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The Original Green (book, blog, website, & email list)

January 10, 2011 by jvhillegas-elting

“The Original Green” is Steve and Wanda Mouzon’s book/website/blog/email list project conveying their “proposition of the Original Green,” which, in their terms, means that “before the Thermostat Age, the places we made and the buildings we built had no choice but to be green. The Original Green is holistic sustainability, and broader than Gizmo Green.” As they write:

    Many people now agree that achieving sustainability is a bigger challenge than just buying more efficient devices. Steve Mouzon coined the phrase “Original Green” several years ago to describe the sustainability that existed before the Thermostat Age. . . . Steve is the founder of the New Urban Guild in Miami . . . a group of architects, designers, and other New Urbanists dedicated to the study and the design of true traditional buildings and places native to and inspired by the regions in which they are built.

Steve Mouzon’s book The Original Green and the Mysteries of True Sustainability (Miami: The New Urban Guild Foundation, 2010). To support this project, the Mouzon’s also have created the following:

Posted in Implementing Sustainability, Uncovering & Evaluating Sources, Urban Infrastructure | Leave a Comment »

Oral history + environmental history

January 10, 2011 by jvhillegas-elting

The Canadian Oral History Association (COHA) recently published a special issue of their journal Oral History Forum d’histoire orale titled “Talking Green: Oral History and Environmental History.” This special issue is available for free public access (one does not need to be a member of COHA or a journal subscriber to access the articles).

The journal is also available in electronic form through the PSU Library. The journal’s table of contents:

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Posted in Environment, History of Sustainability, Oral History, Uncovering & Evaluating Sources | 1 Comment »

Mother Pelican: A Journal of Sustainable Human Development

January 10, 2011 by jvhillegas-elting

I’ve recently been alerted to the existence of an online journal devoted to issues related to sustainability, Mother Pelican: A Journal of Sustainable Human Development.

Mother Pelican is a product of The Pelican Web, whose mission it is “to collect, organize, and disseminate knowledge on sustainable development, with especial focus on human development; and to publish the monthly, free subscription, open access Mother Pelican, a journal on sustainable human development.”

The Pelican Web website contains links to resources and also provides an outline of the organization’s research agenda:

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Posted in Equity, Uncovering & Evaluating Sources | 1 Comment »

Nature’s Accountability

January 4, 2011 by jvhillegas-elting

A special issue of the journal Science as Culture (19:4, Dec. 2010) is focused on “nature’s accountability” and provides some insights into the historical development of sustainable practices.:

    The past three hundred years has seen a rise of scientific measures to account for the human uses of nature. These measures have monitored, recorded and visualized nature, its uses and over-uses. From early concepts of sustainability in the 18th century, to models of sustainable fisheries of the late 20th century, accounting measures have always involved economic and political accountability. They are exercises of power, norm-setting and sanctioning. Such measures highlight some aspects of human involvement, while obscuring others.

    This special issue explores how nature has been taken into account for maximizing sustained yield and producing sustainable quality in forestry and agriculture through cosmopolitan science in the context of capitalist development. Contributions develop an interdisciplinary, historical perspective on sustainability as a concept and practice.

Chapters include:
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Posted in Uncovering & Evaluating Sources, What is Sustainability? | Leave a Comment »

Greenwashing Detection

December 3, 2010 by jvhillegas-elting

In the face of complexity, many people conclude that sustainability is impossible to define, or that the use of the term is so broad that it means nothing. The SHP holds that sustainability certainly is a complex topic but that it is not at all beyond comprehension or definition. One way to attempt a definition of sustainability is by describing what sustainability is; another way is to determine what sustainability isn’t.

How do we do attempt the latter?

One interesting project to help us evaluate claims of sustainability is the Greenwashing Index. This web-based tool is a project of the Enviromedia Social Marketing and the University of Oregon, and has three goals:

    1) Help consumers become more savvy about evaluating environmental marketing claims of advertisers.
    2) Hold businesses accountable to their environmental marketing claims.
    3) Stimulate the market and demand for sustainable business practices that truly reduce the impact on the environment.

Greenwashing is “whitewashing, but with a green brush”: businesses that inflate their environmental credentials to obscure environmentally harmful activities.

The Greenwashing Index is a forum where anyone can contribute to evaluations of business practices. Through this community input, these practices are rated on a 1-5 scale of “Authentic” or “Bogus” green claims. This project achieves some of the critical elements of the SHP’s definition of sustainability because it provides quantifiable metrics and because it’s open & participatory.

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Posted in Greenwashing, Quantifying Sustainability, What is Sustainability? | Leave a Comment »

Food scrap composting in the Portland area & beyond

November 26, 2010 by jvhillegas-elting

Recology Oregon Material Recovery and the City of Portland continue their pilot program to pick up food scraps from curbside bins and compost these materials at for Portland-area sites.[1]

The City of Seattle already has a Commercial Compost Collection service.

