Blog Posts By Month: January, 2010
Tomorrow morning we're headed to Urban Corps San Diego's headquarters on Jefferson St to install their living herb wall, the newest addition to their Recycling Education & Community Outreach (ECO) Center! Although we usually grow in the plants and herbs on site and then install them, this time, we'll be planting up the walls and let the Urban Corps team monitor the grow-in period, to help provide a hands-on learning space for urban gardening and drought tolerant landscaping. Corpsmembers, students, community and business members alike will have the opportunity to learn about water conservation, healthy eating, and growing their own food in an urban environment.
All media members are welcome to this event. Check out our website for the media advisory, here.
See you tomorrow!
All media members are welcome to this event. Check out our website for the media advisory, here.
See you tomorrow!
As always, a couple of very busy weeks.
On Thursday the 14th, we submitted our largest bid to date for a green roof - nearly one and a half million dollars. The new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) building in La Jolla has a 27,000 sq ft green roof of varying depths and plant patterns designed by Jeffery Bruce and Associates of Kansas City. Jeff is the current president of the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities organization. Keep your fingers crossed!
Last week we participated in the Balboa Park Sustainability workshop and set up a booth at the lunchtime trade fair. Lisa Michaels, our new "star" salesperson joined me and did an outstanding job doing the trade show dance. We saw many old friends in attendance and even made a few new ones.
Yesterday I spoke at Cuyamaca College's faculty enrichment program with an emphasis on sustainability. I was able to condense into 15 minutes what normally takes me 3 hours to present. I believe we will be working with the college in developing a plan for a green roof in the Water Conservation Garden.
When I returned from the Cuyamaca program, I met with representatives from Point Loma Nazarene College and gave them a tour of our green roof and living wall systems demonstration, while it rained profusely. That was a first - I've never been on top of our green roof in a rain storm. I doubt I would do it again but they were here to see what is possible as we put together plans for a green roof on campus. They have a horticultural department that we will incorporate to grow the native plants we will be installing later this year in the fall.
And to wrap up our day, Pari Sanati nearly single handedly submitted a major bid for the green roof on the new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. Designed by RoofScapes Inc., we have a very good chance of winning this project and it will be our first working with the Roofscapes crew. We are even planning on bringing in Greg Raymond from EcoGardens in Chicago. He is a member of the network and has extensive experience with large green roof projects.
On Thursday the 14th, we submitted our largest bid to date for a green roof - nearly one and a half million dollars. The new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) building in La Jolla has a 27,000 sq ft green roof of varying depths and plant patterns designed by Jeffery Bruce and Associates of Kansas City. Jeff is the current president of the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities organization. Keep your fingers crossed!
Last week we participated in the Balboa Park Sustainability workshop and set up a booth at the lunchtime trade fair. Lisa Michaels, our new "star" salesperson joined me and did an outstanding job doing the trade show dance. We saw many old friends in attendance and even made a few new ones.
Yesterday I spoke at Cuyamaca College's faculty enrichment program with an emphasis on sustainability. I was able to condense into 15 minutes what normally takes me 3 hours to present. I believe we will be working with the college in developing a plan for a green roof in the Water Conservation Garden.
When I returned from the Cuyamaca program, I met with representatives from Point Loma Nazarene College and gave them a tour of our green roof and living wall systems demonstration, while it rained profusely. That was a first - I've never been on top of our green roof in a rain storm. I doubt I would do it again but they were here to see what is possible as we put together plans for a green roof on campus. They have a horticultural department that we will incorporate to grow the native plants we will be installing later this year in the fall.
And to wrap up our day, Pari Sanati nearly single handedly submitted a major bid for the green roof on the new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. Designed by RoofScapes Inc., we have a very good chance of winning this project and it will be our first working with the Roofscapes crew. We are even planning on bringing in Greg Raymond from EcoGardens in Chicago. He is a member of the network and has extensive experience with large green roof projects.
Here's a snippet of Caron Golden's blog article on the herb wall that we're currently growing for Mario Batali's Pizzeria Mozza in Hollywood! Click HERE for the full text and pictures. Thanks Caron!!!!
The kitchen garden. It's something those of us who cook at home hope to have just outside our kitchen door, accessible for quickly snipping a few sprigs of oregano, picking some lettuce leaves, or pulling a few radishes. But if you live in a condo or apartment you're probably limited to a small balcony or terrace. And, if you're a chef in the city, you may not even have that surrounding your restaurant.
