Elemental

These are my links for June 8th from 11:16 to 16:27:

• American Society of Landscape Architects - Content Details - Incredible list of resources: "Economic Models focuses on economic sustainability, which involves the development of a healthy economy that supports and sustains people and the environment over the long-term. In a market-driven economy, cost is a deciding factor in determining whether a project moves forward. To be sustainable, projects must not only provide environmental and social benefits, but also provide economic value. Ecosytem service models can also be used to quantify the inherent economic value of services nature already provides for free.<br />
  <br />
  The toolkit is arranged from macro- to micro-scales, beginning with sustainable regional planning, and moving to sustainable cities & communities planning, sustainable neighborhood planning, and, then finally, site-specific tools related to sustainable landscapes and green buildings."
• et - Full Story - Scariest taxi ride of my life was in Cairo. This is an ambitious scheme - to be lauded: "In a city where an efficient metro system is regularly disregarded because of its social stigma, as are the more chaotic microbus and bus services, and where cycling in rush hour traffic is tantamount to suicide, the concept of Downtown Cairo without cars is unfathomable to many residents. Environmentalists are excited about the project, which they say will serve as a poignant reminder of the negative impact cars have on the environment."
• Biomass: Boon or Bugaboo? - Good article summarising some critcisms of biomass. US bias.
• Does high density development make travel more sustainable? | Sustainable Cities | CABE - ? "Concentrating growth in urban centres damages economic growth and quality of life…. Because travel takes longer it costs more. People travel shorter distances and the economy suffers.<br />
  By contrast, in lower density places where travel is easy, people have better access to a wider selection of jobs, homes, shops and services. Businesses have a larger market area for their goods – there’s more competition, lower prices and greater prosperity.<br />
  If we want to build successful, prosperous places, we have to let people live where they want. We should stop forcing people into flats built on brownfield land – in places where people don’t actually want to live and where there is little economic growth. Take…the south of England for example – employment is growing in the west and south whereas new homes are being built to the east in places such as the Thames Gateway. Instead, we should promote low density, dispersed development where there is a quick, efficient flow of goods and people."

admin News biomass, Cairo, debate, economic, renewables, toolkit, transport

These are my links for May 12th through May 15th:

• Blueprint for green stores | Forum For The Future - "Stephen Heal, the company’s director of climate change programmes, says that the Cheetham Hill store’s carbon emissions should be 70% less than those of an average store of its size in 2006. The sixth Tesco supermarket with the ‘eco-store’ tag, it boasts a natural refrigeration system, a combined heat and power (CHP) plant, a timber frame and cladding, rooflights to allow natural daylight inside – and a ‘very good’ rating for the building on the BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) system. Investment costs were around 10% higher than a typical store – but fuel bills are predicted to be 48% lower."
• Burn the trees to save the world? | Forum For The Future - Great overview of biochar - pros and cons: "Today, many climatologists are as excited as agronomists about biochar. Professor Tim Lenton, from the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, believes that, of all the large-scale solutions under discussion, biochar and reforestation stand out as the most viable options. Professor Johannes Lehmann, an eminent soil specialist from Cornell University, goes so far as to suggest that it is theoretically possible, by the end of this century, that we could capture 9.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year through biochar production in tropical agricultural systems. If we achieved that level of reduction, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would actually be falling. It’s no wonder that, in January, Gaia hypothesist James Lovelock told New Scientist that “There is one way we could save ourselves, and that is through the massive burial of charcoal”. "
• Objectives - www.cecop.org.uk - via Guy Battle:
  The Construction Emissions Community of Practice has the following objectives:
  1. To support the propagation of carbon emissions reporting in building procurement.
  2. To provide an accessible knowledge resource.
  3. To advance theoretical discussion in techniques and methodology.
  4. To support emissions prediction, monitoring and analysis for the reduction of emissions from the construction industry.
  5. To establish protocols for building whole life emissions reporting towards comparability of case studies.
  6. To utilise existing calculation tools, standards and widely available software wherever possible to support widespread adaptability of protocols within the construction industry.
  7. To identify and promote best practice in data collection.
  8. To accumulate and disseminate case studies to a broad construction audience
  9. To demonstrate improvements to sustainability achieved through case studies
• David MacKay, energy star: “How many light bulbs?” « lightbucket - Another great post from Lightbucket, this time analysing what SDC have to say about David McKay: "Trying to read between the lines, I guess Rebecca Willis was trying to make a case against nuclear energy, but somehow ended up arguing against arithmetic instead. David MacKay remarks in a BBC article that “I am not pro-wind or pro-nuclear: I am just pro-arithmetic.” [10]. If I had to speculate about what she’d meant to say, my guess is that Rebecca Willis set out to make an anti-nuclear case, but just came across as anti-arithmetic."
• Planning Portal - Draft single policy for economic growth published - Consultation closes 28 July 2009: "The new PPS will, in its final form, replace PPG 4, PPG 5, PPS 6, and PPS 7 in relation to economic development and paragraphs 53, 54 and Annex D of PPG 13."

admin News agriculture, biochar, BREEAM, carbon, case_study, construction, costs, developing_world, development, economic, embodied, Energy, fuel, nuclear, planning, renewables, retail, rural, SDC, Tesco, UK, urban

What I’ve been reading about:

• New Statesman - World saved . . . planet doomed - If trillions of dollars can be spent on propping up the world's banks, why cannot a similar amount be spent on shifting the world on to a greener track? Neither is a charity case: banks will eventually repay their loans and environmental investments, too, will generate a substantial return. (Indeed, US lawmakers seemed to recognise this implicitly when they attached a proviso extending clean energy subsidies to October's $700bn bank bailout.)
  In the past few weeks, green economists and campaigners have noticed the emergence of an unexpected credit-crunch dividend. As Cam eron Hepburn, senior research fellow at Oxford University's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, told me: "The economic crisis softens people up to the scale of the numbers - $700bn doesn't seem impossible any more. In fact, the incremental cost of completely greening the world's energy system is certainly less than that per annum."

mel starrs News climate, crisis, economic, Mark_Lynas