Living Building Challenge

Imagine you go out early in the morning. You drive from your house to the office and during the 30 min-60 min ride you see 3-4 buildings in the making. You see the cranes working as the structure is being lifted. This is a common scenario in most big cities. These new buildings are mostly residential or office-centered. Not only do these buildings contribute to the overpopulation in the cities, they also produce tons of garbage and heat-producing gases. Why aren't we building sustainable buildings?

The Living Building Challenge is a building certification program which measures the sustainability of a building taking into account seven categories or ‘petals’: place, water, energy, health & happiness, materials, equity, and beauty. Each of the petals has its subdivisions that can be applied to any building, big or small. It's important to note that they don't only evaluate the materials, but the beauty and the place where it is built as well. The registered buildings are given one of the three certifications: Living Building Certification, Petal Building or Net Zero Energy Building Certification. The first certification is the ultimate goal, it comprises projects that are fully sustainable and help restore the natural environment. But this seems like something impossible that no modern building could achieve! Well at least that's what I first thought but there are buildings worldwide that are fully certificated. Some examples are the Bertschi Living Building Science Wing and the Bullitt Center amongst 6 more. If there are buildings around the world that are building fully sustainable buildings, why can't we envision a Net Zero Energy Building Certification?

http://living-future.org/lbc

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/at-home/blogs/one-of-the-worlds-greenest-urban-green-spaces-is-a-pint-sized-pocket-park-in

http://www.mnn.com/money/green-workplace/stories/bullitt-center-worlds-greenest-commercial-building

Lentes Solares

              Todos sabemos del problema del calentamiento global y los niveles de monóxido y dióxido de carbono en la atmósfera. Hemos escuchado sobre el aumento en la temperatura de la tierra y el aumento del nivel del agua de los mares consecuencia de la desaparición de los casquetes polares. Se tiene que hacer algo para detener esto, claro está. ¿Y si le ponemos un tipo de bloqueador al planeta para que no reciba rayos solares? Es como si vamos a la playa y no nos queremos quemar, non ponemos un bloqueador solar y listo.

              El Dr. Roger Angel, astrónomo de la Universidad de Arizona propone este “bloqueador solar” del planeta. Él propone dispersar la luz del Sol antes que ésta llegue al planeta Tierra. La manera de dispersar la luz parece sencilla, mandar al espacio un lente divergente que disipe los rayos solares para que así disminuya la radiación que llega al planeta. Se enviarían millones de lentes formando en total un área de 100,000 millas cuadradas que esté entre el Sol y la Tierra para poder disminuir aproximadamente en 1.8% la cantidad de radiación solar que recibimos. Este proyecto se piensa que pueda estar listo en 2040 y pueda disminuir los niveles de temperatura en el planeta hasta alcanzar niveles pre-industriales.

              Si bien se están haciendo pruebas para ver la veracidad del proyecto, se debe de entender que con esta acción solamente estamos maquillando el problema, no corrigiéndolo. Se deberían de crear más fuentes de energía sustentable y limitar la emisión de gases de efecto invernadero por los países industrializados y potencias mundiales, recordando que son ellos los que más emiten estos gases y los que menos actúan en contra de su emisión. Lo que comenta el Dr. Angel, y concuerdo con ello, es que esta es una solución temporal que nos ayudaría a crear estas nuevas fuentes de energía y limpiar el aire en el planeta. Es decir, lo único que nos daría este proyecto, en caso de necesitarlo, es tiempo para poder arrancar el problema de raíz.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/4839985/Scientists-to-stop-global-warming-with-100000-square-mile-sun-shade.html

http://www.space.com/3100-space-based-sun-shade-concept-bright-idea.html

Positive Impact of Electric Vehicles

The cities nowadays are designed taking into account that cars exist. If such argument wasn't true, there wouldn't be residential, industrial, and recreational areas, amongst others. If we want to go to the market, we take the car, if we go to school, we take the car, when we go to work, we take the car. All of this is true if we are lucky enough to afford a car, because if not the public transportation will be waiting for us with a deceiving smile. The cars and buses emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which in turn pollute the air making it toxic to humans. With more buildings, cars, roads, and people there is less space for trees and plants which means no air cleaning mechanism to counteract the vicious cycle modern cities are submerged in.

