Low Impact Living » Blog Archive » California Architect Thinks About White Roofs

As architects in California get closer to 2020, they will need to think more about passive cooling and heating and zero energy houses, as that will be the law by 2020. All new building must be zero energy by then.

[Unclear on that King Çanute story] - Ride Against the Tide

When we get to London, we are going to place the statue of Canute on the Thames river bank at low tide, opposite Westminster, and then allow the tide to rise up and submerge the statue.”

The event is timed to coincide with the meeting of the world richest nations (the 'G8') in Italy.

“Our message to the G8 Leaders is that they are acting like King Canute. Their feeble responses so far to global warming do not recognize the environmental limitations of the world we live in. They believe that sea level rise caused by global warming can be contained without a fundamental change in the way we relate to and use the natural world. I think we would also want to say that we cannot just wait for the G8 to do the right thing. We ourselves need to act now, reshaping our communities and local economies so that they reflect the natural limits of our world.”

Al Gore mines a new source of climate-change [fraud] messengers

THEY are nicknamed Al's Army and they are about to be bolstered by a battalion of new recruits.

The 250 Australian "climate messengers" trained in 2006 by the former US vice-president Al Gore have taken their climate change warnings to more than 300,000 people. Next weekend, Mr Gore will give intensive instruction to another 300 people in Melbourne.

This time the trainee ranks will include people from the resources giants BHP Billiton and Santos, along with a staff member from the NSW Department of Primary Industries, which approves new coalmines.

Sebastien Henry, a market analyst with Eraring Energy, the State Government-owned utility that operates the largest coal-fired power plant in NSW and several wind- and hydro-power plants, was also selected for the training program.

Mr Henry said he was interested in the science of climate change and the engineering challenges it poses. He is looking forward to giving presentations to his employer and the coal industry in general.