Sustainability, Education, and our childrens' childrens' children

Sustainable construction. Green Building.  Limited Footprint. Sustainable design. Green energy. Green building.  Greener cities. LEED. Sustainability. Reduce. Recycle. Reuse.

All of these words refer to the method of construction, operation, or continued efforts toward a planet that we can develop, manage, live and enjoy.  Within the industries and living habitats we need to develop means and methods that will provide our environment a lower impact than what is being used today. Education will bring our world towards a more respecting and knowledge approach when building and living on this planet.  Education is a very critical element of sustainability; it may be the most critical. Whatever the case for the most critical element of sustainability, the fact that our approach to the planet’s environment and our living habitats will determine the outcome for our children and our children’s children’s children. 

Notable elements of air content, material usage, energy and atmosphere, emerging innovations, sound quality, outdoor air and environmental quality, and many more build on education.  When we educate our children, teachers, leaders, teenagers, and foreign affairs with a focus on sustainability then developments and progress can be a result.  Every day we affect our communication with our environment.  As people become better educated in better methods and practices in sustainability, the world will simply become cleaner, safer, and will be a more enjoyable place to live.

The first question to ask ourselves is: “What responsibilities does our generation have to future generations?” The second question to ask is “How can we educate ourselves in regards to question one to make a better world for ourselves?”.  When our responsibilities are questioned, there comes an elaborate and needed reply.

It is a very dynamic type of question. The responsibilities are almost endless.

The population of the world is growing at a substantial rate. About every 12-15 years the population of the world goes up by roughly one billion. At this rate our planet could have more people than it can hold by the year 2050. That would be nearly 9-10 billion people in the entire world. With the population in such an out-of-control rise, consumption is going to become out of hand, or people with start to go hungry. This is where the question starts to get drawn. How does the planet prepare for such events that the world has overcrowding and not enough supplies to feed everyone? Right now the world should be considering two main planes of thought, consumption and population. What is going to happen when the system breaks? Do the populations of people have to rely on something more different than what they already have, or will our people have backup plans set in place for such a break down event in resources.

First off, let’s consider that "the system breaks" and the world runs out of essential resources, say, Oil. Without this resource our world starts to become a sort of junk yard with no way of using most of the devices that are in it. All of today's cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, heavy machinery, trains, and power plants...just to name a few, all run on some byproduct of Oil. Oil is a resource that is being consumed faster than it is used, well it is burned but I will get to that later. This resource is mostly in the eastern hemisphere and it does run out. As a geology major, Ill tell you it seems to this student that the people cannot find enough oil resources on the planet fast enough to keep our barrels per day numbers where they need to be to sustain descent efficiency. The problem is not widespread, in the Middle East oil is everywhere and in the oceans oil is abundant, but the oil is not made at the rate at which it is consumed. Got that? I hope so. How about some new ways to run the machines that the oil runs on. The technology for rechargeable batteries is getting better and every day people are riding bikes, something to consider..... Whose oil is all the oil, anyway? Can the people really think for very much longer that all this oil is theirs for the taking? People should know that carpools and taking the bus is consumption. Walking to work and riding your bike are great ways to not even use any type of fossil foil at all, get this...your body runs on air! Our second most abundant resource on the planet. What is the most abundant resource on the planet you ask? I think its water, or there is a tossup between the two, and both water and air complement the work your body does. What if 15 people on a bus-bike could really work? Everyone could actually ride bikes, wouldn’t that be a rip-roaring better time than a thousand people lined up on the interstate cause some idiot was going 102mph and slammed his car into a wall? All I’m saying is I think today's people do really have an obligation to the future generations to do what it takes to slow the consumption of oil. Consumption of oil and the fossil fuels is not just the only concern; another is the water tables.

