awesome. i'm glad the discussion is going this way. it's definitely an interesting topic that i'm surprised hadn't been brought up before.
joshcookie, while it's great that your family of six uses less than the average family of three, i don't think your situation is typical @ all (especially in this country).
and i agree that draconian methods to curbing population aren't a good idea.
perhaps what is needed is more education on family size and sustainability.
jc - you have a larger than average family size and are using less than average resources. IMHO, totally commendable. really. kudos to you all, that's a ton of work to stay as minimal as possible.
it's like tumbles said...minimalism may look simplistic, but in the parlance of our times, it's hella' hard to do.
however, in most parts of the country, families of six are eating at taco bell and shopping at wal-mart!!
how in the hell do people go about changing this?!?
of course there isn't an entirely direct relationship between pop'n numbers and resource consumption, but there are obviously some parallels. jc's little tribe is a good example of how greater numbers can actually improve efficiency...but how feasible is that on a municipal scale, let alone regional or national?
and for the record - i have spent WAY too much time on the 'nect today. but when i'm particularly amped on caffeine, i get kind of chatty. oops.
perhaps what is needed is more education on family size and sustainability.
I don't really think that any amount of this will curb population growth, unfortunately. The fact is that the poor people of the world are breeders, despite them knowing full well that having more children costs them more money, whereas the more well-off people in the world who could potentially support more children are limiting their breeding. So many pregnancies among the world poor are accidental to boot, that I'm very discouraged at such a method for population control. The educated people would continue to limit their breeding, the uneducated would continue to act like they had no choice in the matter, and the world would continue to get dumber as a result.
however, i don't mean education as in school education. i'm talking about mass advertising campaigns and such from countries own ministries on public health.
because that's what it really is, a public health issue.
but yeah, i don't know... maybe that kind of thinking is too idealistic.
I think education is key, but it is also hampered by tradition. The third world love for sons, at the expense of baby girls is a good example. If you convince all of India to only have one child, how many do you think will have a girl? On the other hand, I guess THAT would decrease population in the long run.
j
ok, here's another unsustainable practice that I would say 'burns me up', but that wouldn't really be appropriate right now: people building houses in places that repeatedly burn, flood, slide, or get blown away. Just in the past week an entire town has been leveled, several more places have experienced some bad tornadoes, and there are currently two large fires burning in Los Angeles county. Why, oh why do we continue to re-build these homes and business that get destroyed? Because the government subsidizes the rebuilding.
I think government assistance should not cover rebuilding in a similar spot: it should only cover relocation to a more sustainable (physically!) area of the globe. Come on, there's so much land out there, can't we use the bits that are relatively calm?
I'm curious about the dense populations using less resources bit. I appreciate it in theory but i have some reservations regarding how much waste (natural) such a society would generate. The recent article submitted on nyc highlighted the very same thing, that despite being a sustainable model on one hand they are royally f*cking up when it comes to handling it.
Interesting thought techno. If we existed in a natural state wouldn't the top consumers have the largest range per capita? Aren't we in fact encouraging the equivalent of a hundred bears to live together in 1 acre and then calling that sustainable?
I think it is the idea of concentration and isolation of undesirables. We take the view that all human development is a drag on natural ecosystems, so the natural inclination is to isolate and control the spread of the disease, since we don't seem to be able to cure it. In theory, a development that had no negative effects on the environment would not be limited by density, meaning that the sum of any number of zero effects is still zero. The challenge should be creating homes, communities and nations that approach or achieve zero negative effect on their environment. Once that is achieved density doesn't matter. Until then, lets limit the spread of the disease so that we only destroy as little as possible.
j
Rationalist,
I am with you, I was one of those crazy people that would have been fine with letting NO become a delta again. But it also seems that the best places for inhabitation are the most disaster prone. Deltas are always subject to seasonal flooding, but also provide the most fertile lands, same goes for most flood plains. Wyoming has no tornadoes limited amounts of quaking, little to no flooding and absolutely no reason to want to live there (unless you like cattle and year round fireworks).
