Climate change is a defining issue of our time and there is no time to lose,” proclaimed Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General, during last month’s U.N. Climate Summit. “There is no Plan B because we do not have a Planet B.”
Since you’ve already converted from a gas-guzzling SUV and always BYOB (bring your own bag) to the supermarket, try making these tweaks to your everyday lifestyle. They’ll help the U.N. achieve its goal of keeping the earth’s temperature from rising no more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 and, in turn, keep the planet from facing even more disasters like famine, disease and water shortages.
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Tag: LEED
Which Celebrity Is Building Green Homes For Native American Tribes?
When Brad Pitt isn’t jet-setting from one exotic movie location to another and being a dad of six, he actually has some time to run a non-profit.
His organization, Make It Right, is most notable for building 150 sustainable (though slightly controversial) homes in Louisiana’s Lower Ninth Ward post-Hurricane Katrina.
Now, they’re making it right at Fort Peck, Montana, home to the Sioux and the Assiniboine nations. According to an announcement, the non-profit has partnered with the tribes to build 20 super green homes for residents whose income levels are at or below 60 percent the area’s mean income, with a percentage of the homes reserved for seniors and disabled veterans. Additionally, through a Low Income Housing Tax Credit Rent-to-Own program, residents will actually buy their homes after 15 years of renting.
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These LEED Platinum, solar-powered homes will have three or four bedrooms and two or three bathrooms each, and built with certified Cradle-to-Cradle vendors, which means they’re developed responsibly and use reclaimed materials. It’s certainly a big improvement from some of the current homes on the reservation, which are rife with black mold and structural problems, resulting in high utility bills due to inefficient design.
The design team includes Make It Right staff, architects from Architecture for Humanity, Graft, Living Homes, Method Homes, Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative and William McDonough + Partners and low-income homeownership experts from Neighborworks America.
During the planning stages, organizers met with family members and community leaders about their needs and vision for these new homes, as well how the builders can preserve the culture of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes (such as doorways that face the east or north and using tribally significant colors).
“We are enthusiastic about these home designs that reflect traditional life ways while exemplifying deep green public-impact architecture,” said Architecture for Humanity architect Nathaniel Corum.
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Fort Deck, America’s ninth-largest Native American reservation, has more than 6,000 tribe members living on the 2-million-acre reservation. Currently, more than 600 people are waiting for housing, which means overcrowding is all too common.
“We hear stories from people who have nine families living in a five bedroom home and take ‘sleeping shifts’ to share the limited beds,” writes Make It Right communications director Taylor Royle. “Most homes are smaller, one or two bedrooms. We [met] a woman who shares a two bedroom home with her elderly mother and her brother’s family — she and her three children sleep on the floor in the living room.”
Besides the housing shortage, the Washington Post reported that the unemployment is more than 50 percent, about three out of every four children live in poverty, and there are widespread problems with alcohol and methamphetamines in the community.
It will take much more than building these green homes to fix the reservation’s problems, but it takes steps like these to “make it right.” The project, which will start construction this year, will also include a sustainable master plan for the entire reservation.
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How a Tornado-Stricken Town Became a Model of American Sustainability
Imagine that one day your town exists. Then, the next day, it doesn’t. That was the terrifying reality for residents of a small town located on the great plains of Kansas.
In May 2007, a devastating category EF5 tornado effectively destroyed Greensberg, Kansas. The storm flattened about 95 percent of the town’s homes and businesses and left 11 people dead and more than 60 injured. Like many communities devastated by natural disasters, Greensberg residents were determined to rebuild. But instead of just recreating the rural farm town that existed just days prior, they decided instead to look toward the future. In the process, this small rural farm town of around 777 people has become a model of sustainability.
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At the first meeting after disaster struck, town-resident-turned-community-organizer Daniel Wallach proposed rebuilding the town as a “model green community,” according to USA Today. Then-mayor Lonnie McCollum and then-governor Kathleen Sebelius (current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services) agreed, and before long most of the town’s citizens were on board. Eight short months after the tornado leveled the town, the Greensburg City Council adopted a resolution stating that all large public buildings must meet LEED-platinum standards and utilize renewable energy sources. Everything from the new City Hall to the Kiowa Memorial Hospital to the local John Deere dealership were redesigned and built as the sustainable ideal. But that was just the beginning.
The wind that always blows through Greensburg now powers the town, as turbines can be found on farms, in residential neighborhoods and throughout the business community — even at the aforementioned John Deere dealership. Also, a large wind farm sits just outside of town. Inspiringly, the town creates more than enough energy to power the community, and as such, sells its surplus back to the grid. The streetlamps that line the streets are all LED—reducing energy costs even more. And local businesses have thought up innovative ways to be even more sustainable — from Centerea Bank, which absorbs stormwater with its own bioswale (a landscape element) to the John Deere dealership, which stores waste oil to heat the business in the winter.
Greensburg is not only a model for sustainability, but it also serves as a resource,too: Officials consult with other towns that have been ravaged by disaster to help them consider greener ways to rebuild, as well as cities that are just looking for a more sustainable future.
In this situation, Greensburg discovered that the grass really is greener on the other side.
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