And now for some good news.....

By Kevin Dufour, Chapter Member; LEED AP O+M

As an environmental scientist and sustainability consultant, I try to stay current with the latest research about our environment and in particular, climate change.  Often times the flow of information is relentless and sometimes downright depressing.  Constantly hearing such stories as how the California drought and Australian Heatwave have been definitively linked to to climate change, or, that birds ranges have been pushed further toward the poles and that many species may face future extinction can eventually get you down,  Why even the mangroves, that iconic symbol of the tropics, have been relentlessly marching away from the equator due to warmer winters.  It can be hard not to devolve into pessimism.  

A Reason for Hope.

However, I recently had an enjoyable and encouraging conversation about climate change. The information was correct, current, and even nuanced. My partner in conversation knew about ocean acidification, the natural drivers of climate change, attempts at mitigation and resiliency, feedback loops, and the basic principles of atmospheric science. He was ten years old. If he is that knowledgeable, then perhaps, others in his generation are so informed. This is a cause for optimism indeed. I thought that I should share some positive stories and that such would help those of us in the vanguard of the green movement carry forward. Perhaps such items would help keep the wolves of despair at bay for a while longer.

Positive Efforts

There have been several news stories that have focused on the potentially positive efforts.  These include stories of technological innovation and political will.  I was particularly encouraged by the development of floating solar panels. What a great idea.  This helps solve the issue of devoting so much productive land to solar power generation.  These panels can be deployed on reservoirs, industrial/agricultural lagoons, even at sea.  Obviously care must be taken to not disrupt the ecosystems with the shade these will create but it can turn non-productive water areas into electrical generators.

Greener Ag.

A second area of innovation that i believe may hold much promise is in the area of agriculture.  Agriculture is often vilified due to its impact on erosion, chemical run off, and the detrimental effects of mono culture cropping.  Major advances have been made that go a long way to minimizing those impacts.  A consortium of companies and governments has launched the climate smart agriculture initiative.  This seeks to use technological and agronomic best practices to both work with a changing climate, and to mitigate it impact, as much as possible.  This will be vital to continue to produce food, in as sustainable manner as possible, to feed the world despite the increasing pressures climate change will present..  There are critics, and such a program would need to monitored, but, its about spreading best practices around the world, increasing yields, and reducing or eliminating environmental impacts.  All ideas must be on the table and this is a good start. 

The precision agriculture movement works hand in hand with Climate smart agriculture by leveraging technology to minimize impacts and maximize productivity.  At first glance this seems like science fiction but it is real and it is being used today.  Precision agriculture involves the use of advanced sensors to detect drought stress and pest pressure on crops.  It uses guided applications of nutrients, pesticides, and water to alleviate those issues.  Rather than using a crop duster to bombard a field or broadcasting fertilizer where it may not be needed, the applications are targeted to the individual plant in need.  Water is only applied exactly where needed and in a manner to minimize evaporation.  The end result is greater productivity, less costs, and far less impacts than current practices.  As I mentioned, this is being done now.  The higher yields and lower use of nutrients and chemicals reduces cost to such an extent that the return on investment can be as little as 2 to 3 years. No matter how you slice it, that is good news.

China, Business, and Citizens stepping up.

Another area of positive movement is world wide acceptance  of the challenges we face. That is no more evident than in the burgeoning environmental awakening taking place in China.   Make no mistake about it, China is a mess and will continue to be a mess for a long time.  That said, they are making  dramatic strides in a developing environmental protection system.  They have begun instituting trial cap and trade systems. They have banned all coal burning in Beijing by 2020 and placed limits on coal burning power plants.  Most transformational of all has been their establishment of  a system that allows for public interest lawsuits as a means of driving environmental change.  Even if they are harvesting "low hanging fruit", China is making substantial gains and putting the US to shame.

