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The freshwater eel, which spawns in the middle of the ocean, was once abundant in much of the world. But the proliferation of dams, coastal development, and overfishing have drastically reduced eel populations, with few defenders coming to the aid of these fascinating — though still not fully understood — creatures. BY JAMES PROSEK

Today, I am publishing a guest post from engineer Ian T. Hadden.  I asked Ian to write a guest post after he made the comment "there is something built into the high performance, sustainable design building method that works against litigation" on August 9.  Below, Ian elaborates on his point so please take a look and let us know what you think. 

If you are interested in guest posting for Green Building Law Update, please contact me at chris@cheathamconsulting.com with your story idea.  Your story should focus on risk management, legal or regulatory issues in the green building industry.   

By Ian T. Hadden

I apparently peaked Chris' interest with my recent comments about integrated, collaborative design reducing the rate of LEEDigation as he's afforded me the opportunity to expand my thoughts. As a little background, I've been actively involved in the LEED certification of 4 projects and am working as the Project Administrator for 14 additional projects. All of these projects are from the K-12 education sector and have used design build, traditional hard bid and construction management procurement methods.

Maybe my experiences have been out of the norm or they were less litigious because they were school districts. But after hearing tales of other LEED projects and continued exposure to LEED projects, I believe the process avoids more pitfalls that lead to litigation than it opens doors for new litigation paths. The process drives detailed conversations that start early and continue through the process and they highlight the interdependency of the owner, the designers and the contractors. And that's why I think LEEDigation will be more common from outside parties, such as the school in MN, than between members of the integrated design team.

As part of role as a LEED Project Administrator, I often find myself helping facilitate the integrated design process. Often, many of the team members do not have any experience with an integrated design process. To avoid confusion, let's define integrated design as the use of deliberate steps to ensure all parties affected by the life cycle of project are engaged in the development of the project. It has a focus on data collection (like energy modeling), discussion, visioning and goal setting. This is often done in charrettes which provide a face to face, personal meeting of this cross discipline group of people. In traditional design, the owner often doesn't have much contact with any of the design team beyond the architect. This face to face meeting with the opportunity to have input starts building a level of trust and mutual accountability across all parties. When trust is present in any relationship, it becomes easier for all parties to admit and take responsibility for errors and omissions and focus on corrective action rather than blame. Let's take look at a couple of hypothetical situations and since I'm an engineer we'll focus around energy issues.

In traditional design, without an energy model there are likely few conversations the owner and the mechanical engineer have other than "what kind of HVAC equipment do you like." With the owner's preference in mind, the engineer proceeds to design a system assuming maximum occupant capacity and maximum allowable lighting power density and the engineer adds a 10 or 15% safety factor onto his or her load calculations to make sure no one every complains about being to hot or cold. But when the electrical engineer is very aggressive and reduces the lighting power density and the average occupancy is only 85% of capacity the system is now oversized so it doesn't control humidity well and does not operate efficiently. Who is at fault? Why are they at fault? Was the mechanical engineer responsible for asking the electrical engineer about lighting or was it the electrical engineer's responsibility to tell the mechanical? Is the owner at fault for failing to discuss occupancy patterns?

By comparison, a project team pursuing LEED typically does an energy model, which drives discussions about these topics and more. With an energy model, systems are sized more closely to the design load and with fewer compounded safety factors. There is risk in this method that weather or occupancy patterns outside the design parameters may lead to comfort issues. But those risks have been discussed and been jointly accepted by the owner and the design team.

Amanda Reed: The time to act on climate change is now. In that light, a new campaign called FOUR YEARS.GO. has been started to inspire action towards...

Alex Aylett: For those who – like me – missed the news on Monday: the world's most well known climate change skeptic has done a dramatic about...

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Steve Brown

Steve Brown Development Director for Envirotec Ltd explains the theory behind how heat pumps work:

 

Heat pumps use the same technology as is used in a refrigerator, exploiting the temperature difference between the refrigerant gas and its surroundings. Both rely on three key facts.

