Green Drinks NYC SPARK Speaker Series 2013

"Resilient Design: The New Imperative" with Alex Wilson of the Resilient Design Institute

 Green Drinks NYC  

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Join Green Drinks NYC on January 22, 2013 for our SPARK Speaker Series on Resilient Design in our fast changing "Post Sandy" world featuring Alex Wilson. 

Register here for the event.

Alex's SPARK will focus on the Resilient Design Institute (RDI) which he recently founded. RDI advances practical solutions that can be employed by communities, businesses and individuals to adapt and thrive amid the accelerating social, ecological and climatological change being experienced today.
 
Featuring: Alex Wilson, Founder, BuildingGreen, Inc. and Executive Editor, Environmental Building News & GreenSpec.  He has been at the forefront of green building and renewable energy for over three decades.  Alex served on the board of directors of the U.S. Green Building Council for five years and was a founding member of the USGBC Research Committee.
 

Alex was recently invited to serve on the new Building Resiliency Task Force which was created at the request of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg and is being facilitated by Urban Green for the City of New York.  The Task Force is taking an in-depth look at how to better prepare our buildings for future extreme weather events and infrastructure failures.

Hosted by Paul E McGinniss of The New York Green Advocate and featured contributor to EcoWatch.

 

 Register here for the event.

 

Renewable Energy Doubters Beware: The U.S. Military Wants Us to Go Green and They're Not Going To Take No For an Answer

by Paul E McGinniss

Use of Renewable Energy by the U.S. Military is not only good for the planet, but increases our energy security. Pic Via TGDaily.com  
In 2011, to mark 9/11, I wrote a blog post entitled Green Security: The U.S. Military Fights Climate Change and Declares War on Fossil Fuels. 

When I was researching the military's passionate effort to embrace renewable energy and sustainable operations, I was thrilled. Thrilled, not only because I knew military investment in renewable technology would help kick-start mainstream adoption of clean technology,  but, also, because here was a strong argument, finally, that renewable energy naysayers and climate change skeptics might actually listen to.  If the red, white, and blue armed forces are going green and seriously worried about climate change, well then, maybe global warming and the whole "green thing" is not just some liberal conspiracy or eco nonsense from left wing environmentalists. 

Energy Bulletin's  "The Real Reason the Military is Going Green" reported that the Department of Defense first acknowledged climate change as a factor in its operations in a 2010 report in the Quadrennial Defense Review.  The report stated: “Climate change may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world."

The excellent Energy Bulletin piece featured retired Brigadier General Steven Anderson who calls himself  “an accidental environmentalist.”  His epiphany about climate change began with a tactical problem in Iraq.  The Brigadier General coordinated the transport of millions of gallons of fuel across Iraq to power everything from vehicles to the large compressors used to cool individual tents.  He was taking one casualty for every 24 fuel convoys, and he was conducting 18 convoys a day. That’s one casualty every other day. He needed to get the trucks off the road. He needed to find a way to reduce the military’s fuel use and integrate solar PV and other alternative power sources into his base of operation.

Granted, the initial thrust of the military going green might have been to protect soldiers, not to save the environment.  But, saving lives is, ultimately, what saving the environment is all about. 

Why should our own soldiers risk their lives because they have to haul barrels of oil around hostile territory when there are safer, cleaner ways to power their operations? The thought of not questioning the paradigm is as illogical as it is idiotic.    

Unfortunately, some of our less enlightened Congressional leaders seem to think they know better than the the military brass.  In February, Republican Representative Randy Forbes from Virginia had the audacity to pound his desk after Secretary of the Navy Raymond Mabus Jr. explained some of the Navy’s plans for going greener during a House Armed Services Committee Meeting. Forbes chided Mabus:  “You’re not the Secretary of the Energy—you’re Secretary of the Navy.”

In  U.S. Military's Green Energy Criticized By Congress, NPR reported the White House and military brass are calling for the development of alternative energy. One goal is cutting dependence on foreign sources. Another is reducing the carbon footprint of the largest fossil fuel consumer in the world. 

Sharon Burke, assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs, called biofuels and alternative fuels “sustainable and reliable” ways the United States can accomplish the defense mission. “Energy security is about international stability and prosperity and that is fundamentally an issue of national security,” Burke said.  And, the Defense Department is implementing new forms of energy without destabilizing the existing infrastructure.  Burke explained: “We’re looking for fuels that are compatible with our existing equipment and storage infrastructure and a cost-competitive alternative fuels market.”

