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For the Building Energy show, I've branched out a little bit, sharing my posts with the boston.com and with the VCR (video/commentary/research) arm of CSR wire, a wire service that aggregates and distributes releases with corporate social responsibility content.
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There is just an amazingly pervasive gloom at the show, not in feeling, but in expression of the problems the planet is facing.
This morning, Alex Wilson of BuildingGreen Inc., a founder and early supporter of NESEA, intended to give a speech that covered the "challenges" and then gave 10 categories of solutions, but then had to rush through the second half because the governor arrived. So he ended up spending more than 30 minutes, easily, on the many areas in which, it seems, we're just screwed, any minute.
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Gov. Deval Patrick delighted an estimated 1,ooo people at this morning's opening session of Building Energy '08 by saying that he's forming a Zero Net Energy Buildings task force. He said he's asking the group to give him recommendations for construction practices in time for this conference next year and to have the specifications in force soon afterward.
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I mentioned previously that Building Energy '08, a trade show and conference run by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, was coming up, and now it's here. The main event today was a two-hour open forum on energy efficiency and sustainability that was fascinating, inspiring, depressing, and annoying, in parts.
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Far from Obama-Clinton, my dream pairing would be Obama and Al Gore.
I concede that there is infinitessimally little chance of this happening that it is sophomoric to expend even these next few electrons on it. But, hey, they're only electrons.
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It would be pretty laughable if the folks behind this weekend’s Down 2 Earth consumer expo were driving Hummers to and from the show, leaving the lights on all night and the heat on all day at their palatial Boylston Street suites. But no, organizers say they’ve tried to practice what they’re presenting tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday at the Hynes Convention Center. Here’s some of what they’re doing:
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Via Green Building Elements, I got to read this post by Dr Buzz0 (not "bozo," though close) at depletedcranium.com in which he addresses the top 10 things environmentalists need to understand. In his about-the-author section, he says he's very active in the skeptic and debunking community, which gives context for his post.
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Switching to lower-energy-use CFL lightbulbs and driving a hybrid car are good responses to the planet's climate crisis, says Lester Brown, the internationally recognized climate-change advocate, but the most important step a concerned citizen can take is to become politically active, he told a near capacity crowd at Cary Hall in Lexington Sunday night.
"Saving civilization is not a spectator sport," he said near the end of his hour-plus address, using the sort of sweeping language that characterized his remarks.
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Portfolio magazine offers up a list of 11 admirably green companies, and paired it with the "Toxic 10" list of companies that should be doing better. I found I was more interested in the bad guys, which I think says less about negativity (or, I hope so) than it says about new information: Companies doing more green are often cited as such, but I don't recall having seen many most-troubling-polluter lists.
I'll just pass on the names of each. You can follow the links if you want to know more.
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An Orlando, Fla., company, Hydromatic Technologies, has been drawing blogosphere attention this week for what seems like a no-brainer, why-didn't-anyone-do-this-years-ago development for the clothes dryer, one of the home's worst energy hogs. It is so power-mad, in fact, that Energy Star doesn't list a single one.
