designer in exile: Climate change

Showing posts with label Climate change. Show all posts

Friday, July 30, 2010

Paradise Preserved: The Magnificence of Chicago's Botanic Garden

Chicago's greatest urban planner, Daniel Burnham, is famous for saying "make no little plans." And on a recent trip back to the city where I was born and a visit to its world renowned botanic gardens, I realized exactly what he meant.

Located about 20 minutes outside the city, in the north shore suburb of Glencoe, Illinois, the Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre living plant museum situated on nine islands featuring 23 display gardens surrounded by lakes, as well as a prairie and woodlands.

And while Burnham had no connection with its origin, the garden is by no means a "little plan." In fact it is one of the United States' most visited public gardens and a center for learning and scientific research. Each year it has 760,000 visitors. The membership, currently at 50,000, the largest of any U.S. public garden. More than 1,000 volunteers assist with all aspects of the Garden’s mission, from planting and propagating natural areas, to teaching educational programs and staffing public programs and exhibitions. The Chicago Botanic Garden is only one of 10 public gardens accredited by the American Association of Museums, recognizing its living collection of 2.4 million plants.

Chicago's 1893 World Columbian Exhibition.

Owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County and managed by the Chicago Horticultural Society, the Chicago Botanic Garden opened to the public in 1972 and is home to the Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden, offering a classes in plant science, landscape design and gardening arts. The Center for Teaching and Learning brings information on nature and plants to children, teens and teachers. Horticultural Therapy and Community Gardening provide community outreach and service programs. Through the Institutes of Plant Conservation and Ornamental Plant Research, Garden scientists work on plant conservation, research and environmental initiatives.

Specifically, 200 such scientists address threats to endangered flora, train plant conservation leaders and research plant conservation policy. Programs and research focus on the collection, evaluation, introduction and preservation of plants within the context of threats such as climate change, global warming and human impacts.

In 2007, the Chicago Botanic Garden announced plans for a three-phased initiative that would create a 15-acre science campus located at the south end of the Garden. In 2008, the Garden broke ground for a 38,000-square-foot Plant Conservation Science Center, named for Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice. The Rice Center has a sustainable design, with certification at the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold level.

The Center includes a green roof-top garden, seven research labs, an expanded herbarium, a new seed bank area, new classrooms and seminar rooms, twenty offices for research scientists and a public gallery that allows visitors to see behind-the-scenes conservation science at work. A bridge from Evening Island connects the main garden to this new campus.

Fountain alongside a lake.

Visitors are able to see scientists at work in labs, walk to the green roof top garden, and observe the Tall Grass Prairie millennium seed bank. The Rice Plant Conservation Science Center opened in Fall of 2009.

Likewise, the Chicago Botanic Garden was chosen by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as the sole North American host for World Environment Day 2008 with the theme, "CO2 - Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy."

The English Garden.

Japanese House on the Japanese garden's grounds.

On June 5 of each year the Garden and other venues around the world, highlight resources and initiatives that promote low carbon economies and lifestyles, such as improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation, and eco-friendly consumption.

Art at the Garden

Over thirty non-profit, academic, cultural and environmental organizations participated in the Knowledge and Action Marketplace on the Garden's Esplanade. Displays and representatives discussed products to help green homes, local carpools, volunteer and community conservation programs, classes on green gardening, the use of CFL light bulbs, vehicles that run on used vegetable oil and even appliances that pop popcorn using solar energy.

Organizations participating in the event included the Center for Neighborhood Technology, offering car-sharing information; CNT Energy, working with ComEd to provide information about Watt Spot, a program to assist homeowners who want to pay market price for electricity. Northern Illinois Energy Project, provided free CFL bulbs. Chicago Wilderness and Openlands, provided information about local conservation and restoration programs and Horrigan Urban Forest Products highlighted the best uses for reclaimed wood from urban trees.

Make no little plans? Indeed!--D.A. DeMers

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Images credits: CBG images by Douglas A. DeMers, free to use under CC license 1.0. Other CBG images via Wikipedia share alike license. Columbian Exhibition image via share alike public domain license.

