Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Sostenibilidad

Gonna return to environmental themes this week with a couple of videos about how the Spanish are tackling sustainability. The first looks at the Canary Island of El Hierro, which is supposedly on track to be fully sustainable by the end of 2009.

Canary's Eco Island




Next is a video from GreenEnergyTV (so note the potential bias) looking at Barcelona's efforts to achieve sustainability.

Barcelona: Sustainable Energy City




The final video is a talk by Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Recorded in early 2005, he discusses why we must ween ourselves off foreign oil. I don't agree with everything he says (his reference to biofuels ignores the intensive water needs of that 'solution') and the age of the talk shows in his statistics on fuel costs. But what is interesting is what he has to say about the mechanics of conservation for automobiles.

Amory Lovins: We Must Win the Oil Endgame




1 comment:

Jeff said...

I had a clarification comment on your comment about Amory Lovins' talk at TED.
You mentioned about his biofuels comment about the necessary water. Amory is AGAINST food crop being used as biofuel (especially corn ethanol). If you watch a few more videos where he talks about biofuels, you will see that his idea and promotion of biofuels is from the cellulosic ethanol angle, which is made from sustainable resources, such as switch grass or paper factory waste.
Just helping you understand Amory's stance! I have been watching videos of him speak for years now, and he is a great thinker who is right on with many ideas.

Other great Amory Lovins videos:
www.rmi.org/stanford
-Here Amory lectures about sustainability in many markets, including building, industrial, and transportation (where you can see his transportation solutions shown in the TED video in greater detail).



Thanks for taking the time to read my comments!

Jeff