A Sustainable Way of Life Becomes the Curriculum! Part 3
By Brian Skeele, on May 11th, 2011
Imagine. An elementary school and the surrounding neighborhoods joining together to become a sustainable community with the school at its heart. Part 3
Working Together to Get to a Zero Carbon Emissions Lifestyle
The “Gone Green” Neighborhood Renovation program continues to transform energy inefficient homes into zero emission homes.
The “Whole Home Audit” documents the existing water and energy consumption of each home as well as the homeowner’s financial status and comes up with a comprehensive plan that works for the owners as well as the surrounding neighbors. Two man teams of students conduct home surveys and get amazing hands on experience of the challenges residents face. Working with an architect mentor, the homeowners and the student teams, they come up with three different options, which eventually get turned into the “Gone Green Action Plan”.
Single-story homes often have been granted zoning variances to allow the neighborhood to go mixed use. Commercial and residential additions and resulting revenue streams are tailored to fit, ensuring a retirement plan that gives great comfort to each household. The local residents not only get to retire in familiar surroundings, but in many cases, their home’s equity is converted into their retirement funds and the neighborhood gets a mixed-use community. The resulting walkable pedestrian-friendly streets are alive and safe with neighbors out and about. Kids bicycle everywhere and families enjoy the affordability of viable one-car families. Mass transit, the train and car-share services are affordably available to all, and based on usage, are highly successful.
The “Gone Green” program has also evolved into a local bank… READ MORE >>
Peak Oil Production…OMG
By Brian Skeele, on April 1st, 2011
Because they only made so many old, raggedy dinosaurs
From the chart on the right, you can see the predicted world peak oil production... looks like 2012-13 to me. Notice how the line heads south in rapid order; Down 25% by 2020… that is incredible!!!
I can understand why oil companies want to drill everywhere; Artic Circle, way off shore, Tar Sands of Alberta. Lord Have Mercy! we are gonna be short on supply!
In a paper he presented to the American Petroleum Institute in 1956, American geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted that production of oil from conventional sources would peak in the continental US around 1965-1970. America’s oil production peaked in 1972, as I recall. READ MORE >>
Cap & Trade-smoke and mirrors?
By Brian Skeele, on March 19th, 2011
I’ve read a couple of articles about cap and trade, and the authors seem to think it’s bogus. Way too complicated. A boondoggle to make the same clever people who brought us the foreclosure bummer even richer.
Here’s Anne Leonard’s take on it.
The idea I like is to tax carbon, and lift taxes on income. In this way, folks will be encouraged to take their savings and invest in renewable energy. I cannot believe how happy newspaper stories report on increase fossil fuel production, or the good news about nuclear energy…What planet are these people living on???… READ MORE >>
WANTED: Killer Modeling Tool to Sell Sustainable Urban Villages! Part 3
By Brian Skeele, on March 16th, 2011
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — New construction of U.S. housing units plunged in February, erasing a sharp gain in January and coming close to an all-time-low level. March 16,2011
Bed ZED is different. We’re not in Suburbia anymore, Todo!
If we want to revitalize the US Economy, we have to do things differently.…
If we work with the 1/3 of the Boomers, and 88% of the Millennials that want to move into vibrant, alive, pedestrian friendly walkable neighborhoods, we can resurrect the construction industry and send us on a path to a prosperous, positive future! What is required is using a whole systems approach and designing for an exponentially more efficient way of life… READ MORE >>