The Red, White, and Green

Alright, so I’m just a tad bit bummed that Team California didn’t take home the grand prize in the 2009 Solar Decathlon, though they did have an impressive third-place finish — even winning the architecture and communications contests — but you can’t really argue with Team Germany’s incredible energy-saving design. The cube-shaped two-story house, which is completely covered in solar panels, produces an incredible 200 percent of the energy needed by its inhabitants.

surPLUShome, Team Germany's winning design. The students' philosophy was to "push the envelope with as many new technologies as possible." The team also finished first in the 2007 Solar Decathlon.

Here’s a look at the other top finishers:

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Gable House, which was awarded second place, stood out for its artful blending of innovative technology and native Midwestern architecture. Photo credit: Jim Tetro, US Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon

Third-place finisher Team California, the only undergraduate-led team in the competition, emphasized West Coast living and comfort with Refract House's natural light–filled, cutting-edge design. Photo credit: Jim Tetro, US Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon

Congratulations to all of the incredibly talented and motivated students in the competition — the world’s future green architects, designers, and engineers among them. We’ll be looking to you in the coming years to make homes like these a reality for all of us!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: If you’re a teacher, get your students — our future decathletes — excited about science and solar energy. For ideas on how to get started, click here.

Related posts:
Solar Decathlon houses open to the public!
WATCH: Students build solar-powered home
Refract House: Student-built, sun-powered

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With all the PlayStations and Xboxes and Wiis and things that kids need nowadays to entertain themselves (don’t worry, I’m not about to break out in a rendition of “Kids“), it was really refreshing to see so many people enthusiastically enter a fort-building contest for the Where the Wild Things Are release tomorrow.

Photo: weloveyouso.com

Remember when all it took to make you happy was a couple of sticks and some old sheets? This photo, more than anything, reminds me that we really don’t need all the “stuff.” Maybe if more kids in this country were building forts instead of looking at Facebook, we wouldn’t have a nearly 20 percent childhood obesity rate.

Check out more of the amazing submissions on the We Love You So website.

–Jennifer Grayson 

Do this now: Got kids? Tell them to go play outside.

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Photo via Flickr: Makelessnoise

Just as I was venting about the ugliness of CFL bulbs and hoping for a lower-cost LED to hit the market, a new report brings to light (sorry) a potentially devastating consequence of widespread LED adoption: The bluish-white light that outdoor LED bulbs emit could threaten people and wildlife, say authorities at the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA).

It’s been well publicized that bluish-white light from TVs and other electronics can negatively affect melatonin production (melatonin is the “sleep hormone”), which is why holistic docs like Andrew Weil advise avoiding them at night. But what if LED lighting becomes the norm for outdoor lighting in suburban parking lots and city streets?

Light pollution is already a serious problem — without the double blackout curtains in our bedroom to keep out the Los Angeles glare, we’d never be able to fall asleep at night — but the IDA says that LED lighting could increase the pollution even more, since short wavelength light increases sky glow disproportionately. And wildlife, like we do, depend on natural cycles of daylight and true darkness for their biological processes. And they can’t reach for a cup of coffee in the morning if their sleep has been disrupted.

Now, I don’t think we should throw out the baby with the bath water — replacing traditional incandescents with LED lighting has the potential to seriously reduce CO2 emissions, and dark skies won’t mean anything to us if all of Antarctica has melted – but we can be smart about implementing them in ways that will curtail light pollution.

Read more about how the environmental impact of LEDs here.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: The International Dark-Sky Association is a nonprofit organization that works to ensure environmentally responsible outdoor lighting. You can make a donation here.