There are more and more people in the private sector who get that going green by implementing use of alternative fuels, renewable technology and taking action to mitigate climate change is as much about security as saving the environment.  This includes Alex Wilson, founder of  BuildingGreen, who recently launched the Resilient Design Institute to study ways to make our homes and communities more resilient and better prepared for natural disasters and potential disruptions in energy and food supplies in the future.

But, some on Capitol Hill are blocking the military's efforts to develop a green program. The NPR host, Audie Cornish, said: "Now, one of the program's biggest critics is Senator John McCain. He argues that the President is using the military to pursue a green agenda." 

What is wrong Senator McCain with the President of the United States of America, our Commander in Chief, helping the military to save soldiers' lives, reduce security threats, all the while pursuing an environmentally friendly, green agenda which the military itself was already embracing wholeheartedly? 

Now is the time to be proud of the Red, White, Blue AND Green.  

Copyright Paul E McGinniss 2012

Check out the Video: Army Net Zero: Going Green with Solar Power

Here Comes The Flood: Why Climate Change Doesn't Matter

Alex Wilson and the Resilient Design Institute Think It's Time To Forget About The Climate Change Debate and Time To Take The Gloves Off and Mitigate Global Warming

by Paul E McGinniss

Property damaged by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Photo: Vern Grubinger Via Resilient Design Institute. 

Mr. Resiliency, aka Alex Wilson, is a man on a mission.   He believes strongly in the existence of climate change and the serious effects it will have worldwide in the coming years. Alex Wilson knows a lot about the environment.  Founder of Environmental Building News, BuildingGreen and GreenSpec, Alex has been promoting environmentally friendly, healthy, clean energy living since Jimmy Carter put Solar Panels on the White House. 

The case of the missing White House solar panels. Solar panels in the 70s went out of fashion faster then bell bottom pants and bad hairdos.  Photo of President Carter on the White House roof via Mother Board and Brian Merchant.

But, let's face it, most people did not take President Carter's efforts seriously.  Currently, as well, not enough people are tuning into the environmental cause or doing anything substantial about changing the paradigm.  While the arctic ice caps melt, whole swaths of the U.S. burst into flames or experience seriously dangerous long term drought, and freak storms regularly devastate various parts of the USA, most of us just bumble along and debate Climate Change. Blah blah blah.

In the Resilient Design Institute blog post "Changing the Climate Change Conversation",  Vern Grubinger points out the following. "The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication reports that only 40% of Americans were alarmed or concerned about climate change, 25% were dismissive or doubtful,  and the rest were in the middle. One-third of all Americans are cautious, meaning they believe global warming is a problem, but not an urgent one, and they’re unsure if it’s caused by humans."

Photo of floods in Bangladesh via Common Dreams.

 

Meanwhile, a shocking new analysis by the humanitarian and development research organization, DARA, warns that if the danger of climate change continues to be ignored by the world's governments, the encroaching disaster could claim the lives of 100 million people in the next two decades.  And, lost economic prosperity to the world economies would be measured in the trillions of dollars.

Pic Via Elephant Journal via Theresa on Pinterest.

Luckily, smart people like Alex are shifting the focus away from the climate change debate and to the significant environmental impacts and disasters already slapping many of us in the face.

For instance, far from the mainstream media's contentious discussion, Himalayans in remote villages of Nepal and India, eking a living from the land, have clearly figured out that something is up with the environment. The Royal Society in London published a study in 2011 that reported the following. For Himalayans: "There is a widespread feeling that weather is getting warmer, the water sources are drying up, the onset of summer and monsoon has advanced during last 10 years and there is less snow on mountains than before. Local perceptions of the impact of climate change on biodiversity included early budburst and flowering, new agricultural pests and weeds and appearance of mosquitoes."

You still don't think getting slapped upside the head by Mother Nature doesn't change perception of global warming?  Nature.com has a revealing article entitled "Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience." 

Here comes the flood.  Welcome to a green world.  Like it or not. 

Copyright Paul E McGinniss 2012

Check out Peter Gabriel's awesome "Here Comes the Flood". (Click on twice to view full screen)