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Green Notes - 23 Mar 09

By Chinthana ⋅ March 23, 2009 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

• A seven-day focus on the world’s water crunch wound up Sunday with a pledge by more than 100 countries to strive for clean water and sanitation for billions in need and fight drought and flood. But some countries criticised the cornerstone outcome of the fifth World Water Forum as flawed while activists dismissed the event itself as a “trade show.” The yearly observance recognizes water as an absolute human need: people can live as much as 30 days without food but only seven without water. How long can a person live without oil? “As climate change accelerates and we see a changing hydrological cycle, diminishing access to resources, there are direct human impacts that are water-related,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who advised the Obama transition team on civic engagement and national service.
• Last Tuesday kicked off the beginning to the Denver based car share program, known as Occassionalcar.com. The program is one of the first in the U.S. to take a stab at reducing the amount of vehicles on the streets, by making them more of an object of necessity rather than convenience. The way it works, is you register on their site and they run a background check of your driving record looking for any serious infractions. If everything looks okay, you can sign up for a particular time slot and the company will deliver an electronic key card programed for a Civic Hybrid which will be waiting for you in a nearby parking lot on the day you requested. “You can’t have major violations. No major moving violations, no alcohol-related violations,” said Straub. You pay by the hour and the number of miles you drive, and the price depends on membership rates. They can range from $50 a year to $10 a month. “Most of the time, I think it’s for folks who either don’t have a car or it prevents them from buying a second car,” Straub said.
• Google Inc co-founder Larry Page is building an eco-mansion in Palo Alto, the original Silicon Valley powerhouse town, the local weekly said on Friday. Page’s green-certified home should be 6,000 square feet, hardly modest for most folks, but only a bit over half the size that he could build on the lot, according to Palo Alto Online, the website for Palo Alto Weekly, which uncovered the plans. Page plans to use some pretty cool stuff: Recycled materials that have low levels of volatile organic compounds (or none at all), a rooftop garden, solar panels, zinc cladding and pervious pavement, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. And the planned structure will likely take advantage of smart energy tools — IT technology that can help the homeowner better manage and reduce energy consumption — in particular Google’s PowerMeter.