The water tables in the planet are not in danger of being consumed faster than replenished; the water is in danger of becoming polluted and undrinkable. The water tables in the earth are where most of the drinking water in the US comes from. Even in California water is pumped in from other states for their outrageous populations. When people start putting in landfills, the seepage from the landfills do actually reach water sources. Memphis, TN is an example of such a place. The Shelby farms landfill  has been there for years, covered by soil, and made into a park. Below the surface is where the trouble is, where near the bottom of the landfill seepage is taking place. Right below the Shelby farms landfill is the Tennessee and Arkansas aquifers. The water in these aquifers is replaced every year, considering normal wet season, near Nashville and dips under the Mississippi river. The Shelby farms landfill's seepage is moving thousands of meters a year toward the aquifers, creating a big problem for our future generations. This example shows one reason for planning for the future generations. Polluting the soils and water ways can damage these precious water supplies and render them useless in the future. Can people recycle, the answer is yes. Research has been done in that people are physically able to recycle their goods (i.e. aluminum cans, glassware, band aids, Styrofoam) so that people of tomorrow dont have to worry about their nasty soils and ruined water tables and focus on treating each other with respect and destroying war between "the people". Even our toddlers and middle schoolers are showing this recycle attitude, instead of just throwing their gum on the useful soil or in the water, they put it under the desk at their schools; preventing the pollution of our soils and water tables. If the system does break and the aquifers of the US, or even the world, start to become polluted, what then? Our generations should be on top of this matter in that they are planning on backup plans of changing salt-water to drinking water by the thousands of gallons or finding new waters to reproduce water or recycle water to drinking standards. Without ways to go without the aquifers, millions and millions of people could be relying on unfit drinking water or shortages and droughts on water.

People of today are already finding new ways to recycle their water. We are typically willing to hold people responsible for actions that could cause harm at later times. With landfills and nuclear power plants around, there is a wonder if any of these localities will one day go bad and destroy the surrounding area. Both localities being dangerous either it being the nuclear power plant to pollute the surrounding areas with fallout, or the landfill to bust or something and pollute the surrounding soils and water tables. What about your obligation to your future self? I see this as in yourself or your future family (kids, brother's kids, your kid's kids), whom must live in the world in the future. You future self must maintain healthy living conditions to stay alive for many years. You might even have that obligation to produce savings in bank accounts or property where your family down the line will have something to rely on such that they won’t have to scratch for resources, or just die off. Giant water treatment plants work around the clock to reproduce water that run through your toilets and sinks. Is this enough? I say it’s not. If everybody did something to help recycle, reduce, and reuse products, then I believe the consumption of products would slow down and the pollution in direct connection would also drop.

A utilitarian belief is in maximum happiness, or trying to keep from unhappy results. A look at history and it has not been perfectly constant.....

Some guys over there want my beautiful piece of land, on the beach, temp is always 77 degrees and partly cloudy. So what do they do, they are forced to try to conquer my land for their better welfare and future out comings. All my people fight against their people; I just think it’s stupid. That’s some of history; the rest seems to be in the meantime of such events of war.

Maximum happiness is a difficult objective to accomplish for 50 percent of the world, making it in my book as a goal for the world, establishing average happiness and trying to force widespread happiness. Widespread happiness, what is that? Could the world obtain such a maximum that it isn’t the best it has ever been, but moreover a happiness that can produce an outcome at the world-wide level. In the words of Biggie Smalls "If everybody could just get along", there would be a better place for everyone. Everybody getting along could mean everyone pitching in to recycle and no war causing distress over resources. Even at average happiness a question of whether someone should be born could be raised. Should the world's poor reproduce? Economically, that would be just more poor folk that are hungry and looking for food or taking up space.


These trends and practices that the people of the world go through every day may be heading toward some type of future unforeseen harm. It is in my opnion that the people seem responsible for the harm, but can one really put responsibility on today's people for a preparation for a future people that do not exist yet? It’s interesting how people can care so much for themselves and yet have no idea that a future people will care the same for themselves. Would this cause a default condition for today's people to be made to consider the future? Simple ways of thinking like recycling and reusing plays big roles in these areas. Literature is an example of such an event of conserving or reusing. Literature is a resource that must be maintained as our sources for knowledge and understanding. Taking care of newspaper articles, books, and magazines is the way to reduce timber consumption and to just keep the text knowledge for the future generations. The education that is in our society's schools, colleges, and libraries is vital in technological growth, safety and economics, and even general welfare. If little care is taken in the preserve of such resources, the future will be without alot of information that we take for granted. What can people do to preserve knowledge? Continue educating each other while preserving libraries and school in the public. Not just is the health of the future people at sake, so it the ability to learn and worship. The ability for a people to stay healthy through clean drinking water, better food from clean soils, and clean air yields the ability of the people to be exercised and alert for better health, education, and day to day living; maybe even promoting longer lifestyles and lifetimes.

