circling a number on the four-point scale. Other variables on the questionnaire included the gender of the potential participants (as males or females), and the age of each participant in years. Energia coded the females as 1 and the males as 2, meaning a female respondent would circle 1, while a male respondent would circle 2, to indicate their respective gender.
Chercheur would advise Energia to draft an informed consent form for conducting cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys.
Though she knew what a consent form was, Energia had no clue what Chercheur meant by cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys.
“What do you mean by cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys?” she asked keenly.
“A cross-sectional survey,” he answered, “is the type where you survey the participants only once, without any follow-up. It has the benefit not to bother the participants with follow-up investigations. In contrast, a longitudinal survey calls for follow-ups. The follow-up investigations or checkups host the benefits of expanding the study to boost its reliability and validity.”
He also explained that Energia could opt for multiple modes to conduct the surveys. One option could be to do the surveys by printing and mailing the questionnaire to the participants; another one could be to survey by calling the participants on the phone, asking them questions; she could choose to email the questions to the participants. She could also select to meet the participants one-on-one for in-person questioning.
Following a meticulous survey design that had taken into account Chercheur’s advice, Energia printed more than a hundred copies of the questionnaire, and she carried them with copies of the consent form to a local and random shopping mall for an in-person investigation among a population of shoppers. Mindful of her mentor’s recommendations, she set a table in a small corner of the large shopping mall and distributed copies of the questionnaire to the shoppers passing by, asking them to complete the survey freely, in case they had consented to participate. Scores of enthusiastic shoppers would accept to participate in the surveys by filling out the forms.
She spent the entire day surveying shoppers randomly. Many of them returned their completed questionnaires to her table. She was happy to collect those responses. She was also grateful to each respondent. In addition to granting a very warm smile to every respondent, along with a thank-you card, she would also reward each of them with a gift card to express her appreciation for the information, all in the end of showing reciprocity, consistent with the rules of ethical concerns in data collection and in research. She ensured the participants understood she valued the information they had provided so generously. By the end of the day, she would survey a sample of hundred adult shoppers. She had targeted adults only to avoid potential issues of ethical considerations involving the participation of minors.
The results of the surveys would show fifty female participants (which represented fifty percent of the sample) and fifty male participants (which corresponded to fifty percent of the sample). The participants were twenty-one years and older. The respondents had a mean age of thirty-four. For the two variables of ‘increase in the city budget for hydraulic energy’ and ‘increase in the city budget for fossil fuel energy,’ the results showed that support for an increase in the city budget for hydraulic energy was highest among the citizens of Choice City. Most of the citizens strongly supported an increased city spending on hydropower, mainly because of some tangible benefits of hydroelectricity.
Not too long after, Energia would follow up on the phone with respondents who had consented to participate in a longitudinal study, to further examine what had motivated their strong support for an increased budget for hydraulic energy in Choice City. The follow-up surveys showed several respondents who relied on the fossil fuel energy complained about expensive monthly electric bills, in comparison to their fellows who were dependent on hydroelectricity. The results of the longitudinal surveys would reflect the citizens’ perceptions about the advantages of relying on hydroelectricity in Choice City, in terms of how hydroelectric barrages helped counter the risks of flooding in the city, how they contributed to water conservation or preservation for drinking and irrigation. The results also unveiled other benefits relating to low CO2 emissions; hydropower generators did not seem to emit air pollutants in Choice City. The surveys also revealed that citizens’ awareness of potential disadvantages of hydroelectric dams to the environment (for example, the destructive impact on fish and some other living beings) did not deter them from endorsing the usage of hydropower; they believed its benefits to be higher than its costs.
A week later, Energia would extend her investigations to another city nearby, with a different set of surveys. It was in Water City, a small city running solely on hydropower. The city was adjacent to the major river crossing Choice City. It was also the home of a small number of lakes and other streams. Beside its flowing waterbodies, its beautiful botanical and zoological gardens provided a paradise for walkers and visitors. Energia enjoyed her short sojourn in Water City; she felt the city was truly a small haven of happiness. The standards of living were decent in Water City, the cost of living was relatively cheap. Its citizens’ inexpensive and relaxed lifestyle made the city the favorite destination for many retirees in the region. Water City hosted several popular retirement communities with a vested interest in the practice of yoga or other techniques of meditation.