It seems to me that everywhere in the US at least has its local natural disasters, whether it is freezing cold in the north, drought in the southwest, quakes and fires in Cali, hurricanes in the south, and tornadoes & floods in the middle.
Where can we go?
j
I am anxious to talk about this as I think it is going to be a prime focus of my graduate studies. It is easy to think, Kansas is constantly rocked by tornadoes, why do we continue to build there? Or the same for New Orleans, and the fact that so much of it is below sea level.....
Well there are plenty of reasons for living where people settle, and I think a lot of it has to do with primal instincts for farming, or defense, or access to water supply. I firmly believe that human beings, as a species, have a right to settle wherever we want, but the type of building we do in a particular area has to be reflective of the context. For instance, if Greensburg, Kansas had a bunch of buildings that were made using concrete and were partially burrowed into the ground, and if the town was surrounded by sloping land berms, the likelihood that it would have been leveled by tornadoes would be greatly reduced. This theory does apply for New Orleans, but the building strategy must be drastically different. The community there must prepare itself for the possibility of flooding a LOT, and so sturdy materials should be used to elevate homes especially in low-lying areas.
The climate of the country and world is changing, and natural elements are not going to stop wreaking havoc on our dwellings any time soon. We need to learn to live WITH the environment, not just ON it....
WK
I think what you are getting at is a new vernacular, one that is related to nature rather than style. Here, you say vernacular and people think mission, adobe... Maybe we should say earthquake resistant, natural ventilation promoting, or any other number of environmental factors that should inform design, but transcend "style".
j
OK, so my first post over-simplified things a bit. Maybe the more important question is: why do we continue to build in the same way in the same places over and over again? Even in New Orleans, there were areas that did not flood because they were on higher ground. OK, so take those, densify them, and don't build on the areas that did flood so badly. Why do we continue to build wood houses in tornado alley? Why do people in Los Angeles insist that a mountainside full of friggin weedy chapparell is THE place to be?
So don't throw out the possibilities of these places alltogether, but be smarter about it, build selectively, build sustainably for that area. WonderK's hit the nail on the head here.
One of the definitions of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again with the expectation of different results.
josh, yes, I think I am alluding to a new vernacular. I think that "style" is great, when it works, and when we can get away with it. Cities, for instance, are less prone to a lot of these natural events and are great for putting up towers and experimenting architecturally.
Language is a big part of it too....I feel like a lot of designers become disinterested if you were to say, 'look, this area is prone to tornadoes and you need to take that into account'....like we are limiting design freedom. Well I don't know about you guys but I NEED limits to design....if I am just given a blank slate I have no idea where to begin. We need to form a constructive discussion where context and site and environmental factors are paramount to solving a building program in a particular area. I feel like this isn't happening in the schools as much as it should be anymore.....
You have really touched on my passion. I have to stop myself or else I will go on about this all day!
tough thing about a 'vernacular' is that new orleans already consisted of a lot of very appropriate vernacular residential construction. historic vernacular, anyway. historically, for example, those shotguns were simple containers and when they got ruined you rebuilt 'em.
a contemporary vernacular would have to be developed to address modern plumbing, sanitary, electrical, data, etc, as well as the fact that we can no longer afford to rebuild as easily and that loss of life and limb has become much less acceptable. (and that's a good thing!)
Guys...I am LOVING this discussion. Archinect is truly amazing sometimes.
WonderK, you have some incredible starting places for your graduate work. Congrats.
And you've picked a better place to do it than you realize... James Steele is a bit of a vernacular freak. Don't mention the word "Fathy" unless you've got a few hours to spare for the discussion.
Steven- do you think it's our idea of permanence that's flawed? Should we try to get back to more of a go-with-the-flow attitude about this stuff?
I just read an article in docomomo about the same thing we are talking about. Its how the Jamaican vernacular (Kingston) was critically informed by natural disasters. As they came the building codes were drastically modified so the style of buildings changed dramatically as well. Interesting stuff.
mightylittle and anyone else who might be interested in Socially Responsible Investing, check this out.....