 

1. Heat will move down a ‘temperature gradient’ from a higher temperature to a lower temperature. 

2. When a liquid changes to a gas, heat is extracted from the surrounding to provide the energy for this change (e.g. boiling water to steam).

3. Refrigerant gases have a boiling point well below 0°C. For example the R410A refrigerant ...

WorldChanging Team: Looking back one, two and five years ago today on Worldchanging: 2009 The Rights of Future Generations Alex examines the rights of future generations and...

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research reported that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon declined 48 percent in the past year, falling from 1,689 square miles to 886 square miles for the 12-month period ending July 31. A Brazilian conservation group, Imazon, issued a more conservative estimate, saying deforestation declined by 16 percent, falling from 682 square miles to 575 square miles for the same period. The large discrepancy is because the space agency uses visual interpretation by analysts of satellite pictures, while Imazon uses an automatic deforestation detection method based on satellite photos. Both track the “deforestation year” ending on July 31, when cloud cover is minimal. The government said stricter enforcement of environmental laws contributed to the drop in deforestation, while environmental groups said it was a temporary decline related to the global recession. The continuing threat of deforestation in the Amazon and surrounding regions was highlighted by the release of a NASA satellite photo showing a 1,500-mile pall of smoke hovering over central South America, particularly in Bolivia. Most of the estimated 150,000 fires were set by people clearing forest for grazing and agriculture.

Alex Steffen: The New Security Beat is on a roll of late, most recently running this short interview with Iraq’s first Minister of the Environment, Mashkat Al...

Amanda Reed: Cities need to plan for the future now by developing infrastructure and communities that make them resilient, rugged and adaptable to planetary changes. Coastal cities...

Alex Steffen: An interesting idea by our friends at Bjarke Ingels Group to use a proposed new rail line to link Copenhagen and Malmö and their...

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Dean Dowd

Sauter Carbon Offset Design, a firm dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by up to 100 percent in the shipbuilding industry, recently announced the Super Nova 60, a mega yacht as big on "green" technologies as it is on luxury.

At $50 million, the luxury aspect is virtually assured. But the vessel is also equipped with 650 square meters (777 square yards) of solar photovoltaic panels, rated at 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) and provided with lithium-ion backup battery storage.

In fact, between the solar PV, power sailing kinetic energy generation – similar to wave energy – and rigid wingsails (which, in ...

WorldChanging Team: Looking back one and five years ago today on Worldchanging: 2009 The Lessons of Katrina: Global Warming Adaptation is a Cruel Euphemism and Prevention is...

The Obama administration has proposed adding new labels to showroom vehicles that give letter grades based on their fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions. The new labels, which U.S. officials hope to introduce for 2012 models, would provide consumers with more complete information on efficiency and environmental performance, including associated air pollutants. “From electric to plug-in hybrid vehicles, we think a new label is absolutely necessary to help consumers make the right decision for their wallet and for the environment,” said Gina McCarthy, an EPA assistant administrator. EPA/DOTThe proposed letter-grade label Under the proposal, the average vehicle would receive a grade of B- for fuel efficiency and emissions, federal officials say. Electric vehicles would get an A+, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would receive an A, and gas-electric hybrids, such as the Ford Fusion and Toyota Prius, would receive an A-. Meanwhile, many luxury vehicles, such as the Mercedes-Benz Maybach 57 would get a D+ or D, the lowest grade. The agencies are asking for public comment on two label designs, which can be viewed online. The second design omits a letter grade but has information on greenhouse gas emissions and a graph showing how the vehicle compares with others.

In an upcoming book, high-profile global warming skeptic Bjorn Lomborg acknowledges that rising temperatures are “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and calls for investing $100 billion annually to deal with climate change. Lomborg, who has attacked environmentalists and the media for exaggerating the threat of global warming, said that while he has never denied the existence of man-made warming, he has come to believe that it is a serious challenge that must be met by a large-scale investment. His new book, Smart Solutions to Climate Change — co-written with other economists — recommends levying a tax on carbon emissions and using the proceeds to finance research and development into renewable sources of energy; developing geoengineering ideas to cool the planet, such as “cloud whitening” to reflect the sun’s energy back into space; planting more trees; and reducing soot and methane emissions, which contribute to global warming.

