Elemental

These are my links for May 20th through May 23rd:

• 800-CEO-READ Blog: Thoughts on Seth Godin’s “How To Read a Business Book” – reading (business) books is an act of mediation. It is a mental refuge for you to explore your thoughts and feelings about work, but also life as a whole.
• Building physicists wanted – PI insurance for low carbon consultants is higher because insurance companies see providing advice on sustainability as high risk.
• Water regs to cut waste and scalding – Building – The main change is aimed at cutting water use to 125 litres per person per day in new dwellings, just below the limit set in the Code for Sustainable Homes for a level one and two home.
• That bubble, reputation – Building – Failure to comply with the law will always be unethical and damage reputations. But conduct may not be contrary to the law yet still damage your reputation.
• Go with your gut – intuition is more than just a hunch, says Leeds research | Press releases | Media | University of Leeds – Research from my alma mater reinforcing Malcolm Gladwell's Blink.
• To Fight Global Warming We Must Tax All Recreational Exercise – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog – I'm sure Steve Levitt wrote this as a joke, but it misses the mark on so many levels. And his assumptions for calcs are miles off. Good comments from readers which are worth a look.
• Think debate: Are engineers the new architects? – Building Design – Had the pleasure of seeing this 'live' at Think08. Good points from both sides and if the questions is changed to which would you rather be, then both make a compelling case for engineering…
• eco town round up – Martin has gathered together an impressive list of articles on eco-towns from around the interweb.

mel starrs News Building_Regs, construction_industry, debate, eco, Economics, ethics, globalwarming, Housing, insurance, joke, Psychology, READING, research, think08, water

Enjoyed very much meeting fellow bloggers Casey, Paul, Martin, Rob and Phil at last week’s Think08 in the Excel centre out in Docklands.  Prior to a couple of glasses of vino, I managed to make it to a few sessions on the floor of the exhibition, as well as catching up with a few other faces on the stands.

The first session I wandered into (by accident, rather than design) was Nigel Adcock from Gleeds Energy making the case for nuclear energy as a bridge towards a wholly renewable world.  Despite the controversial topic, his audience was muted and no debate ensued.  I’m somewhat agnostic when it comes to the nuclear debate, but I’m afraid Nigel didn’t manage to persuade me to jump one way or another.  I’m still more likely to defer to the opinion of the SDC who concludes that there is no justification for bringing forward a new nuclear programme at present (follow the debate online here), but I remain open to the debate*.

I then managed to catch the Plenary session “Zero carbon: mapping a future and overcoming road blocks?” with Keith Clark of Atkins, Mike Peasland of Balfour Beatty (who I thought missed the mark entirely and banged on about his own company rather than the issue at hand), Murray Coleman from Bovis Lend Lease and Paul King of UKGBC.

Keith made some good points about the need to give ourselves permission to make stupid mistakes and to iterate knowledge, something I was actually chatting to several others about, both earlier and later in the week.  The tendency towards analysis paralysis when we don’t know all the answers is a real danger to moving forward.

Paul was his usual articulate self – he’s a great spokeman for the industry.  The exciting news is that the definition of zero carbon will be announced by the UKGBC this week.

The final session I sat in on was the BD debate – Are engineers the new architects?  And, it turns out, we are.  So there.

I’m still awaiting broadband, so making good use of my local library and their free internet.  Postings may be few and far between until I am sorted…

*BTW, this is not an open invitation to spam me with pro- and anti- nuclear links (please don’t)

mel starrs Uncategorized bloggers, Keith Clark, Paul King, think08

I’m back in the UK and gradually acclimatising to the shock.  Trying not to translate prices into US$ and shaking my head at the price of petrol (£1.09 in Leeds!).  Just as well I no longer have a car…

I am currently without landline, broadband and laptop, so blogging opportunities are low.  Bear with me (and BT) – things should return to normal soon.

I’ll be twittering from Think 08 tomorrow and hopefully meeting quite a few bloggers in the flesh.  If you see me, come and say hi.

mel starrs Uncategorized conference, London, think08