The beginning of a new year brings all kinds of interesting top ten lists, including the Earth Advantage Institute’s top ten green trends to watch in 2010. Many of items to make the list aren’t too surprising – for example we should expect to see more net-zero buildings and more sustainable building education. But I was happily surprised to see Earth Advantage’s prediction that we will see more efforts to understand the environmental impacts of building materials is 2010.
“With buildings contributing roughly half the carbon emissions in the environment, the progressive elements in the building industry are looking at ways to document, measure, and reduce greenhouse gas creation in building materials and processes. Lifecycle analysis (LCA) of building products is underway by third party technical teams, while others are working with federal and state building authorities to educate staff, create monetized carbon credits, and develop effective carbon offset policies. This effort will be heightened once a federal cap-and-trade mechanism is launched in this country.”
While there’s been a lot of focus on green buildings in the last decade, most of that was directed to understanding how we can make buildings more efficient in their operation or location. There hasn’t been nearly as much focus on understanding the environmental impacts of the materials used to construct or rehabilitate buildings. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) — that somewhat daunting sounding term — is the process by which we can understand the environmental impacts of a product through all phases of its life, including extraction of natural materials, manufacturing, construction, use and disposal. LCA evaluates several different aspects of products, such as the carbon released and energy used by the product, as well as other factors such as toxic emissions released into our air, water and soil.
The Department of Energy funds and houses the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory Database, and is thankfully ramping up its efforts to expand the availability and quality of data for all kinds of materials – from those used in packaging to housing. Organizations such as the USGBC – which is moving towards a life-cycle based rating system – also have a strong interest in improved understanding of the environmental impacts of materials. And, as Earth Advantage notes, there’s increasing interest in this subject because of the potential to turn carbon savings into money under a federal cap-and-trade program. All of this may seem kind of nerdy, and kind of wonky, but for those of us who really want to understand the environmental impacts created by constructing new stuff – namely buildings – this is great news.
We at the National Trust for Historic Preservation are also stepping up in 2010 and making our own contribution to understanding the environmental impacts of building materials and construction, thanks to a generous grant from the Summit Foundation. Last summer, we held a symposium on Life Cycle Assessment and historic preservation with experts on both subjects to identify the research and tools needed to better understand the environmental value of reusing buildings.
After working through the recommendations from the symposium, the National Trust issued a Request for Qualifications for a research study to quantify the value of building reuse, and we’re now in the process of interviewing candidates to complete the study. Our research will evaluate the environmental impacts of building reuse compared to new construction using a number of typical scenarios, such as the demolition of a single family home and replacement with a new, green home. We’re hopeful that we’ll have results to share by the end of the year, and that these results will help to shed light on why we should care about reusing buildings.
Organic products meet stringent standards
Organic certification is the public’s assurance that products have been grown and handled according to strict procedures without persistent toxic chemical inputs.
Organic food tastes great!
It’s common sense – well-balanced soils produce strong, healthy plants that become nourishing food for people and animals.
Organic production reduces health risks
Many EPA-approved pesticides were registered long before extensive research linked these chemicals to cancer and other diseases. Organic agriculture is one way to prevent any more of these chemicals from getting into the air, earth and water that sustain us.
Organic farms respect our water resources
The elimination of polluting chemicals and nitrogen leaching, done in combination with soil building, protects and conserves water resources.
Organic farmers build healthy soil
Soil is the foundation of the food chain. The primary focus of organic farming is to use practices that build healthy soils.
Organic farmers work in harmony with nature
Organic agricultural respects the balance demanded of a healthy ecosystem: wildlife is encouraged by including forage crops in rotation and by retaining fence rows, wetlands, and other natural areas.
Organic producers are leaders in innovative research
Organic farmers have led the way, largely at their own expense, with innovative on-farm research aimed at reducing pesticide use and minimizing agriculture’s impact on the environment.
Organic producers strive to preserve diversity
The loss of a large variety of species (biodiversity) is one of the most pressing environmental concerns. The good news is that many organic farmers and gardeners have been collecting and preserving seeds, and growing unusual varieties for decades.
Organic farming helps keep rural communities healthy
USDA reported that in 1997, half of U.S. farm production came from only 2% of farms. Organic agriculture can be a lifeline for small farms because it offers an alternative market where sellers can command fair prices for crops.
