Archive for the 'Environment' Category

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Monday Links: May 19th, 2008

Published by Taylor on May 19, 2008 in Business, Energy, Environment, Health and Monday Links. View Comments

As always, your Monday Links (I’m off to a slow start this morning, so they’re a little late):

  • This article from the NY Times Technology section describes a really neat idea for an online marketplace that links inventors with corporate purchasers more efficiently:

The marketplace is an online registry that will have descriptions of inventions for browsing by prospective buyers. But it will have an unusual twist: before inventions are listed, the registry will provide in-person or online workshops to help inventors recast their often technical prose in jargon-free descriptions for the business and industrial customers that are expected to shop at the site

[...] Company software will [also] evaluate the invention’s probable cost to the buyer before the first sale as well as other business angles, and add the information to the capsule description.

How, [the article's author] asks, is this any different than steroids? Well, assuming we had the long term data, and could prove the safety conclusively, you could also ask how it’s different than college, or preschool. It’s something you pay for that makes you smarter and more cognitively efficient. If I felt sure that it would never harm me, I’d probably pop them like candy. Enough people doing that, of course, and you create a collective action problem in which everyone needs to use them to keep up. It could be a problem. Or, in the future, it could just be the norm.

Though the airships are small by blimp standards, only 20 m long, they can house about 120 square meters of CIGS solar cells, producing up to 125 kWh / day. That’s enough energy to power 25 shallow water pumps, providing clean water for up to 12,000 people. Or enough to power 400 medical refrigerators.

More Than Greenwashing: The Advantages of LEED

Published by Taylor on May 15, 2008 in Design, Environment and Sustainability. View Comments

I’ve been fortunate enough to tour two LEED-certified facilities (one Gold Certified, the other Platinum) in the past two weeks. Being in these spaces has helped solidify in my mind that green building–done well–creates living and working environments with advantages that are obvious and attractive to even the biggest green skeptics.

First I visited Warren Wilson College. This small liberal arts school in the rural mountain outskirts of Asheville, NC merits its own post (or several) on the sustainability efforts on campus. The tight-knit community at the college is committed to sustainable practices for all the right reasons and everyone really lives out that commitment, whether by working on the campus farm, recycling and reusing to admirable extremes, or helping to build (as a group of students did) a Gold LEED-Certified campus building.

<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=rhrVYPV7cnA">http://youtube.com/watch?v=rhrVYPV7cnA</a>

When I was shown around the Orr Cottage (video tour above), what stuck out most was the simple elegance of many of the green building techniques embodied in the construction. These are, for the most part, not incredibly new ideas, particularly technological, or even all that complicated. But together they create a work and study environment that’s impossible not to envy. Some highlights:

  • Green materials: carpeting that, as Stan (a professor at WWC) says in the video, is “100% recyclable and 100% recycled.” Material for desks–”wheat board”–that’s made from grain waste. Re-purposed wood and salvaged doors.
  • Refreshing air: incredible air quality, due to sincere diligence avoiding volatile organic compounds whenever possible in glues, paints, sealants, etc as well as the fact that fresh air is continuously cycled through the building
  • Passive solar: the building is oriented to maximize sun exposure (genius…and yet, why so rare?) to help heat the building with winter sun.
  • Bright sunlight: but what about summer? Shades over windows at just the right angle block out the high summer sun while allowing bright light to enter above employees’ heads and computer screens. Say goodbye to headache-inducing fluorescent lighting, except on particularly dreary days.
  • Natural landscaping: outside the cottage, beautiful native grasses and wildflowers in place of the typical collegiate lawn. The native grasses and flowers require once a year maintenance (a controlled burn), and no extra water (they act as a storm water run-off filter for the building
  • Character: recycled antique doors for each office inside, giving each bright, plant-filled (another benefit of great sunshine) office its own unique style

As luck would have it, the week after my trip to Warren Wilson, I was in Maryland to see the headquarters of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, just outside of Annapolis. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a nonprofit group working to restore and protect the massive Chesapeake Bay watershed. Some highlights from the Merrill Center–at the time of its construction, the first Platinum LEED-certified building in the country–after the jump… Continue reading ‘More Than Greenwashing: The Advantages of LEED’

Competition Needed Among “Climate Ready” Crops [Guest Post]

Published by a Guest on May 13, 2008 in Agriculture, Business, Environment and Science. View Comments

It’s a pleasure for us to publish this thoughtful guest post written by “Marriott” — good friend, good neighbor, and good ol’ fashioned lover of Freedom.

What if I said that you could plant corn any time of year, in any climate condition, and still harvest the same succulent vegetable that many of us grew up eating every summer? What if you could do this for any vegetable? During my morning commute I read an article in the Washington Post that discussed how this may be a possibility for the future of farming. (I urge you to read the Post article)

Although there are many issues to discuss with this idea, my focus will deal with the corporate side of things and the future of this potentially lucrative industry. Feel free to debate the usage of these seeds, their methods, or anything else that hits a nerve with this issue.

