Alex speaking at the Sustainable Cities Roundtable – Kirkland, WA
Alex will be presenting (via teleconference) at the Sustainable Cities Roundtable this Thursday, January 10th, from 12:00 noon to 1:30 Pacific Time, in Kirkland, Washington. From the website: King County GreenTools has pulled together an exciting lineup to launch the 2013 Sustainable Cities Roundtable Series theme: “Beyond Net Zero: Resilience, Regeneration, and Social Justice.” We are bringing visionary and on-the-ground leaders together to add real meaning to these ‘not just buzz words’ – particularly in how they relate to your role in creating a more sustainable built...
Read MoreRDI’s Alex Wilson interviewed by Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune’s Mary Umberger spoke with RDI’s Alex Wilson about how builders can make homes much more disaster resistant — and how his thinking shifted from “passive survivability” to “resilience.” Generally, I think the building industry is starting to pay attention. It’s a tricky issue for builders, because it means marketing a negative. But they’re already promoting heat-recovery ventilators that are used to maintain safe indoor air quality, and that’s a similar kind of thing — you’re providing a message that your indoor...
Read MorePresentation in NYC on January 22nd
I’ll be speaking at a Green Drinks SPARK event Tuesday evening, January 22nd at The Moderns near Union Square in New York City. The topic will be “Resilient Design: The New Imperative.” Green Drinks SPARK is a networking event, so there will be plenty of time for conversations over drinks and snacks, followed by my presentation. The talk will be structured to allow plenty of interaction. Details and registration information are available at the following link:...
Read MoreGood neighbors make resilience
In an NPR interview, sociologist Eric Klinenberg reminds us that resilience involves not only smartly designed systems, buildings and infrastructure (our focus here at RDI). It’s also about the quality of communities and neighborhoods. “Vibrant, tight-knit neighborhoods could fare better in a disaster.” Interview is based on Klinenberg’s article “Adaptation” in the current issue of The New...
Read MoreKunstler’s calamities
If James Howard Kunstler’s predictions for 2013 (warning: salty-language) turn out to be right, we are going to need lots of resilient design to cope with the impacts. The peak-oil prophet lays out his case for calamities that include a market crash to Dow 4000, massive US gasoline shortages, continued Midwest drought, and for good measure, a major West Coast earthquake. What will bring most of this about, says Kunstler, is a massive debt collapse: “The debt mountains in the USA and elsewhere far overshadow the equity and commodity market molehills, and unpaid debt will...
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