Hi Folks:

Friday once again, and time for this week’s ‘Being Green‘ post.   Before I get started, if you happen to be in Victoria, BC this weekend, the Cascadia GBC Vancouver Island Branch Emerging Professionals and Jawl Properties are hosting an art exhibition with eight artists on the theme of sustainability.  The exhibit is being shown in the lobby of ‘The Atrium‘, one of Victoria’s newest  buildings, targeting LEED Gold certification.

Okay, the title of this post is ‘Finding Inspiration’.  I was originally going to name it ‘Seeking Inspiration’, but since it’s possible to look for something and not find it, the latter choice of title seemed more appropriate.  In one of his blog posts last month, Seth Godin wrote about ‘Heroes and Mentors‘.   In a nutshell, mentors are great when they’re available, but if they’re not, heroes can fill the gap and provide inspiration for all of us.  Every week I collect links, stories, news articles and information from a number of ‘sustainability’ fields, and I find a lot of inspiration in what I read too.  I thought I’d share a couple of those stories with you this week.

First, the Fall 2010 issue of ‘Trim Tab‘ is available in digital format.  Made available by the Cascadia Green Building Council, Trim Tab is one of my favourite ‘green’ magazines.  On page 18 of this issue is an article about Majora Carter, a woman who grew up in the South Bronx area of New York and who watched her neighbourhood deteriorate as she grew up.  Ill content to do nothing, Ms. Carter founded the ‘Sustainable South Bronx‘, which “works with the South Bronx and other underserved urban communities as they transform themselves into great sustainable places to live. We do this by providing a collaborative model that addresses environmental, economic and social concerns through policy change, green job training, environmental education, and community greening programs.“  Definitely a woman of inspiration.

TED Fellow Angelo Vermeulen combined several ideas – art, technology, interpersonal collaboration and an interest in the environment to create ‘Biomodd: A Living Computer‘ (YouTube video).  There’s also a follow-up video on the second iteration of this machine, ‘Biomodd LBA2‘.  You can read more about the system on the  Biomodd website, but in essence what they’ve built is a computer system whereby several over-clocked computer processors are liquid cooled.  Meanwhile, the cooling liquid grows a healthy crop of algae, and the algae sustains a population of fish.  The Biomodd system also generates enough heat to help grow tropical plants.  What inspired me most in the first video is that Mr. Vermeulen has been approached by the European Space Agency as they’re looking at creating a synthesis of ecological zones for longer space missions.  That certainly makes sense, but I saw another application, which was inspired in part by a TED talk from Kamal Meattle titled, ‘How to Grow Fresh Air‘.  In his talk Mr. Meattle described how common house plants are being used to improve the air in an office building in Mumbai, India .  Medical tests have shown that one’s blood oxygen level actually increases after spending a day in this office.  That got me thinking about buildings that use intensive computer systems, and I remembered that in 2006 Sun Microsystems released the first commercial ‘Modular Datacenter‘.  Essentially the size and shape of a shipping container, such data centers are now being used by Google, Microsoft, HP, IBM and others.  All of these data centers share two traits.  They all use intensive amounts of energy to generate incredible computing power, and they’re all liquid cooled.  It got me wondering about using a Biomodd system, combined with Kamal Meattle’s idea for house plants in offices, scaled up to take advantage of the tremendous heat output created by these data centers.  At scale one could expand this to also create algae for biofuel and/or fish for aquaculture.  On a smaller scale, more and more homes are becoming ‘wired’, with servers linking all of the major components of the house including lighting, security, entertainment and more.  Could a Biomodd system work in such an environment as well?  Could your aquarium cool your house’s computer?  Perhaps.

Another inspirational story I discovered this week comes from Veronika Scott of Detroit, MI.  Wanting to do something to help the homeless, she has developed an easy-to-make winter coat that can double as a sleeping bag.  With a little training such a coat can be made from readily available materials in 4-6 hours, sewn using only straight lines.  While definitely not a cure for homelessness, it may help some to survive a cold winter’s night and has caught the attention of Detroit-based clothing manufacturer Carhartt.

