Geothermal heating for a housing project originally built for veterans after WWII, Wheeler Terrace has been retrofitted to use green energy.
You never think of DC for geothermal heating and cooling. It's always Iceland or someplace like that. And you certainly don't think of affordable housing, either.
But here it is in DC, "Located in the Washington Highlands community, Wheeler Terrace is the first affordable housing complex in the District expected to meet both the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria for affordable housing and the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standard." from The Washington Informer.
The innovation is expected to bring a 25% reduction in energy consumption for Wheeler Terrace. Pretty good!
Showing posts with label Green Living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Living. Show all posts
8.20.2010
Belgian Heat Map: New Way For Neighbors To Compete
I remember when a neighbor joked that we should have a competition for Best Garden on the Street. Yes, we were all in gentle competition with each other's gardens.
Belgium has capitalized on that natural human instinct to be the best of the pack, or at least not lagging behind, by putting heat maps on the internet of the amount of heat being emitted from houses in a group of towns. Video below. So residents can compare how fuel efficient their house is compared to their neighbors. And compete, like the animals we are.
Belgium has capitalized on that natural human instinct to be the best of the pack, or at least not lagging behind, by putting heat maps on the internet of the amount of heat being emitted from houses in a group of towns. Video below. So residents can compare how fuel efficient their house is compared to their neighbors. And compete, like the animals we are.
4.01.2009
Free Food!
It's the time of year when you can pick free food from your front yard. Dandelion greens! The early leaves of the dandelion plant in the Springtime are the best and most tender for eating. If you wait for later in the season, the leaves tend to turn really tough.
To eat dandelion greens: pick them, heat two tablespoons of oil in a skillet, saute the greens.
The big challenge will be to find dandelion greens that a dog hasn't peed on.
To eat dandelion greens: pick them, heat two tablespoons of oil in a skillet, saute the greens.
The big challenge will be to find dandelion greens that a dog hasn't peed on.
2.16.2009
Alternative Energy or Clean Energy?
The two are not necessarily related. The question is: what is more or a priority - relying on ourselves for energy, or protecting the environment?
In the future, you will see these two interests diverge.
Personally, I'm in favor of energy independence first. The sooner we can tell those oil nation to take a hike, the happier I'll be. Imagine a world where you no longer have to think about the Middle East. Hooray!
In pursuit of my patriotic duty, I am now composting, making my own yogurt which is WAY better than the store stuff, starting the seeds for my garden, and growing sprouts. Damn, I feel superior.
Environment, Food, Food Deserts, Foodshed, Green Living, Growing Power, Sustainability, Will Allen, Green News, vegetable
In the future, you will see these two interests diverge.
Personally, I'm in favor of energy independence first. The sooner we can tell those oil nation to take a hike, the happier I'll be. Imagine a world where you no longer have to think about the Middle East. Hooray!
In pursuit of my patriotic duty, I am now composting, making my own yogurt which is WAY better than the store stuff, starting the seeds for my garden, and growing sprouts. Damn, I feel superior.
Environment, Food, Food Deserts, Foodshed, Green Living, Growing Power, Sustainability, Will Allen, Green News, vegetable
1.28.2009
PR Smackdown: Genetically Modified Foods Strikes Back!
The PR machine for genetically modified foods scored a big one in Slate. The case is artfully made in favor of frankenfoods: it produces less green house gases to have genetically modified cows, nitrogen is poisoning the soil if specially-tailored franken-vegetables are not created to use less nitrogen, and we have been using "hit or miss" breeding for centuries in developing the livestock we have now.
I have an idea. Let's use the methane gas produced by grass-fed cows to create electricity. Let's rotate crops to mitigate the gathering of nitrogen in soil. Let's allow nature to create animals in her own way instead of adding cucumber genes to chickens to get them to be more convenient to us.
What's interesting about the article, linked to the title of this post, is that it represents the PR efforts of Big Agribusiness to persuade the public that their weird combination of genes is just fine - and to stem the support of environmentalists for natural foods by dragging climate change into the debate. They are trying to sow divisions in the Green movement.
Reporters are lazy. If you hand them a press release with research that they can just reword, often they will use it. I'm not saying that's what happened here, I'm just saying that someone paid a lot of money to try to get this message into the mainstream media.
Antibiotics, Bacon, Biotech Agriculture, Center For Food Safety, Dna, Eating Matters, Fda, Food Matters, Genetically Modified Food, GM Foods, Green Living, Health, Hormone Treated Meat, Los Angeles Times, Nutrition, Salmon, Vegan, Vegetarian, Green News, Frankenfood, public relations, food, natural, organic, health, healthy
I have an idea. Let's use the methane gas produced by grass-fed cows to create electricity. Let's rotate crops to mitigate the gathering of nitrogen in soil. Let's allow nature to create animals in her own way instead of adding cucumber genes to chickens to get them to be more convenient to us.
What's interesting about the article, linked to the title of this post, is that it represents the PR efforts of Big Agribusiness to persuade the public that their weird combination of genes is just fine - and to stem the support of environmentalists for natural foods by dragging climate change into the debate. They are trying to sow divisions in the Green movement.
Reporters are lazy. If you hand them a press release with research that they can just reword, often they will use it. I'm not saying that's what happened here, I'm just saying that someone paid a lot of money to try to get this message into the mainstream media.
Antibiotics, Bacon, Biotech Agriculture, Center For Food Safety, Dna, Eating Matters, Fda, Food Matters, Genetically Modified Food, GM Foods, Green Living, Health, Hormone Treated Meat, Los Angeles Times, Nutrition, Salmon, Vegan, Vegetarian, Green News, Frankenfood, public relations, food, natural, organic, health, healthy
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