Monday on Marketplace there was a report about a group that is trying to get a new rating for corporations.....basically these companies would be called "B Corporations" and it would mean that they answered not only to their stockholders, but to the community as well. Apparently they are going to release a list next month of companies that have been given this "B" rating. Listen to the report, or read about it, here.
i heart marketplace.
i am a sucker for anything about investing + money. being that i have so little of it... ive been trying to make the most (and expand) what i do have. i found out fidelity investments had been indavertantly supporting the genocide in darfur. this was covered on marketplace as well. (i believe this has been addressed by fidelity... but i pulled out my ira last week from there anyways.) i know this isnt exactly "green" in the sense of this thread... but genocide should never be sustained.
sum it up: marketplace is a fantastic green resource...
more news from treehugger, this time semi-related to the transportation discussion happening elsewhere, but I didn't want to derail that thread. Apparently there's a proposal to drastically raise tarriffs for driving in London for commercial vehicles. What do you guys think?
London already has an 8£ commuter surcharge, but 200£ is huge...
mayor bloomberg in NYC announced in his greening-of-the-city plan that he's going to do something similar.
nice link on SRI's WonderK...it's great seeing people talk about the triple bottom line like that. (finances, society and the environment)
also, to go back to the discussion about building in the face of natural calamity...anyone who's interested, especially Angelenos, should read this book.
Ecology of Fear by Michael 'Mike D' Davis...a fascinating and scary piece of work...and very entertaining to boot.
[begin announcement]
attn: non Green Thread Central content ahead.
[/end announcement]
my firm sent me to the monstrous k/bis (kitchen and bath) show in las vegas yesterday...talk about a massive carbon footprint. as if vegas wasn't bad enough...the convo center must be over a million square feet, easily.
i think i walked ten miles.
saw some dope faucets though...here's my favorite of the day...
Japanese TOH brand, by San-EI...the white parts have the pebbly feel of dried leather, but they're made from porcelain. really sweet stuff.
I'm not too sure adding a surcharge on a commercial vehicle is necessarily a wise idea. Simply because immediately the charge comes back to the consumer and in a place like London there really isn't an option for locally grown. Even something 50, 100 or 200 miles away can't be considered local
Me again....it's been a couple of days. I hope you are all well and enjoying varying degrees of gorgeous weather everywhere....
architechno, I agree with you. I like the idea of the driving tariffs but I think they should stick it to commuters much more than commercial drivers....after all, commuters have much more opportunity to locate themselves closer to the city center than say, a manufacturing facility can.
I found a program that you guys might find interesting....I've been indulging myself on iTunes a bit lately and I found this show called "big ideas for a small planet" which is being produced for the Sundance Channel. I think one of the executive producers is Robert Redford (makes sense since he is behind the Sundance Channel). What a fantastic person he is....
Anyway, they have designated a whole block of their programming for "green" topics, I think it's Tuesday nights at 9 pm, and big ideas for a small planet is being shown at this time. Each of the 13 shows deals with a specific issue related to the green movement, for instance, the first show is "Fuel", which deals with various alternatives to gasoline, and the next one is called "Eat", which you can probably figure out.... Check it out on your cable schedule, or if you don't get this channel (like me), you can find it on iTunes.
yahoo seems to be following google's lead into trying to reduce energy loads at their server farms, by either getting more efficient computers and/or installing renewables on the roof like PV and wind...
if it wasn't for computers and other electronic gadgets like TVs/DVDs/Wii, overall efficiency is increasing for the basic appliances and systems in our buildings. the biggest problem is we just keep on adding loads and stuff that runs of electricity and emits heat that then needs to be cooled by bigger hvac. maybe with the confluence of screens, we can start eliminating things from our desks and home entertainment centers (then we have to deal with the e-waste) and saving energy...
The GoZero Footprint City Calculator, is a collaboration of Zerofootprint and Business Objects, a maker of business intelligence software. Bernard Liautaud, the chairman of Business Objects, said that his company had joined the project as an initial step in using its software to help people on the Web create a “collective intelligence” to address humanitarian issues.
On the interactive climate site, people will be able to enter data, see the carbon effect and how their carbon footprint compares with averages in their city and in cities worldwide. They will also be able to do what-if simulations, to see how changes in their activities affect carbon emissions. The anonymous data will be collected for analysis by climate change scientists and others.
whoo, the bicycling topics have gone ALL over the place, so I wasn't sure where to post this. GTC seemed good...
