HER LEED

I’ve spent the last two weeks learning about the affordable housing infrastructure — trying to find a point of entry to implement sustainable retrogrades without disturbing the multifaceted financing structure. I find myself observing a system that has little room for new ideas to penetrate.
An influential professor from my days at Cal described a professional [...]

Walking in the rain on the way to volunteer at my city’s climate action project, I strode warm and dry under my polypropylene and Gortex.  I wondered what it would be like to live in a walkable community where our consumer culture feasted on good rain gear and bicycle fenders instead of Xbox’s?  The car [...]

This week provides a whirlwind of interesting material. First, I read a fascinating article about China’s position in the sprint toward green, clean energy and technology.
At a Shanghai clean-tech conference the author shared a critical observation: the Chinese business people in attendance arrived early but didn’t stay. It seems China values action more than [...]

The International Day of Climate Action met its mission, in part, by drawing out at least 350 environmental advocates to San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza on Saturday. Hosted by 350.org, the event’s statement: “inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for [...]

Picture a greeting card that shows a sketch of a person standing on the edge of a cliff that sharply drops off into the abyss; when you open the card the message reads: “An optimist enters the world.”
This one goes out to all the game changers that experience the inevitable  waiver in their commitments. Those [...]

Browsing the November issue of my favorite mind candy, Vanity Fair, I came across a short article about Carrie Fisher.  What struck me in her self deprecating expose’ was an insightful comment that spoke to our energy milieu, “If you claim something, you can own it. But if you have it as a shameful [...]

San Francisco hosted the West Coast Green building conference last week at the historic Fort Mason Center. The conference theme, “you are brilliant,” fell flat when it came to integrating efficient transportation and bicycle parking into an event that waves a bright green banner.  This lack of brilliance was a [...]

Last week the EPA announced a proposal to tighten permitting fees for the largest greenhouse gas emitters.  Smaller industries that emit less than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year will not have to meet the EPA’s self-described “undue burden” of stiffer regulatory compliance. Yet stiff regulation for some and not for all actually prevents [...]