Step It Up! is a national day of climate action! Rallies will be taking place across the US to pressure politicians to take action. We will be meeting at the EMU amphitheatre and walking to Autzen Stadium at 1:00 as a visual rally to get improvement on climate change.
It is IMPORTANT for you to come! We can begin to stop global warming if we all take an hour of our time to show our support for this issue. It will make a great deal of difference.
Step It Up! is working for political action on three issues: 1) 80% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050, 2) moratorium on new coal plants, and 3) Green jobs that will involve everyone. Go to Step It Up! for more info.
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Submitted by tandreas on October 26, 2007 - 1:13pm.
Noted author and environmental activist Bill McKibben will speak at the University of Oregon on Tuesday, Oct. 30! His lecture, "Building the Climate Movement," will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the EMU Ballroom, 1222 E. 13th Ave.
"It's no longer time to debate global warming; it's time to fight it," McKibben said.
McKibben will discuss the need to build a climate movement and precisely what is at stake. He will also touch upon some of the moral and spiritual dimensions of the problem, and will offer some practical advice about what each of us can do right now to help fight global warming.
The Campus Sustainability Assessment noted that University's environmental efforts are decentralized and that an Office of Sustainability should be created.
A report that comes in the wake of University President Dave Frohnmayer's commitment to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which promises to reduce the University's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, concludes that the University's efforts are numerous and decentralized.
Sequential Biofuels: The roof of SeQuential Biofuels, in Eugene, Oregon, is planted with native shrubs. Pump islands are sheltered by photovoltaic panels, which generate electricity for the building.
As gasoline prices speed toward the $4-per-gallon mark, consumers are buying hybrid and flex-fuel cars or filling up with biodiesel, and new ethanol plants are sprouting up to squeeze an alternative fuel from corn. Fittingly, the retailers of these cleaner fuels are using green design to make an architectural statement that their pit stops are as ecoconscious as their fuels.
In Eugene, Oregon, SeQuential Biofuels opened the state’s first commercial biofuel facility last year. The station dispenses ethanol as well as locally sourced biodiesel. Company cofounder Ian Hill worked with his mother, Susan Hill, AIA, an architect based in Lexington, Kentucky, to incorporate green features into the station’s design. A roof embedded with a 32.6-kilowatt photovoltaic array shelters the pump islands; its central panels have clear backings to transmit more daylight. The roof above an accompanying 2,000-square-foot convenience store also received a green treatment: It is planted 5 inches deep with 4,800 native Oregonian plants. Bioswales adjacent to the parking areas filter storm water.
Eugene Courthouse: in the AIA/COTE Top 10 Green Buildings
Love it or hate it, the Eugene Courthouse is one of the AIA Committee on the Environment's top ten green projects. Rated in terms of Land Use, Site and Water, Energy, Materials and the Indoor Environment, the courthouse gets top marks.
EDES New Study Shows Students Want More Ecological Design Education >> Download Report
March 20, 2007: The Alliance for Ecological Design Education (AEDE) has released the Ecological Design Education Survey (EDES) Report, summarizing perceptions of more than 200 students in accredited architecture, landscape architecture and planning programs at West Coast institutions.
The EDES Report provides evidence of student demand for ecological design education, and highlights several successful models to explore. The report also identifies some challenges students, faculty and administrators are facing to provide this education. To overcome these challenges, the report encourages more faculty training, the establishment of resource and demonstration centers, greater interdisciplinary collaboration, and the creation of formal certificate, emphasis and degree programs.
Conference Brings Together Artists, Architects, Community
Women in war-torn nations won't have to walk 30 miles a day for water.
Buildings will limit global warming while making bold artistic statements.
Communities will make plans and get their hands into the dirt.
And the parties at day's end? Those parties will rock.
Or so run the visions of students at the UO's School of Architecture and Allied Arts in charge of the Holistic Options for Planet Earth Sustainability (HOPES) conference, which starts Thursday, April 19, and runs through Sunday, April 22. They say that one of the strengths of this unique conference lies in its focus on creating solutions.
At 8am this morning Architecture for Hummanity launched the beta version of the Open Architecture Network, a stand alone site that will allow designers, community groups, NGO's and others to post projects, browse others, comment and review projects, discuss relevant topics, contribute to shared resources, collaborate with each other and access project management tools to support their work.
Submitted by cgyoung on February 20, 2007 - 10:45am.
George W. Bush's Green Home From Treehugger.com >>
Is it possible that George Bush is a secret Green? Evidently his Crawford Winter White House has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. “By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small,” says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. "Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses."
Step It Up 2007