Organic abundance – Foods and non-foods alike!
Now every food category has an organic alternative. And non-food agricultural products are being grown organically – even cotton, which most experts felt could not be grown this way.
Its better for your health & for the environment!
Image via Seven Null7
A new survey shows that clean tech investing will do just fine in 2010, despite the unfortunate outcome of the Copenhagen talks. The Jeffreys survey shows that globally, investments will remain healthy but particularly strong in Europe. In fact, rather than slowing, analyst firm New Energy Finance predicts that global clean tech investments will reach $160 billion in 2010, up from $125 billion in 2009. But, investments will still rely on three factors that can have an impact on just how much investing we'll actually see.
Business Green reports, "The survey of 200 clean tech investors representing over $400bn of assets found that respondents believe that continued government subsidies and a general recovery in the credit markets will more than offset any harm done to the sector by politicians' failure to secure a stronger international climate change agreement."
While areas like Europe expect strong investments, they - and companies in the US - will still be relying on support from policy measures, especially subsidies, tax breaks, low interest loans and other forms of assistance. Many people feel that the clean tech sector should be bringing forward technologies that can take hold in the marketplace without these bolsters.
But Bruce Huber, head of European clean tech investment at Jefferies, states, "What is clear is that both local government incentives and transnational policies aimed at putting the brakes on climate change are fundamental to the continued growth of the clean tech industry."
So these support mechanisms will be important to keeping the clean tech sector - a major source of hope for reducing carbon emissions - roaring forward.
Business Green also reports that many of the respondents in the survey expect quite a few high profile clean technologies are just about ready for mainstream adoption, and nearly half of the respondents expect that the mass adoption of electric vehicles is less than five years away.
 The US Department of Transportation (DOT) is seeking to use stimulus spending to support livable communities, says Beth Osborne, deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy. DOT has $1.5 billion in multimodal discretionary funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Osborne said in a November 9 Internet conference sponsored by the Center for Transportation and the Environment at North Carolina State University. The multimodal funds are also known as TIGER grants. “When we put together the criteria by which we would evaluate projects, we put livability at the top,” said Osborne. “It’s up there with safety and economic competitiveness. We could not have made a stronger indication about what our priorities are.” What does DOT mean by livability? Osborne’s description focused on mixed use, walkable neighborhoods, and pedestrian access to transit, jobs, stores, schools, and other public buildings. The following is Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s definition, according to Osborne: “Livability means a community where you can take kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, go to the grocery store, have dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get into a car.”
A “major priority” at DOT will be to focus the discretionary funds on communities that seek to improve livability, Osborne said. “There’s a real bottom line need to reward those communities that make those connections,” she said.
The subject of the web conference was the Partnership for Sustainable Communities that was formed earlier this year in collaboration involving DOT, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Also speaking were Shelley Poticha, senior adviser for sustainable housing and communities at HUD, John Frece, smart growth program director at EPA, and Elizabeth Wilkins, White House policy assistant for urban affairs and mobility and opportunity.
HUD’s 2010 budget calls for $100 million for sustainable communities planning grants, Poticha noted. The budget also requests $40 million for community challenge grants that could be used for zoning reform and other implementation tools for smart growth. Both programs could be authorized by the end of 2009 or early in 2010, Poticha said. After that, detailed criteria for these grants will be announced. Foreclosures higher in suburbs
Poticha added that HUD research shows that foreclosures have been highest in neighborhoods that lack key aspects of livability. “Our research has shown a remarkable alignment between the neighborhoods that Beth described as places where every trip has to be made by car and the concentration of the greatest number of foreclosures in the housing markets,” she said. “That might be a coincidence but we are not so sure — because we have looked at almost every metro region in the country and found this same pattern.”
Consequently, she said, “We see the sustainable communities partnership as key to getting communities back on their feet after the economic collapse.” Other highlights:
• Frece estimated that if the US shifted just 10 percent of new housing starts to smarter growth development over the next 10 years, Americans would save about 5 billion gallons of gasoline and about $220 billion in household transportation expenses.