Think about it...The less oil you use, the less carbon monoxide is produced in our breathing air. The more a person can recycle the less trash is created. The less a person uses per week or month, the more of that resource we can spend over time at a steady amount rather very quickly in mass units.

Then again, what if there is really is no need to worry about anything because our geologist have no idea what they are talking about, the scientist of the air dont know what they are doing, and the environmentalists are just crazy? Imagine an entire earth filled with everything that we need to live for another 400,000 years but just don’t have the technology to drill or consume those resources yet. Today's people have no idea that the future people will be like. The future people could discover all new types of combustion for cars and trains and new resources for food and breathing. Today's generations could be just not smart enough yet to realize the speed rate of technology and the types of technologies that have not been invented yet. The new technologies could be the new revolutionizing of resources, from atom splitting to planetary research, even center of the earth discoveries. These ideas must sounds crazy but it is just thought on the reality of the terms exploited in this paper.
Does the planet consume too much? Frederick Kaufman's book Environmental Ethics tends to teach this way. The author displays the idea that the west is consuming much faster its resources than to be reserved and the rest of the world could be starving or 5 times our maximum consumption levels, as in the east. The margins expressed from Kaufman are enormous, not gradual either mister! No, the world is actually doubling its consumption and trash every year. Again, population and consumption. The world doesn’t care though. Most of the people of today do not know where to start with this idea, or what is needed.

Whatever the outcome is after 20 years from now, 100 years, 400 years......will be the times when people start to wake up to realizing that their kids could be in danger. Our kids could fall short of maximum happiness and that is the problem. Our kids, their kids, their kids, their kids and further and further will reap what we sow now. With continue effort and integrity in research, education and recycling, the world could move towards a brighter future. Does the world today have an obligation to the future peoples? I think so.....just don’t let the recycling or looking out for the future hinder YOUR maximum happiness.

The world is falling apart and no one seems to care.

Everything we do from our generation forward should be education driven.  The more we educate and provide our future generations the knowledge and direction they need to create a more sustainable world, the more the world will better itself into societal preservation.  

The hype of today’s world is endless.  Endless TV, movies, entertainment, advertising, social gratification, wealth, and fear of poverty is driving our world. A real player in this endless society is ignorance and apathy. I don’t know and I don’t care. These two attitudes have become a endless stream of useless consciousness. But I digress…this can only bring us back towards education.

Education is a critical element of sustainability. As we build green buildings, green homes, drive green cars and fly green planes; these actions all require a continued focus that will only be supported by education.  The users of these green and sustainable areas of life require the skills and resources necessary to properly execute daily sustainability.  If we try to regulate the need for sustainability the creativity, growth, and motivation may become watered down with instant gratification seeking business leaders. We can educate the population with sustainability and the population will develop into more green conscious individuals.

If we are going to build homes that are green in design and sustainable in operation, then it is imperative that the home owners understand how to manage their home. Without the proper education, the home owner looses the ability to properly green their environment and sustainability looses it’s gradual progression.

If we are going to build businesses that are green in nature and sustainable in operation, then it is imperative that the business managers understand how to maintain green practices within their business. Without the proper education, the business owner purchases ideas and products but will not maintain a progression towards sustainable design and innovation in the business.

If we are to ask our children’s children to live in a world we created, then it is imperative that our educational goals teach sustainability, respect towards the environment, and healthier living.  These subjects are simple ideas that can be formulated to provide opportunities in careers, growth in mass movements, daily reflection and family development concentration, and a better environment to reside. The idea of sustainability will not be a favorite subject at the dinner tables of the future, but it can be learned as a way of living. Without an education for the world in sustainability, our world will continue to crumble and fall into a wasteland of burnt out cities, farms, communities, and living conditions.

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1&

I was turned on to the article recently....a very interesting read.

Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.

