Writer Malcolm Gladwell sits down with environmentalist Amy Norquist to discuss one of the most unsung and low-tech green solutions out there: green roofs.
In Europe, quiet and clean diesel engines cruise for 40 or 50 miles on one gallon of gas. Geo-thermal heating and cooling systems cost about as much..
Writer Malcolm Gladwell sits down with environmentalist Amy Norquist to discuss one of the most unsung and low-tech green solutions out there: green roofs.
In Europe, quiet and clean diesel engines cruise for 40 or 50 miles on one gallon of gas. Geo-thermal heating and cooling systems cost about as much as a new furnace, and can be installed by anyone with a backyard. Yet stateside, industry leaders insist we just aren't ready for widespread-and simple-strategies to curb our habit of wasting energy.Malcolm Gladwell: What is a green roof, exactly? Does it look like you've got a patch of prairie on your roof?Amy Norquist: A green roof is simply a roof that is partially or fully covered with plants. Typically the sort of silver-bullet plant of green roof is called sedum… Part of what's so cool about it is that because there are so many varieties, it covers the whole spectrum of aesthetic design. If you have a very modern house and you like the look of succulents and cactus, you can pick sedum that looks that way. Or you can have sedum that flowers at different times of the year, or in different colors. There is sedum that turns a bright purple in the fall, and there is sedum that flowers white. What they all have in common though is that they are drought tolerant.MG: How do you install it? AN: Well, first you want to make sure your roof is waterproof. So you don't want to just put a green roof on top of shingles, for example. You want a single-ply waterproof membrane. You have a drainage layer, a filter fabric, growing medium (soil) and plants. The growing medium can be anywhere from 2 to 16 inches depending on what type of green roof you have.MG: Lets walk through the benefits. As a homeowner, why would I want to do this with my roof?AN: You are going to save money in heating and cooling costs, because the green roof acts as an insulation layer. It is also going to look beautiful and more and more cities are offering financial incentives to building owners who install green roofs.MG: So it's the equivalent of going up into your attic and adding another layer. AN: Exactly.MG: Can we be more specific about the insulation benefits? AN: The insulation properties, especially in summer, can reduce energy needs by 50% or more. It the winter, it helps keep the indoor temperature more constant. If you look at a typical one-story home, and the temperature outside is between 75 and 90 degrees, it's going to be on average 7 to 10 degrees cooler inside.MG: Seven to ten degrees? That's astonishing! AN: It is astonishing. So summertime benefits are huge, which means that your payback time for the costs of installation can be as short there is two to three years-depending on the energy costs where you live.MG: And I have a feeling that the two-to-three-year period is going to shrink as energy costs increase. AN: Bingo.MG: Does the slope of the roof make a difference? It doesn't have to be flat, does it?AN: It's just a matter of tinkering with the system. People have put in green roofs on a 45-degree slope. You really can do a green roof on most any roof as long as you have a waterproof base and the structural capacity is adequate.MG: So if I have the standard American, 2,500-square-foot house, what is it going to cost me?AN: In addition to roofing the house, you are going to spend between $10 and $50 a square foot depending on the depth of [the soil], the plant you choose, and the complexity of design. So if you have a 3,000-square-foot house, and you are putting in a green roof, you might spend $30,000. That would be for everything-labor and materials. The other great thing to remember about green roofs is that they actually double the life of the roof membrane because you don't have the degradation of the roof due to the sun and [weather]. So that $30,000 investment is going to last you a lot longer than a similar investment in a conventional roof. There have been some green roofs in Europe that are 100 years old, and they are still okay.MG: Does it get unruly up there?AN: Not really. These are plants that don't require a lot of water so as a result they are not big and booming. That being said, there are varieties of sedum that grow as high as 11 inches. So if you want something that looks a little wilder, you can certainly try it.MG: Tell me a bit about the history of this idea. How long have people been putting in green roofs?AN: For thousands of years.MG: I take it that in parts of Europe, it is quite common?AN: Yes, green roofs are most common in Germany, [where] certain municipalities actually require green roofs at this point. Also, there are many in the Netherlands. The airport in Amsterdam actually has a large extensive green roof.MG: Are there parts of the U.S. where it is taking off?AN: Chicago, Portland, and Seattle are leading the way, as are Baltimore, D.C., and Philadelphia. They are also catching on in Los Angeles … and here in New York City.MG: Did anyone ever run numbers if every roof in New York City was green? Do we know what impact that would have?AN: We know that if 50% of the buildings that could build a green roof did, it would be the equal in additional green space of something like 16 Central Parks. It would save the city something like $100 million in waste water cost per year. And it would drastically reduce the number of combined sewerage overflow, meaning there wouldn't so much raw sewage that gets poured into the Hudson and East Rivers.MG: So you have this technology, and there are three arguments for it: an aesthetic argument, an economic argument, and an environmental arguments. Which of those three do you think is the most powerful with the public?AN: I think it comes down to the economics, with aesthetics and the environment tied for second. New York is proposing a tax abatement which would be given to building owners who install green roofs. When and if that is approved by the state legislature, it will have a big impact with consumers.MG: The