Search Results for: green building

Copenhagen: Not Enough…Tuvalu Gone, But Still Hope for NYC

16 years ago susan 4 Comments

Copenhagen moved the process forward. Like the Kyoto Accord when it was first agreed to in 1997, it is not yet a legally binding treaty.

The Kyoto accord only became legally binding in 2005, and only then because that was when Russia signed the agreement. The protocol had to be ratified by enough nations to account for at least 55% of greenhouse gas emissions in order to become a valid, binding treaty, and once Russia signed, that threshold was reached. And really it took from 1992, when the Rio agreement focused attention on the problem; till 2005 for it to become legal and binding. These things take time.

Enwave Cools Downtown Toronto Elegantly, Thanks to Accident of History

16 years ago susan 0 Comments

it is a very fortunate accident of history that water made for such easy hauling. Early roads got muddy and it was easier to move stuff along waterways. As a result many big cities like New York City and Hong Kong and Toronto are now ideally situated to use that cold water nearby for carbon-neutral district air conditioning.

These cities now are virtually artificial cliffs, right at waters edge, right where they need to be to take advantage of a very simple concept. Cold water from the depths can be piped very efficiently up through these “cliffs” at water’s edge to cool the towers of downtown office buildings.

Canadian Company Enwave leverages this difference between the cold ocean depths and warm surface temperatures – using lake water to cool downtown Toronto office buildings.

Rooftop Solar = 4% of Sonoma County’s Power!

16 years ago susan 22 Comments

This is staggering. In just over six months; Sonoma County’s Energy Independence Program has received 375 applications for more than $17 million worth of solar loans. Since Sonoma County went live with its PACE model of solar funding in March; applications have been pouring in daily, and the county intends to make loans indefinitely by packaging them as bonds.

“There is no end in sight,” said Amy Bolten, a county spokeswoman. “We think our program is just getting going.” And this is in addition to the county’s already very high solar adoption:

Eco-Artist Creates 'Puff' Device to Monitor Car Emissions

16 years ago Michael Ricciardi 0 Comments

Puff (a car exhaust monitoring device) is attached near the exhaust pipe of your vehicle. Its color changes dynamically, visualizing the amount of pollution your car is producing. Green indicates the lowest rate of pollution, red the highest. Karolina Sobecka, the artist/designer of Puff, explains: In this project, design is used as a strategy to explore the overlap between the material and immaterial worlds and spur discussion on the hidden social and psychological mechanisms behind the cultural use of accessories as ‘objects to think with’…Amateur Human (the design project’s official name) focuses on the environmental issues since we all are inadvertently becoming more eco-conscious whether we want to or not, and these issues seem both overwhelming and ambiguous.