While I have been disappointed by the United States congressional lack of leadership on climate change, I have been heartened by the actions of its citizens. A huge crowd gathered in NYC to march for climate action. Ironically just a couple of days earlier Gov. Christie - who pulled New Jersey from the Regional Green House Gas Initiative - was in NYC to speak before a donor convention for the climate change denying Koch brother backed Americans for Prosperity super PAC. I guess its two steps forward, one step back.   Students have taken the lead in advocating for college endowments to divest themselves of carbon intensive investments.  This strategy is not just ethical investing from the days of combating apartheid but it also makes simple economic sense.  If, in order to meet the 2 degrees C climate benchmark, we must leave large amounts of oil, gas, and coal in the ground - do proven reserves have any value?  Even the Rockefellers, of Standard Oil fame and fortune, have announced plans to divest up to 50 Billion from fossil fuels including tar sands. 

The Rockefeller Fund is not the only corporate citizen pushing for action on climate change.  Many corporate citizens have stepped to the plate.  You can argue whether or not it is ethics or profits that drive this new found idealism but I care not, the end result is the same.  Both Google and Microsoft and even News Corp.  have announced plans to withdraw all funding and support from the climate change denial bill mill of the American Legislative Exchange Council.  A sure sign that corporate citizens are viewing climate change as a risk to their bottom line is the alliance between Henry Paulson, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer.  This project, funded by heavy hitters from all sides of the political spectrum illustrates how climate change can, if thoughtfully addressed, cross all political boundaries.  The Risky Business project "focuses on quantifying and publicizing the economic risks from the impacts of climate change." In my mind, it's the action that matters more than the motivation.  I don't care if climate change is addressed to preserve corporate profit and minimize risk or if it is being done to save the world, so long as action is taken.

Positive Results.

We are starting to see some positive outcomes from actions that have already been taken.  This past year, 2014, is the first year that we have not recorded a single exceedence of the Ozone standard (Smog) in Massachusetts.

In fact, air quality all over Massachusetts and the united states has been getting steadily better and better.  This is a clear testament to the impact that forward thinking governmental policies can achieve when driven by an educated and motivated populace.  The image below and the fantastic animation at this link shows the reduction in air pollution over the last several years as imaged from a NASA satellite.

Finally, the antarctic ozone hole, remember that, has been healing itself.  Ever since the Montreal Protocol banned chlorofluorocarbons and other stratospheric ozone depleting chemicals, the earths atmosphere has been steadily healing.  This again is illustrative of the fact that concerted collective action can effect great change.

  Even the Economist has pointed out that the greatest advances in climate change have come from large governmental action including treaties, energy standards, efficiency, and even building codes. Progress is happening and its happening in unlikely places and with unlikely partnerships.  Hey, even the Economist is covering climate change, that's a reason to be hopeful.

Kevin Dufour is an Environmental Scientist with Viridis Advisors. He collaborates with Tom Irwin on creating greener greenscapes. The opinions expressed by member bloggers are their own and not necessarily those of the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter.

 

A Green Building That Helps Make Everything Greener

In the interests of full disclosure, I submitted this building for the recent Green Building of the Year Award. My connection to this building is not as a member of the project team but as one who gets to work in this building on a daily basis. I lived through the considerable challenges that the builders, architects, and occupants faced. It was observing this project that helped crystallized my long running passion for green building.  

Imagine being tasked with turning an asbestos laden, archaic, 1950's era building that sits on a Brownfields site that used to house open tanks of raw sewerage into a state of the art laboratory for the advancement of environmental science. Now, imagine being told that it's a state building, obviously budget will be a major concern. Finally, you are told that all of the functions at this lab are critical to the Commonwealth and all activities must continue without impact and all workers must remain on site and their extremely delicate equipment must remain operational throughout. 