This way of living has created a phenomenon known as ‘urban heat island effect’ in which cities are up to 6 degrees Celsius hotter than their surrounding rural areas. This heat comes form cars and air conditioning systems in a great part. These machines produce gases that come in very high temperatures, ironically one of them is used to cool down closed spaces thus creating a cycle with high temperatures and more use of the air conditioning to cool down the heat. With the introduction of electric vehicles, this can be brought to a halt. Professor Canbing Li from the Hunan University found that electric vehicles emit 19.8% of the total heat emitted by combustion vehicles per mile. This reduction would lead to a mitigation in the summer heat island intensity by about 0.94°C, reduced the amount of electricity consumed daily by air conditioners in buildings by 14.44 million kilowatt-hours, and reduced daily CO2 emissions by 10,686 tonnes.

It's a fact that we need cars because of the great distances in the cities. If we start using electric vehicles the vicious cycle previously exposed could be stopped momentarily. With a reduction of the temperature in cities, people may find it more pleasant to walk and use bicycles in the cities promoting perhaps more green spaces, which can be a final solution to such a problem.

 http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/hot-in-the-city#ixzz3WOwmqOpB

: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/electric-cars-can-help-cool-our-cities#ixzz3WOpEN5Ld

City biking

The car can be our best friend or our worst enemy, it all depends on the traffic. We can cover distances of 20 km in 20 minutes or less, but we can also cover 20 km in 2 hours or more. It all depends on the time and the day. The population is growing as you read, the number of cars is raising, and the average car speed is diminishing. According to information from ‘El Universal’, the average speed of vehicles in 2007 was 17 km/h; showing a strong reduction from the average speed in 1990 (38.5 km/h).  If this continues, in a couple years the average speed will be of a couple kilometers per hour. The government has to promote other means of transportation and improve the street conditions.

Yes we have to use public transportation, but having such an inefficient program isn't worth the risk of getting late or getting robbed. We have to find other means of transportation and walking is surely an improbable option.  In 2010 the program ‘Ecobici’ was born. It started with 84 bike stations and 1,200 bikes. Now it has 444 bike stations and over 6,000 bikes available.  In 2010, only 0.8 million rides were registered, but during 2014 7.9 million rides were registered, showing a 1000% increase in its use.  Riding a bike is one of the best options available nowadays and with Ecobici, now you don't have to buy a bike. According to a close friend, his average speed on a bike in Mexico City is 15 km/h. Only 2 km/h less than the average car speed in 2007! We can criticize many things of our local government, but the work done in streets to make bike lanes is something worth noting. There is a lot of work to be done yet but the interest is there. According to a study by ‘Bikenomics’, there was a 400% growth in sales of businesses when a bike lane was made in the business’ street in Seattle. It may be a  coincidence but the data exists.

Promoting the usage of bikes in cities helps everyone, even the non users because less cars are going when they are. As more people start biking, less noxious gases are being emitted by cars and air quality as well as the city temperature are improving . It's a cheap (you pay 400 mxn for an annual subscription), sustainable, and healthy mean of transportation that has to grow. Little by little the people is noticing this and the car drivers are learning to respect bikers. We have to dream big and maybe one day we can be like Copenhagen, where more than half of its population goes to work on a bicycle.  It's important to respect bikers and join the community if we can, they are helping the city to be a better place and as an extra profit, they work out as they go from their home to the school or work.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0xHj6OM3QVWMUxScjZuMndxVkk/edit

http://www.ecobici.df.gob.mx/

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/articulos/43171.html

 http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/paris-bans-diesels-and-restricts-traffic#ixzz3WPzGjDlc