American homeowner has eagerly embraced all kinds of ideas that make their home more beautiful while they save money. But this has been around forever, and we have been slow to embrace it. Why do you think that is?AN: I think because it is a pretty big psychological change. It's having something growing on your roof. People are accustomed to thinking of that part of their house as being sterile.MG: If you can dream up one thing that would make speed up the adoption of green roofs, what would it be?AN: I think given the state that green roofs are in right now, government incentives are critical. It can be local, state, or federal. I think most people right now need a little push-just like they do for solar power and other energy-saving measures.MG: So many of these environmental interventions have the same economic profile, which is they require large upfront investments which are recouped over time. And that's a different way of thinking. If I go to a bank and try to borrow $30,000 for a green roof, is that something banks are open to? AN: Yes. A bunch of banks are starting to do this kind of lending, either as individual loans or as part of mortgages [because] the math works out. If you amortize that $30,000 over 20 years, it becomes a very easy investment to make. Something else that factors in is that the real estate industry has gotten into figuring out how much value is created when you add green components to your home or business. It's pretty high. There is a pretty big increase-between 8% and 25%-in terms of the value of the home.MG: Is the nonresidential market here potentially more important? AN: There is a lot of newfound cachet in marketing green buildings. One particular company has thousands of properties in Manhattan. They want Greensulate to go around with them and see which of their buildings are good candidates for green roofs, and then run the numbers on what their energy savings would be over time. There's also been interest from municipalities. I did an op-ed for the New York Times which talked about how much the city could save if they employed green roofs instead of trying to re-engineer their entire sewerage system.MG: Are there a lot of people out there like you, pushing this idea?AN: I'm afraid that so far there are very few people who have started green roof or green wall companies. It's a brand new industry.MG: Describe to me what a living wall is.AN: A green living wall is a similar concept. It can be interior or exterior, but you are planting plants in panels or growing them from the ground and training them up the wall. Green walls have some of the same benefits of the green roof: They improve air quality, decrease storm run-off, and insulate the building. And I have one client who is putting up a number of parking lots in Manhattan and their projects are going to be a lot more popular and have less impact on the neighborhood if you see green walls instead of solid concrete slabs. I think for me the coolest use of a green walls in the dense urban setting. They can transform a block or neighborhood.LEARN MOREgreensulate.com
Throughout history, women have stood up and fought to break down barriers imposed on them from stereotypes and societal expectations. The trailblazers in these photos made history and redefined what a woman could be. In doing so, they paved the way for future generations to stand up and continue to fight for equality.
This article originally appeared on December 14, 2016.
Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people.
When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target.
In the United States, where some significant portion of the public believes that the government is out to take their guns, the idea that a mass shooting was orchestrated by the government in an attempt to make guns look bad may be appealing both psychologically and ideologically.
Our studies of mass shootings and conspiracy theories help to shed some light on why these events seem particularly prone to the development of such theories and what the media can do to limit the ideas' spread.
Back to the 1990s
Mass shootings and conspiracy theories have a long history. As far back as the mid-1990s, amid a spate of school shootings, Cutting Edge Ministries, a Christian fundamentalist website, found a supposed connection between the attacks and then-President Bill Clinton.
The group's website claimed that when lines were drawn between groups of school-shooting locations across the U.S., they crossed in Hope, Arkansas, Clinton's hometown. The Cutting Edge Ministries concluded from this map that the "shootings were planned events, with the purpose of convincing enough Americans that guns are an evil that needs to be dealt with severely, thus allowing the Federal Government to achieve its Illuminist goal of seizing all weapons."
Beliefs persist today that mass shootings are staged events, complete with "crisis actors," people who are paid to pretend to be victims of a crime or disaster, all as part of a conspiracy by the government to take away people's guns. The idea has been linked to such tragedies as the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the Sandy Hook Elementary attack that resulted in the deaths of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
These beliefs can become widespread when peddled by prominent people. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been in the news recently because of her belief that the Parkland shooting was a "false flag," an event that was disguised to look like another group was responsible. It's not clear, though, in this instance who Rep. Greene felt was really to blame.
After the country's deadliest mass shooting to date, with 59 dead and hundreds injured in Las Vegas in 2017, the pattern continued: A conspiracy theory arose that there were multiple shooters, and the notion that the shooting was really done for some other purpose than mass murder.
Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Making sense of the senseless
These conspiracy theories are all attempts to make sense of incomprehensibly terrifying events. If a lone shooter, with no clear motive, can singlehandedly take the lives of 60 individuals, while injuring hundreds more, then is anyone really safe?
