By Indeed, the house planning, design, and reconstruction was a major undertaking. After having written about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and green building for more than 35 years, there were countless ideas, materials, and innovative products I wanted to try out. This would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a model
Resilience as Means of Mitigating Climate Change
Resilience can be a motivation for taking actions that will not only make us and our families safer, but also help to mitigate climate change.
North Adams, Massachusetts and the Need for Resilience
In the past week, the city has suffered two major blows, plus a minor one.
Creating a More Resilient Power Grid
The role of electrical storage in managing the output from wind and solar systems is important and will grow in significance as the percentage of our electricity supplied by renewables grows.
RDI’s role in two recent reports
There’s a new blog from Urban Green on the reach that the NYC Buildings Resiliency Task Force report has had beyond New York City. RDI was involved with one of these new reports–for the City of Boston. You can access the Urban Green blog here, or download a PDF of
The New York City Buildings Resiliency Task Force Presents Recommendations
The report just released by the Buildings Resiliency Task Force presents 33 detailed recommendations for improving the resiliency of New York City buildings.
Bigger, Longer Heat Storms Are Coming Soon: Will Your Building Keep Its Cool?
Editor’s note: Tom Phillips and I have been corresponding about the risks of temperature extremes, and I invited him to put together an article on the topic so that others could benefit from his research. I am posting that here. -Alex Wilson Floods and ice storms cause some the biggest
By Brattleboro event: Lessons from Germany’s Energy Transition
In 2000 Germany set a goal of achieving 20 percent renewable electricity production by 2020. At that time they were at 3 percent. Now, just 12 years later, they are already at 25 percent. How is Germany transitioning to a renewable energy economy so quickly? Long-time renewable energy advocate Bob
Oak Park to Demonstrate Resilience With Smart Grid
A recent story on Grist.org describes how the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois is embarking on a far-reaching program to demonstrate a resilient power grid using smart-grid technology. With support from the Korea Smart Grid Institute, which carried out a similar demonstration on Jeju Island off South Korea, and
Making Los Angeles Resilient
Lisa Novick has a very good blog on what Los Angeles should do to boost it’s resilience on the Huff Post Los Angeles. The blog includes a nice definition of resilience: “Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to absorb shock and still maintain its identity and function.
Re-imagining Manhattan
You might have missed this in your holiday busy-ness, as we did: In December, Atlantic Cities reported on a project by a team of architect and planners from the University of Michigan to rethink Manhattan in the light of the clear danger of damage from future versions of Hurricane Sandy: From
2012 Temperatures – One For the Record Books
For those who have made a habit of following temperature records over the past few decades, what’s most surprising with today’s news isn’t that 2012 set a record for U.S. temperatures (that had been expected for months), but rather the extent of that record. If you go back to the
Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and the Need For Resilience in the Western U.S.
The January, 2013 issue of Land Lines, a publication of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, has an excellent article on climate change impacts in the Intermountain West and the need for resilience. “Uncertainty and Risk: Building a Resilient West” addresses drought, growing incidence of wildfire, population growth, and factors
New York City Task Force Convened to Respond to Superstorm Sandy
Flooded New York City subway on October 30. 2012. Photo: Hector Mosley, USACE. Public Domain photo. Superstorm Sandy took a major toll on New York City, but if a newly created task force succeeds, the impact of future such events should be lessened. At the request of City Council Speaker
Gas Lines Point to a Need for Resilience
Gas line in Summit, New Jersey following Superstorm Sandy. At this gas station, only doctors and nurses were allowed to get gas, with supervision by local police. Photo: Tom Sulcer, Create Commons license By now we’ve all seen the photos of houses buried in sand along the Jersey Shore, burned-out