EnviroMom discussed this program when the pilot was announced in April 2010.

Other articles on the topic:

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[1] Carrie Sturrock, “Curbside composting of kitchen scraps a success in Portland test neighborhoods,” Oregonian, Nov. 26 2010, pp. D2, D6.

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Posted in Implementing Sustainability | Leave a Comment »

New PhD program in sustainable design at University of Oregon

November 18, 2010 by jvhillegas-elting

The University of Oregon recently announced a new PhD program in it’s Department of Architecture focusing on the art and science of sustainable design. This program is focused on sustainability at the scale of the city, individual buildings, and construction materials. From the press release:

    The doctoral program will engage students in interdisciplinary investigations focused on the creation of new knowledge in compelling and time-sensitive research topics such as:

      • sustainable cities and livable communities design and policy
      • design for climate change and adaptation
      • cultural, social, and economic sustainability
      • net-zero buildings and eco-districts design
      • resource forecasting and simulation of place and building performance
      • energy-efficient, adaptive re-use of existing buildings
      • indoor environmental quality and occupants’ health
      • high-performance building envelopes and green technologies;
      • life-cycle building analysis design and modeling

    “Research conducted by architecture faculty members and doctoral students address issues most critical to the built environment and provide creative solutions to problems associated with building performance, resource conservation, urbanization, ecology and quality of life,” says Christine Theodoropoulos, department head. “Our goal is to further environmental sustainability through collaboration between architectural research and practice for the benefit of our communities.”

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Posted in Implementing Sustainability, Organizations, Urban Infrastructure | Leave a Comment »

Oregon Commons

November 12, 2010 by jvhillegas-elting

Onward Oregon is

    part of growing grassroots movement to restore civic power to the people of Oregon and their communities. We envision a state where all of us can enjoy comfort and prosperity, equal opportunity and a beautiful and healthy environment. But this will not happen without your participation. Many Americans have forgotten that government is actually, “We, the people,” not—as some would have us believe—an alien, inept or untrustworthy entity. Let us reclaim our constitutional right to a truly democratic government. Our path is not left or right, but onward.

One of Onward Oregon’s current initiatives is their Mapping the Commons workshop series:

    Oregon Commons, a project of Onward Oregon, is presenting a series of workshops this fall as a step toward our larger goal of strengthening active stewardship of the commons — the gifts of nature and civilization we share across generations. Join us for “Mapping the Commons,” a fun and interactive workshop designed to help grow our awareness, our network and our commitment to serving the common good. Together, we’ll explore the many facets of the commons and identify opportunities to become more active as its caretakers.

Onward Oregon is hosting two of these free workshops this fall:Salem on Nov. 13 and Portland on Nov. 20.

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Posted in Environment, Equity, Events, Organizations | Leave a Comment »

Solutions Seminars, PSU Institute for Sustainable Solutions

November 6, 2010 by jvhillegas-elting

The Portland State University (PSU) Institute for Sustainable Solutions hosts Solutions Seminars every Wednesday from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., at PSU’s Shattuck Hall Annex (1914 SW Park Ave.). These seminars “explore visionary and desirable solutions to the environmental, economic, and social challenges of our time.”

PSU’s journal Solutions: For a Sustainable and Desirable Future helps sponsor this series. Learn more about the Solutions Seminars series at the Solutions website here.

Past speakers have included:

    Robert Costanza, PSU professor of sustainability, director of the ISS, and co-founder and editor-in-chief of Solutions. He spoke on “Solutions for a Sustainable and Desirable Future.”

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Posted in Events, Organizations, Uncovering & Evaluating Sources | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Area radio programs featuring the theme “sustainability”

November 5, 2010 by jvhillegas-elting

Old AM radio tuner, photographer Claudio Divizia, 123RF Stock Photos (www.123rf.com)

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud radio program this morning was on the topic “Sustainable Oregon and Iraq.” This program featured discussion of two recent developments in regional sustainability efforts. The first was on the five-year agreement that Oregon State University and the government of Iraq entered into help Iraq’s universities in developing sustainable engineering and design programs. The second topic of discussion was on “EcoDistricts,” a new and evolving urban planning concept that seeks to coordinate various existing environmental, equity, and economic strategies in a particular neighborhood to foster cohesive, mutually-reinforcing positive outcomes.

This program this morning got me interested in reviewing other segments of two regional radio programs that I’ve found highly informative over the years, OPB’s Think Out Loud and KUOW’s Weekday. See below the fold for this list.

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Posted in Economics, Environment, Equity, Media, Uncovering & Evaluating Sources | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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