Buildings

It’s a race to failure between rogue states and global oil output

by

Dwindling global oil supplies are leaving the world ever more reliant on a group of unstable countries – many of which are themselves facing major domestic problems right now.
Believe it or not, many of the world’s major oil exporters cannot maintain their own domestic energy requirements. Venezuelan consumers endure electricity blackouts of “seven or eight hours a day,” but less well known is the situation in the Middle East, where residents are facing rolling power outages just as summer temperatures soar, and with it, the demand for air conditioning.

Smart Decline in Post-Carbon Cities

by

Many American cities—mostly in the Midwest and Northeast—have seen serious continuing shrinkage in recent decades and are now beginning to face up to it. A few have tentatively tried to craft measures that accept the persistence, even permanence, of their smaller size. As these cities search for answers, one of the few models they can turn to comes from, of all places, the buffalo country of the Great Plains states. There, communities that fought population decline for decades are now preparing for the realities of a smaller, but not necessarily worse, future. Through our work with these communities over many years, we believe that they have experience that can help guide shrinking cities in what we have called “smart decline.”

Good News from the Department of Energy

by

Sometimes it seems as if little is happening and then suddenly a major shift occurs. This seems true of the Department of Energy (DOE) when it comes to energy use in buildings. The DOE is beginning to take big strides in supporting the reduction of energy use in existing buildings. Retrofit costs are still high and funding difficult to obtain but this should change over the next year. The nation’s consciousness is moving away from new green buildings to impressive energy retrofits of the existing stock.

Merlin’s time

by

People in the Dark Ages filled in the gaps in the very limited knowledge base available to them with the help of wizards and soothsayers. As we close in on a future for which most people are hopelessly unprepared, a new kind of wizard — a green wizard, adept in the forgotten arts of appropriate tech — may be one of the things that a deindustrializing world needs most.

Introducing the “Post Carbon Reader”

by

In 2009, Post Carbon Institute recruited 29 of the world’s leading sustainability thinkers to answer one fundamental question: How do we manage the transition to a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable world? Like us, our Fellows see five key truths:

  • We have hit the “limits to growth.”
  • No issue can be addressed in isolation.
  • We must focus on responses, not just solutions.
  • We must prepare for uncertainty.
  • We can do something.

The death of sprawl: designing urban resilience for the 21st century resource and climate crises

by

In April 2009–just when people thought things couldn’t get worse in San Bernardino County, California—bulldozers demolished four perfectly good new houses and a dozen others still under construction in Victorville, 100 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Detroit’s renewal: Can it inspire the social forum?

by

Detroit was not an accidental choice for the U.S. Social Forum (USSF). Take a look at the decaying Packard Plant or at boarded-up homes and small businesses, and you’d say this city is dying. Less well known is that it is a city in the midst of a rebirth from the bottom up, and the organizers knew this well when they chose Detroit for the second USSF.

Review: Thriving Beyond Sustainability by Andrés R. Edwards

by

Given what a sweeping category sustainability is, author and noted sustainability expert Andrés Edwards is to be commended for distilling it down into two easily digestible volumes for lay readers: The Sustainability Revolution and Thriving Beyond Sustainability.