You can calculate the distance and even calories burned on your commute HERE.
I calculated mine, and I would burn OVER 1400 CALORIES getting to work and back. That's it, I'm going to figure out the route this weekend, and will start doing this at least two days a week starting next week if the route works out to be not too dangerous traffic-wise!
OK, I messed that up. Turns out it's only 1000 calories, but that's still pretty damn good for a day's exercise, especially when it won't take me more than ten minutes longer than commuting by car (I live in a high-traffic area).
oh, yeah, it doesn't say this: zoom into your area, click "start recording", and then DOUBLEclick the points on your route. Don't worry about clicking multiple points in a straight line, it'll recognize it's a line and just create points at the end. If you want, then click the "calorie calculator ON" and enter your weight. Don't worry, it took me a bit to figure out that I needed to doubleclick too.
Body revolt is the whole point. After all, what else can you call it when a body consumes bits of itself, thereby resulting in loss of weight? Well, that and not being a slave to my car.
the double click trick is key! so I would have burned 1264.4537044785225 calories getting to my last job. hmmm, from all the time I spent in the saddle in my youth, there is a direct correlation between speed and sweat and calories burned. this calculator assumes that you're going pretty hard and not leisurely peddling.
that's why I don't bike to the office anymore- I don't like dripping with sweat and then sitting down in front of a computer. and to take 2 showers in the morning just don't make sense (and I won't leave the house before a shower).
this bike talk has really gotten me into wanting one myself! my bf has one and is dying to get me riding. once i get that i want to try to institute no driving weekends for us.
hm - i just did my work commute - 1140 one way. i'd love to do it, but with no shower at work and being in the florida heat, it seems like not that great of an idea.
and i'm lucky enough that my commute is literally only 15 minutes. and i drive an old civic (still getting 35 mpg! woohoo!). i've been thinking about trading it for a new one, but as far as sustainability goes, part of me thinks i should just hang on to it...
what else is everyone out there driving? or has this already been mentioned (i might have missed it)?
my bus ride allows me to catch up with the latest green podcasts... got a express bus two blocks away from my door direct to downtown. took about 20 minutes door-to-door to my old job including walking to the bus stop and waiting 30 seconds for the bus... I love biking, but not as my commute.
laurilan- I'm driving a salvaged Jetta. Yay for recycling/reusing. Autos are one of the only products where this is actually cheaper than new/standard used. But only if you do most/all of the work yourself.
Bussing it is good too, tk! Public transit is necessary and totally neglected by politicians, so you're supporting something that needs your help.
Article about greening the retail industry. Not sure of the publication, people just send me these things, so I thought I would share. I would certainly like to see some movement in the retail sector on sustainability but their intentions are often so suspect that I don't really have high hopes.
that's awesome laurilan! Everyone at work thought I was crazy when I got mine. A little off-topic, but have you ever sold a salvaged vehicle before? I'm trying to figure out how much time to give mine, as I need it sold before a certain date, and am scared nobody will want it because of the title.
i wish i could do this ride...but check out the elevation change. 15 miles round trip, 800cal burned each way. hah! with that elevation change it'd be way mor than 800 burned.
rationalist - i bought mine knowing i would have a hard time reselling it. it's not impossible, but it does make it more difficult. but there are tons of rebuilt titles out there - i'd check autotrader for your year/model. i bet there will be some rebuilt ones to give you an idea.
Green Thread Central
awesome. i'm glad the discussion is going this way. it's definitely an interesting topic that i'm surprised hadn't been brought up before.
joshcookie, while it's great that your family of six uses less than the average family of three, i don't think your situation is typical @ all (especially in this country).
and i agree that draconian methods to curbing population aren't a good idea.
perhaps what is needed is more education on family size and sustainability.
jc - you have a larger than average family size and are using less than average resources. IMHO, totally commendable. really. kudos to you all, that's a ton of work to stay as minimal as possible.
it's like tumbles said...minimalism may look simplistic, but in the parlance of our times, it's hella' hard to do.
however, in most parts of the country, families of six are eating at taco bell and shopping at wal-mart!!
how in the hell do people go about changing this?!?
of course there isn't an entirely direct relationship between pop'n numbers and resource consumption, but there are obviously some parallels. jc's little tribe is a good example of how greater numbers can actually improve efficiency...but how feasible is that on a municipal scale, let alone regional or national?
and for the record - i have spent WAY too much time on the 'nect today. but when i'm particularly amped on caffeine, i get kind of chatty. oops.
