False Solutions to Climate Change: Buildings

Estimations for the percentage of greenhouse gases emitted by the buildings sector vary wildly. But any assessment should include both the embodied energy involved in constructing new buildings and the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings.

People are the Face of the Land: the Story of Te Uru Taumatua

For New Zealand’s Tūhoe Māori people, a spectularly sustainable building serves as the first tribal headquarters in 1.5 centuries. Here, nature, custom and community come to flourish in harmony. When a crowd of 3,000 people moved as one to the sound of Tūhoe Māori warriors calling them, you could have mistaken it for a scene in a movie.

Newfangled Retrofitting: BlocPower’s Donnel Baird

This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Donnel Baird, the founder and CEO of BlocPower, a startup that uses technology to retrofit buildings in financially underserved communities. Not only does this work result in long-term energy savings and more humane conditions, BlocPower offers these benefits at a much lower cost than was previously available.