Archive for March, 2010
Youth Safety parley slated for next month
The National Organization for Youth Safety will hold its spring meeting April 29-30 in Washington, D.C. The event takes place in coordination with National Youth Traffic Safety Month®, which occurs in May. Look for TEAM Georgia as a partner in that effort!
Obama’s Home Star Program
Here’s a very thorough article from the Mother Nature Network on President Obama’s proposed Home Star program. The $6 billion investment in energy efficiency was announced earlier this month in our great state of Georgia. The program, according to this article, could result in a carbon emissions savings tantamount to the output of 615,000 cars. To drive the point home perhaps more tangibly, we’re talking a savings to homeowners of $9.4 billion over 10 years.
If cash for clunkers is a model for cash for caulkers, we may have some great success with this. Nothing reaches voters like their pocketbook. And how much more local can politics get than one’s own home?
Imagine this: the amount of air leakage in the average home is like leaving open a 4×6 window in one’s house all year long. So I heard at the recent MIT Energy Conference — along with just how erratic and impossible the data is right now on these retrofits.
There’s a long way to go. But we need to start with outreach and early adoption.
Here’s the link to the MNN story with plenty more details:
http://tinyurl.com/yg2gznv
Libraries as linchpins of urban renewal
So I was in Boston over the weekend and enjoyed the breathtaking reverence of the Boston Public Library — an ornate and awe-inspiring fortress of learning.
But as establishment as it is, the “BPL” could be considered a model for the kinds of “libraries of the future” being discussed by Jonathan Lerner, a New Urbanist advocate and accomplished Atlanta writer, for Miller McCune.
These libraries join together gyms, shops, cafes and spaces that are public and private, noisy and silent and altogether fluid to create vibrant urban centers a la New Urbanism. Fascinating examples have taken shape in Seattle, Salt Lake and Vancouver among other cities.
What’s interesting is that New Urbanism — a fantastic movement — really advocates the return to the old urbanism: walkable, mixed-use cities with lots of access for everyone and central, communal spaces.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that our great classic libraries, The Boston Public Library, like the New York Public Library, function(ed) in these roles — as majestic urban pillars that play host to myriad resources from lectures and activities to cafes along with treasure troves of books. Of course, these are exceptions to ordinary libraries that serve as quiet enclaves for study.
I’m very excited about reclaiming the library in a modern incarnation of all its glory.
Read more about it here:
http://tinyurl.com/yfwvdyw
greentechmedia lists its top 50 vc-funded startups
We were excited to see some of our favorites make the list.
Truth is, they’re all winners. But since we just had the Oscars, and because we have friends at some of these startups, we’re going to name some names.
In the biofuels category, honorees included: Solazyme.
In SmartGrid and EV infrastructure, honorees included: Better Place.
And in Transportation, Coda, Fisker and Tesla were all named.
We’re proud of you!
Check out the full list here:
http://tinyurl.com/yjf583g
And they say nothing happens in Delaware…
Henrik Fisker doesn’t think so. His eponymously named company plans to build its mid-range, plug-in car at a former GM plant there.
