U.S. drought continues to spread

Official news via US Department of Agriculture:
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=DISASTER_ASSISTANCE&parentnav=DISASTER_SAFETY 

and NOAA http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/drought/

Is your city sustainable?

“The battle to prevent catastrophic climate change will be won or lost in our cities…” (C40 Cities Initiative)


Several studies about “climate-ready” or “resilient” cities have been in the news this week. These rankings are based on factors such as:

• political commitment
• LEED-certified buildings per capita
• university leadership
• transit access/use per capita
• clean tech investment
• energy and GHG emissions


Read on for links to these articles, and the top ten city rankings by geographic area.


U.S. city rankings by CO2 Impact: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06/top-10-climate-ready-cities/
10. Chicago
9. San Jose
8. Philadelphia
7. New York
6. San Diego
5. Denver
4. Washington, DC
3. Portland Oregon
2. Seattle
1. San Francisco


U.S. & Canada rankings posted by the NRDC: http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-07-05-closer-look-at-siemens-green-cities-rankings

1. San Francisco
2. Vancouver
3. New York City
4. Seattle
5. Denver


Global rankings by CO2 impact: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06/top-10-globally-resilient-cities/
10. Tokyo, Japan
9. London, UK
8. New York, USA
7. San Francisco, USA
6. Paris, France
5. Vancouver, Canada
4. Stockholm, Sweden
3. Barcelona, Spain
2. Curitiba, Brazil
1. Copenhagen, Denmark

Earth Hour

Earth Hour is this Saturday, March 27th.  Join millions of people around the world in turning off your lights for just one hour in a call to action against global warming!

Watch this year's Earth Hour video here.

Read more at the official USA website www.earthhour.org 

EPA's mandatory reporting rule for GHGs

If you run a facility that's required to report its GHG emissions this year under the new EPA mandatory reporting rule (MRR), you probably already know it.  But in case you missed it, here's the skinny:

The reporting threshold is 25,000 metric tons CO2 e per year for most sources.

MRR overview:

 http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads/FinalMRROverview.pdf

General info and links to webinars (ending in late February):

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html

Applicability tool (check if your facility is required to report GHGs):

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/GHG-calculator/index.html

West Virginia's state rock

In Appalachian news, West Virginia bestows "state rock" status on coal. Does this mean they'll protect it as an endangered state resource, or use this as justification for more mountaintop coal removal?

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/west-virginias-new-state-rock-coal/

Earth Hour this weekend

This Saturday, millions of people around the world will be turning off their lights at 8:30pm local time in a call to action against global warming. This event was started by the World Wildlife Federation in Australia, and has been growing since 2007. WWF estimates that more than 27,000 companies and organizations in 84 countries will take part this year.

Read more at the main Earth Hour website.

To get a better sense of the magnitude of this event, watch some of these short videos...

Earth Hour 2009

Vote Earth

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Google, GE, and smart energy

Back in September 2008, Google and GE announced a partnership to explore a smart electricity grid. Yesterday they held a public event at Google’s DC office to discuss their progress and future plans. Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.org, and Bob Gilligan, Vice President at GE, moderated two panel discussions about energy policy and developing technologies.

The first panel included representatives from a traditional power company, a solar power company, GE’s Ecomagination group, Tendril/Zigbee, Google, and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. As they discussed their visions for a smart power grid in America and took questions from the audience, the ideas of informing consumers and providing incentives for smarter energy use came up time and again. Google’s marketing video depicted a number of PowerMeter testers declaring that their energy usage was much easier to manage now that they could see the high points and change their behavior accordingly. To paraphrase a famous quote from Lord Kelvin that has been mentioned many times in the context of Bentley’s carbon footprint data collection, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Historically, the flow of electricity from generation sites to consumers has been a one-way street controlled exclusively by utility companies. However, with the rise of solar and other renewable energy generation technologies, panelists suggested that this model must change to accommodate two-way flow from other generation sites: Jeff Renaud from GE’s Ecomagination used the term “energy internet” to describe the concept. There should be public API and data compatibility standards to allow for entrepreneurial development, yet enough security measures to maintain data integrity and consumer privacy.

The idea of informing and empowering consumers to be better managers of their household energy usage is certainly attractive from an economical standpoint: homeowners stand to save quite a bit of money by running certain appliances only during off-peak hours, unplugging devices that draw unnecessary trickle current (Americans waste $5 billion a year on parasitic power), and investing in more energy-efficient appliances (like Energy Star). But what about the environment? Off-peak energy usage saves money, but in order to save the planet, we also need to curb our overall energy usage. As the tide turns from blissful ignorance to awareness of energy consequences, we should all be keeping an eye on the big picture, not just on our own checkbooks.

The second group of panelists (utility policy experts) agreed that consumer education and utility company outreach programs could and should be improved. People should know the distribution of power sources in their regional mix: what percentage of electricity comes from coal, nuclear, solar, etc. State and federal policies should require more transparency and disclosure in the utility industry, and not in the format of the pesky “fine print” disclosure documents we all receive from our credit card companies every time rates change. Consumer awareness of home energy performance should be the new normal, especially considering that a house is most consumers’ biggest investment. Panelist Andy Karsner, former Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, praised the Department of Energy for its research and development efforts, but criticized its implementation.

