Sustainability

The more optimistic global warming scientists believe we have a good 10 years to deal with global warming. After that, all bets are off. Some even say all bets are off right now, but I think we still have time. But either way, the time to act is 20 years ago...or, since we were to goddamned stupid to do that, how about right now.

My main efforts this particular year have been the preservation of forests, reforestation, and preservation of wetlands because these three things will be absolutely critical for our abilities to deal with both global warming per se (due to their carbon sequestration abilities) and in dealing with the CONSEQUENCES of global warming, including flooding, soil erosion, etc.

So, in the spirit of this particular focus, this comes from something I wrote long ago, but is still very relevant and bears repetition. We ALL need to pay attention to these things because if we don't, we are screwed, our children are screwed and our grandchildren are screwed. Beyond that I cannot predict.

As I read Jared Diamond’s excellent book Collapse a couple of years ago, I was struck by the fact that among all the various environmental issues that led to major economic and social problems, deforestation stood out as a major factor in almost every case examined, from Easter Island to modern Montana. Throughout history, and continuing today, deforestation has been one of the single most common reasons for the agricultural and economic collapse of civilizations and nations. The simple explanation for this is that forests represent not only a major resource whose depletion affects not just the logging industry, but also construction and transportation industries as well as, in most places, heating and cooking. But deeper than this simple explanation is a much more fundamental one. Forests are a major determinant of rainfall patterns, water runoff patterns and soil erosion patterns. Deforestation almost invariably reduces rainfall regionally. Deforestation leads to much faster water runoff leading to disastrous rainy season floods followed by dry season droughts in areas where prior to deforestation water runoff was better held by forests, preventing floods and mitigating the dry season. And deforestation, both by removing extensive root systems that hold soil in place and because of it’s limiting rapid water runoff, leads to greatly increased soil erosion. In areas of the world where deforestation has occurred, agriculture declines due to water scarcity, rainy season floods, and massive soil depletion. More distant problems are the loss of reliable watercourses due to the floods and erosion, often rendering hydroelectric power and irrigation impossible, and the destruction of downstream delta fisheries that depend on the nutrients washed downstream by a healthy river/soil ecosystem. Thus forestry, agriculture, infrastructure and fisheries suffer severely after the deforestation of an area and this alone has led to many economic crashes in many parts of the world through history.

Since it's the dead of Winter in Michigan (and its been pretty much raining most of it so far), and with Spring coming.... (maybe sooner than normal)......

Since its de-humidity season when it should have been the humidify season, I figured we might as well explore IAQ de-humidity style.

(There may also be good timing to this anyway, as we look forward to another record summer air conditioning style)

This is of course still an issue in the Southern states all winter long, and also in commercial and industrial settings.

When considering indoor air quality, on top of the list is humidity control.

Two main things to remember, sensible is the temperature (energy or heat) that can be measured with a thermometer, latent is the (energy or heat) tied up in humidity. It means hidden heat, and when it comes to condensing moisture from air, it takes lots of energy no matter which method is used.

Learn more about "Psychrometrics" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychrometrics

Humidity out-of-control can result in structural damage, mold and mildew issues, and product loss or quality issues in manufacturing.

In the summer months especially, because of warmer outdoor temperatures, we concentrate our efforts on removing excess moisture.

The reason being warmer air holds more moisture than cool air, more moisture in the air can result in condensing on cool surfaces. You will see this in the interior of your refrigerator in humid climates, you will see outdoor hot humid air condense on the outside of windows in a COOL air conditioned house, you will see this inside your walls in the winter if interior moisture (from bathrooms and kitchens for example) gets into the wall and interacts with the cold drafts of winter.

The term has been a buzz word in my circle for quite a long while now.

And to some extent, I think it may have meant many things to many different people, depending on your role or function in the bigger game of conducting our affairs in and around buildings.

For example, someone not long ago suggested they had done something under the "sustainable" program in switching foam coffee cups out for a more environmentally friendly option. She was right. Maybe not so much at the local steakhouse, but once in awhile.

(A friend, KellyJo blogged about sustainable beef not long ago)

The term gets tossed around fairly like loose change amongst us building types, be it architects, engineers, building owners, folks in the energy biz, or skilled trades have all heard it in numerous trade journals, seminars, at the supply houses, and on the street.

In the building design, construction, and operations gig we are typically talking about energy related matters - often renewable such as solar or wind being part of the discussion. Other technologies to save energy are related to the conversation such as capturing waste heat, operational dynamics such as thermostat set back and lighting controls, and even precooling the thermal mass at night when energy is cheap (AKA load shifting), managing water resources, even such things as appliances, computers, printers, copiers and other plugged in type of loads.

It's Sunday morning. Imagine you are in the church of culturekitchen. Now imagine this is our collection plate.

Let's talk about money.

Believe it or not but we don't make more money with more traffic. We make more money with more people going into the advertisers sites through our ads.

I have been tracking for the past few months how Google handles the CTR (click-through rate) for this site. Unfortunately, with Google I have no control over what I can charge for advertisng. They impose the click-thru rate on the site. How do I know they are pricing click-thrus on our site? I have a widget running on Firefox that allows me to track the CTR for Adsense.

I have noticed that we get penalized for getting more traffic but not more click-thrus. Yup. If traffic goes up, then Google reduces the amount per click we get. So for example, we were doing more than $1/click last month. We have 50% more traffic this month, so they've downgraded our CTR to $.060.

Now, you have to understand : I am not asking you to endlessly click through their ads. I will actually get thrown out of the Google Adsense program if I request that from you. It is explicitly state in their Terms Of Service agreement.

What I am asking you to do is something a bit different; especially since, if traffic does increase, I can charge more money through our BlogAds.

At BlogAds, we set the price. The more traffic one of my sites gets, the more I can charge for advertising.

Do you get the conundrum? On the one hand, more traffic but less clicks looses us money from Google Adsense. Yet more traffic translates into higher adspace pricing through BlogAds.

So what I am asking you to do? Help us increase the quality of the traffic to our site.