Environmentalist Stages of Loss

In a meeting today discussing what my students go through when taking my class, I jokingly referred to it as paralleling the traditional stages of loss that mourners often feel.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it to be true.

STAGES OF LOSS:
Denial
Bargaining
Anger
Despair
Acceptance

This is the perfect metaphor for what the students go through when studying Sustainable Design.

STAGES OF LOSS:
Denial: "Yeah, right! That can't be true!"
Bargaining: "...but doesn't it cost more?"
Anger: "...how can the government allow this to happen?!"
Despair: "...so, what's the point? Everything is toxic."
Acceptance: "...now I see what I can do."

In truth, accepting the inevitable conclusion about our environment is a type of mourning. Is this the death of our innocence?

Calculate

The Miles per Dollar Calculator takes the current gas price and your car's miles per gallon, then gives you an estimate of the distance you can drive for a dollar (i.e., your miles per dollar).

Of course it's no revelation that you can calculate how far you can drive for a dollar. That said, calculating your MP$ is an interesting way to measure the approximate cost of any trip you take, and it may make you think twice about the worth and necessity of taking your car with you for every little errand. Knowing your car's MP$ might help you save money on gas.

via Lifehacker

What price freedom?

The National Priorities Project has a real eye-opening website that calculates the cost of the War in Iraq and them compares it to what we could do with that money.

As a resident of California, here’s what they say we could be doing:

Taxpayers in California will pay $40.3 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

* 16,733,296 People with Health Care or
* 627,551 Elementary School Teachers or
* 4,767,634 Head Start Places for Children or
* 25,168,314 Children with Health Care or
* 235,246 Affordable Housing Units or
* 4,390 New Elementary Schools or
* 7,685,109 Scholarships for University Students or
* 616,017 Music and Arts Teachers or
* 741,482 Public Safety Officers or
* 117,140,845 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
* 601,790 Port Container Inspectors

Go check out what the trade-offs are for your state..

Bush: Desparate Soundbites

Not to get too political, but this Daily Show clip is self-explanatory.

Bush has a revelation, "Killing innocent people is bad."

But then:
BUSH: "...the terrorists attacked us and killed 3000 of our citizens..."
REPORTER: "What does Iraq have to do with 9/11?"
BUSH: "Nothing!!"

Watch:

Russ Lovegrove: Organic Form Designer

The incredible Ted Conference is an annual meeting of the global brain trust. They now have samples of some of the lectures given online. Here is one of them.

Ross Lovegrove is an industrial designer, best known for his work on the Sony Walkman and Apple iMac. In this highly visual presentation, he presents his recent work—from furniture to water bottles—which is organic in form and inspired by nature.

Watch his lecture

Why is it so dead around here? The Burning Man Lull.

My calendar is typically chock full of events, meetings, lectures, art openings and the like. But I noticed a rather obvious hole in the calendar around the dates of August 27th through to around September 5th or so.

Was I not in the loop?! Did I miss some event announcements?

It only took a minute to realize what happened. Burning Man, the cultural art/music/love fest taking place in Black Rock, Nevada is about to begin. Started in 1986, BM now has an economic effect here in San Francisco: everyone seemingly vanishes for a couple of weeks.

This lull effect becomes more and more noticeable each year. For those of you who have never heard of it, well, you really must be under a rock! Even my parents have heard of it (the barometer for measuring the ubiquity of anything).

Be sure to take a look at their Environmental Statement and look at some great images here.

I even went back in 1997, but I do not like the heat (or the burning playa dust that gets everywhere.)
But I am not complaining: I love San Francisco when it is empty!

BURNING MAN GOES GREEN

FLASH: Flatulent Gophers to Blame for Global Warming

WATCH VIDEO

Werbach does Wal-Mart?

Kudos to both Adam Werbach and Hunter Lovins & Paul Shelton for their recent actions in working with Wal-Mart.

Werbach for not backing down to the corporate evil empire with his recommendations for green power, carbon offsets and zero waste policies. Can you imagine a day when there will be no dumpsters or landfill waste for Wal-Mart? I can. (I was not able to find accurate figures on the amount of landfill waste Wal-Mart is currently responsible for generating...)
Note: organicARCHITECT sponsored Werbach for his landmark Death of Environmentalism speech at The Commonwealth Club in December 2004.

Lovins & Sheldon for initially rejecting Wal-Mart in the first place because they "didn't believe the corporation was serious. Their whole business model is basically parasitic." Can you blame them?
Note: Lovins and Sheldon also run the wonderful Presidio Green MBA School of Business.

After several lame, half-hearted attempts to green up their image, Wal-Mart does not have a great record. I will admit, though, that these recent activities do seem more focused and serious. Wal-Mart has become the largest purchaser of organic cotton in the world. Wal-Mart has become the biggest vendor of organic milk, in a market where demand is already 20 percent higher than supply.

