Resilience on the Home Front – Creating a Farm
Two years ago, when I launched the Resilient Design Institute, was a time of transition. I was pulling back from BuildingGreen, the company that I had started in 1985, and my wife, Jerelyn, and I had just bought an old Vermont farm a third of a mile down the road from where we had lived for 30 years. We were beginning what would be a long process of figuring out what to do with the house and property. Indeed, the house planning, design, and reconstruction was a major undertaking. After having written about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and green building for more than 35 years, there...
Read MoreThe New York City Buildings Resiliency Task Force Presents Recommendations
The report just released by the Buildings Resiliency Task Force presents 33 detailed recommendations for improving the resiliency of New York City buildings.
Read MoreMaking Los Angeles Resilient
Lisa Novick has a very good blog on what Los Angeles should do to boost it’s resilience on the Huff Post Los Angeles. The blog includes a nice definition of resilience: “Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to absorb shock and still maintain its identity and function. Resilient systems — business, social, ecological, you name it — all have redundancy so that, when a shock or increased stress occurs, there will be back up. There will be some elasticity: someone or something will be able to step in and perform when the usual relationships fail.” Novick also...
Read MoreHand Pumps: An Option for Back-Up Water Pumping
Last month Jerelyn and I enjoyed a four-day vacation in Maine—a combined trip to visit family, explore Acadia National Park, and go to the Common Ground Fair—my first visit there in two or three decades! The highlight of the Common Ground fair for me was coming across a little company, Bison Pumps, based up near Fort Kent, Maine (in WAY northern Maine) that makes really slick hand pumps. These pumps are sort-of like the ones our grandparents used, but they’re built with much greater precision and work much better. Why hand pumps are important Here in rural Vermont—like rural areas...
Read MoreNew York City’s (Lack of) Resilience
There’s a great article in today’s New York Times, “New York is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise.” In a nutshell, with 520 miles of shoreline, New York City is highly vulnerable to rising sea level and storm surges, and the City isn’t doing enough to address its vulnerabilities. The City is already working to expand protective wetlands, install green roofs to limit runoff, encourage property owners to elevate mechanical equipment, and elevate subway ventilation grates (see photo). I was actually involved in the City’s Green Codes Task Force a couple years ago to address such measures—and...
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