I don't really think that any amount of this will curb population growth, unfortunately. The fact is that the poor people of the world are breeders, despite them knowing full well that having more children costs them more money, whereas the more well-off people in the world who could potentially support more children are limiting their breeding. So many pregnancies among the world poor are accidental to boot, that I'm very discouraged at such a method for population control. The educated people would continue to limit their breeding, the uneducated would continue to act like they had no choice in the matter, and the world would continue to get dumber as a result.
i can't say i disagree with you rationalist.
however, i don't mean education as in school education. i'm talking about mass advertising campaigns and such from countries own ministries on public health.
because that's what it really is, a public health issue.
but yeah, i don't know... maybe that kind of thinking is too idealistic.
I think education is key, but it is also hampered by tradition. The third world love for sons, at the expense of baby girls is a good example. If you convince all of India to only have one child, how many do you think will have a girl? On the other hand, I guess THAT would decrease population in the long run.
j
yes, josh, tradition definitely hampers progress (in all aspects of life).
i think josh is my eco-hero
btw lb make sure you get barrells made from post-consumer material...otherwise what's the point eh?
ok, here's another unsustainable practice that I would say 'burns me up', but that wouldn't really be appropriate right now: people building houses in places that repeatedly burn, flood, slide, or get blown away. Just in the past week an entire town has been leveled, several more places have experienced some bad tornadoes, and there are currently two large fires burning in Los Angeles county. Why, oh why do we continue to re-build these homes and business that get destroyed? Because the government subsidizes the rebuilding.
I think government assistance should not cover rebuilding in a similar spot: it should only cover relocation to a more sustainable (physically!) area of the globe. Come on, there's so much land out there, can't we use the bits that are relatively calm?
1800sf - 4 people
I'm curious about the dense populations using less resources bit. I appreciate it in theory but i have some reservations regarding how much waste (natural) such a society would generate. The recent article submitted on nyc highlighted the very same thing, that despite being a sustainable model on one hand they are royally f*cking up when it comes to handling it.
just my late night thoughts anyway
Interesting thought techno. If we existed in a natural state wouldn't the top consumers have the largest range per capita? Aren't we in fact encouraging the equivalent of a hundred bears to live together in 1 acre and then calling that sustainable?
I think it is the idea of concentration and isolation of undesirables. We take the view that all human development is a drag on natural ecosystems, so the natural inclination is to isolate and control the spread of the disease, since we don't seem to be able to cure it. In theory, a development that had no negative effects on the environment would not be limited by density, meaning that the sum of any number of zero effects is still zero. The challenge should be creating homes, communities and nations that approach or achieve zero negative effect on their environment. Once that is achieved density doesn't matter. Until then, lets limit the spread of the disease so that we only destroy as little as possible.
j
Rationalist,
I am with you, I was one of those crazy people that would have been fine with letting NO become a delta again. But it also seems that the best places for inhabitation are the most disaster prone. Deltas are always subject to seasonal flooding, but also provide the most fertile lands, same goes for most flood plains. Wyoming has no tornadoes limited amounts of quaking, little to no flooding and absolutely no reason to want to live there (unless you like cattle and year round fireworks).
It seems to me that everywhere in the US at least has its local natural disasters, whether it is freezing cold in the north, drought in the southwest, quakes and fires in Cali, hurricanes in the south, and tornadoes & floods in the middle.
Where can we go?
j
rationalist and joshcookie, great discussion.....
I am anxious to talk about this as I think it is going to be a prime focus of my graduate studies. It is easy to think, Kansas is constantly rocked by tornadoes, why do we continue to build there? Or the same for New Orleans, and the fact that so much of it is below sea level.....
