China is a huge paradox when it comes to climate change and energy issues. Soon to be the world’s greatest polluter it is also a country whose leaders understand they cannot sustain growth without dealing with energy and environmental issues. This great article from Wired describes an astounding architectural challenge: The design and building of an entirely new city, Dongtan, near Shanghai. The site is the size of Manhattan, the populace will number 500,000 and, because it is a stop for migratory birds, the entire project must be very green, literally.
This is really exciting stuff. And it gets better. When Arup, the UK-based architecture and engineering firm presented their extensive plans they projected that the new city would generate 60% of its energy from renewable sources. They had a staged plan to get to 100% over several years. Their Chinese clients liked the plan but wanted 100% renewable from day one! And that’s what they’re building.

Franke James posted one of her great art blogs about giving up her SUV back in February. Now she wants to remove her interlock driveway which takes up the entire front of her urban home in North York which is a part of the greater Toronto area. No car, why have a paved yard? It turns out that she is required to have a driveway so she wants to use pavers that have gaps you can grow grass in, offering a greener alternative and helping the paved-over city’s water retention issues. In spite of having a self-proclaimed ‘green’ mayor, the city of North York says no.
Somehow I’m guessing Franke will have her way eventually.
We just had a new asphalt drive put in. I like the idea of the green pavers but our drive is steep and hard to get up in the winter so I don’t think they would work for us. Of course we have a half acre of gardens so its a totally different situation.

Go Franke!

It is almost impossible to be out of sight of water on St. John. The blue ocean can be glimpsed around every corner and from every turn of the precipitous mountain roads that criss-cross the island. Yet this is a place with no natural sources of freshwater besides rain. And when we arrived there in late April it had not rained in over three months. The few wells that once supplied water when the island was sparsely populated by sugarcane planters and their slaves are now brackish (contaminated with salt water). So how does the island support a local population and a steady influx of tourists, with their inconsiderate water usage? The small villa we rented was a case in point.

Housing in the Virgin Islands is required to have cisterns to capture and store rainwater. The size of the cistern is dictated by the size of the house. Roof systems are designed to funnel water into these cisterns where it is filtered for use as drinking water. Cisterns are ancient technology that helps water stay fresh and uncontaminated by providing a dark, cool environment that is inhospitable to bacteria. On the islands these cisterns are often made of concrete and form the foundations of the houses. In some cases they are large black plastic barrels. Our villa had a more advanced system for water collection than most.

The villa consisted of two buildings connected by a brick patio surrounded by waist high brick walls. One building housed a small bedroom with a porch, a bathroom and a beautiful shower open to the sky. It was elevated above the other building which contained a living room, dining room, kitchen, porch and another bath. There are no glass windows in many buildings on the island just screened openings with heavy shutters for hurricanes and storms. The resulting feeling is that you are living outdoors. With average tempatures year round ranging from 77-85 degree F there is no need for heating or AC.

The entire little villa complex was designed as a catchment system. The two hip roofs and the patio capture rainwater. The three showers (the third is on the patio next to a hot tub), and sinks capture grey water which is used to water the gardens on an automated sprinkler system ensuring that the lush tropical plantings that surround you stay that way.

In spite of this elegant design it is still necessary to supplement the water supply with purchased fresh water from the island’s desalination plants. The principal problem, as we learned from our St. Thomas taxi driver (everyone on these islands are experts in water subjects), is toilet flushing. A toilet flush from a low flow toilet consumes 5 gallons of water all at once. This is much more than a quick shower or dishwashing session would use. As Freddie the cab company owner pointed out, a villa with four people requires 8 flushes a day or a usage of 280 gallons of water per week just for flushing. As you might imagine, you are encouraged to only flush when necessary along with turning showers and sinks off while you are soaping or washing.

We had a water delivery while we were there. 4000 gallons of desal water were trucked up the steep half mile long dirt access road and pumped into the cistern. The cost? Around $375 a month with 300 of that for the transport costs. Imagine paying $375 a month for water.

Upstate NY is an area with no water shortage issues. The Erie Canal season opening scheduled for next week may be delayed because of too much water. Lake Ontario is one of the largest freshwater seas on the planet. So it was eye-opening to visit this paradisical island and receive a pointed lesson in water conservation. It made me realize how unbelievably wasteful and disrespectful of this invaluable resource most of us are.

Postscript: It rained heavily the last three nights we were there with more in the forecast. As you might imagine the locals were not complaining. With the rain came the blossoming of many flowers and a huge increase in the sounds of the night along with the pounding of the water on the metal roof. We lay in bed mesmerized by it all. What a beautiful place.

I just spent seven days on the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands- no Internet, no email, no phone, hence no postings. If you have not been there the island is reachable by flying to neighboring St. Thomas and taking a short ferry. 75% of the island is a National Park donated by Lawrence Rockefeller in the 1950s, an incredibly generous gift considering even basic villas there now sell in the millions. It is mountainous with a top elevation of 1200′, covered in tropical forests and rimmed by beaches that look like something from a travel brochure- only better because you can feel the breeze, smell the exotic scents and put your feet in the warm water. Temperatures year round average from 77f to 88f. It is, in short, paradise.
Being in such a place puts you in a completely different frame of mind. You slow down. You read a book or stare off at the views of islands in the distance, steep twisting roads and colorful villas impossibly perched on promotories. If you’re me, you freak out at the driving when it seems like you’re either about to drive off a cliff or get run into a mountainside- everything is vertical on St.John! But you get used to it. It even get fun after a few beers when you’re not doing the driving.
There are catches to this paradise that are extremely relevant to this blog. While we were there it rained for the first time in 3 months. There are no wells. They make water with desalination plants and all houses are required to be built with cisterns to harvest rainfall (I’ll be posting in detail on the set-up where we stayed- it was a real eye-opener as water starts moving from something we take for granted to being a costly commodity). You buy water by the truckload and it is expensive- for the two bedroom villa we were in the cost per month during dry times was $375! The majority of that cost is trucking because they have to haul the water up extremely steep hills to locations that are typically only accessilble via rocky dirt roads.
Even small increases in temperatures will change the climate of places like this is drastic ways. More to come on St. John…