Participants of GreenBuild 2008 in Boston were able to take this quiz at the FSEC booth. It's humbling. I missed more than half and guessed right on the other half. But it's all part of getting up on the learning curve.
It made me realize just how peculiar Florida and the sun-kissed southeast U.S. are with respect to home building design requirements. As my Aunt Nellie used to say, "it's not the heat so much as the humility!"
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/media/events/conf-materials/greenbuild08/GreenBuild_Q-A-1.pdf
Monday, January 12, 2009
China's "Clean Revolution" Report by Climate Group
A new report details China's contribution to the development of renewable energy technologies and efforts to reduce GHG emissions.
http://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/resources/Chinas_Clean_Revolution.pdf
More later.
http://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/resources/Chinas_Clean_Revolution.pdf
More later.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Greening of Southie
There was a very good film documentary at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival that convinced me the green movement has a long way to go before it is mainstreamed in the construction trades and on the streets of blue-collar America.
http://www.greeningofsouthie.com/
"The Greening of Southie" is about the Macallen Building, a LEED certified luxury condo development in South Boston, and what happens when cultures collide in the process of building it. In this case, the cultures are the Irish-American working class neighborhood of South Boston, from which many of the construction workers are drawn, and the elite developers, apostles of a new paradigm of green architecture.
Separated by class, education and age (the developer and members of the design team are in their twenties), the construction crews often seem confused about or resent the implications of what they're doing, whether installing potted plants on the roof or double-flush toilets in the bathroom.
The documentary is fascinating for this central story line and tension, but it also makes a great teaching tool by taking the viewer through the point-scoring that goes on in order to get LEED certification.
You end up wondering if the LEED movement (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and the U.S. Green Building Council that promotes it should tamp down the elitism and begin immediate outreach programs to the building trades.
http://www.greeningofsouthie.com/
"The Greening of Southie" is about the Macallen Building, a LEED certified luxury condo development in South Boston, and what happens when cultures collide in the process of building it. In this case, the cultures are the Irish-American working class neighborhood of South Boston, from which many of the construction workers are drawn, and the elite developers, apostles of a new paradigm of green architecture.
Separated by class, education and age (the developer and members of the design team are in their twenties), the construction crews often seem confused about or resent the implications of what they're doing, whether installing potted plants on the roof or double-flush toilets in the bathroom.
The documentary is fascinating for this central story line and tension, but it also makes a great teaching tool by taking the viewer through the point-scoring that goes on in order to get LEED certification.
You end up wondering if the LEED movement (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and the U.S. Green Building Council that promotes it should tamp down the elitism and begin immediate outreach programs to the building trades.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Emerald Bowl: Harnessing The Power of Hot Air
By all the news reports, you would have thought the old Dutch windmill in Golden Gate Park was spinning like an airplane propeller to power all those lights at the Emerald Bowl football game at AT&T Park, San Francisco.But it was nothing more than about carbon offsets bought by the bowl organizers in order to give the American public a "teaching moment."
This is not a bad goal, by the way. It's just that public impressions are easily manipulated and mass misunderstanding can lead to poor policy and poorer governance.
There is nothing more abstract than buying a commodity that doesn't exist. But that's what the Emerald Bowl organizers bought when they purchased Green-e renewable energy credits for a reduction in greenhouse gases equal to the amount produced by illuminating the stadium with non-renewable power sources.
It's this transaction that made the Miami-Cal game "carbon neutral."
Whether or not these energy certificates do anything more than buy peace of mind or great corporate PR is anybody's guess at this time. But people fascinated by the profit opportunities of
financial derivatives, the kind that got us into our current mess, will be cheered by the possibilities of an uncontrolled, unregulated carbon offsets market.
It just might be the next great "windfall." For the Onion's hilarious take on the retail carbon offsets market:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/90883/
Oh, yeah, the windmill in the picture you see above is actually one of two windmills at Golden Gate Park's west end near the Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden. Not a mandatory tourist stop in San Francisco, but definitely worth a look if you go to the park.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)