Visit our other site, Home Science, for advice on home energy efficiency tips.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Image by vincent.limshowchen via Flickr

I wanted this post to be about rose bushes. Mostly about how to prune them so they will bud and blossom nicely in the coming weeks. If they don't get pruned and untangled from constraining vines, they may wither and die, which is a shame because roses seem to hold a key to our aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual satisfaction. Pruning them gives me, in some measure, a great sense of hope for the future.

But as I started writing, I noticed something strange. I clicked on my internet feeds and saw that one of them no longer existed. It was the "green news" link to a major furniture industry trade publication. The journal is essentially the Vogue magazine of home furnishings, and one that virtually commands the direction of the industry. What's more, they have been part of a media conglomerate that owns a vast array of websites and publications related to the furniture industry and building trades.

That's a mighty powerful position to be in.

I looked deeper and noticed that nearly every reference to environmentalism had been purged from the entire database. It was Orwellian, as if I'd awakened to find the word democracy erased from the lexicon - something that mysteriously happened occasionally while searching the internet on business trips to China.

This all seemed inexplicable, until finally I reached a blog post on the publication's site that contained a remarkable conversation filled with boardroom chatter from industry professionals. The comments were as follows: "The profit margin is simply not large enough for us to promote these (environmentally friendly) type of products," and "it's time we begin putting profits before earth." I was befuddled, not just because of the hard-line business talk, but because in reality, the profit margin for these products has been steadily trending upward. The outlook is quite bright.

A source affiliated with the media group, who asked not to be identified, affirmed my knowledge on this matter, saying that the eco-smart product marketplace is thriving and very profitable, but that there are people within the furniture industry with agendas and interests different from that of the sustainability movement.

The timing of this coincides conveniently with the current mortal storm of thought that is dismissing the theory of climate change. In fact, look at what some of the great emerging minds in the anti-sustainability world are saying here on this recent blog, with provocative notions such as "Earth Hour" shows "the environmental movement's distaste for modernity," in which a blogger seems to claim that the Earth Hour protest was an assault on the sanctity of the industrial world, electricity, and the economy. With astonishing sincerity and pathos, he essentially equates utility companies with freedom. The message seems to be "don't tread on my electric grid."

I challenge these misinformed contrarians to examine some common sense concepts about this "daunting" brave new green world. Sustainability is ultimately about upgrading the quality of peoples lives. It is about reducing inefficiency and is a methodology of logic and ingenuity that both gathers from and informs human intellectual and ethical progress -which includes economics. Despite occasional relapses, the human race tends to move toward this definition of progress.

At a recent symposium at the Academy of Sciences here in Philadelphia, giant corporations such as Dow Chemical and others discussed the new mode of sustainability in corporate thinking from the top down, in contrast to the more commonly viewed grass-roots perspective. Big players are beginning to see the green writing on the wall. Keeping their workers healthy saves money. Being less dependent on the petrol-chemical market and being more energy efficient saves money. To think otherwise is detrimental to capital investment and the survival of the free market, especially as energy rates soar and resources are depleted. Even Walmart, as recent as last week, adopted major measures toward sustainability.

This is not mere green-washing, this is the bottom line. Ironically, some of these companies have even been low key about their moves to become energy efficient and green, because they fear a backlash from the new anti-green mob that is rising like the ocean levels. And oddly enough, I find myself in the awkward position of cheering on some multi-nationals I protested against years ago who are now taking steps to change.

In the end, both grass-roots and corporate sides must converge and for all the right reasons to make environmental sustainability truly sustainable. But meanwhile, who's gonna tell a multi-billion dollar company like Dow Chemical or Walmart that they can't go green? And why fight them?

Some occasional pruning is needed for this movement, that is undeniable - just like with my rose bushes. That can only help. But it surely that doesn't mean it is bound to wither and die...

Funny how my mind wanders sometimes. And since this post has become as loaded with earthy metaphors as Chauncey Gardner, let us get back to where we started - helpful tips on caring for roses in your garden. Here's some great advice from 5minute Videos. So enough of this gloom and doom, let your garden bloom, bloom, bloom! --D.A. DeMers.

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(Update: all links to "green news" for the publication mentioned above have been recently restored. The publication is now under new ownership, and I have chosen to keep it anonymous since it is not the central focus of this post).