Well there are plenty of reasons for living where people settle, and I think a lot of it has to do with primal instincts for farming, or defense, or access to water supply. I firmly believe that human beings, as a species, have a right to settle wherever we want, but the type of building we do in a particular area has to be reflective of the context. For instance, if Greensburg, Kansas had a bunch of buildings that were made using concrete and were partially burrowed into the ground, and if the town was surrounded by sloping land berms, the likelihood that it would have been leveled by tornadoes would be greatly reduced. This theory does apply for New Orleans, but the building strategy must be drastically different. The community there must prepare itself for the possibility of flooding a LOT, and so sturdy materials should be used to elevate homes especially in low-lying areas.
The climate of the country and world is changing, and natural elements are not going to stop wreaking havoc on our dwellings any time soon. We need to learn to live WITH the environment, not just ON it....
WK
I think what you are getting at is a new vernacular, one that is related to nature rather than style. Here, you say vernacular and people think mission, adobe... Maybe we should say earthquake resistant, natural ventilation promoting, or any other number of environmental factors that should inform design, but transcend "style".
j
OK, so my first post over-simplified things a bit. Maybe the more important question is: why do we continue to build in the same way in the same places over and over again? Even in New Orleans, there were areas that did not flood because they were on higher ground. OK, so take those, densify them, and don't build on the areas that did flood so badly. Why do we continue to build wood houses in tornado alley? Why do people in Los Angeles insist that a mountainside full of friggin weedy chapparell is THE place to be?
So don't throw out the possibilities of these places alltogether, but be smarter about it, build selectively, build sustainably for that area. WonderK's hit the nail on the head here.
One of the definitions of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again with the expectation of different results.
josh, yes, I think I am alluding to a new vernacular. I think that "style" is great, when it works, and when we can get away with it. Cities, for instance, are less prone to a lot of these natural events and are great for putting up towers and experimenting architecturally.
Language is a big part of it too....I feel like a lot of designers become disinterested if you were to say, 'look, this area is prone to tornadoes and you need to take that into account'....like we are limiting design freedom. Well I don't know about you guys but I NEED limits to design....if I am just given a blank slate I have no idea where to begin. We need to form a constructive discussion where context and site and environmental factors are paramount to solving a building program in a particular area. I feel like this isn't happening in the schools as much as it should be anymore.....
You have really touched on my passion. I have to stop myself or else I will go on about this all day!
:o)
tough thing about a 'vernacular' is that new orleans already consisted of a lot of very appropriate vernacular residential construction. historic vernacular, anyway. historically, for example, those shotguns were simple containers and when they got ruined you rebuilt 'em.
a contemporary vernacular would have to be developed to address modern plumbing, sanitary, electrical, data, etc, as well as the fact that we can no longer afford to rebuild as easily and that loss of life and limb has become much less acceptable. (and that's a good thing!)
Guys...I am LOVING this discussion. Archinect is truly amazing sometimes.
WonderK, you have some incredible starting places for your graduate work. Congrats.
i agree, great discussion.
wish i had more to add, but it's very interesting just reading this stuff.
And you've picked a better place to do it than you realize... James Steele is a bit of a vernacular freak. Don't mention the word "Fathy" unless you've got a few hours to spare for the discussion.
Steven- do you think it's our idea of permanence that's flawed? Should we try to get back to more of a go-with-the-flow attitude about this stuff?
New related thread: Mass Transit
I just read an article in docomomo about the same thing we are talking about. Its how the Jamaican vernacular (Kingston) was critically informed by natural disasters. As they came the building codes were drastically modified so the style of buildings changed dramatically as well. Interesting stuff.
Thinking about the idea of a "new vernacular" this thread discussing the New Urbanism is also an important parrallel to this one.
mightylittle and anyone else who might be interested in Socially Responsible Investing, check this out.....