That was the challenge. One of the difficulties was that the old portion of the building was completely renovated except for one tiny 12x12 portion. This room was an environmentally controlled chamber that had to maintain humidity and temperature within extremely tight ranges.  Inside, it housed a robot that was capable of measuring the weight of a fingerprint. It was used to measure airborne particles that are so small that over 700 of them would fit in the diameter of a human hair. When inhaled, these particles directly contribute to hospital admissions for cardiac and respiratory distress. The state monitors the levels of this pollutant and thus the importance of this small space. This chamber stayed operational and free of contamination, not missing a single sample, while the building was literally gutted and rebuilt around it. Not only did the building meet the challenge but it achieved LEED Platinum certification.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection William X. Wall Experiment Station, located in Lawrence Massachusetts, has been transformed into a state of the art green building. Worldwide there are 52,152 LEED certified projects, but only 1,029 (or 1.97%) are certified at the Platinum level. Of those achieving Platinum certification, only 29 in the world are LEED Platinum Laboratories. Of those, the vast majority are New Construction. The William X Wall Experiment Station not only achieved LEED Platinum certification as part of a renovation to an existing building, it did so when the existing building was designated as a Brownfields site.

The old facility was constructed in 1954 and was inadequate to handle the complex testing protocols required by today's environmental science. The WXW Experiment Station houses 52 FTE's and is the state's principle drinking water laboratory. The facility also annually performs over 15,000 lab analysis of contaminates in air, water, waste water, soil, hazardous wastes, fish, environmental evidence, and other environmental samples. The state's ambient air monitoring efforts are housed in the facility as well as the Massachusetts Occupational Safety laboratories. The building contains state of the art laboratory facilities that include clean rooms, DNA testing laboratories, inorganic chemistry laboratories, organic chemistry laboratories, toxicology laboratories, a microbiology lab, air monitoring laboratories, 2.5 micron respirable particulate gravimetric chamber, and laboratory support facilities such as building wide scientific gasses storage, hazardous waste rooms, dedicated wash rooms, high efficiency fume hoods, dedicated sample prep rooms, mechanical workshops, laboratory equipment rooms, and quality assurance lab space.

The project added 13,000 square feet of laboratory space and a major renovation of the 22,000 square foot existing lab. During the entire construction period the laboratory had to continue to operate a full capacity. During this time, all samples were analyzed and all quality assurance benchmarks had to be met. Technical systems audits, conducted by the EPA, insured that data quality objectives were achieved. The project was a 4 year, 2 phase project. All laboratory operations had to be moved multiple times and personnel had to be housed on site in construction trailers.

MassDEP, Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) and the design firm of Perkins + Will and RDK Engineers planned the project. O'Connor Constructors, Inc. was the project's construction manager.

As a top notch laboratory, the building required some unusual features. It needed Reverse Osmosis Deionized Water available in every laboratory. The labs had to be plumbed for ultra high purity laboratory grade gasses. Any source of potential contamination had to be eliminated. The entire building needed the ability to change its air within minutes. Data handling infrastructure had to be robust in order to handle the massive amounts of data that the instruments would generate. Safety features such as positive pressure labs, eyewash stations, decon showers, and emergency communications had to be incorporated throughout the work spaces. The building needed back up power and other systems to remain functional in the event of a disaster. And, the building needs to be secure and capable in the event that it is ever called upon to analyze biological threats. 

The green upgrades include: a 52.5 kW solar photo-voltaic system for on-site renewable energy production; use of the existing site as a Brownfield redevelopment; maximizing open space; rain gardens and storm water detention basins to protect the adjacent Merrimack River; water efficient landscaping; high performance roof; green roofed areas; rain water harvesting for reuse in toilets and cooling tower; water efficient plumbing (40% savings); optimized energy performance (greater than 21% over baseline, 5 LEED points); day lighting of 75% of the space; plug in charging for 2 electric vehicles; bicycle storage room and shower facilities; lighting controls; ventilation air monitoring; low emitting, regional, and recycled materials; and many other strategies. A measurement and verification plan, as well as enhanced commissioning has been incorporated to insure that the building continues to meet its certification.

The Lawrence Experiment Station was founded in 1887 and it was one of the first laboratories in the world dedicated to environmental research. In 2013, the newly renovated laboratory became one of the few LEED Platinum labs in the world and is poised to be on the vanguard of environmental science for years to come.

Kevin Dufour is an Environmental Scientist with Viridis Advisors. He collaborates with Tom Irwin on creating greener greenscapes. The opinions expressed by member bloggers are their own and not necessarily those of the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter.

