Creative Methods for Fundamental Issues

Creative Methods

About Us

At Creative Methods, we try to “step outside the box” and look at our world with new perspective. This phrase originated in the following diagram with the challenge to “connect all the dots with four straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper.” Most people automatically confine their thinking to the “box” formed by the dots. A solution requires “stepping outside the box” and can be done this way:

Connected dots for Creative Methods for Fundamental Issues - About Us

Humans are adept at capitalizing on new ideas. Consider, for example, harnessed electricity, the internal

combustion engine, and the integrated circuit. There is, however, a disinclination to ever revisit the fundamentals, to ask why we are doing things a certain way, or, in general, to ask why. A child quickly learns that questions such as, “Why is the sky blue?” are irritating to adults and stops asking.¹ There is pressure to conform to “conventional wisdom” -- to do things the accepted way, and not ask uncomfortable questions.

At Creative Methods, we strive to ask those questions -- to look at things in fresh ways that bring insights into our world and our ideas about it and about ourselves.

¹ Today’s child might bypass adults and ask a web search engine instead!

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Abstract: At Creative Methods, we try to “step outside the box” and look at fundamental issues in our world with new perspective. Humans are adept at capitalizing on new ideas. Consider, for example, harnessed electricity, the internal combustion engine, and the integrated circuit. There is, however, a disinclination to ever revisit the fundamentals, to ask why we are doing things a certain way, or, in general, to ask why. A child quickly learns that questions such as, “Why is the sky blue?” are irritating to adults and stops asking. There is pressure to conform to “conventional wisdom” -- to do things the accepted way, and not ask uncomfortable questions. At Creative Methods, we strive to ask those questions -- to look at things in fresh ways that bring insights into our world and our ideas about it and about ourselves. Under the issue Air Quality, we present EPA data as maps and gradesheets that grade US counties A to F for 21 EPA measures of air quality. The topics of air pollution and environmental health are serious issues in the US, and result in pollution health effects including headache, respiratory impairment, neurological impairment, mental impairment, asthma, lung disease, chronic fatigue, immune system dysfunction, premature aging, and reduced longevity. Environmental science monitors air pollutant emissions, as well as

criteria air pollutant concentrations through ambient monitoring. The US Air Quality Gradebook (“AirGrades”) grades both emissions and ambient concentrations on maps and gradesheets, and assigns resultant composite scores to US counties. Air pollutants include carbon monoxide, CO; lead, Pb; nitrogen dioxide, NO2; nitrogen oxides, NOx; volatile organic compounds, VOC; ozone, O3; particulate matter smaller than 10 micrometers in size, PM10; particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in size, PM2.5; ammonia, NH3; sulphur dioxide, SO2; hazardous air pollutants, HAP; diesel emissions; and acrolein. Air pollution point sources include electric power generating facilities and industrial plants. Area source emissions include wildfires, forest fires, open burning, permitted burning, structure fires, and fugitive dust. Mobile sources include highway and off-road vehicles with internal combustion engines such as automobiles, trucks, trains, airplanes, snowmobiles, and all terrain vehicles (ATVs). The maps, gradesheets, and source sheets demonstrate that clean air is at a premium in the US. Sites presenting issues on health and the environment related to those presented under the topic Air Grades by Creative Methods at CreativeMethods.com are Scorecard at Scorecard.com and the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, at EPA.gov.