The purpose of Energia’s surveys was to examine the extent to which the residents of Water City were satisfied with their usage of hydroelectricity and how hydropower energy affected their lifestyle. To that end, she developed a survey questionnaire made of closed-ended questions and a four-point scale.
Her closed-ended questions included the following:
“Are you happy, living in Water City?”
“Do you think the source of energy you rely on contributes to your happiness?”
“Are you satisfied with depending on hydropower as your source of energy?”
“Do you prefer hydraulic energy as your source of electricity, when compared with the fossil fuel energy?”
“Do you think hydroelectricity is cheaper in comparison to the fossil fuel energy?
“Would you recommend hydroelectric power to some other cities?”
Upon Chercheur’s advice, Energia would also insert an open-ended question to record additional and opportunistic data for a triangulation. She included the following question:
“How would you compare life in Water City to life in another city you had lived in previously?”
Shortly afterwards, she came back at her mentor with a subsequent question.
“What is a triangulation?” she asked him impetuously.
“In the context of research in the social sciences,” he explained rhetorically, “a triangulation refers to a strategy for combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques concurrently in the process of data collection and analysis. It is a popular methodology you can use to mix or integrate systematically quantitative and qualitative data in any scientific investigation. It provides a comprehensive and balanced understanding of social reality, as it relies concomitantly on the strengths of qualitative and quantitative tools for reliability and validity.”
In light of that explanation, Energia thought it was significant to adopt such a multimethod approach for substantial and valid outcomes.
“Triangulation seems to be a strategy of the utmost importance in this case!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “It adds both depth and scope to my research; it boosts my own credulity and the credibility of the results to the fullest.”
Once again, she was grateful to her advisor for his thoughtfulness.
On the survey questionnaire, she had defined the variable of happiness as a disposition granting the peace of heart and mind. As her rule of thumb, a subject’s happiness depended on all the following criteria taken together:
You live in an environment where the air is not polluted.
You sleep at least eight hours at night.
You have at least one hour to take a nap after lunch daily.
You do not experience headaches daily.
You have at least an hour to walk in the nature, in the countryside, daily.
You eat colorful food daily.
You have access to clean water and drink healthy water daily.
You are not overwhelmed by monthly bills.
The survey design would use a four-point scale to code the variable ‘satisfaction with hydroelectricity’:
One (1) meaning very dissatisfied with hydroelectricity,
Two (2) meaning dissatisfied with hydroelectricity,
Three (3) meaning satisfied with hydroelectricity,
Four (4) meaning very satisfied with hydroelectricity.
On the questionnaire, Energia encouraged the participants to express their level of satisfaction with the usage of hydroelectricity. The participants would indicate their level of satisfaction by circling a number on the four-point scale.
Other variables on the questionnaire included the gender of the potential respondents (as males or females), and the age of each respondent in years. She coded the females as 1 and the male as 2, meaning a female respondent would circle 1, and a male would circle 2, to reflect their respective gender.
After a careful survey design, she printed more than a hundred copies of the questionnaire, and she carried them with copies of the consent form to a local and random recreational park in Water City for an in-person investigation among a population of retirees. She set up a tent in a small corner of the park and handed out copies of the questionnaire to the residents walking by, asking them to freely complete the survey, after they had consented to participate.
Many walkers accepted to fill out the forms and participate in the surveys eagerly. Energia would spend the entire day surveying the strollers randomly. A large number of respondents would return their completed questionnaires to the tent. She expressed her gratitude to them, by rewarding each respondent with a written thank-you card and a gift card for appreciation and reciprocity. By the end of the day, Energia would survey a sample of one hundred retirees. She targeted residents who had moved from a different city to Water City to allow the data to reflect a comparison between their previous city of residence and Water City.
Per the results of the surveys, there were fifty female respondents (which represented fifty percent of the sample) and fifty male respondents (which represented fifty percent of the sample). The respondents were sixty-five years and older; they had a mean age of sixty-eight. Ninety percent of the respondents were very satisfied with relying on hydroelectric power in Water City. Ten percent indicated they were satisfied with using hydroelectricity. The one hundred respondents reported they were happy living in Water City. All the respondents indicated that the source of energy they depended on contributed to their happiness. They all expressed satisfaction with relying on hydropower as their source of energy. They all preferred hydraulic energy as their source of electricity compared to hydrocarbon fuels. They reported hydroelectricity was cheaper in comparison with the fossil fuels energy. They indicated they would recommend hydroelectric power to other cities. The results translated meaningfully some impacts of the usage of hydroelectric power on a happy lifestyle. Relying on hydropower certainly hosts some potentials for happiness.
