Thursday, June 12, 2008

Rideshare!


With rising gas prices and the threat of permanent climate change, it's time for folks to step up to the plate and take action. And what could be easier than ridesharing or carpooling? With millions of cars on the road each day and so many people driving to the same places, let's get it together!

One great web resource for commuters-- or anyone, really-- to find rideshares is
GoLoco. With this service, you sign up as a member, post ride offerings, and GoLoco calculates costs (based on $0.50/mile), divvied up among the number of people in the car. GoLoco takes 10% of the total ride cost to offer this great service. Members have GoLoco accounts and move funds from passenger to driver accounts on a per-ride basis.

Also look into the more casual craigslist rideshare postings. Pick your nearest craigslist city, and look for the rideshare link. I used that service to find a ride from an airport to my final destination on a visit out of state. Trusting the safety of your ride is an issue, perhaps especially for women traveling alone; but contacting parties by phone in advance can at least offer some level of security. I felt safe enough, anyway.

Let's start getting more out of our gasoline and reduce our carbon load on the environment at the same time.

Rideshare to work or to your weekend destination!

Cheers!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

GO LEED! Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a "No-Brainer"

As stated in a previous essay (on Paradigms4Progress.com), I do believe our world has gone slightly mad, and that it is an act of courage to read the daily news. Having stated that however, I also believe we live in an incredible time in human history, a time of potential transformation on the scale of the scientific revolution. The factors driving this transformation are many to include climate change, peak oil and water shortages. I have come to believe that underlying these factors is humanity's disconnect to our ultimate relatedness to and reliance on one another and nature.

Consequently, the solutions we generate to respond to the numerous crises that we face together must seek to both heal our battered earth to avoid catastrophes in our times and develop more harmonious ways of living in the world at every level of society to protect quality of life potential for future generations.

While national political leadership and policy are desperately needed there are market solutions emerging that hold great promise. One such solution is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED.

Green Buildings

LEED is a third party, Green Building Council, certification program and a benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.

According to the Wikipedia entry on the topic, LEED began in 1994 under the direction a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) senior scientist Robert K. Watson who, as founding chairman of the LEED Steering Committee until 2006, led a broad-based consensus process which included non-profit organizations, government agencies, architects, engineers, developers, builders, product manufacturers and other industry leaders.

Over the years, LEED grew from one standard for new construction to a comprehensive system of five interrelated performance areas of human and environmental health to include:

1) Sustainable site development

2) Water savings

3) Energy efficiency

4) Material selection and indoor air quality

5) Indoor air quality

These performance areas are uniquely applied to several different types of construction projects to produce tailored rating systems for certain types of projects or sectors. For example, presently there are rating systems for new construction, existing buildings, governmental interiors, core & shell, schools, retail, healthcare, homes, and neighborhood development.

While LEED is gaining traction as the industry green building standard, it is interesting to note that the organization has announced that as of January 2009 it will no longer certify buildings. That responsibility will pass to independent, accredited certifiers overseen by USGBC's sister nonprofit corporation, the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). GBCI has administered the LEED Accredited Professional (LEED-AP) program since January 2008 (see Environmental News Network for full article).

According to this news article, this move is necessary to meet the growing demand for LEED certification. Growing demand for green buildings is GREAT news as it represents the type of movement we must make to address our environmental and energy challenges while shifting toward sustainability.

If you are involved in the building of a new structure or renovation of an existing one, I invite you to go GREEN by becoming LEED certified. The benefits to do so are extensive to include greater overall resource efficiency and healthier buildings. In addition, initial investments are quickly recovered then yield interest over the life of the building. According to Wikipedia,"studies have suggested that an initial up front investment of 2% will yield over ten times the initial investment over the life cycle of the building!" Wow. It is simply the right thing to do too! Sounds like a "no- brainer" to me!

Essay by Denise Frizzell. For more musings from Denise, visit, www.paradigms4progress.com.

Green the World One Room at a Time

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Biomimicry: Design Inspired By Nature

It certainly is an interesting time to be alive. While there is a lot of bad news these days, there is also a lot of very promising news as well. People, individuals and collective bodies, all across the world are responding to the numerous challenges we face as a species-global warming, peak oil, water and food shortages, mass extinction of species, etc. by rethinking every aspect of how we organize ourselves and operate at every level society.

One such promising concept and design practice is biomimicry, called bionics in Europe, is design inspired by nature. According to the Biomimicry Institute website the term, from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate, represents a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.

Also as outlined on the Institutes's website:

The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. This is the real news of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils and what surrounds use is the secret to survival.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BfxnVlyc&hl=en]

Janine Benyus (You Tube video of her giving a lecture on 12 Sustainable Design Ideas), author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature writes that a biomimetic revolution has the potential to change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business by nature acting as model, measure and mentor. The Biomimicry Institutes's website outlines each of these as follows:

Nature as model. We would manufacture the way animals and plants do, using sun and simple compounds to produce totally biodegradable fibers, ceramics, plastics, and chemicals.

Nature as measure. Beside providing the model, nature would also provide the measure-we look to nature as a standard against to judge the ‘rightness' of our innovations. Are they life promoting? Do they fit in? Will they last?

Nature as mentor. Biomimicry is a new way to viewing and valuing nature. It introduces and era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.

In her book and on the Institutes's website, she outlines several examples of biomimicry pioneers in action. Here is a sample of those pioneers with what their research:

  • Wes Jackson (The Land Institute) is studying prairies as a model for an agriculture that features edible, perennial polycultures and that would sustain, rather than strain, the land.
  • Thomas and Ana Moore and Devins Gust ( University of Arizona) are studying how a leaf captures energy, in hopes of making a molecular-sized solar cell. Their light-sensitive "pentad" mimics a photosynthetic reaction center, creating a tiny, sun-powered battery.
  • J. Herbert Waite ( University of California Santa Barbara) is studying the blue mussel, which attaches itself to rocks via an adhesive that can do what ours can't-cure and stick underwater. Various teams are attempting to mimic this underwater glue.
  • Peter Steinberg (Biosignal) has created an anti-bacterial compound that mimics the sea purse. These red algae keeps bacteria from landing on surfaces by jamming their communication signals with an environmentally friendly compound called furanone.
  • Bruce Roser (Cambridge Biostability) has developed a heat-stable vaccine storage that eliminates the need for costly refrigeration. The process is based on a natural process that enables the resurrection plant to remain in a desiccated state for years.

I have barely scratched the surface of this promising design model. Thus, I encourage you to read this landmark book and/or check out the Institute's website. Another interesting read on this topic is Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Biomimicry offers a much needed solution to making design and manufacturing sustainable which is an absolute must for a healthy, just, prosperous, and sustainable future.

Cradle to Cradle

"The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone."

~ Janine Benyus



Essay by Denise Frizzell. For more musing from Denise, visit, www.paradigms4progress.com.