Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008 - (Page 6)

OUR VOICE Fantastic Possibilities Jules Verne must have had fun. He continually went public with thinking outside-of-the-box! The 19th Century Frenchman, whom many consider the father of modern science fiction, wrote about space travel, underwater breathing apparatus, livenews coverage and many other innovations in the 1860s and ‘70s—decades before they became a functional part of our world. That kind of thinking needs to be encouraged more and more in our modern sustainability movement. What are the fantastic possibilities out there? I’d like to have a little fun here by throwing out some ideas and I’d encourage you to carry on the conversation. Take a look at any situation or problem, just cut your imagination loose and put a bucket over those thoughts that it “can’t be done.” For instance, carbon dioxide, the world’s leading greenhouse gas which is being pumped into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. The CO2 molecule is made up of carbon and oxygen atoms. Some have envisioned a process that would split the molecule. Instead of a greenhouse gas, we pump oxygen into the air to breath. The accumulated carbon…pure carbon…could be put to use, perhaps in high-tinsel-strength materials. Carbon composites are tougher than steel and don’t rust. Here’s another. We have wind farms and solar arrays. Why not combine them. Cover the wind mills and the ground surrounding them with solar panels. We’d make far better use of the land, create power on calm sunny days, on windy cloudy days and double up on windy, sunny days. How about the ultimate hybrid vehicle? Cars are passive solar collectors… especially those with black interiors. What if all that heat was converted to electricity to constantly flow into storage batteries? Further, could small windgenerators take advantage of the air flow while driving down the road to generate still more electricity. And as solar-cell technology continues to advance, cover every vehicle with the conversion material to generate still more electricity. Combined, these could create a significant amount of additional energy to maintain battery strength. And this is just a toss-out that people bring up pretty regularly—we bury all kinds of things in landfills that don’t rot or break down, yet we continue to build things with materials that do. Look at all that Styrofoam and plastic. As for nuclear waste, instead of battling states who don’t want it buried in their mountains, why not further develop the methods to recycle it. That will take away one of the big arguments against pursing modernized, nuclear-energy generation—what to do with the waste that has a toxic half-life of many millennia. Fear has been nuclear generation’s greatest obstacle. Step up safety and salve the fear. If I have thought about these things, a lot of others have too. “Cradle to Cradle,” a book by William McDonough and Michael Braungart provides truly excellent thoughts along these lines specifically related to how we make things. That is the wonderful part of my job. I get to discover some of the incredible, outsidethe-box thinking produced by innovators who are committed to sustainability. The point is to be open to new ideas that may initially seem impractical or impossible. Instead of being stymied by those who say it can’t be done or because it’s “cost prohibitive,” we need to take good ideas and find ways to make them work. Not unlike Jules Verne, our ideas don’t have to end as a forgotten day dream because they are implausible today. They can be nurtured and evolved to change the world of tomorrow. SLDT Send us your 2¢! We welcome your opinion Reader responses to articles in Sustainable Land Development Today are encouraged and may be sent via mail or email (Editor@SLDTonline.com), or online through SLDTonline.com. Mailing address: Sustainable Land Development Today, Attention: Editor, 275 East 10th St. Suite 201, Dubuque, IA 52001 The mission of Sustainable Land Development Today is to be the leading forum for the exchange of ideas to advance the principles of sustainability--balancing the needs of people, planet and profit. In fulfilling that role, divergent beliefs and perspectives will at times result in debate which we believe will produce the solutions required to address the ever-changing challenges of the industry into the future. 6 September 2008 Sustainable Land Development Today http://SLDTonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008

Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008 Contents Our Voice The Bottomline Editorial Board SLDT Resources Digging Deep Oases of Capital Build a Better Business on an Interactive, Virtual Landscape Regulation SLDI in Focus �� SLDI Sponsored Summit �� Workshops �� Bookstore Tee’d Up for Sustainability Retention Solutions Wastewater Redevelopment Industry News Marketplace Products/Services Showcase Advertiser Index The Last Word

Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008

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