Green Technology Behind The Security Barrier
NASA Establishes a Sustainability Base on Earth, Next.gov
“It was inconceivable to me that in the 21st century, in the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA would be building a building that could have been built 25 years ago,” [Ames Associate Director Steve Zornetzer] said. “NASA had to build the highest-performing building in the federal government, embed NASA technology inside and make a statement to the public that NASA was giving back to the people of planet Earth what it had developed for advanced aerospace applications,” he said.”
Keith’s note: Alas, this building is inside the NASA security barrier so 99.99% of taxpayers i.e. the “public” will never see it or be able to learn from its design. But you can look at this pretty website. Your green tax dollars at work. FWIW it would be really easy to move the fence.
Better late than never. This concept was talked about for a lot of years by many groups, but talk was all that happened. Now at least we know that important sustainability and maintainability gains can be made in facilities and infrastructure for an affordable price.
In my opinion, however, there’s still an important element missing from what they’ve accomplished. It’s not strictly about technology and gadgets. Lifestyle and daily habits affect the present and the future at least as much a new hardware and design philosophies.
Conservation of energy and materials, as well as more efficient and effective processes, start and end with people, and how they behave day to day. From things as simple as recycling paper and pop cans to developing more intelligent materials flows, such that “waste” from one process becomes raw materials for another process, it all depends on people developing and faithfully using more sustainable ways, every day.
The most futuristic and sustainable facilities available won’t do the job without also instilling in the people a sincere sustainability mindset. If we don’t take care of our world through our daily habits, no fancy buildings are going to manage to do it for us, in spite of us.
As an afterthought, incentives from governments and large companies to encourage people to practice more sustainable day to day habits shouldn’t really be necessary, but they sure wouldn’t hurt.
The most futuristic and sustainable facilities available won’t do the job without also instilling in the people a sincere sustainability mindset.
Some people’s idea of sustainability is another’s return to the dark ages.
For example…?