By Joseph E. Stiglitz•

Illustration by Stephen Doyle

May 2011

THE FAT AND THE FURIOUS The top 1 percent may have the best houses, educations, and lifestyles, says the author, but “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.
Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin.
Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.
First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity. Whenever we diminish equality of opportunity, it means that we are not using some of our most valuable assets—our people—in the most productive way possible. Second, many of the distortions that lead to inequality—such as those associated with monopoly power and preferential tax treatment for special interests—undermine the efficiency of the economy. This new inequality goes on to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people, seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy economy.
Third, and perhaps most important, a modern economy requires “collective action”—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. The United States and the world have benefited greatly from government-sponsored research that led to the Internet, to advances in public health, and so on. But America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead.
None of this should come as a surprise—it is simply what happens when a society’s wealth distribution becomes lopsided. The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. They also worry about strong government—one that could use its powers to adjust the balance, take some of their wealth, and invest it for the common good. The top 1 percent may complain about the kind of government we have in America, but in truth they like it just fine: too gridlocked to re-distribute, too divided to do anything but lower taxes.
Economists are not sure how to fully explain the growing inequality in America. The ordinary dynamics of supply and demand have certainly played a role: laborsaving technologies have reduced the demand for many “good” middle-class, blue-collar jobs. Globalization has created a worldwide marketplace, pitting expensive unskilled workers in America against cheap unskilled workers overseas. Social changes have also played a role—for instance, the decline of unions, which once represented a third of American workers and now represent about 12 percent.
But one big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way. The most obvious example involves tax policy. Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride. Monopolies and near monopolies have always been a source of economic power—from John D. Rockefeller at the beginning of the last century to Bill Gates at the end. Lax enforcement of anti-trust laws, especially during Republican administrations, has been a godsend to the top 1 percent. Much of today’s inequality is due to manipulation of the financial system, enabled by changes in the rules that have been bought and paid for by the financial industry itself—one of its best investments ever. The government lent money to financial institutions at close to 0 percent interest and provided generous bailouts on favorable terms when all else failed. Regulators turned a blind eye to a lack of transparency and to conflicts of interest.
When you look at the sheer volume of wealth controlled by the top 1 percent in this country, it’s tempting to see our growing inequality as a quintessentially American achievement—we started way behind the pack, but now we’re doing inequality on a world-class level. And it looks as if we’ll be building on this achievement for years to come, because what made it possible is self-reinforcing. Wealth begets power, which begets more wealth. During the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s—a scandal whose dimensions, by today’s standards, seem almost quaint—the banker Charles Keating was asked by a congressional committee whether the $1.5 million he had spread among a few key elected officials could actually buy influence. “I certainly hope so,” he replied. The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government, by removing limitations on campaign spending. The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift—through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price—it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.
America’s inequality distorts our society in every conceivable way. There is, for one thing, a well-documented lifestyle effect—people outside the top 1 percent increasingly live beyond their means. Trickle-down economics may be a chimera, but trickle-down behaviorism is very real. Inequality massively distorts our foreign policy. The top 1 percent rarely serve in the military—the reality is that the “all-volunteer” army does not pay enough to attract their sons and daughters, and patriotism goes only so far. Plus, the wealthiest class feels no pinch from higher taxes when the nation goes to war: borrowed money will pay for all that. Foreign policy, by definition, is about the balancing of national interests and national resources. With the top 1 percent in charge, and paying no price, the notion of balance and restraint goes out the window. There is no limit to the adventures we can undertake; corporations and contractors stand only to gain. The rules of economic globalization are likewise designed to benefit the rich: they encourage competition among countries for business, which drives down taxes on corporations, weakens health and environmental protections, and undermines what used to be viewed as the “core” labor rights, which include the right to collective bargaining. Imagine what the world might look like if the rules were designed instead to encourage competition among countries for workers. Governments would compete in providing economic security, low taxes on ordinary wage earners, good education, and a clean environment—things workers care about. But the top 1 percent don’t need to care.
Or, more accurately, they think they don’t. Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community are so important. America has long prided itself on being a fair society, where everyone has an equal chance of getting ahead, but the statistics suggest otherwise: the chances of a poor citizen, or even a middle-class citizen, making it to the top in America are smaller than in many countries of Europe. The cards are stacked against them. It is this sense of an unjust system without opportunity that has given rise to the conflagrations in the Middle East: rising food prices and growing and persistent youth unemployment simply served as kindling. With youth unemployment in America at around 20 percent (and in some locations, and among some socio-demographic groups, at twice that); with one out of six Americans desiring a full-time job not able to get one; with one out of seven Americans on food stamps (and about the same number suffering from “food insecurity”)—given all this, there is ample evidence that something has blocked the vaunted “trickling down” from the top 1 percent to everyone else. All of this is having the predictable effect of creating alienation—voter turnout among those in their 20s in the last election stood at 21 percent, comparable to the unemployment rate.

