Top 10 happy environmental stories of 2018

“I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces of puzzle scattered all over the place. If you look at the whole picture it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that people all over the world are working on their little bits of it, that’s what will give you hope,” Jane Goodall, the world-renowned primatologist and conservationist and Mongabay adviser, says in a post on her Facebook page.

Hope for global conservation is what we wish to evoke in our readers with some of the more upbeat environmental stories from the past year that we have pieced together from around the world in this list. These include some of your favorite happy stories, from the expansion of protected areas for wildlife, cancelled reclamation projects that posed coastal ecosystem threats, to the impactful role of indigenous communities in conservation.

1. More protection for wildlife corridors

On a housekeeping note, websites contact me all the time to say, you cite this source: this one is better or more up-to-date or broken and here we fixed it. they want inserted in the actual Blog post that relates directly to their “improvement”. I AM ONE guy. I can neither verify what they say is true OR get in edit mode and go back in time for years. So, I am going to post them here as addenda. Click on them and see what surprise you get.

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I saw you mentioned the Wikipedia guide to led lights on your page:

/date/2015/01

That’s a great resource. In fact, it inspired me to create my own guide here:

Everything You Need to Know About LED Lighting in 2019

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Go there and read. It is a really long article. More next week.

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The post Continuing With the 2018 Wrap UP – Top 10 positive environmental stories for 2018 appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/21/renault-ev-second-life-batteries-smart-island/

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Go there and read every glorious word. More next week.

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The post Renault Aims To Prove We Can Live Without Fossil Fuels – I wish then well appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

Strategic Design of the UIS Student Union

This is the part I like:

Environmentally Excellent

UIS is seeking a LEED Gold certificate (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council), both for the sake of the environment and in order to take advantage of energy saving measures. For this reason, the building will have a green, or “living,” roof with vegetation and a growing medium over a sloped membrane. This roof will provide insulation, help to lower air temperatures, and last much longer than other roofs—50 to 60 years rather than the 20 to 30 years most roofs last. The vegetation will most likely include wildflowers that will change throughout the growing season, adding to the building’s beauty.

To reduce storm runoff and eliminate water irrigation, the Student Union will have a rainwater reclamation system that takes advantage of the roof’s slope. Also in consideration of LEED approvals, lighting will be designed to meet the USGBC’s very stringent requirements.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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The post UIS Has A New Student Union – It is Green as all get out appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

Ryan Tollefsen REALTOR®
Unity Home Group at Keller Williams Realty Alaska Group
101 W. Benson Blvd. Suite 101
Anchorage, AK 99503

Check out my all new Great Alaskan Getaway Guide

http://www.constructiondive.com/news/more-buyers-want-green-homes-real-estate-agents-say/439944/

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Go to the web links and read. More next week.

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The post Home Energy Efficiency – From a Realtor’s perspective appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.caranddriver.com/best-hybrid-electric-cars

Hybrid and Electric Cars 2017-2018: The Best and the Rest

• Starting at

  $21,035

  Take the uninspired underpinnings of the Toyota Yaris and mix with it an even less powerful version of the Prius hybrid powertrain and you get the Prius C.

• 

  Honda CR-Z

  The Editors’ Rating summarizes a vehicle’s overall degree of excellence and is determined by our editors, who evaluate hundreds of vehicles every year and consider numerous factors both objective and subjective.

  Editors’ Rating
• Starting at

  $21,130

  The CR-Z is an ambitious attempt at making a sporty hybrid, but its performance doesn’t match its adventurous styling.

• 

  Hyundai Ioniq

  The Editors’ Rating summarizes a vehicle’s overall degree of excellence and is determined by our editors, who evaluate hundreds of vehicles every year and consider numerous factors both objective and subjective.

  Editors’ Rating
• Starting at

  $23,035

  Sharing its underpinnings with the Kia Niro, the Hyundai Ioniq is a hybrid in many flavors.

• 

  Mitsubishi i-MiEV

  The Editors’ Rating summarizes a vehicle’s overall degree of excellence and is determined by our editors, who evaluate hundreds of vehicles every year and consider numerous factors both objective and subjective.

  Editors’ Rating

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Go there and think. More next week.

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The post Environmentally Friendly Cars – I suppose it depends on what you mean by friendly appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/power-to-the-people

     Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. In the course of several days, coördinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage.

The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours of electricity and no oil at all. President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent of 2005 levels. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent in a matter of days, and at no net cost.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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