But can anything done with the scale they are doing things be good in the end?

"The worst treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason..."
- t.s. eliot

Read the story in the San Francisco Bay Guardian

Makower interviewed in TreeHugger

Joel Makower is a bit of a rareity in sustainability: he is the real deal. An expert in green business, clean energy and climate change, he is a professional walking advisory board. He is the executive editor of GreenBiz.com and its sister sites, ClimateBiz.comLINK and GreenerBuildings.com, where I write my monthly column.

His blog is a regular visit for me, as it is the first place to find the most cutting edge information on green business.

TreeHugger interviews him, asking about eco-myths, electric cars and a green economy:

The TH Interview: Joel Makower on the Green Economy, Electric Sports Cars, and the World’s Biggest Eco-Myth

August Column at GreenerBuildings.com

We had some interesting questions for this month's "Ask the Green Architect" column:

I saw your recent article in the September 2006 issue of Dwell on "Flooring with a Conscience." However, it only addressed wood flooring options. What environmental suggestions do you have for carpeting?

What are some examples of how building green can actually save you money?

What are some rules of thumb for selecting green systems in buildings?

Give your home an energy audit

The Home Energy Saver is a free home energy auditing tool designed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab.

Enter your zip code and fill out some questions about your home, and the Home Energy Saver provides a list of measures you can take to cut down your energy costs.

Home Energy Saver (U.S. Department of Energy)

What Wright taught us. Are we listening?

You Can Own An American Home
A Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition makes us ask: What can we learn from Wright's ideas, and are we paying attention?

The recently opened "Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful" exhibition at Boise Art Museum (BAM) contains over 100 pieces--including furniture, fixtures, magazines, textiles, photos and rarely exhibited original drawings--organized around the theme of the "house beautiful" (Wright published a book by that title in 1897), or the idea that an interior's style improved the life of its inhabitants.



Full Story

Organic Paper Sculptures

22 year old British artist/designer, Richard Sweeny, creates incredible paper sculptures from folded paper. Richard says, “I'm highly influenced by natural form; structures in nature are very efficient, the maximum is achieved using the least material and energy possible. Growth patterns produce forms that appear very complex, yet have a basic underlying principle.”

via Inhabit

more images on Flikr

Richard Sweeny Website

PreFab Reality Check

As a huge fan of the new wave of PreFab, my head has filled with visions of finding an affordable housing solution here in San Francisco. Like most people, we are hopeful for the promise that PreFab offers. Realistically, however, none of the major players in the new green PreFab market have yet had the economies of scale needed in order to bring the costs down to where they should be. As Michelle Kaufmann, architect of the brilliant GlideHouse said to me, "We are not yet producing houses the way we produce cars, at 4000 units a day." (paraphrasing) That is ultimately the promise and exciting part of PreFab - high end design at mass production prices.

Another visionary and well executed green PreFab company, LivingHomes headed by the evangelistic Steve Glenn has been getting some great press recently, especially now that their gorgeous model home is now complete. Going beyond the hype and marketing press releases, it was nice to see this article discuss some of the realities of PreFab.

One of the more sharp tongued excerpts:
In the regions where the market is expensive enough to make prefab such an enticing option - LA, the Bay Area, Seattle, Boston or Washington, D.C., for example - most of the remaining vacant lots are steep or inaccessible... On a lot like that, a pricey foundation, retaining walls or other site work is often required, cutting into the potential savings that draw customers to modular design in the first place.

Having had numerous discussions with both Steve Glenn and Michelle Kaufmann, I have full faith in their vision - it is just too attractive not to. Hopefully, this initial hurdle and issue of SCALE can be overcome quickly. There is no reason they could not bring the costs for each of their beautiful designs in under $100/square foot.

In a place like San Francisco, with ranges of $300-500/square foot, these PreFab's could offer some exciting alternatives.

Make your own Solar Power

For only $350 you too can make your own solar power for a specific appliance or device in your home or office.

Full Post

Flooring with a Conscience

Dwell Magazine interviewed me for a story on sustainable wood flooring. It is in this months issue (September 2006) available today on newsstands.

Initially, I was very excited about the chance to show off some gorgeous materials that also happen to be green. After all, green materials are some of the most exciting and innovative design ideas you have seen in years. For example, Smith & Fong's gorgeous Neopolitan bamboo is a modern and striking example of this. The aged, reclaimed woods by EcoTimber also show the value in keeping old wood, with all of it's history, scars and charm.

Then when I saw the cover and the headline, "Green Goes Mainstream," I realized how much more important the cover is. More people will see the cover than will ever read my story on green flooring. In the end, for a magazine with the reach and influence of Dwell to annouce that green is now mainstream, will do so much more good than I ever could have imagined!

The good folks at Dwell were nice enough to quote me on the spine and on the website (above). After all, in the future ALL buildings will be green. This is inevitable!