Be A Water Hog

I've been giving a lot of thought to cistern systems, with an eye to adding one to my own household for garden irrigation.

Throughout history, cisterns have helped provide a steady dependable water supply for a variety of uses, from irrigation to drinking water. As more and more pressure is put on fresh water supplies in the United States, it only seems obvious that we will once again turn to cisterns to capture rainwater and store it for use around the house. At the college my daughter attends, Humboldt State University, rainwater is captured and used for the mundane task of flushing the toilets...saving treated water for human consumption.

This modular cistern system caught my attention as I was googling for different cisterns and rainwater catchment systems. I liked the modular design and it looked like it was fairly easy to work with. It is marketed as the Rainwater HOG by a company of the same name. The tank itself is recyclable, and the modular design makes it easy to put together a cistern to meet your exact needs.

The dimensions are such that it shouldn't take up much space, and will be easy to place in unobtrusive places. I thought it was an interesting design. Most of the cistern systems I've looked have been below ground systems. I wonder if a difference in water temperature, just by the nature of the Rainwater Hog being an above ground system, creates any issues with water treatment. Either way, there is a lot to like with the design of this Hog.

Innovative Sustainability embodied in new California Academy of Science building

A flying carpet of green grass floating in the sky. This is just one description of the 2 1/2 acre roof of the California Academy of Science's new building in Golden Gate park, just across the bay from San Francisco.

The many cutting edge environmental technologies that went into this 410,000 square foot demonstrates just what is possible in public building design, not to mention what is possible for retail and residential buildings.

The LA Times has a very good article on the new building.

Academy officials and Arup, the engineering firm that worked with Piano and a local firm, Stantec, to realize the building, have called the roof one of the museum's primary exhibits. Containing nine species of native plants, it will filter storm runoff and keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter. It is also ringed by photovoltaic panels that will produce somewhere between 5% and 10% of the building's energy needs. Although that's not a particularly impressive number, most green roofs have no energy-generating power.

The Story of Stuff

Where stuff comes from...where stuff goes. It is important to understand if we are to find solutions to the crisis we are in. Yet most people in our country, never give it a second thought.

Sustainability seemed like a amorphous concept to me for a long time. I generally understood the word, but what exactly that concept meant in day to day life was hard to see. Getting a good understanding of how our civilizations macro-scale processes worked is hard to do in our daily lives. We get up, open that box of cereal, maybe stop by Starbucks on the way to work, drop by Walmart to pick up a few things after work...these mundane, everyday acts, all have a cumulative impact on our world.

My daughter, Erin, sent my wife and I a link to this video called "The Story of Stuff". I think it does an outstanding job of creating a visual definition of how our society operates, and succinctly lays out the massive problem with the process, namely it's linear nature.

Below is a teaser to the video



Here is a link to the video itself. Watch It.