By Andrea Putman
Director of Corporate Partnerships, Second Nature
President, Green Innovations, LLC

As we connect the dots from ancient history to the distant future, we envision and hope for a clean and safe future for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. Sustainability professionals work diligently so that our posterity will look back at these days of the early 21st century and be pleased that their ancestors had wisdom, courage, tenacity, and imagination to overcome the huge obstacles of fast speeding and hard charging climate disruption. By honoring the ancient wisdom of our ancestors and working to protect the future occupants of our planet, our strong actions and passion may stand the tests of time. Although net-zero energy buildings currently represent a minuscule percentage of our nation’s infrastructure, they represent a hope for our descendants.

Daylighting and Passive Cooling and Heating

The Pantheon, the temple dedicated to all the gods of pagan Rome, connects us to the distant past. As the light streams in through the open oculus as it has for 2000 years, the architectural masterpiece promotes deep reflection and awe and may inspire us to work for a better future. Today, architects and engineers use daylighting extensively in high performance and green buildings. They take advantage of the daylighting’s well-documented benefits of reducing energy demand and associated costs; increasing occupants’ sense of well-being (as well as students’ test scores and retail sales).

The Research Support Facility (RSF), located on the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab campus in Golden, Colorado, is the largest net-zero energy (NZE) building in the world and widely considered to be the nation’s greenest building. Remarkably, RSF was built at no additional costs compared to traditional construction. This building has many cutting-edge technological features and also takes advantage of simple daylight. 100 percent of the workstations are daylit with the light entering the south­facing windows and reflecting to the ceiling and deep into the space with light­reflecting devices.

Stepping out of the summer sun and into the majestic European cathedrals and mosques, one feels the striking difference of broiling hot to refreshingly cool. RSF’s planners integrated this age-old lesson. Today, RSF has a labyrinth thermal storage that provides for additional capacity for passive heating and cooling. Massive concrete structures are located in the crawl space. They store thermal energy and act as a thermal battery. This reduces the building’s cooling load in summer by pre-cooling the ventilation air. In the winter, the labyrinth stores heat from the facility’s computers. Outside air is warmed by the sun shining down on transpired solar collectors and then delivered to the labyrinth.1

Higher Education Examples

A handful of higher education institutions are pushing the limits by constructing highly energy efficient and net-zero energy infrastructure and integrating these lessons into curricula. Stellar examples include Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA; North Shore Community College (NSCC) in Danvers, MA; and University of California, Davis.

Georgia Tech is constructing a cutting-edge Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory with a goal of carbon neutral net zero site energy use. This is a game-changing feat in part because research universities’ laboratories have huge energy demands. Georgia Tech is working to achieve a new standard for sustainable design and is integrating passive energy technologies including extensive daylighting.2 NSCC’s Health Professions & Student Services Building is first state-owned NZE building in Massachusetts. Among its other features, this building uses natural ventilation and maximizes daylighting.3 Both institutions are integrated lesson from these buildings into curriculum, providing dynamic living labs, and inspiring students and their communities.

Students at colleges and universities throughout the country and world work diligently and collaboratively to design, construct, and monitor NZE homes. Since 2002, 112 collegiate teams have enthusiastically participated in the US Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. Teams of college students spend approximately two years designing and constructing homes that, among other criteria, are powered by the sun and produce as much or more energy than they consume. The Decathlon has expanded to include nearly 10,000 students. In addition to the Decathlon in the US, international competitions have been held in Europe and are planned in China in August 2013. Teams of students from US and are collaborating with students from around the world.4

We are at vitally important crossroads as we make decisions and take actions that will have long term impacts. We may dream about entire campuses that expand into communities to help restore our damaged ecosystem by not depending on fossil fuels to run our homes, offices, and schools. Although it may feel a bit fanciful to envision a net-zero energy community, University of California, Davis project at West Village, is the largest planned NZE community in the United States. This model employs a combination of aggressive energy efficiency and on-site renewable energy generation. As we marvel at NZE buildings, we can envision restorative buildings that provide energy back to the power grid to feed its voracious and growing appetite. We may begin to build communities that are not simply carbon neutral but rather “climate positive” as a mechanism to nourish and restore our earth. Let us gather ancient wisdom as we create a bright tomorrow and fortify the future.

1 http://www.nrel.gov/sustainable_nrel/pdfs/48943.pdf (accessed Feb. 27, 2013)
2 http://www.northshore.edu/sustainability/zneb (accessed Feb. 27, 2013)
3 http://www.solardecathlon.gov/about.html (accessed Feb. 27, 2013)
4 http://westvillage.ucdavis.edu/energy (accessed Feb. 27, 2013)

Advertise here with BSA

To celebrate the launch of their newest web app, NotifySnack, SnackTools is giving away three 1-year VIP memberships that will allow the winners to use NotifySnack (as well as other web tools in the SnackTools suite of web apps). A 1-year VIP membership is $168. Read this post to learn how you can win a free SnackTools VIP membership for one year.

