Archive for February, 2007
Futility and green appendages…
Mark Brinkley has been to EcoBuild. It obviously hit a nerve as he has a blinder of a post up on the contradictions of greening our economy. Well worth a read. He asks if he’s alone in his morass - he’ll find fine bedfellows in George Monbiot and Dave Pollard.
Reading as much [...]
Building Magazine embracing the digital age…
First we have what I class a ‘proper’ blog from Phil Clark over at Zero Champion (open comments, RSS, frequent posts, opinion, links).
Then, the subscription firewall for many articles seemed to come down with much more content available for free.
And now Building are embracing Second Life. Second Life is one of those things I have [...]
Meeting sustainability aspirations poses complex challenges for corporations
Gristmill have a great post up on how to answer critics who attempt to label those who attempt a greener lifestyle as hypocrites:
The merits of carbon offsets are hotly debated, so erring on the side of caution would mean abjuring all carbon-emitting activities. That rules out all non-self-propelled travel; it means going off-grid and growing [...]
CIBSE conference - last date for early bird rates
Today is the last date to book for early bird discounts at the National CIBSE Conference. Find the booking form here (pdf, 8pages) and save £50.
Despite the always frustrating business of juggling a plate of lukewarm buffet with a glass of orange precariously balanced on one of those wholly inadequate plastic holder thingies whilst never being able [...]
Engineers - a protected species?
Move over pollsters, it’s the turn of the engineers. This is doing the rounds:
Astronautics engineer Jon Jennings has this week leapt on the online petition bandwagon to call for the title of “engineer” to be a protected title.
Jennings has joined an escalating list of people using
10 Downing Street’s online petition trial to drum up [...]
I’m a C-list bloglebrity!!!
When I first had a play with this widget back in November, I was a poor D-lister. As Hana pointed out last week, this corner of the blogosphere is very much still in it’s infancy. The fact that I’ve managed to move up a class in 3 months shows how quickly it is beginning to expand. [...]
In brief: Malthusian solutions, Greenpeace consultation victory and PassivHaus
Craig Macintosh over at Celsias has a somewhat Malthusian solution to global warming. Rather than agriculture limiting population (and thus limiting carbon emissions, halting or reversing global warming) a major pandemic could do the job much swifter. As I keep mentioning, Jared Diamond covers similar topics in ‘Collapse‘. Gareth Kane has population on his mind too. [...]
ASC launch skills gap study
ASC (Academy for Sustainable Communities) have:
“launched a major study to provide comprehensive information on current and projected labour shortages and generic skills gaps in the core sustainable communities occupations. We’re urging individuals and organisations involved in creating or maintaining sustainable communities to complete an online survey.”
The survey, which runs until Friday 16th March, can be [...]
UKGBC to stick with BREEAM
Phil Clark over at zero champion has an interview with Peter Rogers of UKGBC (UK Green Building Council). It’s a good read, and I was glad to see Rogers’ thoughts on UKGBC and BREEAM. In the states, the USGBC backs LEED, the main international rival to BREEAM (in the middle east projects tend to be either). [...]
HEEPI release guidance on sustainable laboratories
HEEPI (Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement) have released a position paper on “Sustainable Laboratories for Universities and Colleges - Lessons from America and the Pharmaceutical Sector” (.doc, 29 pages). Although not a design code, it has some useful observations which will interest those involved in laboratory design, and outlines the Labs21 approach. Some [...]