Geneticists and scientists working for major bio-tech and agricultural development firms have been working on developing “Climate Ready” crops. The basic idea is that through genetically altered seeds, these scientists can create crops that are drought, heat, flooding resistant. They are basically “Global-Warming Proofing” our crops. And with the recent sticker shock at grocery stores throughout the country, this appears as a welcome opportunity to help the impending food crisis.

The problem with this recent technology is patent monopolization. From the article:

Three companies – BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis – have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide.

The nature of these patents is even more troubling as corporations are able to eliminate competition. In one such case a corporation is applying for a patent to use one gene, and in the language of the patent the corporation effectively bans other corporations from using the same gene in any other “Climate Ready” seed.

Continue reading ‘Competition Needed Among “Climate Ready” Crops [Guest Post]‘

Monday Links: May 12, 2008

Published by Taylor on May 11, 2008 in Apple, Energy, Environment, Facebook, Monday Links, Politics, Social Networks and Sustainability. View Comments

Since I was so focused on philanthropy blogging last week, I have a backlog of environmental and web 2.0 news to share. This could be a long list of links, but it should keep you busy for a while.

Social networking? Despite all of the attention paid to it in (occasionally breathless) media coverage . . . Facebook, MySpace, et al have not proven to be terribly effective tools for campaigns. Does anyone really think that the fact that Obama has five times as many Facebook friends as Hillary Clinton has turned out to be significant? Demographically interesting and revealing, sure, but actually relevant to how the Democratic primary process has gone so far?

  • Treehugger highlights a really simple, useful, accurate biofuels comparison chart from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I don’t mean to be a constant cheerleader for algae but…geewillikers, Batman, switch grass and algae look like the best possibilities in that graphic.

[Obama's] response to Clinton’s gas tax proposal was to reject it as a Washington gimmick that would . . . do nothing to address long-term energy issues. That rejection was coupled with a principled energy platform that would address those issues.

Why not try the same thing in WV and KY? Start by telling the truth: as president, he would stop the expansion of dirty coal. [...]

Of course, it’s crucial to couple this with a positive message . . . that means “green jobs,” but more than just that. It means stimulating the development of other industries and revenue sources by spending on infrastructure, education, public works programs, and a decent social safety net. An Obama administration will try to pay these areas back for the sacrifices they’ve made in the name of providing the country with cheap electricity.

It probably wouldn’t help him win WV or KY . . . [but] [m]aybe he could defy conventional wisdom by treating rural white voters like adults, helping them plan a real path to economic health and sustainability rather than telling them fairy tales about the continuing viability of earth’s dirtiest fuel.

  • The Library of Congress has a Flickr account. From what I can tell, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the photos (relatively modest in number) that they post. Case in point, “Auto Polo.” Like polo only using early automobiles in place of horses…Jesus.

    • auto polo

After the auto polo photo, I don’t really have anything else to say. Happy Monday.

Monday Links: May 5th, 2008

Published by Taylor on May 5, 2008 in Environment, Monday Links and Philanthropy. View Comments

As Jarred mentioned in the previous post, I’m in DC this week at a conference. While I’ll be directing you to my guest posts all week, you can read coverage of the conference from a 19-member (including Sean, the site’s founder and blogger) blog crew on Tactical Philanthropy.

Apologies for the abbreviated links, but I need to get some sleep. So here goes:

  • I have to say, I used to roll my eyes at Tom Friedman columns. Jarred is a recovering Friedman fanboy, but I was always a skeptic. Now that Tom’s moved away from predicting the pace of success in Iraq, and is focused on green industry, I find his writing much more inspired. His column on energy policy last week is a must read. Here’s an excerpt from his latest column:

[M]illions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said [Special Olympics chairman Tim] Shriver, “no one can touch us.

  • I’m very intrigued by product designations/certifications like “organic” or Energy Star and LEED. TreeHugeer writes about the newly-developed “Natural Standard” put forth by the Natural Products Association. The criteria for “Natural” products focus on materials from natural sources and manufacturing processes that avoid harsh chemicals.

For the first time in history, anybody can publish information to a worldwide audience; in the past, only those with access to mainstream media could do so. The students currently in high school and college — what I call Generation Google — will have to live with a series of information fragments about their personal lives.

In college, students often experiment as they strive to develop their own identities; they often do silly things. [...] The gossip that pervades college campuses, high schools, and many other settings doesn’t fade into obscurity — it lives on. Gone are the days of innocent experimentation, of being foolhardy without having to suffer permanent regret.

  • Finally, do yourself a favor and get to the farmers market. Here’s a perfect, simple recipe to take advantage of the spring bounty.

Happy Monday.