Enter Jim Mumford, owner of the San Diego-based plant company Good Earth, and his edible walls, an idea so cool in concept that chef Mario Batali is his first restaurant customer. According to Mumford, Batali wanted a roof garden at his restaurants Osteria Mozza and Pizzaria Mozza in Los Angeles, but couldn't get it to work with the building specs. So, if he couldn't go horizontal, how about vertical? After doing some research on his own, he found Mumford, who has been playing with the concept with several types of materials and styles.
The kitchen garden. It's something those of us who cook at home hope to have just outside our kitchen door, accessible for quickly snipping a few sprigs of oregano, picking some lettuce leaves, or pulling a few radishes. But if you live in a condo or apartment you're probably limited to a small balcony or terrace. And, if you're a chef in the city, you may not even have that surrounding your restaurant.
Enter Jim Mumford, owner of the San Diego-based plant company Good Earth, and his edible walls, an idea so cool in concept that chef Mario Batali is his first restaurant customer. According to Mumford, Batali wanted a roof garden at his restaurants Osteria Mozza and Pizzaria Mozza in Los Angeles, but couldn't get it to work with the building specs. So, if he couldn't go horizontal, how about vertical? After doing some research on his own, he found Mumford, who has been playing with the concept with several types of materials and styles.
'Green roofs' prove even more effective in fighting global warming than first thought
2010-01-08 09:58:23
By Jeff Salton
01:30 September 24, 2009 PDT
You only have to watch a TV show in which the camera flies over any major city to realize the numbers of ugly, stark, gray, flat roofs that occupy millions of square feet but contribute nothing to the environment. It's almost an 'out of sight, out of mind' attitude we have with these unoccupied spaces. But what if we could turn these wasted environments into something beneficial to the environment, while at the same time beautifying the tops of our tall buildings and skyscrapers? 'Green roofs'- urban rooftops covered with plants - are gaining in popularity to help buildings reduce their reliance on air conditioning, and now scientists in Michigan are reporting they could also help fight global warming by eliminating carbon dioxide in cities, more effectively than was first thought.
Previous studies have indicated that painting roofs white can be a low tech way to reduce global warming by reflecting the sun's rays back into space and Prof Steven Chu, the U.S. Energy Secretary, has been heralding the idea.
Now researchers have attempted to quantify the benefits of covering urban rooftops with plants. The scientists found that replacing traditional roofing materials with 'green' in an urban area the size of Detroit with a population of about one-million, would be equivalent to eliminating a year's worth of carbon dioxide emitted by 10,000 mid-sized SUVs and trucks. Their study is the first to examine the ability of green roofs to sequester carbon that may impact climate change and the findings are scheduled to appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Multi-functional
While many researchers understood that green roofs were multi-functional because of their ability to reduce heating and air conditioning costs, detain stormwater and absorb carbon dioxide, it wasn't until Kristin Getter and his colleagues' new study that anyone knew how big a positive impact green roofs could have on reducing green house gases, which contribute to global warming.
The scientists measured carbon levels in plant and soil samples collected from 13 green roofs in Michigan and Maryland over a two-year period and found that green roofing an urban area of about one million people would capture more than 55,000 tons of carbon, or the same effect as removing more than 10,000 mid-sized SUVs or trucks off the road a year.
Imagine how much more carbon dioxide could be removed if urban environmentalists and town planners incorporated vertical landscaping into their the cities, like we highlighted recently in Gizmag.
(Check out the actual article here!)
01:30 September 24, 2009 PDT
You only have to watch a TV show in which the camera flies over any major city to realize the numbers of ugly, stark, gray, flat roofs that occupy millions of square feet but contribute nothing to the environment. It's almost an 'out of sight, out of mind' attitude we have with these unoccupied spaces. But what if we could turn these wasted environments into something beneficial to the environment, while at the same time beautifying the tops of our tall buildings and skyscrapers? 'Green roofs'- urban rooftops covered with plants - are gaining in popularity to help buildings reduce their reliance on air conditioning, and now scientists in Michigan are reporting they could also help fight global warming by eliminating carbon dioxide in cities, more effectively than was first thought.
Previous studies have indicated that painting roofs white can be a low tech way to reduce global warming by reflecting the sun's rays back into space and Prof Steven Chu, the U.S. Energy Secretary, has been heralding the idea.
