2nd Green Revolution

Earlier this month, 2nd Green Revolution posted a series of stories about companies in an around Portland, Oregon that use The Natural Step philosophy in their business decisions. All of the companies profiled, including the architectural firm and public utility below, were featured on the documentary, Passion for Sustainability. Just like the companies discussed earlier, Carleton Hart Architects and the Tualatin Valley Water District have taken a big picture view of their work and subsequently developed structures that work in concert with the natural surroundings.

Carleton Hart Architects work to build green homes for low-income families. They take a similar approach to New Urbanism, by creating meaningful neighborhoods, but take the next step, by considering the lay of the land. In their Olson Woods project, this meant working around stands of trees and a pre-existing wetland. Similar to The Kentlands neighborhood, all of the homes have front porches, which encourage people to congregate and interact with each other. Click here for a quicktime video from the documentary.

Water conservation is a major issue, even in places like Portland, due to the inability to store all of the water that falls throughout the year. Just recently, Colorado passed state laws that allowed for the retention of rainwater. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, June 26th, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” (H.R. 2998). Though far from becoming law, the 219-212 vote in favor is the first step toward placing a cap on the amount of green house gases industry and businesses can emit. It also sets up a market allowing entities that pollute less to sell their carbon credits to businesses that pollute more. It is a major, if imperfect, first step towards moving America in the direction of a clean energy future. The bill now moves to the Senate, where it faces an even tougher path to becoming law and may not even come up for vote before the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Without at least 60 votes in favor of the legislation, the bill will surely face a filibuster and may never come to vote. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, June 22nd served as the opening of the National Association of Independent Schools’ (NAIS) Institute for Leadership in Sustainability Conference at Woodward Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. Many of the points made at the conference could help any organization or institution develop a sustainability action plan. Stated goals and outcomes of the conference are to:

• Develop a practical sustainability action plan
• Engage in critical thinking and learning about sustainability
• Learn from experts and colleagues about core sustainability issues, resources, and strategies;
• Become inspired and a stronger advocate for sustainability
• Build a personal library of sustainability how-to resources

On Monday, NAIS’s Vice President for Government and Community Relations, Jefferson Burnett, and ILS leader Wynn Calder laid the foundation of the conference by providing a template for schools to develop a sustainability action plan. Many of the participants were looking at behavioral changes, moving past the “low-hanging fruit” of energy conservation. One question that encapsulated the debate was, “How to make sustainability systemic?” Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past week, 2nd Green Revolution has posted several pieces relating to the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and their Institute for Leadership in Sustainability (ILS). ILS, however, represents only one element of NAIS’s sustainability outreach. On their website NAIS has outlined a five-point sustainability philosophy, shown below:

1. Financial Sustainability: becoming more efficient and less costly
2. Environmental Sustainability: incorporating sustainability practices into teaching and practice; becoming more green and less wasteful
3. Global Sustainability: becoming more networked internationally and less parochial in outlook
4. Programmatic Sustainability: becoming more focused on the skills and values that the marketplace of the 21st Century will seek and reward, and less narrowly isolated in a traditional disciplines approach to teaching and learning
5. Demographic Sustainability: becoming more inclusive and representative of the school-age population and less unapproachable financially and socially

Each of these five themes speaks to the general concept of sustainability from a different vantage point, yet all are inextricably linked. Without becoming fiscally responsible, independent schools struggle to survive and cannot maintain broad enough support from their constituencies. Schools across the country have shut down during the economic downturn. Perhaps they would find themselves in such straits regardless, but schools must increase efficiency and decrease cost in order to appeal to a wider audience.

This last point in particular speaks to the importance of both NAIS’s demographic and global sustainability themes. Read the rest of this entry »

• 323,439 kilowatt hours are wasted every minute by inefficient home energy use. (IBM)
• With little or no intelligence to balance loads or monitor power flows, enough electricity is lost annually to power India, Germany and Canada for an entire year, according to IBM.
• If the U.S. grid alone were just 5% more efficient, it would be like permanently eliminating the fuel and greenhouse gas emissions from 53 million cars. [Reference: IBM]
• High Speed Rail (HSR): There’s a lot of talk about developing a HSR system in the U.S. With U.S. trains considered “high speed” while running at 110mph, other countries are already way ahead. As Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell remarked at a Senate hearing this week:”The French TGV has been up and running since 1981 and now achieves speeds of 199mph. The Japanese Shinkansen was inaugurated in 1964, at a speed of 130 mph, and is now up to 186mph. The Beijing-Tianjin train runs up to 217mph; the Shanghai maglev train achieves speeds up to an incredible 268mph.
• The United Nations reports that U.S. grocers and consumers throw out $48 billion (US) worth of food annually.