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Over the past several months, I’ve encountered friends and family who love the idea of Meatless Monday, but when faced with a full day of vegetarian eating, inevitably fall off the wagon. Some of the excuses I’ve heard: It’s time-consuming to prepare balanced vegetarian meals, I don’t like beans and tofu, my kids are picky eaters, I don’t have the money to buy lots of vegetables, etc. That’s why I was delighted to hear about the PB&J Campaign, which is working to change the world, one delicious sandwich at a time:

[Watch video on YouTube]

When it comes to convincing people to incorporate more meatless meals into their diet, I’m a big fan of starting with foods that people already know and love. Fried tempeh with shirataki noodles? Sounds a bit intimidating for the average Joe. Eggplant parmigiana? Sign me up! And who can argue with a PB&J? (Actually, a few: Those with nut allergies and/or gluten sensitivity; that’s why I’d like to see the folks at the PB&J Campaign incorporate some alternative recipes on their website.)

Sometimes the simplest solution is the most effective one. “Spread” the word!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Pack a PB&J for lunch today and save 2.5 pounds of CO2 emissions. For the biggest health benefit, use natural peanut butter, fruit-juice sweetened jam, and whole grain bread.

More Meatless Monday posts:
Baltimore City Public Schools first district in nation to adopt Meatless Monday
Meatless Monday: Animal Planet joins in!

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Since we had the pleasure this past summer of meeting the brilliant and devoted Santa Clara University students working on Team California’s entry to the US Department of Energy’s 2009 Solar Decathlon, we’ve been excitedly awaiting the completion of their house and the launch of the competition. (As have they; their solar-powered house of the future, Refract House, has been two years in the making.) But at long last, their design and 19 others from the world’s best and brightest will be on display starting today on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Don’t live in the area? Here’s a sneak-preview of some of our favorites:

As of today, Team California is in first-place standing, but with six more days of judging in categories like architecture, market viability, lighting design, and home entertainment, it’s anyone’s game.

Solar Decathlon houses will be open for public tours through Oct. 18. Click here for the schedule.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: It may be a few years yet till these solar houses of the future come to a neighborhood near you, but you can start saving energy and lower your electricity bills in your own home today. For tips, check out one of our favorite resources, the DOE’s Energy Savers website.

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WATCH: Students build solar-powered home
Refract House: Student-built, sun-powered

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Photo via Flickr: Gidsicki

I thought this would be an apt follow-up for yesterday’s post about carbon capture and storage. Why should we waste billions of dollars on developing and deploying a technology that is, at best, a stop-gap measure with the potential for unknown and catastrophic consequences when we can utilize the natural resources we already have? To wit: A report issued today by WWF-Sweden that says preserving natural forests is five times more cost-effective than CCS:

Stockholm, Sweden – WWF Sweden is urging its government — holding the current EU Presidency — to get behind an effective international agreement on halting forest loss as a key and highly cost effective measure on climate change.

“Sweden should follow the examples set by its northern neighbors in developing systems to halt deforestation,” said WWF CEO General Lasse Gustavsson. “One Swedish krona to stem deforestation results in the same emissions reductions as five kronor for the controversial carbon capture and storage technique.”

Gold in Green Forests, a report issued today by WWF-Sweden, says that next to energy efficiency halting forest loss and degradation is the most cost-effective method for mitigating climate change.

Alright, so the report is in Swedish, but you can read the summary here.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Deforestation is responsible for 2o percent of annual CO2 emissions. One of the most important things you can do is to only buy paper products made from recycled materials (or use a cloth alternative, when possible). The National Resources Defense Council estimates that if every US household swapped out just one four-pack of traditional bath tissue (made from virgin fiber) for the recycled version, it would save nearly 1 million trees a year.

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Photo via Flickr: Rennett Stowe

I admit I have only a layperson’s knowledge of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, but I don’t think it takes a mining engineer to see the hubris in Swedish energy company Vattenfall AB‘s designs to store millions of tons of CO2 below the homes of thousands of German villagers. No wonder the locals are fighting tooth and nail to halt the plan, reports today’s Wall Street Journal.

We don’t have to shut down coal-fired power plants, say proponents of CCS (i.e., large energy companies). We’ll just take all those greenhouse gases, and instead of releasing them into the atmosphere, we’ll pump them into the earth’s crust. The technology’s never been tested on a commercial scale before, but scientists are totally confident that the gas won’t leak into your home while you sleep and suffocate you, like the CO2 eruption from Lake Nyos. Or that a future earthquake won’t somehow disrupt those “safely stored” deposits. Or that the process of sequestering those gases itself won’t trigger seismic activity.

