A World Without Us?

In a wonderful thought experience, Alan Wiseman's new book A World Without Us poses the question, "What would the Earth be like if we just vanished?"

The idea poses a unique method to look at the issues surrounding environmentalism, especially in a reverse engineering kind of way.

Wiseman's site offers images of what this transition would look like.

Order Wiseman's book here from Amazon.

New Scientist Magazine touches on the same idea in their article:
"Imagine Earth without people "

The article begins:
Humans are undoubtedly the most dominant species the Earth has ever known. In just a few thousand years we have swallowed up more than a third of the planet's land for our cities, farmland and pastures. By some estimates, we now commandeer 40 per cent of all its productivity. And we're leaving quite a mess behind: ploughed-up prairies, razed forests, drained aquifers, nuclear waste, chemical pollution, invasive species, mass extinctions and now the looming spectre of climate change. If they could, the other species we share Earth with would surely vote us off the planet.

Now just suppose they got their wish.

Pretty freaky, huh? The article continues...
The same lack of maintenance will spell an early demise for buildings, roads, bridges and other structures. Though modern buildings are typically engineered to last 60 years, bridges 120 years and dams 250, these lifespans assume someone will keep them clean, fix minor leaks and correct problems with foundations. Without people to do these seemingly minor chores, things go downhill quickly.

The true costs of green building

From our friends at TriplePundit comes this story about the true costs of green building.

Cost the biggest misconception have about green building, and the one I seem to be fighting to change in peoples minds the most. I have said for years now there is no discernable difference in cost. In fact, we only encounter three items with any cost increase:
* solar panels: but have a 5-10 year payback.
* FSC Certified Wood costs 20% more than the bad wood, and with no return on its investment (other than being the right thing to do.
* Graywater systems: water is still so subsidized that the return on investment is LONG, but that will change as the future wars on water begin.

from Triple Pundit:
Well, according to WBSBD those tangible, financial costs may be over-stated by as much as 300%! That should be more than enough to get most construction projects thinking a little harder about engaging in at least some basic green practices.

The full report is available here. The bottom line suggest that the 17% premium originally suggested for "green" projects is really more like 5%.

Greenwashing Article in Natural Home

I recently wrote an article on greenwashing for Natural Home and it is on newsstands this month.

The printed version has a handy cut out card you can carry in your wallet to know what questions to ask when looking at products. A great list of certifications is also included.

Reusable vs. styrofoam cups?

How many uses does it take for a reusable cup to surpass a disposable paper or styrofoam cup in terms of energy usage?

You would need to use a single ceramic cup more than 1000 times in order for it to be more energy efficient than using the same number of dispoable styrofoam cups.

Of course, this doesn't take into account anything outside of the manufacturing or washing processes...like the cost of shipping all these foam cups and what happens to them after you're done with them.

Part of how sustainability is not really a balck and white issue... ever.

Full Story

The Pharos Lens: a lifecycle labelling tool

The Pharos Project is a graphical green labelling system. In the same spirit as the FDA's nutrition labels, Pharos would go on all building materials. Consumers can look at the label and get a visual indicator of the environmental impact.

A project of the good people at Healthy Building Network, Pharos is very well researched and thought out. The framework they created is very complex, but Lifecycle Assessment is a complex subject.

There are three main categories:
1. Environment-Resource
2. Social-Community
3. Health-Pollution

which are then broken down into specific indicators:

1. Environment-Resource
Water: Net Use
Energy: Embodied
Energy: Renewable
Materials: Renewable

2. Social-Community
User Exposures
Solid Waste
Water Quality
Air Quality
Climate Change
Toxic Releases

3. Health-Pollution
Occupational Safety
Consumer Safety
Fair Compensation
Equality
Community Contributions
Corporate Practices

For an explanation of how the label works, go here for the full label or here for the categories.

Pharos is not the first rating system I have seen to use a graphical display. Reveal, offers a cleaner and numeric system to rate the greeness of materials. I like both of these, but the real test is how normal consumers will react. Which would you use?