• Osborne reported that Envision Utah, a smart growth regional plan led by Calthorpe Associates, reduced infrastructure costs by $4.5 billion over a 10-year period in the Salt Lake City area while cutting traffic congestion.
For years, they have boasted of the health benefits of their leafy diets, but now vegetarians have the proof that has so far eluded them: when it comes to cancer risks, they have the edge on carnivores.
Fresh evidence from the largest study to date to investigate dietary habits and cancer has concluded that vegetarians are 45% less likely to develop cancer of the blood than meat eaters and are 12% less likely to develop cancer overall.
Scientists said that while links between stomach cancer and eating meat had already been reported, they had uncovered a "striking difference" in the risk of blood cancers including leukaemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma between the groups. The study looked at vegetarians, fish eaters and people who ate meat.
Co-author Naomi Allen, from the Cancer Research UK epidemiology unit at Oxford University, said: "Previous research has found that processed meat may increase the risk of stomach cancer, so our findings that vegetarians and fish eaters are at lower risk is plausible. But we do not know why cancer of the blood is lower in vegetarians."
She said the differences in cancer risks were independent of other lifestyle factors including smoking, alcohol intake and obesity.
However, Allen urged caution over the interpretation of the findings. "It is a significant difference, but we should be a bit cautious since it is the first study showing that the risk of cancer of the blood is lower in vegetarians. We need to know what aspect of a fish and vegetarian diet is protecting against cancer. Is it the higher fibre intake, higher intake of fruit and vegetables, is it just meat per se?"
The study also reported that the total cancer incidence was significantly lower among both the fish eaters and the vegetarians compared with meat eaters.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is part of a long-term international study, the European prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition (Epic).
Today's findings were based on a study of 61,000 people who scientists followed over 12 years. During this time, 3,350 participants were diagnosed with cancer. Of those, 68% (2,204) were meat eaters, 24% (800) were vegetarians and 9.5% (300) ate fish but no meat.
They found that 180 meat eaters developed blood cancers, while 49 vegetarians developed the diseases and 28 fish eaters. They found the risk of being diagnosed with cancers of the stomach, bladder and blood was significantly lower in vegetarians than in meat eaters but, in contrast to earlier work, they found the rate of bowel cancer was slightly higher among vegetarians than meat eaters.
A spokesman for BPEX, the British pig executive, questioned the methodology of the study: "We are unable to take a view on this because there is mixed evidence based on the compounding factors to do with lifestyle that come into it."
Richard Lowe, the chief executive of Eblex, the English beef and lamb executive, said: "We think that the link between diet and cancer is complex and as scientists themselves say, more research is needed to see how big a part diet plays."
The Oxford research is the latest in a series of reports to discourage too much meat in the diet. Last year, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – which last year earned a share of the Nobel peace prize – urged giving up meat at least once a week as a way of combating global warming. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Two years ago, the World Cancer Research Fund found a link between red and processed meat and bowel cancer and recommended that the average amount of meat eaten should be no more than 300g a week. In Britain, the current meat intake is about 970g a week for men and about 550g a week for women.
In 2005, the Epic study, funded by the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, concluded that eating just two portions of red meat a day – the equivalent of a bacon sandwich and a fillet steak – increased the risk of bowel cancer by 35%. It found that eating fibre, in the form of vegetables, fruit and wholegrain cereals, lessened the risk of cancer and that fish, eaten at least every other day, was also protective.
Annette Pinner, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society, said: "It is widely recognised that a third of cancers are directly related to diet and what's interesting in this study is the findings on blood cancers. We wouldn't claim vegetarianism is a panacea for cancer but it is a step in the right direction."
Eco Factor: Concept shopping cart harvests kinetic energy to provide electricity.
In the future your shopping spree would be getting a whole new dimension, as it might help in generating renewable energy for the store. Industrial designers Kitae Pak and Inyong Jung are working on a concept shopping cart that can carry your purchases and generate renewable electricity by harvesting kinetic energy.
Dubbed the E~Cart, the concept shopping cart features special wheels that convert rolling energy into electricity, which is stored in onboard batteries. When the shopping carts are docked, they dispose the generated electricity to the main power storage unit. The designers believe that the shopping carts can be used to completely sustain the store for a month.
via: http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-gadgets-ecart-aims-to-power-a-supermarket-...
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