Monday on Marketplace there was a report about a group that is trying to get a new rating for corporations.....basically these companies would be called "B Corporations" and it would mean that they answered not only to their stockholders, but to the community as well. Apparently they are going to release a list next month of companies that have been given this "B" rating. Listen to the report, or read about it, here.
i heart marketplace.
i am a sucker for anything about investing + money. being that i have so little of it... ive been trying to make the most (and expand) what i do have. i found out fidelity investments had been indavertantly supporting the genocide in darfur. this was covered on marketplace as well. (i believe this has been addressed by fidelity... but i pulled out my ira last week from there anyways.) i know this isnt exactly "green" in the sense of this thread... but genocide should never be sustained.
sum it up: marketplace is a fantastic green resource...
more news from treehugger, this time semi-related to the transportation discussion happening elsewhere, but I didn't want to derail that thread. Apparently there's a proposal to drastically raise tarriffs for driving in London for commercial vehicles. What do you guys think?
London already has an 8£ commuter surcharge, but 200£ is huge...
mayor bloomberg in NYC announced in his greening-of-the-city plan that he's going to do something similar.
nice link on SRI's WonderK...it's great seeing people talk about the triple bottom line like that. (finances, society and the environment)
also, to go back to the discussion about building in the face of natural calamity...anyone who's interested, especially Angelenos, should read this book.
Ecology of Fear by Michael 'Mike D' Davis...a fascinating and scary piece of work...and very entertaining to boot.
[begin announcement]
attn: non Green Thread Central content ahead.
[/end announcement]
my firm sent me to the monstrous k/bis (kitchen and bath) show in las vegas yesterday...talk about a massive carbon footprint. as if vegas wasn't bad enough...the convo center must be over a million square feet, easily.
i think i walked ten miles.
saw some dope faucets though...here's my favorite of the day...
Japanese TOH brand, by San-EI...the white parts have the pebbly feel of dried leather, but they're made from porcelain. really sweet stuff.
I'm not too sure adding a surcharge on a commercial vehicle is necessarily a wise idea. Simply because immediately the charge comes back to the consumer and in a place like London there really isn't an option for locally grown. Even something 50, 100 or 200 miles away can't be considered local
Me again....it's been a couple of days. I hope you are all well and enjoying varying degrees of gorgeous weather everywhere....
architechno, I agree with you. I like the idea of the driving tariffs but I think they should stick it to commuters much more than commercial drivers....after all, commuters have much more opportunity to locate themselves closer to the city center than say, a manufacturing facility can.
I found a program that you guys might find interesting....I've been indulging myself on iTunes a bit lately and I found this show called "big ideas for a small planet" which is being produced for the Sundance Channel. I think one of the executive producers is Robert Redford (makes sense since he is behind the Sundance Channel). What a fantastic person he is....
Anyway, they have designated a whole block of their programming for "green" topics, I think it's Tuesday nights at 9 pm, and big ideas for a small planet is being shown at this time. Each of the 13 shows deals with a specific issue related to the green movement, for instance, the first show is "Fuel", which deals with various alternatives to gasoline, and the next one is called "Eat", which you can probably figure out.... Check it out on your cable schedule, or if you don't get this channel (like me), you can find it on iTunes.
Orhan posted this news item about Yahoo green, which I don't quite get yet, but it looks promising!
yahoo seems to be following google's lead into trying to reduce energy loads at their server farms, by either getting more efficient computers and/or installing renewables on the roof like PV and wind...
if it wasn't for computers and other electronic gadgets like TVs/DVDs/Wii, overall efficiency is increasing for the basic appliances and systems in our buildings. the biggest problem is we just keep on adding loads and stuff that runs of electricity and emits heat that then needs to be cooled by bigger hvac. maybe with the confluence of screens, we can start eliminating things from our desks and home entertainment centers (then we have to deal with the e-waste) and saving energy...
coming soon!!!!!
The GoZero Footprint City Calculator, is a collaboration of Zerofootprint and Business Objects, a maker of business intelligence software. Bernard Liautaud, the chairman of Business Objects, said that his company had joined the project as an initial step in using its software to help people on the Web create a “collective intelligence” to address humanitarian issues.