In recent weeks we have watched people taking to the streets by the millions to protest political, economic, and social conditions in the oppressive societies they inhabit. Governments have been toppled in Egypt and Tunisia. Protests have erupted in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. The ruling families elsewhere in the region look on nervously from their air-conditioned penthouses—will they be next? They are right to worry. These are societies where a minuscule fraction of the population—less than 1 percent—controls the lion’s share of the wealth; where wealth is a main determinant of power; where entrenched corruption of one sort or another is a way of life; and where the wealthiest often stand actively in the way of policies that would improve life for people in general.
As we gaze out at the popular fervor in the streets, one question to ask ourselves is this: When will it come to America? In important ways, our own country has become like one of these distant, troubled places.
Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.
The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

Tell me something interesting, because I am bored as shit

Are you bored with life? Decided you are no longer satisfied with the way you live your life, or even the way you love you life? Are you satisfied by the way you love your life? Do you love your life? Maybe you just like it, not really loving the life you live. Why do you not love your life, or maybe just really really enjoy your life?  Do you really want to spend the rest of your life not enjoying what you do best, to live? Is there something that you do that you don't like? Are there habits you have that you don't enjoy? Pornography? Smoking? Stealing? Killing? Hate? Boredom? Are you bored with your life and you don't know what to do about it. Boredom is as real as stress. Can you go get me a bucket of stress? boredom? so it real? probably not. it is simply something you( or we) created to satisfy a real you have nothing to do or have a want to do anything. Laziness. Why would this term be negative? It may not be in the way you are thinking. It is the laziness of the mind that will produce boredom or "laziness". If you can continue to be stimulated, entertained, bored, upset, excited, sad, happy, lonesome or occupied...then you are fine..right? But what about when you are not entertained? Why do you feel the need to always be DOING something..computer, watching tv, talking, sleeping, moving...it is because you want to. Relax. There is no reason to look negatively at what you are doing or have done.

If you do not like something in your life, change it. If you have people in your life that make you sad or upset, leave them. Why do you think you are bored? Because you are not constantly stimulated like you usually are. Relax, it is ok to sit there and stare at the wall, out the window, or at a leaf. Just let time pass without your body following your attention being brought to the next subject. Stop being bored, continue feeling like you have nothing to do sometimes. And that is ok.

People are becoming more and more distracted and filled with illusions from their distractions. If you can simpify your outlook and gaze your attention ahead on whats next, you can do anything. Forget about feeling bad for something you may not be doing and something you should be doing. When you feel like doing something, you will do it. Most of those thoughts about doing something else or not doing what you want and feel like doing at the moment is just distracting you. Relax

You may be more bored with life than you think. Your body knows how bored you are. Listen to your body and what it wants. Listen to your true self. You can tell yourself, "I have everything" or "Everything is great". But listen up, nothing is great on this planet..except nature, and you are a natural being. Trying to become supernatural or artificial will only cause you to loose focus or the ability to relax and enjoy your life. Enjoying all the things you do and trying to consider the positive side of your existence is a good idea, not a law or rule. So you can say "I hate this" or "But I really dont like this about that". My answer, why do you have that view and for what reason do you think you want to hate or dislike that part of your life. It may not be anything but some opinion you formed of a situation or person a LONG time ago and now that hate or dsilike for the situation or person has followed you for days, months, even years.

Try to reconsider your dislikes in life. I bet if you can make light of them and enjoy those areas of your life, you overall health and well being in life will improve.