Conspiracy theories are a way of understanding information. Historian Richard Hofstadter has indicated they can provide motives for events that defy explanation. Mass shootings, then, create an opportunity for people to believe there are larger forces at play, or an ultimate cause that explains the event.
For instance, an idea that a shooter was driven mad by antipsychoticdrugs, distributed by the pharmaceutical industry, can provide comfort as opposed to the thought that anyone can be a victim or perpetrator.
Polls have shown that people worry a lot about mass shootings, and more than 30% of Americans said in 2019 that they refused to go particular places such as public events or the mall for fear of being shot.
If the shootings are staged, or the results of an enormous, unknowable or mysterious effort, then they at least becomes somewhat comprehensible. That thought process satisfies the search for a reason that can help people feel more comfort and security in a complex and uncertain world – especially when the reason found either removes the threat or makes it somehow less random.
Some people blame mass shootings on other factors like mental illness that make gun violence an individual issue, not a societal one, or say these events are somehow explained by outside forces. These ideas may seem implausible to most, but they do what conspiracy theories are intended to do: provide people with a sense of knowing and control.
They also misdirect blame and distract from efforts to better understand tragedies such as mass shootings. High-quality scholarship could investigate how to better protect public places. But robust debates about how to reduce events such as mass shootings will be less effective if some significant portion of the public believes they are manufactured.
These steps can work, as shown by the substantial drop in misinformation on Twitter following former President Donald Trump's removal from the platform.
Mass shootings may be good fodder for conspiracy theories, but that does not mean people should actually consume such ideas without necessary context or disclaimers.
Michael Rocque is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Bates College.
Stephanie Kelley-Romano is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies at Bates College
This article first appeared on The Conversation on 02.20.21.. You can read it here.
Between the bras, makeup, periods, catcalling, sexism, impossible-to-attain beauty standards, and heels, most men wouldn't survive being a woman for a day without having a complete mental breakdown. So here's a slideshow of some of the funniest Tumblr posts about the everyday struggles that women face that men would never understand.
This article originally appeared on Common Dreams on 3.3.21. You can read it here.
Emphasizing that the world still has a "fighting chance" to limit global warming with immediate and ambitious climate action, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday urged governments and the private sector to cancel all planned coal projects, cease financing for coal-fired power plants, and opt instead to support a just transition by investing in renewable energy.
"Once upon a time, coal brought cheap electricity to entire regions and vital jobs to communities," Guterres said in a video message at the virtual meeting of the Powering Past Coal Alliance. "Those days are gone."
"Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to get in line with the 1.5 degree goal," Guterres continued, referring to the policy objective of preventing planetary temperatures from rising more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. "Global coal use in electricity generation must fall by 80% below 2010 levels by 2030," he added.
Meeting the 1.5 °C climate target over the course of this decade is possible, according to Guterres, but will require eliminating "the dirtiest, most polluting and, yes, more and more costly fossil fuel from our power sectors."
In his address, the U.N. chief outlined three steps that must be taken by public authorities as well as companies to "end the deadly addiction to coal."
Cancel all global coal projects in the pipeline;
End the international financing of coal plants and shift investment to renewable energy projects; and
Jump-start a global effort to finally organize a just transition.
Guterres called on the 37 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—a group of relatively rich countries with a greater historical responsibility for extracting fossil fuels and emitting the greenhouse gasses that are causing deadly pollution and destroying the climate—to "commit to phasing out coal" by 2030, while urging non-OECD countries to do so by 2040.
Pleading for an end to the global bankrolling of coal projects and a move toward supporting developing countries in transitioning to clean energy, Guterres asked "all multilateral and public banks—as well as investors in commercial banks or pension funds—to shift their investments now in the new economy of renewable energy."
While stressing that "the transition from coal to renewable[s] will result in the net creation of millions of jobs by 2030," Guterres acknowledged that "the impact on regional and local levels will be varied."
"We have a collective and urgent responsibility to address the serious challenges that come with the speed and scale of the transition," he continued. "The needs of coal communities must be recognized, and concrete solutions must be provided at a very local level."
The U.N. chief urged "all countries to embrace the International Labor Organization's guidelines for a just transition and adopt them as minimum standard to ensure progress on decent work for all."
The coronavirus pandemic, Guterres noted, has "accelerated" the decline in "coal's economic viability," while recovery plans provide an opportunity to bring about a green transformation of the world's infrastructure.
In many parts of the world, a just transition dovetails with guaranteeing universal access to energy, said Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and special representative of the secretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All.
Ogunbiyi told conference attendees that almost 800 million people worldwide still lack access to basic electricity, while 2.8 billion are without clean cooking fuels.
"Right now, we're at a crossroads where people do want to recover better, but they are looking for the best opportunities to do that," she said. "And we're emphasizing investments in sustainable energy to spur economic development, create new jobs, and give opportunities to fulfill the full potential."