Throughout the discussions, the new stimulus package being signed by Obama that day was mentioned many times. Carol Browner, assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama Administration, made a brief appearance before the second panel discussion and spoke about using the stimulus package to invest in bigger, better, and smarter energy technologies.

Let’s hope that this new Smart Grid venture turns out to be just that.

Related link:

Tendril Residential Energy Ecosystem (TREE) article on CNET.com

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A President who's green

The best line I've heard yet this year about the new Obama administration is this: "It's not that we have a President who's black; it's that for the first time we have a President who's green." - by Van Jones, quoted by green blogger Joel Makower.

I'm too young to remember much about the Carter administration, but from what I hear, Jimmy was fairly green... what with his cardigan sweaters and putting solar panels on the White House roof and all.

But if the proof is in the political actions, then Obama seems to be making some progress: already he has taken action with the EPA and Department of Transportation to limit greenhouse gases from cars and trucks. And actions like this are coming none too soon for the leaders of Europe, who have been calling for the USA to get serious about reducing emissions and join the Kyoto Protocol for some time now.

Let's hope he keeps moving in the right direction.

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Merry Christmas and stuff

I love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday, hands down. What’s not to like about a whole month of getting together with friends you haven’t seen in awhile, sharing good food, decorating your house to look all twinkly, singing happy songs you’ve known all your life, and giving and receiving gifts?

And oh, the gifts! When I was a kid, I’d write to Santa asking for everything from a pony to Legos to new clothes, and as I’ve gotten older, my wish list hasn’t gotten any shorter… but this year it has changed a bit. I’m looking around my house and thinking, do I really need more stuff? I barely have enough room to contain all the stuff I already have! And what about the environmental implications of acquiring more stuff?

So I sat down and watched this “Story of Stuff” video. It’s only 20 minutes long, and quite thought-provoking. I’ve never been much for conspiracy theory, but the notion that Americans didn’t have such a love affair with shopping for new possessions until every household contained a television set that ran enticing advertisements designed to make us want bigger/faster/new and improved/MORE! is pretty compelling.

This holiday season, I challenge you to think about your stuff, and the stuff you give to others. Need some ideas for stuff-conscious holiday shopping?

Give an experience, like concert or sporting event tickets from Ticketmaster.

Give food, like fair trade chocolate from Ten Thousand Villages or a fruit basket from Harry and David.

Give online memberships, gift cards, or services, like CooksIllustrated magazine's online portal, Flickr photo site, Amazon gift cards.

Donate to a charity like Heifer International, Sustainable Harvest, Engineers Without Borders.

For more ideas, google "green christmas ideas"... there are lots of good websites out there. Get creative!

While I’m on a feel-good bent… the holidays also happen to be a popular time to volunteer! Did you know that Thanksgiving is THE most requested day to work at soup kitchens? A friend of mine who works with one in downtown Baltimore gently reminds people that while venues may be all booked up for volunteers on Thanksgiving, there are still plenty of time slots to fill on the other 364 days of the year! I read several studies that proved such tangible health benefits associated with volunteering as improved physical fitness, decreased rates of depression, and increased longevity, for starters. Read more at www.nationalservice.gov

Thank you, GreenBuild

At the risk of sounding like a bona fide hippie, this Thanksgiving I am grateful for the Earth. More specifically, I’m thankful for the green movement and all the people in it who are working to make our world a healthier place.

I just returned from the 2008 GreenBuild conference & expo in Boston, where some 29,000 green and sustainability professionals from around the world spent a week swapping stories and ideas. It was enlightening, inspiring, and tinged with the hope that at least the green building part of our economy is moving in the right direction.

The week started on a celebratory note with an opening speech by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He thanked the crowd, on behalf of the world (with a healthy dose of self-deprecation and glee) for the good work we are doing for the planet. He said plenty of other things too, but his words were so simple, genuine, and heartfelt that they left few dry eyes in a large conference hall.

By the end of the conference, attendees had seen and heard so much about the topics at hand that I think we were all refreshed to witness a closing session that was a departure from the usual talk of community development and building construction. World-renowned biologists E.O. Wilson and Janine Benyus spoke of biomimicry, loss of species diversity, and how their work in conservation biology can overlap with ours in the design world. The concept of approaching the natural world as students instead of as conquering colonists is revolutionary, considering human history, yet the idea of adapting principles that have evolved as elegant, natural solutions in the living world makes so much sense that it begs the question: why didn’t we think of this sooner? And, now that we know about it, why aren’t we adapting this approach on a larger scale? Wilson and Benyus presented the tools for us to do just that: the websites for the Encyclopedia of Life and www.AskNature.org represent a compendium of everything scientists know about the natural world, and a forum for exploring how its lessons can be adapted to the human world.

In between, there were speeches, presentations, forums, product demonstrations, question & answer sessions, and everything else you’d expect from a conference about green, building, and green building. At last year’s GreenBuild in Chicago, the loudest buzz was about BIM software and how it’s changing the climate of the architecture and engineering world by creating new opportunities for collaboration and software interoperability. However, this year I heard more about energy studies in high performance buildings and ecological footprint reporting (although, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that my job roles have changed from BIM software to carbon footprint study over the past year… so consider the source).

As with last year, I’ve returned home excited, inspired, full of new ideas and leads to research… and exhausted! This Thanksgiving, more than anything, I am grateful for a vacation.