Sustainable Construction and Green Design info

Green Building Discussions

USGBC- United States Green Building Council. organziation website "www.usgbc.org"

NAHB- National Association of Home Builders. organization website "www.nahb.com"

Built Green- organization website "www.builtgreen.net"

These "organizations" are organized around the idea that a group of individuals have found merit and acheivement in creating better building practices that benefit the environment and an owner's built habitat. The individuals probably understood that creating an organization would benefit their agenda more efficiently and effectively than just a charter or group. The organizations then have the interest of their members. Their members have founded these organizations simply to provide better building practices, cleaner environment, more effecient energy use, and better overall quality life built directly from the green building elements.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) does not appear to have been started with the initial effort to create green building practices. This organization has been around longer than the green building movement began its' roots, but has watched the trends of the housing market, evaluated the financial systems within this industry, and have forecast from these analysis. Provided, the NAHB has seen a growing interest in the community to create higher quality homes and businesses while also protecting the environment. The NAHB bagan their interest probably our of two main assets: grass root community involvement and financial forecasting providing better returns and overall satisfaction while managing user retention and political awareness.

I think the most crucial element of green design would be best practices. Best practices(BP) is a culmination of proper planning, education into the many green building sectors, and overall attention to detail. The best practices element may not be a defined by the prementioned organizations to be particular “key areas” or “sections of design” but I do think it is a key element. The BP of any building or project important because it provides the level of professionalism to every element that is required to sustain longevity within its structure. For instance, lets go with one of my favorites, air quality. (Setting aside proper sealing, coatings, and plumb construction) Air quality can be introduced to a contractor or company making the installation within a building or house. That contractor can be educated with a 1-2 day meeting to describe the importance of the construction and design implementation. Now, when the contractor begins the install, that contractor has the decision to take the time to do a proper install with proper equipment, resources, and attention to detail or to just get the job done. Best Practices refers to the quality of the designed green construction is installed into the structure. With poor practices, the installation may not work properly or malfunction; this completely negates the idea of the special air quality design and construction. Another example is solar panels. A contractor may install the panels too close to the house, use improper wiring, or not secure the panels to the house properly, the factors will cause the panels to not work properly and negate the green energy solution. The other side of best practices is the attention to detail that the owner, contractor, design team, and end user agree. The greater the attention to detail (ie windows sealed properly, doors built correctly, the right type and location of insulation and it must be installed properly) the better the overall green construction and home will function as a whole.  This element may be a branch of education and awareness.

I would want to choose all the elements when building a sustainable building envelop. The projects designed and built with green practices will only ever encompass certain areas of each elements, so it is prudent to involve as much of each element is possible. I will help my description with a drawing.

In this diagram, I show you how each element plays a role in the overall design but only a certain percentage or portion of that element can be used within the construction process, some more than others. The diagram shows greater uses of sustainable site, air quality, energy, and materials and was just outside the range for location and local linkages. This building may be in an area that allow for recycling of materials, good use of solar power, and has water and energy efficient appliances but was built outside the zone where buses, car routes, or schedules allow for higher grade transportation. 

The LEED guidelines would provide for somewhere between 60-78 points, allowing the building to be considered a “Gold” standard green building. The NAHB guidelines would provide for somewhere between 400-550, allowing the building to receive a “Silver” standard in green building.  My design has left out the likelihood of an optimal location and a green professional on staff.  My design also takes into account the actual ability to accrue the points from each organization and the reliance on strict best practices enforced by the organizations.

In the development of the site, the most crucial design element would be the air quality. Personally, this is where the tire meets the rubber. Develop outstanding air quality and the end user will feel better about their building and enjoy the comfort of the habitat with greater ease. The other elements can provide comfort and warmth in green design, but the air quality is the living element of the design process.  Build this into any building and the patrons will give back to their building a desire to make further improvements.  That is my forecast for the future of this sector of the building and design industry. With this theoretical building, a more sustainable site could be planned, developed, maintained, and then turned over to the client for further maintenance.

The beginning of the sustainable site will come from the design.  A thorough investigation of the ground water table, rain fall almanac, soil types, local watershed, area geology, elevation and climate will give the design team an in-depth look at the building site. Once a understanding is developed and decided upon, the team can then begin the layout design for the building and guidelines for the site’s sustainability.  Once the plan is established, the construction can begin. From day one, the owner, architects (or even the design team), general contractor and sub-contractors must be employed by the sustainable attitude. Without the best practices, or “sustainable attitude”, the sustainable site can be tainted with disregard and waste.  As construction continues, daily checklists and routines will provide the contractors an easy way to stay on track for the sustainable design.  Lessons learned on a daily and weekly basis can provide support for this program. Schedules and oversight can provide simple directions in areas of wastewater, waste product, energy use, area habitat destruction or reconstruction, and land use.  Near the end of the building phase, the build-design groups can turn over the maintenance history and guidelines to the owner. The owner can then view past practices on his site that have failed or provided sustainable elements and continue or discontinue what he feels responsible for in implementing.  With simple practices and continued attention to the surrounding environment, the owner will be able to maintain a low footprint building site and provide a clean environment for the required addresses within the site.