Now researchers have attempted to quantify the benefits of covering urban rooftops with plants. The scientists found that replacing traditional roofing materials with 'green' in an urban area the size of Detroit with a population of about one-million, would be equivalent to eliminating a year's worth of carbon dioxide emitted by 10,000 mid-sized SUVs and trucks. Their study is the first to examine the ability of green roofs to sequester carbon that may impact climate change and the findings are scheduled to appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Multi-functional
While many researchers understood that green roofs were multi-functional because of their ability to reduce heating and air conditioning costs, detain stormwater and absorb carbon dioxide, it wasn't until Kristin Getter and his colleagues' new study that anyone knew how big a positive impact green roofs could have on reducing green house gases, which contribute to global warming.
The scientists measured carbon levels in plant and soil samples collected from 13 green roofs in Michigan and Maryland over a two-year period and found that green roofing an urban area of about one million people would capture more than 55,000 tons of carbon, or the same effect as removing more than 10,000 mid-sized SUVs or trucks off the road a year.
Imagine how much more carbon dioxide could be removed if urban environmentalists and town planners incorporated vertical landscaping into their the cities, like we highlighted recently in Gizmag.
(Check out the actual article here!)
Okay, okay. It was a little tougher than we thought it was going to be! Here are the answers....how did YOU do?
1. According to a 2004 study, cited in an article about noted Berkeley engineering professor Arvad Horpath, reading the NYT wirelessly consumes 140 times less CO2 and 26 to 67 times less water. Which explains why we didn't print these answers upside down. What would the answer be if "PDA" were changed to "desktop computer?"
2. According to the Yale Sustainability Blog, 2 (high-density polyethylene), 4 (low density polyethylene) and 5 (polypropylene) are re-usable.
3. Trick question! According to Green Car Journal, the green car of 2009 was the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, a clean diesel that achieves estimated highway fuel economy of 41 mpg. The green car of 2010, just announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show, is the Audi A3 TDI, that gets 42 miles per gallon.
4. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, CFC-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane) are the six primary sources of greenhouse gases.
5. According to the Green Bride Guide, one wedding generates produces 63 tons of CO2 and 400-600 pounds of trash - and there are 2.5 million weddings every year in this $60 billion industry.
6. From the coolrain44 blog:
# 1 -> PET ... polyethlyene terephthalate
# 2 -> HDPE ... high-density polyethylene
# 3 -> PVC ... polyvinyl chloride
# 4 -> LDPE ... low-density polyethylene?
# 5 -> PP ... polypropylene?
# 6 -> PS/PS-E ... polystyrene / expanded polystyrene
# 7 -> OTHER ... resins or multi-materials
7. Between 39 and 43 percent of all energy is used to heat, cool, ventilate or illuminate buildings in the U.S., depending on whose numbers you follow. Either way, it explains why upgrading the building envelope, insulation and systems of existing buildings is a high priority of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
8. Well this one should be easy, for those familiar with Sustainable Minds LCA software: it means life cycle assessment, and LCA is the best way to determine the environmental sustainability of a product. Because LCA looks at all stages of a product's life cycle, including 'end of life', you can determine how meaningful it is to recycle products or parts after their useful lifetime, and to specify recycled materials in the manufacturing process.
9. According to the Department of Energy, 90% of the energy in a conventional top-load washing machine is used to heat the water. That's why many environmentally-conscious homeowners simply wash their clothes in cold water.
10. Chocolate - well, actually, waste fat from chocolate factories - was used to power the Formula 3 car, built at the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center in Warwick, Britain. Demonstrating biofuels -- the waste chocolate comes from Cadbury's nearby plant, according to the New York Times - the car's body is constructed from recycled bottles, carbon fiber and soybean oil.
11. The 2009 Solar Decathlon was held Oct. 9-18 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and challenged 20 student teams to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. First Place went to Technische Universitat Darmstadt, the team that also won at the last Solar Decathlon, in 2007.
This blog post originally appeared on SustainableMinds.com, a greener product design software and information company bringing environmental sustainability to mainstream product design.
1. According to a 2004 study, cited in an article about noted Berkeley engineering professor Arvad Horpath, reading the NYT wirelessly consumes 140 times less CO2 and 26 to 67 times less water. Which explains why we didn't print these answers upside down. What would the answer be if "PDA" were changed to "desktop computer?"
2. According to the Yale Sustainability Blog, 2 (high-density polyethylene), 4 (low density polyethylene) and 5 (polypropylene) are re-usable.