The open-ended question had allowed a few respondents to provide some relative narratives. One respondent’s perspective was particularly catchy. An Eighty-one-year-old respondent by the name of Yonhonon indicated she had spent some years of her life next to a popular lake in the kingdom of Energium, prior to moving to Water City. The lake was called Nonto. Yonhonon’s narrative would reveal detrimental impacts of the digital currency on the natural environments.
“I was born and raised on the bay of the lake!” she said. “Growing up next to Lake Nonto was a beautiful and healthy experience. When I was a teenager, my parents used to take us to Nonto for swimming. Its freshwater was clear and clean. During the summer, hundreds of people would congregate to Nonto every day to contemplate its beautiful sceneries and refresh their minds. Residents living nearby would fetch drinking water from the lake. Nonto was home to a wide variety of water creatures, including fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, turtles, and other aquatic creatures. My father was fond of fishing its white bass, trout, and catfish for delightful lunches in the weekends. My mother enjoyed catching its shrimp and oyster for delicious dinners. The trees standing by Nonto were all green, and the overall adjacent vegetation was luxuriant. The bayside environment was friendly and healthy; it was the habitat for squirrels, lizards, chameleons, iguanas, snakes, dragonflies, and more living creatures. I had witnessed ducks, geese, parrots, owls, pigeons, sparrows, eagles, and other types of birds rush to Lake Nonto to quench their thirst. Dozens of butterflies played happily on the flowers in the vicinity of the lake. Near Nonto, you would breathe clean air. It was a place of happiness.”
“Unfortunately,” she went on, “all that would change suddenly in my seventies, after a major corporation had built a cryptocurrency mining plant on the shoreline of the lake. Over the following years, the environmental conditions in and around Nonto grew increasingly fraught with xeric or xerothermic hardship. It only took a few years for Nonto and its bay to shift from a friendly and healthy environment to a hostile and unhealthy one. A couple of years following the installation of the plant, the waters of Nonto started heating up. We could no longer swim in the lake or drink its water. Residents who dared take a sip of the water got sick or died. The wildlife perished dramatically inside the waters and by the lakeside. Thousands of water creatures died, including plants, fish, and other living beings inside the waters. Hundreds of birds died by the waterside. The leaves of the trees on the bank became yellow or orange. The evergreen trees on the shore traded their foliage for a brown discoloration: some turned brown, others dried up. The bayside vegetation slowly vanished. I witnessed the destructive change with sadness. The environmental obliteration was patent and heartbreaking. It was a catastrophe for the flora and fauna of Lake Nonto; it was bad news for ecology and biodiversity.”
“As a worried and very concerned resident,” she continued, “I decided to research the potential factors which could have contributed to that drastic and dramatic alteration. As I investigated the issue, I figured out that the one and only different thing that had occurred around Nonto over those years of my life was the intrusion of the cryptocurrency firm; I discovered that the only new catalyzing factor or major intervening variable in that environment was the digital currency plant. I set to scrutinize the relationship between cryptocurrency plant and environmental pollution. What I found was petrifying. As I collected and examined data, my data analysis showed a positive and statistically significant correlation between the two variables of cryptocurrency mining plant and environmental pollution. Per my own life experiences and observations in the environment of Lake Nonto, there was a severe increase in air pollution and water pollution with the advent of the cryptocurrency mining farm. The emission levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons skyrocketed, with harmful impacts on the climate.”
“Some of my findings were quite shocking,” she persisted. “It turned out that cryptocurrency transactions required extremely high demands in energy. The cryptocurrency plant on the bank of Lake Nonto used about twenty-five megawatts of power, primarily from burning the fossil fuels, mainly the coal. The cooling system of that digital currency plant would pump and use the freshwater from Nonto and release it back at a temperature of ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. Obviously, this temperature would kill plenty of white bass, trout, and other water creatures, while it fostered the development of harmful algae blooms in Nonto. Many residents would get sick with cancer, including myself. From experiencing a chronic xerosis, I ended up with a sink cancer and a lung cancer. It did not take me long to understand that I had to run away for my life. Fortunately, I have found refuge in Water City, a healthier environment, a paradise of clean water and air.”