Subtitle:  Just as we save energy when we use less water, we also save water when we conserve energy. Images: 

Last week we examined the amount of energy it takes to transport and treat water — and how we can conserve energy by using less water. This week, we’ll look at the inverse of that: how much water it takes to produce energy and how our energy conservation efforts reduce water use.

The water intensity of energy

Alex Steffen: Reaching peak population as quickly as humanely possible is a pressing Worldchanging concern, but on the ground in poor countries, the concern is less about...

WorldChanging Team: Looking back one, two and five years ago today (give or take!) on Worldchanging: 2009 BIKE-O-RAMA: A Roundup of the Best in New Bikes, Bike...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) needs to fundamentally change its management structure, more carefully review the conclusions stated in its periodic reports, and more fully reflect the views of dissenting scientists, according to an independent report. The report, conducted by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) — an organization representing the World’s Science Academies — called for the creation of a full-time position of executive director, or senior scientist, to oversee the IPCC’s day-to-day operations and also said the part-time position of chairman should be limited to a term of one IPCC assessment report — roughly six to seven years. The current chairman, Getty ImagesRajendra Pachauri Rajendra K. Pachauri, is serving two six-year terms, which the IAC said is too long. The IAC also said formal qualifications should be developed for the next chair and that the IPCC should draft conflict-of-interest policies for top officials and all authors and reviewers of IPCC reports. The IAC launched the review after the IPCC was criticized for errors in its Fourth Assessment Report, including an inaccurate statement, taken from a press report, that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The IAC review recommended that the IPCC carefully review and identify all material from non-peer reviewed literature, fully describe scientific controversies that arise during its reviews, more clearly reflect dissenting views, and use a probability scale to quantify the likelihood of particular events.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) needs to fundamentally change its management structure, more carefully review the conclusions stated in its periodic reports, and more fully reflect the views of dissenting scientists, according to an independent report. The report, conducted by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) — an organization representing the World’s Science Academies — called for the creation of a full-time position of executive director, or senior scientist, to oversee the IPCC’s day-to-day operations and also said the part-time position of chairman should be limited to a term of one IPCC assessment report — roughly six to seven years. The current chairman, Getty ImagesRajendra Pachauri Rajendra K. Pachauri, is serving two six-year terms, which the IAC said is too long. The IAC also said formal qualifications should be developed for the next chair and that the IPCC should draft conflict-of-interest policies for top officials and all authors and reviewers of IPCC reports. The IAC launched the review after the IPCC was criticized for errors in its Fourth Assessment Report, including an inaccurate statement, taken from a press report, that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The IAC review recommended that the IPCC carefully review and identify all material from non-peer reviewed literature, fully describe scientific controversies that arise during its reviews, more clearly reflect dissenting views, and use a probability scale to quantify the likelihood of particular events.

European renewable energy targets are driving widespread conversion of African lands for agrofuels, threatening to exacerbate hunger in poor regions and increase carbon emissions across the continent, according to a new report. National governments and private companies are increasingly acquiring agricultural land in Africa to grow crops to meet global demands for biofuels, according to the advocacy group Friends of the Earth (FoE). About one-third of the land deals result in cultivation of crops that are used as fuel sources, including jatropha, sugar cane, and palm oil, the FoE report said. That reduces the amount of farmland available to grow food crops, leading to higher food prices. The report, which looks at land deals in 11 African nations, says many of the acquisitions are done without environmental assessments or local consent. “The amount of land being taken in Africa to meet Europe’s increasing demand for biofuels is underestimated and out of control,” said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, food campaigner for FoE. The report recommends that European nations abandon their goal of achieving 10 percent of transportation fuels from biofuel sources by 2020.