Author Archive
Trends in Sustainable Cities
A recent report by SustainLane ranked the top sustainable cities in the US. Coming out in the top 5 were:
Portland
San Fransisco
Seattle
Chicago
New York
And coming out in the bottom five were:
Memphis
Las Vegas
Tulsa
Oklahoma City
Mesa
Now, at least a couple of the top five greenest cities shouldn’t come as any surprise to those of you who keep up with greener [...]
McCain on the Environment
This is the second post in a series on the Presidential candidates and the environment. Part One on Obama was published earlier today, and tonight we take a look at McCain.
McCain’s Environmental Record
First, as Josh mentioned in his Obama Post, it should be noted that the League of Conservation Voters did give McCain a rating [...]
Backyard Farmer
One of my favorite green entrepreneurial ideas is the personal gardening service. Let’s say you have a busy lifestyle, but you realize the pure goodness that is fresh produce which comes from your very own garden. The only problem is that neither you nor your significant other has the time required to cultivate and maintain [...]
Sustaining the Future with Green Technology
Out of all of the policy decisions made dealing with the issue of climate change and sustainability, there is still inevitably conflict, and solutions are slow to emerge. What’s the solution?
China’s co2 emissions are at 22.9 gigatons compared to 9.8 gigatons in the US. American’s use seven times more co2 per capita than Chinese. A [...]
Greening Existing Commercial Real Estate With Solar Panels
Most of the talk about greening real estate is about building practices. Until now, the focus has been on the development side of the business. But there are some interesting ventures popping up with innovative business models. One in particular capitalizes on the enormous potential of existing commercial real estate space, where the owners do [...]
Microcredit is Sustaining the Future
I have become absolutely convinced that microfinance is the best way to eliminate extreme poverty in the third world. The traditional thinking in the developed world is that poor people are poor because they are lazy and illiterate. And, of course, credit in the developed world relies on the past performance of the borrower. Robert [...]
Talking Plants
Some NYU students came up with a new business that allows your plants to call you when they need water or more sunlight. Botanicalls.com will provide you with your sensors for your plants, and then will provide you with personal, and hilarious, pre-recorded calls from your plants when the sensor tells it to. [...]
The Benefits of Building Green
Norm Miller recently co-authored an academic paper along with two Costar executives. It is the first piece of research to compare the costs and benefits of developing green commercial real estate. This is quite an interesting article and well worth the read. Here is an excerpt of the findings:
Here we reveal the first systematic study, as opposed to [...]
Climate Change and Risk Management
Would you bet your entire life on the assertion that climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and that it will result in global disaster? I mean truly 100% can you discredit the skeptics out there who claim that global warming is bogus?
Major scientists and scientific institutions have claimed that global warming is happening [...]
The Case For an Alternative Energy Driven Boom
Most booms happen on the back of technological change. Think about it:
The boom in the 1980’s which was caused by computers.
The internet boom in the 1990’s.
The mini-booms in the early 2000’s in bio-technology and nano-technology.
And, come to think of it, some of the biggest booms in history have been caused by energy driven technological change. [...]
