Category Archives: Good Fact

Green Roofs Coming to Toronto

Toronto is set to implement a law that would make green roofs mandatory for tall buildings. Being Toronto, the policy is confused and is arguably not bold enough, but the fact that this is being tabled with support across the city is a very good sign. Torontoist author Toodd Aalgaard has a look at the green roofs coming to Toronto:

After January 30, 2010, according to a draft version [PDF] of the by-law being tossed around today, every building “with a gross floor area of 5,000 square metres or greater shall include a green roof,” meaning that rooftops greater than five thousand square metres in area will require 30% green coverage, with 60% for rooftops exceeding twenty thousand square metres. Further, the construction and maintenance of new roofing will toe strict guidelines laid out in the Green Roof Construction Standard [PDF], ranging from assembly and load bearing to fire safety and plant selection. Even minimal alterations will be subject to City approval.

The Globe and Mail also examines Toronto’s green roof law:

The proposed bylaw would mandate specially irrigated rooftop gardens that are said to reduce air-conditioning costs and mitigate the “urban heat island” effect blamed on pavement and dark roofs.

Part of Mayor David Miller’s climate-change initiative, the move was deferred for fine tuning yesterday and was to return to a meeting next month of the city’s planning and growth committee.

20 Amazing Facts About Happiness

Family Health Guide has compiled a neat list of twenty facts about happiness, here’s some good ones:

5) People who rate in the upper reaches of happiness on psychological tests develop about 50% more antibodies than average in response to flu vaccines.

6) According to researchers at The World Database of Happiness at Erasmus University in Holland, Denmark is officially the happiest nation in the world, followed closely by Malta, Switzerland, Iceland, Ireland and Canada.


13) Having 100-200 belly laughs a day is the equivalent of a high impact workout, burning off up to 500 calories.

Denmark Blogs About Bikes

bike

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On the official blog of Denmark (yes you read that right, the country has an official blog!) they have a nice post on the facts of the bike culture in Denmark.

7. The busiest bike stretch in the nation is Nørrebrogade in Copenhagen. 35,000 cyclists use the street each day.
8. The average speed of cyclists in Copenhagen is 15,3 km/h.
9. Danes cycle just over 1000 km a year per capita. The Dutch occupy second place, just under 1000 km.
10. There are 1.7 million people in Copenhagen and 1.7 million bicycles.
11. Only 40% of Copenhageners own a car.
12. 36% of Copenhageners ride a bicycle, 35% take public transport and the rest drive or walk.

Radiant Heat Flooring for Warm Feet

Radiant heating is so great that it seems that it’s too great for us to have in every home. Essentially, it’s a system to heat your house using heating tubes under the floor. Here’s a blog post on the coolness of a hot floor.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the radiant floor heating is that it creates not just a warm room, but an entire warm floor. The heat still rises, but it’s rising uniformly from ground zero instead of from a single fixture or a couple of vents. The result is often that rare anomaly, barefoot comfort in the dead of winter. Such systems are particularly good for homes with high ceilings, where forced-air heat often ends up where it is least needed unless the homeowner is endowed with the agility of a bat.
Not only are radiant-heat floors warm, but the system does without unsightly and space-hogging ductwork in the home. Lacking vents to keep uncovered, you can place your furniture and doodads wherever. There’s no blasting faux-desert wind wreaking havoc on the hairdo. The system is silent, and in this noise-prone day and age, that is golden. It also works well with tile and wood floors, in addition to concrete.
Not only does the home look nicer, but so do the energy bills. Because of the even heating generated by a radiant floor heating system, its thermostat may be set 2-4 degrees lower than that of a forced-air heating system. This in turn can reduce energy costs by 10-40%. (Check with your local utility company to get an estimate of how much a 2-4 degree decrease would save you).

IssueLab Researches Some Good

The folks over at IssueLab have sent me some neat stuff that they and their research contributers are up to. One of their research contributers has done some research into who’s Lobbying for Good and they’ve done an introspective CloseUp for last year.

“Lobbying for Good” explores how nonprofits are increasingly working with
their corporate partners to leverage companies’ political clout and
governmental affairs departments in support of cause related lobbying
efforts. (For instance, companies like Mary Kay and Royal Dutch Shell are
using their governmental affairs clout to lobby for the nonprofits and
causes they support.)

Given the fact that we have a new administration entering office next week I
think this report could also spark some interesting discussion on the blog
re: strategies for creating positive change over the next 4+ years.

Authored by FSG Social Impact Advisors, the report is a quick read and
offers some interesting case studies that serve as examples of, well
frankly, things that are good!

Readers can download and review “Lobbying for Good” at
http://www.issuelab.org/research/lobbying_for_good

In December they released a roundup of the most popular research documents:

IssueLab’s End of the Year Lists, including the most popular research titles on IssueLab, are based on more than 96,000 downloads in just the past 11 months. Check it out at www.issuelab.org/closeup