It was exciting to hear that the icon of the LDS Church, the Salt Lake Temple, would be apart of Earth Hour 2009. From the hills north of the city, the view is spectacular and provided a good location to see the lights go out. It was exciting to actually see the temple lights turned off in support of an important moral issue of our time. Unfortunately, from this vantage point, the temple appeared to be the only building in the city participating in making a statement about climate change. I kept waiting for the State Capitol lights to go out, but they never did. Surprising for a city signed up as a 'participating city'.
So the lights on the temple went out at 8:30pm. I was hoping that the other temple lights seen from the hill (Draper and Jordan River) would also go out, but they didn't. Heading down the hill to Temple Square to get some up-close shots, I was surprised when the lights came back on at 9:00pm. The video only partially shows this, since I had to quickly grab the camera and turn it on. So instead of Earth Hour, we'll call this one Earth (Half) Hour. But it's a great start. Maybe we'll get the full hour next year. And maybe we'll get other temples and all of Temple Square involved as well. Hopefully the Church will continue such an active and visible role in increasing awareness about global warming.
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28 March 2009
Earth (Half) Hour
02 July 2008
WALL-E, Barney and Big Belly: What to do with our Waste
On average, each American produces 30 pounds of waste per week. 25,000 tons of garbage is generated from the city of New York every day. In May, the city of Naples, Italy was littered with over 6000 tons of rubbish piling up and spilling over in city streets because of a dysfunctional waste collection system. In spite of rising food prices, Americans continue to waste an astounding amount of food. According to this NY Times article, 27 percent of food available for consumption ends up in the landfill, which works out to a pound of food every day per person.
Barney
‘When we’re responsible for cleanup, we pay attention’ says an article I recently read. The article is a discussion on helping to clean church buildings, but I think the concept is applicable to the environment as well. How many of us have been to a landfill? Do we know what happens to our waste when we put it in a can? It would be nice if school curriculums required children (and adults) to see the process of where waste goes when it leaves our hands. Even Barney, one of my least favorite children’s shows sings, "Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere. Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share."
WALL-E
The new Pixar film has as its main character a robot named WALL-E, standing for Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class. The film is "set in the late 2700s, several centuries after humans finally filled the Earth with so much garbage that life was no longer sustainable and they had to leave." (Eric Snider review) WALL-E is a solar-powered trash compactor that collects trash and compacts it into cubes. Sound far-fetched? While they don’t walk, and aren’t as cute, similar solar-powered trash compactors are springing up all over the country. They go by the unflattering name of ‘Big Belly.’
Big Belly
I recently spotted several of them in downtown Portland. According to their website they are also in Boston, MA and Queens, NY, Arizona State University, Albuquerque parks, and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, among other places. Big Belly can hold eight times the trash of a traditional garbage can and is essentially a smart appliance. It will work in all climates since it can complete 1000 crush cycles after just five hours in the sun and can function without sunlight for up to four weeks. Additionally, it is very strong meaning animals cannot access the trash and spread disease, as is often the case with traditional garbage cans. The cost is expensive up front, but the payback savings take less than a year to make up the difference. Less trips to pick up trash saves the city significant time and money.
So there you have it. WALL-E, Barney, and Big Belly. Three unlikely friends joining forces in the battle over what to do with our trash. They don't solve our landfill problems and they don't force us to be responsible with how much we waste, but they are helping us to be more efficient and thoughtful about how we collect our waste.
Need more convincing? Check out this video clip from ‘Beyond Tomorrow’.
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25 June 2008
How Does the LDS Church feel about Sustainability?
The sound bites in the video are from Bill Williams, director of architecture and engineering for City Creek Reserve, Inc. These are posted on the LDS Newsroom site, and below is the transcribed text of his words:
"When you think about sustainability it’s beyond just green roofs, if you will. But those, in and of itself are probably the most visible because as you rise up in an office building instead of looking down on black tar you see something that’s growing. And what that does for us, is it captures rainwater, it absorbs it so it doesn’t run into the streams at a rapid rate and erode, it cools the building itself because green roofs have a natural cooling ability; shade, things like that."
"As a Church we have always been interested in sustainable efforts. We’ve never sought for public attention in that regard, but sustainable efforts from a Church-wide is something that is just prudent because it means we pay less over a long term for our structures and for our buildings, especially in terms of maintenance and operating costs. So it’s just a prudent thing to do."
"It illustrates that we truly uphold these values; that we try to be good stewards of whatever we do. And that we try to give back to the community. We don’t take from the community, but we give in terms of our time, our efforts, service. But we also look at the environment and say we’re going to be here for a long time. We’d like to ensure that there is a future and it’s a future that we all like and so we participate in the sustainability effort that is going around the country."
(City Creek Center)
(City Creek Center)
Source credits in the video are as follows:
Conference Center:
Flickr user bsmart - Green Rooftop of the LDS Conference Center
Flickr user
Utah.com article - Atop a New Monument, an Ancient Forest
Greenroofs.com database - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Conference Center
Flickr user jonnojohnson - IMG_4638 and IMG_4630
City Creek:
Callison
LDS Newsroom
Wikipedia - City Creek Condominium Tower
(Conference Center by deanrich_99)
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