Institutionalizing Ignorance

Ignorance: state of being ignorant, lack of knowledge , education, or awareness.

I felt that I needed to get that definition in place right our front, before I start throwing bombs. My first few posts have been on items that have been rather mundane such as, groundskeeping and maintenance plans.  However, over the last couple of weeks several things have come to my attention that both angered me and made my wonder about the long term viability of the sustainability movement.

The children are the future

The first thing that got may attention was a concerted effort to pollute the minds of school children by requiring, under force of law, the teaching of climate denial in schools. Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona are all debating bills that refer to global warming as a "theory" that is "controversial" and riddled with scientific weaknesses. This, despite the fact the National Academy of Sciences, as well as major national academies of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the science is unequivocal: the world is warming and its primary cause is human activity.  The veracity of climate change is unshaken despite the fact that this spring has been ice bound and last winter was virtually snow less. These variations are explainable.  The trend line of the data has been verified, despite the claims of climate change deniers.

These bills are being advanced under the canard that students need a "balanced" perspective " to develop critical thinking skills they need in order to become intelligent, productive and scientifically informed citizens." (These efforts have been crafted and honed over decades, if you want to learn more, an excellent PBS documentary is here.) This is the latest approach to arguing for an idea you can't possibly support with evidence - the false equivalency.  The powerful interests behind climate denial are well aware that the vast weight of evidence is against them so they propose that , for the sake of balance and fairness, both sides need to be considered equally.  This is bunk.  This is the same argument that was made between creationism and evolution.  One side has the vast weight of the generations greatest subject matter experts all reaching some form of accord, the other has....nothing. The best support that they muster is a selective interpretation of the data.  Sure they can point to a scientist or two - often not even a climate scientist - to support their position.  The tobacco industry would occasionally find a scientist who did not believe that smoking damaged your health, it did not mean that those scientists opinions should receive the same weight as the avalanche of opposing colleagues. 

While these laws seem laughable on their face, this is not something to be trivialized. While the above referenced law is up for debate in 3 states, it has been raised in 10.  The forces that propose these laws are very very well organized and heavily subsidized.  They are also expert at influencing the political process to gain a built in, legislatively mandated, advantage.  Kudo's for them.  If you care about something, you need to fight for it.  I fear that the pro-sustainability constituents may not be up for the fight.  Examples of their efforts include efforts to prevent the disclosure of fracking fluids, efforts to blockade renewable energy, and even developing a "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms." 

Now, we get to the part that worries me.  

Energy Disclosure is Coming to Boston

The USGBC MA Chapter is happy to promote, support and advocate for public disclosure of energy use in Boston. According to the recent proposal, over the next four years, different types and sizes of buildings will report their energy use score (using EPA's Energy Star Portfolio Manager) into a public database. The city will rate all the buildings it owns starting in 2013. The information will be used to help the city's Energy and Environment Office, led by former USGBC MA Board VP Brian Swett, to craft incentives and programs to help owners embrace energy efficiency measures. It will not be used to force anyone to do anything, just to report their building's energy use. One of our members, Chris Liston, Director of Energy and Sustainability at CBRE New England, noted that for his clients in New York, reporting for the entire year can be done in about 30 minutes. 

I went to City Hall on Thursday, March 28, to submit supportive testimony to the City Council, which will be voting on the ordinance in the near future. We believe the ordinance will lead to better building values, better tenant experiences, better building operating practices, reduced waste of energy, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, among other things. Some organizations, including Boston's Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), came out against the ordinance, which was puzzling. Industry leaders like Partners Healthcare and Boston Properties spoke in support of the ordinance. It seemed like a lot of the opposition just didn't understand the program. It was too bad, but the USGBC MA Chapter is here to help people learn more and get more support behind the measure.

The ordinance is somewhat like telling people to go weigh themselves when you care about their health. If someone knows their weight, they might decide to start exercising or eating better. But some people just don't even want to know things. And this ordinance isn't even like telling anyone you have to go to the gym - just to get weighed!