On the interactive climate site, people will be able to enter data, see the carbon effect and how their carbon footprint compares with averages in their city and in cities worldwide. They will also be able to do what-if simulations, to see how changes in their activities affect carbon emissions. The anonymous data will be collected for analysis by climate change scientists and others.
as reported in the NYT
zerofootprint is cool, hadn't know about them until today...
whoo, the bicycling topics have gone ALL over the place, so I wasn't sure where to post this. GTC seemed good...
You can calculate the distance and even calories burned on your commute HERE.
I calculated mine, and I would burn OVER 1400 CALORIES getting to work and back. That's it, I'm going to figure out the route this weekend, and will start doing this at least two days a week starting next week if the route works out to be not too dangerous traffic-wise!
OK, I messed that up. Turns out it's only 1000 calories, but that's still pretty damn good for a day's exercise, especially when it won't take me more than ten minutes longer than commuting by car (I live in a high-traffic area).
1000 is a lot of calories. You need to be sure you are intaking enough calories on those days or else your body will revolt!
OK, rationalist, I must be retarded because I can't get that thing to work. Help.
oh, yeah, it doesn't say this: zoom into your area, click "start recording", and then DOUBLEclick the points on your route. Don't worry about clicking multiple points in a straight line, it'll recognize it's a line and just create points at the end. If you want, then click the "calorie calculator ON" and enter your weight. Don't worry, it took me a bit to figure out that I needed to doubleclick too.
Body revolt is the whole point. After all, what else can you call it when a body consumes bits of itself, thereby resulting in loss of weight? Well, that and not being a slave to my car.
OK. I got it to work now. Tricky, that one. I'll be burning almost 700 calories. Score!
the double click trick is key! so I would have burned 1264.4537044785225 calories getting to my last job. hmmm, from all the time I spent in the saddle in my youth, there is a direct correlation between speed and sweat and calories burned. this calculator assumes that you're going pretty hard and not leisurely peddling.
that's why I don't bike to the office anymore- I don't like dripping with sweat and then sitting down in front of a computer. and to take 2 showers in the morning just don't make sense (and I won't leave the house before a shower).
this bike talk has really gotten me into wanting one myself! my bf has one and is dying to get me riding. once i get that i want to try to institute no driving weekends for us.
hm - i just did my work commute - 1140 one way. i'd love to do it, but with no shower at work and being in the florida heat, it seems like not that great of an idea.
and i'm lucky enough that my commute is literally only 15 minutes. and i drive an old civic (still getting 35 mpg! woohoo!). i've been thinking about trading it for a new one, but as far as sustainability goes, part of me thinks i should just hang on to it...
what else is everyone out there driving? or has this already been mentioned (i might have missed it)?
my bus ride allows me to catch up with the latest green podcasts... got a express bus two blocks away from my door direct to downtown. took about 20 minutes door-to-door to my old job including walking to the bus stop and waiting 30 seconds for the bus... I love biking, but not as my commute.
my commute is 11 calories one way!
laurilan- I'm driving a salvaged Jetta. Yay for recycling/reusing. Autos are one of the only products where this is actually cheaper than new/standard used. But only if you do most/all of the work yourself.
Bussing it is good too, tk! Public transit is necessary and totally neglected by politicians, so you're supporting something that needs your help.
Article about greening the retail industry. Not sure of the publication, people just send me these things, so I thought I would share. I would certainly like to see some movement in the retail sector on sustainability but their intentions are often so suspect that I don't really have high hopes.
yay rationalist - my civic is salvaged/rebuilt as well! gives them more character :)
i know i've been out of the loop, but 10k sq ft. for 2-4 people tumbles? That is insane, I share your anger.
that's awesome laurilan! Everyone at work thought I was crazy when I got mine. A little off-topic, but have you ever sold a salvaged vehicle before? I'm trying to figure out how much time to give mine, as I need it sold before a certain date, and am scared nobody will want it because of the title.
i wish i could do this ride...but check out the elevation change. 15 miles round trip, 800cal burned each way. hah! with that elevation change it'd be way mor than 800 burned.
rationalist - i bought mine knowing i would have a hard time reselling it. it's not impossible, but it does make it more difficult. but there are tons of rebuilt titles out there - i'd check autotrader for your year/model. i bet there will be some rebuilt ones to give you an idea.
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