Flow-Hive, the Bee-Friendly Way to Collect Honey
Father-and-son team Stuart and Cedar Anderson have devised an ingenious way to collecting honey from beehives, with minimal disruption to the bees. Their invention, the Flow Hive, puts a twist, literally to the bee’s honeycomb structure. Just by turning a crank, the bee frames can change from its hexagonal form to a network of zigzagging channels where honey can flow out of a tap.
Bee-friendly Flow Hive: No more smoke needed. (Image from IndieGogo)
Traditionally, beekeepers had to some the bees to calm them and prevent untoward stings, before the frames could be removed to harvest the honey. Flow Hive is designed to be non-invasive and less stressful to the bees. Already, the Flow Hive campaign has reached its $70,000 goal at IndieGoGo.
Via Wired
Lower Interest Rate Loans for Green Buildings in the US
Yet another benefit of going green. The US Federal National Mortgage Association (or more commonly known as Fannie Mae) has promised lower interest rate loans for buildings that have achieved green certification.
Says Rick Fedrizzi, chief executive and founding chair of USGBC,
“This is real money and an incentive to not only build green but also for existing buildings to achieve certification. For the first time, Fannie Mae multifamily lenders will be able to reward building owners for their better buildings.”
Via Intelligent Building Today
Managing Our Soil to Curb Climate Change
As it is, our soil is in very bad shape because of rampant pesticide and fertilizer use, mono-cropping, mining and deforestation. For farmers all over the world, climate change will pose many challenges such as intense drought, flooding, pesticide resistance, crop disease, barren soil, erratic weather, and many more. Little do we know, how we manage our soils could help curb or even reverse climate change.
This was addressed during the 3rd Annual Climate Adaptation for Farmers conference this month. According to soil scientists, we have to improve the health of our soil so that its carbon sequestration process becomes significant enough to slow down climate change. In particular, we need to encourage more growth of grasses, various plants and trees in our soils.
Via Treehugger
The Problem of Glass in Our Buildings
Lloyd Alter of Treehugger beefs about the trend in cladding buildings in glass thermal windows and walls. Glass doesn’t insulate very well, requiring increased energy in cooling and heating. It’s bad for the birds as well. Another problem is that sooner or later those panes of glass have to be replaced, because of the difference in expansion rates between the aluminum and glass. The lifespan of these glass panels range from 20 to 25 years, due to exposure to the elements and the natural breakdown of the materials. Even earlier, 5 percent of those glass wall and windows might have already failed even before getting to the site.
Why Green Building Is Slowing Down
Jerry Yudelson of Green Globes laments the state of green building and why only a fraction of our built environment are certified or are seeking certification.
Green building still has a lot of market to penetrate. (Image from Skanska.com)
Mostly, he says it’s the big commercial and corporate offices, high-profile projects, or policy-driven markets where LEED certification is required by the state. The remaining building stock, however, are not certified at all, and they comprise the majority. Yudelson cites that owners are not easily convinced that green building certification, despite its costs, has guaranteed benefits in the future.
He also notes that the biggest hurdles with green building is LEED’s high-cost for certification, and its complex and lengthy process, as opposed to Green Globes’ relatively easy, cloud-based approach that costs only a third of LEED. While Yudelson makes some valid points here, Green Globes as a green building certification body, still remains under the tutelage of plastics, chemicals, and lumber industries, which not long ago came into conflict with LEED.
