Solar Ivy, courtesy of inhabita

"Solar Ivy (or SMIT Grow) is a spectacular system of thin, fluttering solar panels that generate energy by sparkling in the sunlight. The wind and solar power generating photovoltaic leaves can be easily integrated on the side of a building to produce energy. The concept, designed by Brooklyn based SMIT (Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology), consists of a layer of thin-film material on top of polyethylene with a piezoelectric generator attached to each leaf. When the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, energy is being generated via Solar Ivy.”

Read the the rest of the inhabitat blog here

Photo by Lucas Foglia, courtesy of New York Magazine

New York Magazine's Summer Guide is featuring a great piece on a successful rooftop farming venture in Greenpoint:

Rooftop Farms got started in December 2008, with Chris and Lisa Goode, who run Goode Green, a green-roof business, with their partner, Amy Trachtman. They approached Gina Argento, who owns several Greenpoint warehouses, with the idea of farming her rooftops. In the meantime, the Goodes had met Ben Flanner, a former E*Trade marketer turned would-be farmer, who’d heard of Goode Green and was keen on starting an urban-farm business; Flanner brought in Annie Novak, who works at the New York Botanical Garden, for her hands-on planting expertise.

After a building engineer signed off on the weight-bearing limit this past March, the Goodes hauled over 200,000 pounds of soil up to the roof. “It’s a special rooftop mix,” explains Flanner, with compost already mixed in. “An expanded shale is 50 percent of the volume. Feel how light that is.” The roof has sixteen four-foot-wide beds irrigated by rain (a particular boon to the city, Goode points out, since it takes stress off New York’s overtaxed sewer system

Check out the full article here.

 The ruins of Palenque.

"Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Pete Richerson of the University of California, Davis, believe excessive conformity can prevent the adaptability and innovation needed to survive during periods of rapid environmental change. In fact, they think conformity may have contributed to the demise of the Mayan civilization in southern Mexico on the eighth and ninth centuries, and the Norse settlements in Greenland 1,000 years ago.”

Read the full Plexus Institute blog here

This weekend I trekked up to Bushwick to check out the nieghborhood's newest fixture: The Putting Lot.  This nine-holed interactive installation has garnered considerable attention in the local art media, and rightfully so.  In addition to making brilliant use of a previously abandoned space, the course is made almost entirely from recycled materials.

Some of the holes are better appreciated for their aesthetic qualities than their playability (Hole #7 looks fascinating but good luck sending your ball through it in fewer than 6 strokes!), but the course as a whole is loads of fun to play across. I especially liked the ramps and water hazards of Hole #3 (the blue and purple amoeba seen toward the bottom of the above image).

If you still aren't interested enough to pay The Putting Lot a visit (or if you won't be passing through NYC this summer) check out this quick little video of the installation process:

The Putting Lot from Lakshmi Sundaram on Vimeo.

The House is expected to vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act either today or tomorrow. The grist provides an informative summary of where The House appears to stand on the issue currently.

Regular citizens can help pass the bill by following former Vice President Al Gore's easy instructions here.

Most of us already know that the subway and bus systems are key to the remarkably low carbon emissions of an average New Yorker. Most accounts peg this number at about one third of the national average but how has this situation developed and what needs to be done to improve it? How can we use New York City as a model for making mass transit viable in other U.S. cities? Most importantly, what is the fate of mass transit in the Transportaiton and Climate Bills currently making their way through Washington (Streetsblog has been providing some great coverage of this question lately)?

The Director of MTA Sustainability, Projjal Dutta, will be covering this issue and answering these questions down on Governors Island this Saturday. Pack a picnic, bring your bike, and use this as an excuse to enjoy one of NYC's quietest and greenest open spaces. Be sure to catch the noon ferry (it's all free, by the way) because the event will begin at 12:30.

For those of you who are already planning your out summer, remember that Dutta's presentation is part of a summer long series (every Saturday except the weekend of July 4th) put on by the very same Institute that has brought you this blog. You can check out the full list of events on our website, but let me recommend the "Build-a-Boat From Recycled Materials" workshop on July 18th. Also, the Gardening In the City workshop, scheduled for August 15th, promises to be excellent.

Earlier this month Europe chose a Parliament and the Europe Ecologie coalition of European Green parties, led by the Franco-German Mr. Cohn-Bendit, came in third in the French voting as reported by the New York Times. Mr. Sarkozy, the center-right President of France, also did very well in the elections and will begin his second phase of presidency with a series of Green initiatives in response to the Green votes.

Mr. Cohn-Bendit at a Paris rally in May 1968, Courtesy of the New York Times

On Thursday, Mr. Sarkozy invited Mr. Cohn-Bendit; Cécile Duflot, the head of the French Greens; and Pascal Durand, an adviser to a well-known environmentalist and likely Green coalition presidential candidate, Nicolas Hulot, to the Élysée Palace. “Sarkozy realized there was a green wave in France,” Mr. Cohn-Bendit said afterward, “and he wants to surf it.”

Mr. Sarkozy is now discussing an idea to create a global organization for the environment with the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Read the full Times article here

A large biogas digester from JapanThe folks over at Green Inc. recently reported on the first North American biogas endeavor to use human waste.  While the object of this San Jose-based plan may strike some readers as potentially putrid, it's anticipated results seem universally appealing.  In this economic climate, what municipality won't want to grow jobs locally, cut energy costs, and find productive ways of dealing with solid waste?

Most municipalities send sludge to landfills, but San Jose’s director of corporate outreach, Nanci Klein, told Green Inc. the city was looking to bolster its waste diversion, cut emissions, phase out its dependence on imported energy and create clean-tech jobs.

“This step puts us ahead of other jurisdictions,” she said.

The city estimates that the project will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 1,800 vehicles a year. The project is a partnership between GreenWaste Recovery, Zanker Road Resource Management and Harvest Power Inc., a clean-tech firm with backing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the clean-tech venture capital fund.

The New York Times published an article yesterday revealing a correlation between summer heat and homicide rates in NYC. The reason for the correlation reported by the Times is straightforward: more people get together to interact during warm summer months, increasing the likelihood of crime.

Photo Courtesy of the NY Times

If homicide rates correlate with air temperature, and if the world continues to warm globally, then it looks like we can expect more homicides in the future if all else remains unchanged. This is yet another problem that the city will have to prepare for in the coming years.

The Times provides an interactive map showing major crimes by year in NYC since 2003, which is updated when new information becomes available. Although the map does not provide homicide rates expected in the future, looking at the most recent climate change projections provided by the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) can give you a sense what may in store.

Read the Times article here

Get NPCC climate change projections here                                                    

A map from the report of changing run-off patterns and population densities

The New York Times recently reported on a new study which documents and forecasts the increasing prevalence of large-scale, climate change-induced displacement and migration of human populations. The bulky document is authored by a host of heavy-hitting agencies, including the United Nations, CARE, and Columbia University. As Tom Zeller points out, the report is packed with rich maps and comprehensive data. I also like it for it's emphasis on the unique problems posed by rapid urbanization of human populations.

By 2050 when human population is projected to peak,
some 9 billion people will live on Earth. The majority of them will
live in urban areas with crushing environmental footprints. Many
megacities are located in areas prone to sea level rise. Climate
change will visit urban and rural areas alike with increasingly
frequent and violent hazard events. Flooding, intense storms,
or droughts, or more gradual but significant changes in regional
climates place great stress on livelihood systems. These pressures will contribute to migration and displacement, along with myriad
other factors.

Read the full report here.
Read the Times article here.