** Update: Giveaway Period Has Ended **

About NotifySnack

NotifySnack is a powerful tool designed to create beautiful notification widgets for your website.

NotifySnack is great for saying "hello" to your visitors, promoting blog posts, getting subscribers, selling products, making announcements, driving traffic on pages with high conversion rates, and much more.

Being so highly customizable, it will integrate perfectly with the general feel of your web pages and grab the attention of your visitors without annoying them.

Some NotifySnack Features

• Lots of stylish and beautiful templates (and there are more templates being developed)
• Display multiple messages at once
• Integration with Twitter and your site’s RSS feed/s
• Mobile-ready
• No branding (if you’re a VIP member)

** Update: Giveaway Period Has Ended **

About SnackTools

SnackTools is a suite of web applications designed to simplify the way you create and publish rich media widgets on the Web. NotifySnack is the newest addition to the SnackTools web app suite.

Other web apps in SnackTools are:

• BannerSnack
• PhotoSnack
• PodSnack
• TubeSnack
• PollSnack
• FlipSnack
• SlideSnack
• FileSnack
• SnackWebsites

They have a points system for users who don’t want to buy subscriptions or users who would rather pay as they go.

Read more about the points system through the link below:

• http://www.snacktools.com/en/points.html

How to Win

For a chance to win a SnackTools VIP membership for one year, answer the question below in the comments of this post:

How would NotifySnack be useful to you?

Giveaway Details

This giveaway ends on Tuesday, March 12, 2013 after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Please only comment once. The winners will be randomly selected using the same method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post and you’re advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please also note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to participate (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.

Related Content

• 10 Important UI Design Considerations for Web Apps
• A Quick Look at Mobile Web Designs
• 12 Excellent Free Tools for Monitoring Your Site’s Uptime
• Related categories: Tools and Web Development

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

The unimaginable happened in a Florida home this past Thursday evening.   Jeremy Bush was and his family were preparing for bed when a “deafening noise” erupted from within the confines of the house. 

Jeremy heard his brother, Jeff Bush, screaming from his room.  He ran to his aid, but upon entering Jeff’s room all he saw was a wide hole with Jeff’s mattress strewn at the bottom. 

Jeremy frantically scoured the hole in search for his brother who had been swallowed by the earth.  Police showed up shortly after, and forced Jeremy out of the hole, informing him that it was still collapsing.

Jeremy gave a tearful account of the heart-wrenching experience in recent footage.

The sinkhole now stretches 20 feet wide and 50 feet deep.  Such a shocking and unfamiliar tragedy has raised public interest into the cause of sinkholes.

In Florida alone it is claimed that thousands of sinkholes appear every year.

Courtesy of aids.gov

This is one of those great hold-your-breath moments…

Could we have found a cure to Aids?

The world is watching Mississippi as doctors reported on Sunday night that they cured a toddler born with HIV. 

The girl was born two and a half years ago to a mother who was unaware of her HIV status. She was immediately tested for HIV after being born prematurely, and was placed on an “aggressive treatment” plan within 30 hours. 

Though the test results showed positive, her virus had nearly disappeared.

The treatment continued off and on until she stopped receiving medication at eighteen months. Half a year later, she returned for a check-up and the virus was still untraceable.

This is not the first case of a functional cure — a middle-aged man from Berlin named Timothy Brown was cured of HIV when he received a bone-marrow transplant for leukemia. His donor who was genetically immune to the virus.

After the results are confirmed, the next step is for doctors to replicate the treatment. Approximately 3 million children currently live with HIV. Most of the 330,000 children born with HIV were born in poor countries, where only 60% of infected mothers receive prenatal treatment. 

In the words of Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health,

You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen.

Eun-Shim Nahm, PhD, RN, FAAN Associate Professor, OSAH Program Director, Nursing Informatics School of Nursing University of Maryland

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 12, 7:10 pm Location: ITE 456, UMBC

Abstract: The aim of the presentation is two-fold. In the first part, the domain of nursing informatics within health care informatics will be introduced. The unique roles and practices of informatics nurse specialists will be discussed within the framework of the recent national health information technology initiatives. In the second part, current trend in consumer health informatics and selected applications in practice and research will be discussed.

Brief Bio: Dr. Eun-Shim Nahm is an Associate Professor and the Program Director for the Nursing Informatics program at the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON). Her research focuses on the use of technology-based interventions to promote health and to manage chronic illnesses of older adults. She has conducted various studies in this field, including qualitative, measurement, theory testing, and usability studies, as well as randomized controlled trials. She has developed and successfully implemented multiple online health behavior interventions for adults aged 50 and older and their caregivers. Dr. Nahm is the recipient of multiple grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her most recent R01 grant project, "Dissemination of a Theory-Based Bone Health Program in Online Communities," is supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research. She has published more than 35 peer reviewed journal articles and five book chapters in her area of expertise. She also has given numerous presentations at regional, national, and international scientific conferences. At the UMSON, Dr. Nahm teaches graduate level nursing informatics courses and doctoral-level research courses and has mentored many master's and doctoral students.