shelter

Spreading the Movement Against Sprawl

- Adam Clare

Where you live matters. Who chooses in what type of building you can choose to live in matters too. Undoubtedly most people want to live in walkable communities, yet in many areas it’s actual illegal to build places that don’t rely on cars. Low density sprawl is bad for everything yet municipalities in North America continue to only permit single family dwellings. It’s time to let people choose in what type of building they want to live in instead of forcing only low density in new developments.

ZONING STUFF YOU CAN DO

1) Join the Climate Town Discord. Since there’s not a great/accessible database of everyone’s local zoning meetings (as far as we could find), we think it would be pretty slick to harness our community’s collective power to make it easier to get this information. We just created a channel called “#zoning” (https://discord.gg/cqRpTpeAH2), where you can drop by and tell us how your local zoning meeting smelled, or share a link that we missed to help other Climate Townies affect change in their community. (And in case you’re like me from a month ago and have no idea how to use Discord, here’s a helpful beginner’s guide – https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/… to-Discord)

2) Sign up for Public Comment Workshop from YIMBY Action – Feb 15, 2022 5pm Pacific: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis…

3) City Specific Zoning or Board Meeting Links: Los Angeles: https://planning.lacity.org/about/com… New York City: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cau/communi… Chicago: https://www.thecha.org/about/board-me…

4) Don’t see your city? They’re often hyper-local, a little hard to find, and go by different names. Search your ‘zip/town/city’ and these search terms:

Algae Architecture Alleviates Air Pollution

- Adam Clare

The future will use algae everywhere so architects are examining ways to incorporate these versatile eukaryotic organisms into the built environment. Architects are already engaged in designing buildings to support algae growth and incorporating third party algae systems on to a building. Now we’re seeing architects think of ways to design buildings that are designed around algae and incorporate algae into all aspects of the structure. Over at Architeizer they have put together some really groovy algae architecture mashups.

In order to achieve minimal environmental impact, the studio envisions a two-fold approach to sustainability. Their proposal not only introduces algae as a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions but also proposes a system that can be incorporated into existing buildings.

The concept is applied in a rethinking of the Marina City Towers in Chicago. The architects imagine retrofitting the famous towers with a synthetic closed loop that works at three levels, carbon sequestration from the air to feed the bioreactor, absorption by vegetal photosynthesis and energy saving through solar and wind energy creation. This bioreactor, placed as tubes at the top of the building and the parking lot below, will produce enough energy to satisfy all the building’s power needs.

Read more.

Beer Cans for Passive Heating

- Adam Clare

They aren’t just for transporting a yummy beverage, beer cans can be used to create passive heating too. A simple contraption that you can make in your spare time can save you heating costs and help reduce your carbon footprint. A beer can heating system, like the one in the video above, is just a series of cans in a row painted black out in the sun under a casing. The dark cans heat up from the sun and move air through them using basic convection.

A DIY beer can heating system is perfect for a shed, garage, or even using it augment your home’s existing heating system.

The concept is relatively simple. The aluminum cans have both of their ends cut off and are fashioned into a series of long metal tubes, painted black. With a fan at one end, and some fins cut into the tubes slowing down the airflow, the metal is positioned in a way to get heated by the sun as the warm air is pulled into the building.

Thirteen years later, the same old beer cans are still chugging along, helping keep the space warm and heating bills low – about $300 annually, McLauchlin estimates.

“It’s -22 C right now and my furnace didn’t come on today,” he said over the phone in early December.

Read more.

Thanks to Mike!

How to Free Yourself from Gas at Home

- Adam Clare
the suburbs

When it comes to emissions we often think of cars and factories, but we can’t ignore the impact we can make at home. In much of the northern hemisphere houses are built with infrastructure supporting the burning of non-renewable fuels which destroy the planet. The decisions made by people who are now retired will cost us, but the faster we change houses to renewable the greater the savings for the planet and homeowners. But how can we make the change from subsidized gas to market rate renewables?

Over at the National Observer Seth Klein records how he switched his house from natural gas to all electric. He outlines the process and how one can save money and the planet at home by changing their energy source.

A couple of years ago, my family’s home — a 12-year-old, 1,400-square-foot, well-insulated duplex in East Vancouver — was heated with a high-efficiency gas boiler. The boiler produced hot water for both our direct water needs and for pipes that provided lovely radiant heated floors in the winter. We also had a gas fireplace in the living room we rarely used, and we cooked on a gas stove.

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No doubt this conversion has also increased the value of our home, as future owners will not face the inevitable need to fuel swap down the road once robust climate policies are in place, and they will benefit from the upfront capital costs we assumed for the solar panels and heat pump.

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Berliners Vote to Evict MegaLandlords

- Adam Clare
Berlin

Like many cities around the world Berlin’s housing crisis is only getting worse. Instead of sitting idly by and watching their city become a place only for the landed gentry, Berliners decided to organize and do something. A referendum took place over this past weekend (as part of the federal election) asked Berliners if the city should take over the housing units owned by mega landlords who own more than 3,000 properties.

The city would acquire any unity about that number and make it social housing. 56% of voters made it clear: they want more public housing by taking it away from corporations only interested in profits. Housing is a human right.

Whatever happens next in Berlin it’s clear people are sick that something as necessary as housing is treated like any other commodity.

The referendum was able to take place after Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen took advantage of a mechanism in German law, which allows certain topics to go to a referendum if a group can collect 175,000 signatures from city residents. In June, campaigners announced they had collected 343,000 signatures on the housing referendum, which received a boost when a city-wide rent cap was overturned in April.  

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“Together we moved the city and shook up politics – that’s what we’re celebrating today,” Joanna Kusiak, a spokesperson for Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen said. “Thousands have become active with us. We are anchored with our structures in each district. We faced powerful opponents: inside and won. We’re not going away anytime soon.”

Read more.

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