Image credits: Pink Rose Bush, Martha Washington, CC License 1.0 . Frank Gehry recycled cardboard chair, CC License 1.0. All others by D.A DeMers, and free to use under CC license 1.0.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

LEEDing to a Brighter Future

Wind farm. Image: Wikipedia

"It was like a time bomb went off," Matt Edler said in a recent article in the Inquirer. For 10 years he worked at the Valero oil refinery in Delaware City. In late November the company announced they would close its operation, putting 550 people out of work.

"My grandfather worked there, my father, and I worked there," he said. "We were all doing the best we could to keep the place alive. That's our life."

It was the second refinery shutdown in the region since October, when Sunoco idled its Eagle Point refinery, just opposite South Philadelphia, along the oft murky waters of the Delaware River. The industry is in trouble, not just from the Great Recession, but due to the belief that U.S. gasoline demand will never return to the highs of a few years back.

Oil Refinery. Image: Wikipedia

The displacement of workers is always tragic. And Philly has seen some of the worst of that throughout the ages. We are at a pivotal moment in history, not unlike the discovery of oil itself. Renewable energy and energy conservation industries are emerging rapidly, and jobs based around them are coming into view clear as water - clean water, that is, not the kind from the Delaware River.

Last week Mayor Michael Nutter announced a $1.4 million green jobs training program and a plan to reduce energy consumption in the city's public buildings 30 percent by 2015. The conservation plan includes retrofitting existing structures with updated energy efficient materials and systems, and is designed to be virtually self-funded, in that estimated savings will offset implementation costs and generate revenue for other services like under-funded libraries, schools and related jobs, while simultaneously creating immediate work for contractors in the construction, home-building and related trades.

English: The emblem of Recovery.gov, the offic...

The funding for jobs training is from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, including $100,000 of which will go to Connection Training Services to develop curriculum, course materials and competency models to meet the needs of employers in green industries, $140,000 to a pre-apprentice program at the Energy Coordinating Agency, and $150,000 to the Carpenters Joint Apprentice Committee to fund a program on green construction practices and procedures.

The Mayor shows no lack of boldness in stating his goal. He declares that Philadelphia will be "the greenest city in America." He says on the city's Greenworks website that "reaching it will be an opportunity to reposition and repurpose Philadelphia as a city of the future.

"For the first time in decades, changes beyond our borders—primarily rising energy prices, but also climate change and an emerging green economy—are increasing the value of our urban assets. Philadelphia’s dense and durable stock of housing, infrastructure and amenities position us to prosper in a carbon-constrained future."

Phila. Mayor Michel Nutter

To enforce such standards the city is utilizing the LEED certification authority. LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. The name is an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Its certified auditors, consultants, and contractors are quickly growing to be signature career professionals in the green jobs sector. In fact, even the real estate appraisal industry has caught on to this and is including LEED specification training in portions of the Appraisal Institute's professional practice standards valuation guidance. The worth of a home may no longer simply be location, location, location. A building's heating and cooling system, efficiency rating, and insulation type might also be a factor.

Not all green jobs need be so technical and seemingly inaccessible. Some are traditional careers. Mayor Nutter includes local farmers in the category, brewery workers such as those at the Philadelphia Brewing Company who work with organic and locally grown ingredients, teachers who teach sustainability issues and eco-friendly design - even SEPTA bus drivers are green jobbers, he says, due to their providing public transportation for the city (however infrequent that may be, and when not on strike).

What's most inspiring is to see that young people are getting excited about this bold new world of work. A recent article in the local Star community newspaper titled Building for a Brighter Future describes how a consortium of professional and technical societies and major U.S. corporations such as Bentley Systems Inc., Ford Motor Company and Shell are teaming up with many area schools to boost science, biology, and engineering aptitude for kids.

Secretary-General Speaks at Children's Climate...

Technical assistance classes.

At St. Cecilia School in Fox Chase the task for the seventh and eighth-grade participants and their professional mentors is to design and build a model of a viable city, featuring affordable housing with an emphasis on energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. They must plan the community from the ground up, as if accommodating a mass influx of refugees from a natural disaster, like the New Orleans flood, or a financial emergency, such as the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis.

The local Philadelphia Sheet Metal Workers Union will host the finals of the regional competition on Saturday. The winner of that event will qualify for the national finals in Washington, D.C. in February.

Come to think of it, there's another category that could be considered a green job - writers who blog about green jobs. --D.A. DeMers.

Images compliments of Zemanta and Creative Commons free share license organization.