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A City Cooler and Dimmer, and, Oh, Proving a Point
William Yardley, New York Times
JUNEAU, Alaska - Conservationists swoon at the possibility of it all. Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more than 30 percent in a matter of weeks, instantly establishing itself as a role model for how to go green, and fast.

Comfort has been recalibrated. The public sauna has been closed and the lights have been dimmed at the indoor community pool. At the library, one of the two elevators was shut down after someone figured out it cost 20 cents for each round trip. The thermostat at the convention center was dialed down eight degrees, to 60. The marquee outside is dark.

Schoolchildren sacrifice Nintendo time and boast at show-and-tell of kilowatts saved.
(14 May 2008)
Contributor Scott Chisholm Lamont writes:
This happened in the city of Auckland, New Zealand in 1998, when multiple transmission line failures resulted in complete power loss for over two months. The modern buildings became completely uninhabitable. There was an excellent review of this on one of the international permaculture magazines. Peak energy will look like both of these situations, particularly in urban centers. It doesn't have to be this drastic, but that would required a proactive stance. As one person in the Readers' Comments stated: "Until something drastic happens to our pocket books or environment, nothing will change, and talk will continue. - Christina Smith, Utah"

The Class Isn’t Always Greener (But It Could Be)
Allison Arieff, By Design (NY Times blog)
School design, particularly public school design, is often lumped in with the design of other institutional structures like jails, civic centers and hospitals, to detrimental effect. My high school, for example, had the dubious distinction of having been designed by the architect responsible for San Quentin. (The convicts got the better building.) Schools fulfill a practical function, to be sure, but shouldn’t they be designed to inspire?

Many preschools already are: outdoor activities are emphasized - swinging, walking, digging. But as kids get older, in this generation more than any that has preceded it, the time they spend in nature decreases significantly.

... What amounts really to a sort of cubicle culture for kids is contributing to what author Richard Louv terms “nature deficit disorder” in his book “Last Child in the Woods.” In it, Louv describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them “diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses…nature deficit disorder can even change human behavior in cities, which could ultimately effect their design, since longstanding studies show a relationship between the absence, or inaccessibility, of parks and open space with high crime rates, depression, and other urban maladies.” A great quote from one of Louv’s thousands of interviews with children: “I like to play indoors better ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

Around the same time I finished reading Louv’s compelling book, I discovered an amazing, almost fantastical, alternative to such schools: Germany’s Waldkindergarten, or “forest kindergarten.”
(12 May 2008)

Sustainability for competitive advantage
Chris Laszlo, San Francisco Chronicle
Sustainability, the buzzword in management circles, is seen by critics as a misguided effort by executives trying to meet rising public expectations of business. Observers might be forgiven for disbelieving in the corporate world's renewed moral agenda to solve world hunger and save the whales. When Wal-Mart announces its plans to sell products that sustain our resources and the environment, we feel hoodwinked.

And yet there are signs that sustainable business - one that fully accounts for the environmental and social impacts it has on the world - has already become a mainstream reality. When the CEOs of General Electric, Procter & Gamble and Toyota are willing to tackle global challenges such as climate change and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, not as moral obligations but as a strategic business opportunity, you have to believe there is more going on than regulatory compliance or public relations.

Chris Laszlo is the author of "Sustainable Value; How the World's Leading Companies are Doing Well by Doing Good," (Stanford University Press, 2008).
(14 May 2008)

If Your Appliances Are Avocado, They Probably Aren’t Green
Alina Tugend, New York Times
... “It takes energy to make a product,” said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “You don’t want to replace perfectly good products.”

He gave me his rule of thumb for refrigerators.

“If it’s avocado or brown-colored, it’s time to retire it,” he said. Refrigerators from the 1970s, the last time I believe those particular appliance colors were in vogue, use three to four times the power of today’s models. ...
(10 May 2008)