- Justin Manger

Aiming to show the world that existing cars can be made more efficient with current technology, musician Neil Young is now throwing his name, money, and popularity behind a retro-fitted ‘59 Ford gas-guzzler that he claims gets around 100 miles per gallon. From the LincVolt website, “LincVolt is a 2.5 ton Lincoln Continental Mk IV convertible manufactured by Ford motors in 1959. At 19.5 feet long, it was the longest car of its era. A new series-hybrid system for powering the car is in the final stages of tuning and development.” A detailed article can be found here.   Read the rest of this entry »

Two months ago 2nd Green Revolution posted a picture of the world for Earth Day that appeared to be composed of satellite images from NASA. A representative from The United Nations contacted us to find out about the picture ahead of their photo contest, “Picture This: Caring for the Earth.” The contest, which began on the 18th of June and runs through midnight on August 31st (Eastern Standard Time) is calling for “positive images documenting ordinary people on the African continent and their work to mitigate or prevent the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation.” The competition, which is open to either professionals or amateurs, calls for submissions of a single photo or a photo essay, but not both. There are a number of rules to be aware of:

• It is open to all photographers, with no restrictions based on age, gender or nationality, however, participants must either be a citizen of an African country or have lived in an African country for at least the past 12 months (up until August 2009).
• The first prize in each of the four categories (professional single photos, amateur single photos, professional photo essays, and amateur photo essays) will be the latest Olympus cameras and related camera equipment. The second and third prizes will also be Olympus cameras.
• Entry is free
• Single photo submissions: contestants may submit up to five different photos.
• Photo essays should consist of at least four and no more than 10 photos.

Please refer to the rules and disclaimers for further information. Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Department of Energy announced yesterday that Ford Motor Company, Nissan Motors, and Tesla Motors will be getting the first three of many loans to be used for advanced technology automobiles. According to the press release, the “$8 billion in conditional loan commitments for the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies that will create thousands of green jobs while helping reduce the nation’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil.”

Of the $8 billion total, $5.9 billion will go to Ford Motor Company to “transform factories across Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio to produce 13 more fuel efficient models.” Nissan North America, Inc. will get $1.6 billion in order to retool their Smyrna, Tennessee factory to build advanced electric automobiles as well as to build an advanced battery manufacturing facility. $465 million will go to Tesla Motors to manufacture electric drive trains and electric vehicles in California. Tesla, the much hyped about all-electric car manufacturer backed by Silicon Valley investor Elon Musk, has been noted for producing all-electric vehicles that are high quality, fast, and responsive cars with good range. The problem is the sticker price. The Tesla Roadster sells for over $100,000. Their soon to be produced Model S Sedan will sell for around $50,000 after a $7,500 federal tax rebate, still leaving it out of reach for most Americans. The government loan may help Tesla ramp up to mass production, thereby significantly cutting prices even further. This is another step on the way to producing affordable all-electric cars that the public wants to buy. As Elon Musk writes in a recent blog post, he understands the need for affordable electric cars but realizes achieving it won’t be easy: Read the rest of this entry »

The past few days 2nd Green Revolution has written about The Natural Step and companies in Oregon that are working to implement this sustainable approach to business. In today’s post we are highlighting a few more businesses and the steps they are taking to be more in line with natural systems. They include a cleaning company, an auto repair shop, and a pizza delivery place. On first glance, companies in this line of work would seem to have a difficult time running a sustainable business, but as seen in the documentary, Passion for Sustainability, they take into account numerous factors in their everyday decision making. All of this leads to more sustainably managed businesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Starting Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, Woodward Academy began hosting the National Association of Independent School’s (NAIS) fifth annual Institute for Leadership in Sustainability (ILS). 2nd Green Revolution will attend the conference and report back on news and ideas being shared. The conference will feature speakers across the education spectrum. One of the presenters will be Professor Peggy Barlett of Emory University, mentioned in an earlier post for her role in spearheading the sustainability initiative at Emory University, also in Atlanta. It will run until midday Thursday and bring together school community members from as far as the Hawaiian Islands, as well as international guests from Frankfurt, Germany.

Wynn Calder, president of Sustainable Schools, LLC out of Washington DC, is the event organizer. In an email to participants, Mr. Calder said that the conference “will have an inspiring mix of general sessions run by experts in the field, elective sessions run by our core faculty members, and time with colleagues to share ideas, experience, and advice.” Read the rest of this entry »