In some states, women are put through humiliating and dangerous pre-abortion medical consultations and waiting periods before being allowed to undergo the procedure. In four states, women are even forced to bury or cremate the fetal remains after the procedure.
These government-mandated roadblocks and punitive shaming serve no purpose but to make it more difficult, emotionally damaging, and expensive for women to have an abortion.
Eighteen states currently have laws that force women to delay their abortions unnecessarily: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In a number of other states, mandatory-delay laws have been enacted but are enjoined or otherwise unenforced.
To help women get around these burdensome regulations, The Satanic Temple is promoting a religious ritual it believes provides an exemption from restrictions. According to the Temple, the ritual is supported by the federal Religious Freedoms Restoration Act.
The Temple is a religious organization that claims it doesn't believe "in the existence of Satan or the supernatural" but that "religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition."
The Temple says its exemption is made possible by a precedent set by the Supreme Court's 2014 Hobby Lobby decision. According to the Temple, it prevents the government from putting a "burden on free exercise of religion without a compelling reason."
Ironically, Hobby Lobby's case claimed that providing insurance coverage for birth control conflicted with the employer's Christian faith. The Satanic Temple argues that unnecessary roadblocks to abortion conflict with theirs.
via The Satanic Temple
Religious freedoms.
The Temple is promoting the ritual on I-95 billboards in Florida where women must endure an ultrasound and go through pre-procedure, anti-choice counseling before having an abortion.
The Temple's billboards inform women that they can circumvent the restrictions by simply citing a Satanic ritual.
"Susan, you're telling me I do not have to endure a waiting period when I have an abortion?" one of the women on the billboard says.
"That's true if you're a SATANIST!" the other replies.
Next to the ladies is a symbol of a goat head in a pentagram and a message about the ritual.
via The Satanic Temple
Image of The Satanic Temple billboard.
The Temple also provides a letter that women seeking abortions can provide to medical staff. It explains the ritual and why it exempts them from obligations that are an undue burden to their religious practice.
The Temple believes that some medical practitioners may reject its requests. However, it believes that doing so is a violation of religious freedom and it will take legal action if necessary.
"It would be unconstitutional to require a waiting period before receiving holy communion," the temple says in a video. "It would be illegal to demand Muslims receive counseling prior to Ramadan. It would be ridiculous to demand that Christians affirm in writing the unscientific assertion that baptism can cause brain cancers."
"So we expect the same rights as any other religious organization," the video says.
To perform the ritual, a woman looks into a mirror to affirm their personhood and responsibility to herself. Once the woman is focused and comfortable, they are to recite two of the Temple's Seven Tenets.
Tenet III: One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
Tenet V. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
Then they are to recite a personal affirmation: "By my body, my blood. Then by my will, it is done."
The ritual affirms The Temple's belief in personal responsibility and liberty that, coincidentally, mirror that of the U.S. Constitution.
"Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds," the Temple's website reads.
There are two types of people in this world – those who panic and fill up their cars with gas when the needle hits 25% or so, and people like me who wait until the gas light comes on, then check the odometer so you can drive the entire 30 miles to absolute empty before coasting into a gas station on fumes.
I mean…it's not empty until it's empty, right?
But just how far can you drive your car once that gas light comes on? Should you trust your manual?
Photo from Pixabay.
I believe that reads empty.
Now, thanks to Your Mechanic sharing this information in a recent post, you can know for sure. Of course, they also want to warn you that driving on a low fuel level or running out of gas can actually damage your car.
Now, thanks to Your Mechanic sharing this information in a recent post, you can know for sure. Of course, they also want to warn you that driving on a low fuel level or running out of gas can actually damage your car.
Proceed at your own risk.
These are, of course, approximations that depend on several factors, including how you drive, your car's condition, etc. So don't automatically blame your mechanic if you find yourself stranded on the side of the road.
If you ask people what they think the “perfect" body looks like, you're sure to get a range of answers, depending on where the person is from. Last year, Superdrug Online Doctor created a project, “Perceptions of Perfection" that showed what people in 18 countries think the “perfect" woman looks like. The project was a viral hit.
This time, they asked graphic designers—11 women and eight men—in 19 countries to photoshop the same image to highlight the male beauty standards for their country.
Some of the images are certainly amusing, but the collective result is an interesting look at what people find attractive around the world.
Body autonomy means a person has the right to whatever they want with their own body.
We live in a world where people are constantly telling women what they can or can't do with their bodies. Women get it form all sides — Washington, their churches, family members, and even doctors.
A woman on Twitter who goes by the name Salome Strangelove recently went viral for discussing the importance of female body autonomy.
Her mother was made to feel guilty about simply exploring the medical options about her own body. But later on, a new doctor made her feel more comfortable about her situation.