3. Trick question! According to Green Car Journal, the green car of 2009 was the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, a clean diesel that achieves estimated highway fuel economy of 41 mpg. The green car of 2010, just announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show, is the Audi A3 TDI, that gets 42 miles per gallon.
4. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, CFC-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane) are the six primary sources of greenhouse gases.
5. According to the Green Bride Guide, one wedding generates produces 63 tons of CO2 and 400-600 pounds of trash - and there are 2.5 million weddings every year in this $60 billion industry.
6. From the coolrain44 blog:
# 1 -> PET ... polyethlyene terephthalate
# 2 -> HDPE ... high-density polyethylene
# 3 -> PVC ... polyvinyl chloride
# 4 -> LDPE ... low-density polyethylene?
# 5 -> PP ... polypropylene?
# 6 -> PS/PS-E ... polystyrene / expanded polystyrene
# 7 -> OTHER ... resins or multi-materials
7. Between 39 and 43 percent of all energy is used to heat, cool, ventilate or illuminate buildings in the U.S., depending on whose numbers you follow. Either way, it explains why upgrading the building envelope, insulation and systems of existing buildings is a high priority of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
8. Well this one should be easy, for those familiar with Sustainable Minds LCA software: it means life cycle assessment, and LCA is the best way to determine the environmental sustainability of a product. Because LCA looks at all stages of a product's life cycle, including 'end of life', you can determine how meaningful it is to recycle products or parts after their useful lifetime, and to specify recycled materials in the manufacturing process.
9. According to the Department of Energy, 90% of the energy in a conventional top-load washing machine is used to heat the water. That's why many environmentally-conscious homeowners simply wash their clothes in cold water.
10. Chocolate - well, actually, waste fat from chocolate factories - was used to power the Formula 3 car, built at the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center in Warwick, Britain. Demonstrating biofuels -- the waste chocolate comes from Cadbury's nearby plant, according to the New York Times - the car's body is constructed from recycled bottles, carbon fiber and soybean oil.
11. The 2009 Solar Decathlon was held Oct. 9-18 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and challenged 20 student teams to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. First Place went to Technische Universitat Darmstadt, the team that also won at the last Solar Decathlon, in 2007.
This blog post originally appeared on SustainableMinds.com, a greener product design software and information company bringing environmental sustainability to mainstream product design.
(From GreenerDesign.com....)
SustainableMinds, a green product design software and information company bringing environmental sustainability to mainstream product design, offers up this year-in-review take on 2009, "taken from our perusals of some of the quirkier green stories we've seen this year."
Go ahead: Test your green cred.
1. What's greener, reading the New York Times on a PDA or on paper?
2. What plastic bottles are safe to re-use, by numerical designation?
3. Name the Green Car of the Year.
4. Name the six most prevalent greenhouse gases.
5. What common social ritual produces 63 tons of CO2 and 400-600 pounds of trash?
6. What do all the numbers on plastic bottles represent?
7. How much energy do buildings consume in the U.S., by percentage?
8. What is LCA and why is it an important factor in product design?
9. In a conventional washing machine, what percentage of energy is used to heat the water?
10. A prominent story this year featured a racing car made from recycled materials that runs on which biofuel?
11. What team won this year's Solar Decathlon challenge for energy-efficient, solar-powered homes?
Leave a comment and show us your answers - We'll post the real answers at the end of the day!
SustainableMinds, a green product design software and information company bringing environmental sustainability to mainstream product design, offers up this year-in-review take on 2009, "taken from our perusals of some of the quirkier green stories we've seen this year."
Go ahead: Test your green cred.
1. What's greener, reading the New York Times on a PDA or on paper?
2. What plastic bottles are safe to re-use, by numerical designation?
3. Name the Green Car of the Year.
4. Name the six most prevalent greenhouse gases.
5. What common social ritual produces 63 tons of CO2 and 400-600 pounds of trash?
6. What do all the numbers on plastic bottles represent?
7. How much energy do buildings consume in the U.S., by percentage?
8. What is LCA and why is it an important factor in product design?
9. In a conventional washing machine, what percentage of energy is used to heat the water?
10. A prominent story this year featured a racing car made from recycled materials that runs on which biofuel?
11. What team won this year's Solar Decathlon challenge for energy-efficient, solar-powered homes?
Leave a comment and show us your answers - We'll post the real answers at the end of the day!
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