BEE Is Recognized as LEED Proven Provider
The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) recently gave its nod to our very own Alex Bisagni for his company’s efforts in transforming the green building market in Asia Pacific. Thus BEE (Bisagni Environmental Enterprise) has been recognized as a LEED Proven Provider.
This recognition is awarded only to a select few who have a sustained track record in high-quality LEED submissions and projects. Under this merit, BEE will be able to work more closely and effectively with LEED reviewers, furthering the cause of green building in the region.
Says BEE founder Alex Bisagni, “We are proud to have witnessed the evolution of the USGBC and the considerable influence they have established in the years since their inception. We look forward to growing with the USGBC and realizing a greater impact on the world. ”
| via Eco-Business
Blue LED Wins the Nobel Price for Physics
This month, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing blue LED back in the 1990s. The Nobel committee has deemed the invention an important one since it helped changed the way our world was lit. Back then, creating been red and green LEDs was easy, while blue LED had always eluded scientists. Blue LED is what makes white light possible, and is what finally brought LED lighting into mainstream mass market.
And yet even if LEDs are very energy-efficient, if we continue to overuse electricity at the rate we’re going, LEDs reduction of energy used becomes inconsequential. It’s the classic Jevons Paradox at work here, where the efficiency of a new technology (LED for example) tends to increases the consumption of a resource (electricity) which it supposedly tries to decrease.
| via Treehugger
A Gallery of Influential Architecture Photos
A new book Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photograph looks at the most influential and compelling architecture photos of all time.
Nadav Kander photographs development near the Yangtze river (Wired.com)
Compiled by Elias Redstone showcases stark images of buildings in various stages of construction, fleshing out the various stories behind each piece of architecture, and how they ultimately affects the lives of people in and around it.
| via Wired
Global Animal Populations Have Dwindled by an Average of 52{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab}
Last September was the centennial anniversary of the final extinction of the passenger pigeons, innocent birds whose number was once so great they blackened the skies during their flight. The simple reason for their death: recreational hunting.
The sorry state of global animal populations.
This week, the 2014 Living Planet Report informs us the true state of our planet’s animal species. According to it, in the last forty years, animal populations have dwindled by an average of 52{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} mainly due to man’s actions. Reduction of freshwater fish population was a whopping 76{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} average, 39{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} for marine species, and 39{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} for terrestrial species.
In short, animals have been dying in our hands, and if we’re not careful they may suffer the fate of the passenger pigeons.
The main reasons for the severely compromised animal populations are exploitation (overusing animals as food, clothing, pets, medicine, etc.), habitat loss and degradation and loss, climate change, and pollution.
| via Treehugger
A Bill to Regulate Farmers’ Market Fraud
At it’s purest level, the concept of farmers’ market is well-intentioned—local, organic produce at a market price that’s fair to the growers, healthful for the buyers, and beneficial to the environment. A win-win scenario. Yet, when some shady vendors routinely pass off their produce as organic or locally-grown even when it’s not.
Thus a new bill was recently passed by Calif. governor Jerry Brown to address farmers’ market fraud. Among its many provisions, the bill will provide funding for growers, install more inspectors in farmers’ markets, and require vendors to declare the address of their farm to make sure they grow what they sell. Hopefully, this new strict measure protects the welfare of consumers as well as the truly organic farmers.
| via LATimes