Solar Motion is my favorite green product. Maybe because I am a tech geek or just the shear productivity of solar light shade that these shade produce, still one of my favorite items on the market.  These shades change angle with the angle of the sun. The shades provide the healthy natural light when needed but can also produce a significant amount of shade to serve a purpose. As the sun rises and falls, the shades on the building or house change their degree in accordance with the solar light ray being focus on that area of the building/house.  The energy savings produced by the shade (as mentioned above) is shown in this diagram. Notice in the diagram the average energy savings without the savings, now consider the savings that the shading provides. That is a 21-22% reduction in the annual cooling energy demand (MWhrs) for that building.  The website for this product at www.c-sgroup.com displayed the following text near the graph:

“C/S hired an independent engineering firm to model the energy and capital cost savings that an owner would achieve by using C/S Controllable Sunshades on a ten story building in Dallas and four other cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. The test building’s facade includes standard double glazed low-E glass on all elevations. The results of the computer 
model in the chart above show the energy usage/savings with and without C/S Controllable Sunshades. The engineering firm utilized a recognized building modeling program.”

This is not a century progressive movement altering accomplishment in green products, but it does play its’ part in reducing energy cost and proving a more manageable building thermal zone, and possible air quality. (Air quality would be comfort and overall fluxuations in temperature)

The best features of this product are the mechanical shades that protect the building from the inferred and direct sunlight. The shade reduces the amount of heat built up on the sunlight side and therefore allow the building to stay cooler while not overloading an air conditioning unit. The lowest possible characteristic of interest is the cost. The labor and materials for this product must be through the roof.

Now, there is the possibility that these panels could also house solar panels that convert sunlight to direct energy through a series of transformer panels. In this case, the blinds could essentially “switch on and off” the amount of power it requires. Heat during the day is transformed into building heat while the panels adjust for just the right amount of sunlight throughout the building while gathering solar energy. The solar energy is then converted into AC current which can run most of building with a very small reliance on the “grid”. Over sunny days, cloudy days, and partly cloudy days the building would adjust accordingly to the right amount of sunlight within the building to produce daytime sun healing while absorbing sunlight for energy then reverting to late afternoon shade and switching over to aux or stored power to reduce grid load.

My research into this product’s points for LEED and NASB were few and far between.  Within the LEED I found air quality points, materials and resources points, and energy points (and maybe points toward water efficiency if you lined the shade with pipes). A total of nearly 20 points could be derived from NAHB and LEED programs.

Green Building Topics

ASHRAE indoor air quality- ASHRAE is a bunch of engineers who love to talk about Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration. ASHRAE is working to create standards for the management and improvement of indoor air quality. They have mentioned making sensors and putting in place design objectives when improving air quality.

Brownfield building site- This is simply a site that has lain derelict for some time, may contain hazardous chemicals or soil, and has been turned around into a building site for remediation. The remediation would further lead to possible redevelopment.

Building Envelop-  The separation between the interior and the exterior environments of a building. It serves as the outer shell to protect the indoor environment as well as to facilitate its climate control.  The red outline in the picture below follows the building envelope, also referred to as the pressure boundary.

In essence, this is the “thermos”

Construction Waste Management- The action to delegate responsibility to responsible parties when construction waste is produced to make the proper arrangements with municipal, state, and law guidelines to bring the waste by-product be recycled or reclaimed in an order to reduce trash or excessive unusable material.

Daylighting – “Daylighting reflects our symbiotic link to the sun. It brings the best of the outdoors into the places we work and live, providing clarity to our daily tasks. An ancient architectural technique, daylighting is noted for its economic and aesthetic value. The concept is basic — when an opening is placed in an exterior surface, daylight is admitted to facilitate visual tasks within its range. Daylighting strategies can save electric lighting energy over time, reduce HVAC loads, and increase comfort and satisfaction for building users.” www.edcmag.com I couldn’t have defined it better. This environmental and design group has tons of information on their website, they defined Daylighting better than I could, so I quoted them above.