In our rush to slow down global warming, we have to make sure that we don’t put blind faith in technologies that could themselves have catastrophic consequences.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Invest in clean energy solutions like solar, wind, and second-generation biofuels. The sooner we move away from coal-fired power plants, the less likely we’ll be facing CCS in our own backyard.

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Photo via Flickr: Back_garage

The tater tots may stay, but it looks like sloppy joes will have to be saved for another day of the week — Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) recently became the first school district in the nation to adopt Meatless Monday. Slated for the menu: Kid-friendly nutritious veg fare like black bean nachos, eggplant parmigiana, and baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese.

This is amazing news. We’re not talking about some private prep academy in Northern California, where the kids are already doing downward dogs in gym class and toting bento boxes for lunch; this is an inner city school district of 80,000 students in one of the most obese cities in the country. Encouraging students to eat vegetarian — especially when the emphasis is on locally grown produce, as it is at BCPS — will go a long way toward addressing this public health crisis.

With 67 percent of the children in the district eligible for the federal free- or reduced-price lunch program, shouldn’t our tax dollars be invested in healthy meals for our youngest citizens? Otherwise, we wind up paying twice: Once for the lunches themselves, and again for increased health care costs down the road.

Obesity is adding 9.1 percent to the annual cost of health care. If we truly care about reducing insurance premiums and making health care affordable for everyone, we should be implementing Meatless Monday at every school across the country.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Have school-age kids? Contact your district’s director of food and nutrition and tell him/her that you want to see Meatless Monday in your kids’ cafeteria.

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Sommerhaus Piu's large glass windows may lead to unnecessary bird fatalities.

When we think about eco-friendly housing, we tend to focus on the nifty green aspects of the structure itself: things like solar panels, reclaimed wood, nontoxic insulation, LED lighting, radiant flooring, etc. These technologies and materials are exciting, even sexy — who wouldn’t want to live in a cutting-edge house of the future? Unfortunately, sometimes in the effort to make these structures aesthetically pleasing and loaded with energy-saving gadgets, one of the most important aspects of environmentally friendly architecture is overlooked: the environment itself.

A reader from Germany wisely pointed this out in regard to my post on Sommerhaus Piu, a prefab house meant to be enjoyed as a vacation home in the bucolic countryside. Like many modern-looking ‘green’ structures, it features a large wall of glass to create that feeling of communing with nature. She wrote:

…What is debatable though or must even be downright disapproved of, are the large glass panes set up right in the middle of a a/any natural bird habitat!

You write enthusiastically “…we’d go … listen to birds chirp …” but had better realize you will more often hear them crash into the panes (no joke!). If you are faster than your neighbor’s cat you need not worry about what you will have for your gourmet dinner (not really a joke either): robin, wren, thrush, woodpecker, even the dazzling and colorful European kingfisher (!), perhaps the odd buzzard … all of them still at home in the beautiful lake surroundings of Pian, north of Berlin, Germany.

Thus, instead of calling this summerhouse “Piu” (probably unwittingly recalling onomatopoeically the lonesome cry of the buzzard!), our suggestion would be “Sommerhaus Vogelschlag (Birdcrash)”.

…Ecology is not merely about our energy consumption as related to sustainable resources, but also about how we/every single person can/must help protect biodiversity.

I admit, readers, I am guilty: I did not even considering the possibility — nor the irony — of birds crashing into the giant plate glass window of an eco-friendly house, probably because it’s been a very, very long time since I a) lived anywhere outside of a city; and b) called anything but an apartment building my home.

But the question now is, if this isn’t what truly green design looks like, what does?

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: This isn’t just an issue of a few confused birds losing their lives; according to Birds & Buildings, over 1 billion birds strike windows in the US every year, and it’s having a tremendous effect on our ecosystem. Click here for some simple steps you can take to help prevent window collisions.

Related posts:
WATCH: Students build solar-powered home
Refract House: Student-built, sun-powered

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