“Regrettably,” he admitted, “the fact that many young citizens in the demographic cohort of the zoomers or Generation Z believe in cryptocurrency seems to add insult to injury. Our zoomers represent the global leaders of tomorrow, and their inclination to or faith in digital currency darkens the horizon and dims our hopes in the future.”
“The earth hangs in tatters in many regions, due to the immoderate human consumption of the fossil fuels,” she concluded somberly. “Our excessive usage of the hydrocarbon fuels is a recipe for disaster, a hazardous choice fraught with all the ingredients of a planetary destruction. Our addiction to non-renewable energy makes us engage in a perilous zero-sum game in which we win energy for the short term to the detriment of our health in the long term. But, let us face it: is this venture really worth it? No, it is not, it is rather worthless. It makes no sense to trade environmental and public health for short-lived wins in hydrocarbon energy; in the end we gain nothing, but we lose everything. Yet we still have some chances and the means to reverse the current trend.”
Yonhonon’s reflective narrative visibly touched Energia, it warned her of the negative effects of digital currency on the natural environment.
Overall, Energia thought the results of data collection and analysis in Water City were impressive and fulfilling. She enjoyed not only those results but also the quality of her time in Water City. The pace of life was very relaxed, and she got to spend some good time with the senior citizens. She would take advantage of the slow pace and seize the opportunity of her time with the elderly for further data collection.
Toward the end of her stay in Water City, she designed another survey to obtain additional data. Through brainstorming, she identified and wrote down up to fifty popular opinions on (or potential explanations of) global warming and climate change on the minds of the youth and senior citizens. Her ultimate goal was to test those opinions scientifically for reliable and valid explanations of global warming and climate change. The long list of opinions included, but was not limited to, the following ones:
“I think gas emissions from cars contribute to global warming and climate change,”
“It seems to me that emissions from airplanes lead to global warming and climate change,”
“I blame industrial emissions for global warming and climate change,”
“I think plastic disposals are conducive to global warming and climate change,”
“I suspect poor garbage disposals contribute to global warming and climate change,”
“I can tell wildfires lead to global warming and climate change,”
“I think cremating dead bodies contributes to global warming and climate change,”
“I blame the use of pesticides partly for global warming and climate change,”
“I predict gases and substances such as mercury and arsenic contribute to climate change,”
“I imagine that agriculture or farming contributes to global warming and climate change,”
“I have no doubt that chemical wastes lead to global warming and climate change,”
“I believe hospital wastes could foster global warming and climate change,”
“I understand chemical leaks or spills contribute to global warming and climate change,”
“I think fracking and oil cracking lead to global warming and climate change,”
“I believe pharmaceutical wastes contribute to global warming and climate change,”
“I predict all forms of oil and gas production lead to global warming and climate change,”
“I think gas stations and distribution processes foster global warming and climate change,”
“I imagine burning gasoline increases the chances of global warming and climate change,”
“It seems to me that oil spills can contribute to global warming and climate change,”
“I blame the coal plants for global warming and climate change,”
“I suspect nuclear plants foster global warming and climate change,”
“I have no doubt wars and heavy weaponry lead to global warming and climate change,”
“I think atomic explosions maximize the probability of global warming and climate change,”
“I suspect deforestation contributes to global warming and climate change,”
“I blame radioactive materials for global warming and climate change,”
“I think there are many human activities leading to global warming and climate change,”
“I imagine non-human activities contribute to global warming and climate change.”
Energia would use a four-point scale to rate each of the fifty opinions, with:
1 meaning to strongly disagree with the opinion,
2 meaning to disagree with the opinion,
3 meaning to agree with the opinion,
4 meaning to strongly agree with the opinion.
Out of the random sample of one hundred retirees who had volunteered to participate in that survey, ninety-six respondents turned in their answers. Satisfied with the great turnout, Energia happily welcomed the completed surveys with gratitude. She would store them safely before leaving Water City for the kingdom of Energium.
On her way back to Energium, as she leafed through the data, aflame with passion for her research, and in anticipation of the data analysis and results, she thought to herself, “If you do not know or have not experienced any other alternatives in existence, you tend to think that your current option is unique or the best. But there are multiple interesting options actually, and none of them is the best. Yet some other options are well worth trying, for learning, change, or growth.”
A few weeks later, upon Chercheur’s request and under his guidance, she would use a method called factor analysis to run the data.