Embodied Energy – This is the amount of energy required to build/transform/or renovate a building (towards a greener building also).  The embodied energy it takes to build a house from the ground up requires land use, power, water use, travel, ect. All these things require a certain amount of energy to perform the tasks. Now, if we are building a green building or renovating a building towards green, the energy we embody into the building can be paid back or return in only a several years through the savings in energy, materials, and footprint.

Effluent-  is the mixing of a city’s or a habitat’s wastewater with fresh water in order to create a useable, but not potable product. The effluent water can be used in applications such as geothermal energy production or agricultural demands.

Floodplain – If my research serves me correct (google scholar), floodplain refers to the sustainable construction and rehabilitation of areas that are threatened or in need to further development.  These floodplains need mitigation to help wildlife, restore natural resources, or freshen a water supply.

Geothermal System - Geothermal energy is a technically-proven, cost effective source of electrical and thermal energy that has been utilized for many decades. Recent estimates indicate that over 6700 MWe (megawatts electrical) and 8200 MWt (megawatts thermal) are currently developed throughout the world. In the areas of CO₂, NO_x, and SO₂ emissions, land disturbance per MWe and disposal of waste products, geothermal energy has significantly fewer impacts than most other energy sources, particularly conventional fossil and nuclear fuels. There is a strong need for energy policy makers throughout the world to recognize the environmental advantages of geothermal energy and to incorporate their economic value when pricing and selecting new sources of energy.

Heat transfer – A widely researched and quantitatively intense subject, the heat transfer refers to the resistance of thermal energy within an envelope. The ability to create a thermal “cooler”, as compared to a food/beer cooler you see at parties, the beach, or a picnic, is the ideal scenario for a building envelope regarding heat transfer.

Building Orientation – Ah yes, the powerfully inclining and high trajectory of the building orientation. A subject so often discussed within sustainable construction and green design. This topic refers to the placement of a building on a site. The orientation of southern facing windows, northern facing air draft resistance, sunlight exposure and overall ventilation usher in the overall idea of building orientation. The direction in which certain sides of a building face in accordance with summer and winter months detail the location of windows, heating units, ventilation systems, day lighting implantation and continued maintenance of window openings.

Renewable energy – Energy created from a form of work produced from renewable resources.  Renewable resources include water, geothermal steam and water, air stream flow, sunlight, and ofcourse…fusion reactions.

Certified Wood – wood used in construction that has been grown in the more sustainable method possible. This wood is typically taken only from sustainable forest management land. The LEED program only provides one point for the use of certified wood, so don’t expect this to take off too soon. After I typed that I thought, well…why not? The contractors will not be too anxious to be shipping in wood from far away just for one LEED point, why not start sustainable forestry developments throughout communities? That would help contractors ship in the certified wood for local areas.

Water efficient landscaping- is a garden, household, or community landscaped area that uses water efficiently without excessive demand or waste of the water system. Planning will provide a starting point for the landscape to have the proper grade, structures, plants, and watering devices. Compost and cultivation will improve soil by creating better absorption and water retention. Grass requires a lot of water, the proper placement and use of grass is essential to the water efficient landscape.  Watering wisely, proper use of mulches and proper maintenance is the last elements of the water efficient landscape.

Photovoltaic systems- is a system that uses solar light to convert solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity. The system contains special electrical and mechanical devices, large cells placed on top a building, and proper regulating. The system can also include a battery component for rainy or cloudy days.

Volatile Organic Compounds- organic chemical compounds, manmade and naturally occurring, that have a high vapor pressure. When these chemicals effervesce, the vapor released can hard human or environmental health.  The results are not always acute but more frequently chronic in nature.

Renewable materials – simply put, materials that can be supplied just as fast as they are used up. These materials can either regenerate themselves or produced again and again. The ratio for demand and supply is extremely close if not 1.

Heating and Cooling degree days – A calculation for a building for the amount of energy over an annual or quarterly period that is required to cool/heat the building and maintain that level of “comfort” or “thermal balance”.  The heating or cooling load and design of a building related directly with the degree day calculation.