And finally, for now, the November 2010 issue of Ethical Traveler contains an article on China’s plan to fight deforestation/ desertification and climate change by planting a ‘Great Green Wall’.  From the site: “By 2050, more than 42 percent of China will be green – that is, if China’s plan to build a 400-million hectare (988-million acre) “Great Green Wall” to block expanding deserts and fight climate change takes root as planned. Launched in 1978 and officially known as the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, the network of artificial forests is slated to stretch 2,800 miles (4,506 kilometers) across 13 provinces in northern China within the next 40 years.“  It reminds me of the similar work being done by The Green Belt Movement in Africa, and the Nature Conservancy’s ‘Plant a Billion Trees‘ program.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Okay, the links for this week are:

• Give Water: Teague’s Campaign for Clean Water
• Street Smart Sustainability: The Entrepreneur’s Guide (a review)
• CSR and employee engagement in Peru
• Definitions
• BASF Discussions: School Design Challenge / Making Embodied Energy Relevant
• The Building Green Daily
  • #csr Daily
  • #green Daily
  • #sustainability Daily
  • #hugs Daily (just to see if you’re paying attention)
• Synthetic Aesthetics iGEM 2010 Design Workshop: How Would You Design Nature? Nov. 6, 2010, Stanford, CA
• Noisette: Our Journey to Sustainability 2001-2007
• What’s Missing? The alphabet soup of federal sustainability requirements requires education.
  • ED+C magazine: Articles
• Communicating Sustainability Part II
  • Sustainable Facility magazine: Articles
• Cole Roofing: Green Roof Giveaway
• Managing Conference Waste: The Little Things Count
• Holland America Line’s 2009 Sustainability Report
• What Abu Dhabi Plans For When The Water Runs Out
• Uh Oh: Climate Change Confuses Most Americans
• Blowing hot and cold
• At Greenbuild, Learn About New LEED International Program
  • Greenbuild: Generation Green
• STAR Sustainability Goals and Guiding Principles
• European effort to bring smart textile at industrial manufacturing level
• The Three ‘I’s of Sustainability Reporting’s Future
• Driven Apart: Sprawl Crawl
• ILBI: Living City Design Competition
• Boho: A New American Spirit – Green Fashion Magazine
• How to Winterize Your Home and Save on Fuel Costs
• Motorola Recognized by Three Leading Sustainability Rankings
• The Smart Mama: Simple Steps to Non-Toxic Kids
• The Urbee Hybrid is the World’s First 3-D Printed Car
• Sustainability Reports: Don’t ask “if,” ask “how”
• CA Climate law suspension defeated
• Bola Gibson interview: redefining perceptions of business sustainability
  • Developing the private sector’s role
• Levi’s New Jeans Design Cuts Water Use by 96 Percent
• Will ISO 26000 Change The World?
• P: The Lighting Retrofit Calculator
• Duck, duck … mushroom?
• Architect and EcoStructure Product Spec Guide: Fall 2010 (digital magazine)
• Environmental Building News: November 2010
• GreenExpo365.com – The Interactive Green Community
• CPAWS: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
• Greenroofs.com Projects – Fish House
  • Greenroofs.com “This Week in Review” video
• Planet Green
• ed+c magazine eNews
• Sustainable Facility magazine eNews
• Environmental Building News
• Natural Resources Canada: RETScreen International Training Calendar
• Green Building Advisor eLetter
• News from Sustainable Santa Monica
• Investing in Clean Energy
• inhabitat weekly news
• Transforming Housing: Net Zero Energy – Can We Afford Anything Less? Nov. 23, 2010, Victoria, BC

That’s it for now.  Have a great week!
Mike.

P.S.  On the left side of this page we have a link to’ Global Giving’.  I came across a similar site this week called razoo: Raise Money for Nonprofits and Charities Online.  Figured they were worth a mention!