Case Study: Debs Park, California

Written on 11/21 at 10:11 PM by Andy Posner 1 comments

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Note: I wrote this paper for a class at Brown called Sustainability in the Built Environment The Audubon Society has plans to build "hundreds of urban nature centers. . .by the year 2020" with the aim of "bring[ing] nature to those inner-city children with few opportunities to leave the city. . ."1 Thus when it came time to build the first of these centers at Debs Park, located 10 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, the Society wanted something that would capture its ideals and values and create a model for future development. In order to do so, the design team started with the objective of creating a building "that complemented the landscape, blend[ed] into the environment" and focused the visitor's attention on the nature trails, courtyard and Children's Garden. Yet while sustainability was a high priority from the start, the decision to seek LEED Platinum status wasn't made until a donor made a contribution specifically for that purpose. Ironically, the donation freed the designers to pursue an entirely off the grid, or building, by forcing them to meet LEED's stringent criteria. The Center's unique geographical location enabled it to be in a natural setting while remaining close enough to urban centers to be relevant and accessible to large groups of people. This is because the 17 acre site, situated in the 282-acre Debs park, is only .25 miles from a freeway, half a mile from a light rail station, and within walking distance of 30,000 school children. At the same time, however, the center is sufficiently isolated from electricity, natural gas and sewer lines (1/4 mile) to justify generating all of its energy, as well as treating all of its wastewater, onsite, without adding significantly to the cost of the project. Indeed, the final cost was only 5-7% higher than that of a conventional project, despite the fact that the Center boasts, among other things, a 23 KW PV array, a 269 DC KwH battery bank, the first "completely solar-cooled [HVAC] system in Southern California," two solar water heaters, and extensive wastewater treatment systems.

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A New Mantra

Written on 11/20 at 10:16 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: environment philosophy

A New Mantra For a long time now one of the defining mantras of the environmental movement has been "Reduce. Reuse. Recycle." It's the kind of simple message--wrapped in alliteration--that makes for fantastic bumper sticker reading. Unfortunately, it's also the kind of message that utterly fails to inspire anything other than guilt and limitations, a fact clearly demonstrated by unabashedly rising rates of consumption in the U.S. and around the world despite decades of pleas for consumer self-abnegation. And regardless of what one thinks of our American bumper sticker culture, the fact remains that the "Three R's" of environmentalism are representative of a much broader message: that in order to reconcile humans with nature, humans must restrict themselves while engaging in several select token activities, such as recycling, changing light bulbs, or buying hybrid cars. Yet these activities are just that: token. They can not begin to scratch the surface of global climate, poverty, water, waste, toxic materials, health and deforestation issues. All this is not to say that we should not do what we can in our personal lives to affect change; rather, it means that we need a new, inspiring message, one that presents global problems as opportunities, galvanizes people to action, and unleashes human potential and creativity. Oh, and it just so happens that the new message is simple, wrapped in alliteration, and fits on a bumper sticker too: Invent. Invest. Implement.

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Statement of Purpose

Written on 11/18 at 10:20 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

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Kurt Teichert, my thesis mentor, asked that I write a statement of purpose as part of early research into my thesis. What follows will, after some more refinement, serve as a kind of calling card for what I hope to do. In other words, whenever I contact someone that might be a valuable resource, I will attach this 1 page essay so that the person can get a sense of what I am looking to do and what kind of framework I am looking to make use of.

Statement of Purpose

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Book Review: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Written on 11/12 at 02:46 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

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Book Review: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

Cradle to Cradle is one of those book that changes you.  In other words, it is not a book that merely informs the reader.  It is a book that precipitates a paradigm shift in how one things about ecology, design, economics, business and human relations.  It is a book that seeks to change the very nature of how we do business and how we interact.  It is a model for a new type of industrial revolution as well as a philosophical argument against nature as a tool of man and for man as being a tool of nature.  What does that mean in practical terms?  It means that we design buildings that clean the air, purify the water and produce more energy than the use, because then we are providing things to nature rather than simply taking things away from her and then converting those things into products that cannot be returned to nature because they are now toxic and often do not biodegrade.  Thus the authors argue that products should either be able to return to the biological cycle (basically, soil and water) and safely biodegrade, or to the technical cycle to be infinitely recycled. 

The best example of this is the book itself.  When you pick it up it has a pleasant sheen to it, a certain crispness that is nice to hold and nice to look at.  But it isn’t made from a tree.  Rather, it is made from plastic polymers and inorganic fillers which not only make the book waterproof and highly durable, they also mean that when the book’s useful life ends it can be sent back to the manufacturer to be safely remade into a new book!  In fact, the first chapter is called “This Book Is Not A Tree.” Why is it not a tree?  Why not just use paper?  Because, they argue, trees are far too precious resources to be used for writing down our ideas.  The services trees render to us and other species is far greater than the benefit gained from cutting them down and writing on them.  Furthermore, the plastic paper that they use is safe and infinitely recyclable, and in addition it is highly durable, pleasant and waterproof (you can read the book in the tub or at the beach without any worries!).

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Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States

Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!

My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…

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A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States?

Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development.  To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…

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Tonight, the Oneness of Things

It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come.  I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…

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