Green Options » recovery

New Orleans: a hotbed of entrepreneurship

Kelli Peterson — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:16:29 +0000

Three and a half years ago, not many would have suspected that New Orleans would ever recover, let alone demonstrate the promise of prosperity after Hurricane Katrina wiped out an already fragile economy. At the time the levee broke, New Orleans was already suffering from an exodus initiated in the late 80’s when the oil industry began its regional decline. But the very characteristics that have given New Orleans its unique disposition are those contributing to its stealth recovery.

Communities that support successful entrepreneurship exhibit a similar range of traits. Not surprisingly, many of them are emotional qualities bred by circumstance and history. New Orleans was a late addition to the United States, acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Literally separated by swamps and rivers, New Orleans benefited from both a distance and unique geographic location. In combination with its very European roots, quite literally the city enjoyed a more laissez-faire approach to development which lent itself to a certain type of creativity and openness.

This same bayou location plus southern gulf weather has also not been kind to it, which has bred another entrepreneurial quality, emotional fortitude. One could argue that this is an innate quality but New Orleans has an extra high concentration of this, born of survivor-ship. From this comes a kind of optimism and resiliency that drives entrepreneurs ever forward.

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Bailout Costs Taxpayers Even More Money

Reenita Malhotra — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:15:02 +0000

Bailout funds to fix the economy come at a higher cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Originally, the Congressional Budget Office had projected that last year’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would cost taxpayers $189 billion. With the new budget thrown in for 2009 and 2010, this figure has risen to $356 billion. (Reuters)

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Is There Stimulus Money For You?

Jennifer Kaplan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:58:46 +0000

If you have been asking yourself this question, you are not alone.

I’ve been fielding calls for two weeks from clients, friends, you name it. In my quest to come up with answers I cam upon the blog of Chad Moutray, the Chief Economist and Director of Economic Research for the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration. He posted about small business and the stimulus and provided a run-down of what’s in the stimulus package for small businesses:

* $720 million to help support a number of programs at the U.S. Small Business Administration (primarily reducing fees on 7(a) guaranteed loan guarantees);
* $400 million in other support to support economic development and entrepreneurship, particularly in distressed rural, urban, and low-income communities; and
* tax incentives for small businesses, including a continuation of section 179 expensing up to $250,000 on new capital investments, loss carry back for up to five years, a delay in the three percent withholding tax for businesses doing government procurement, and a reduced capital gains tax for small business investors holding stock for five years or more.

Moutray also pointed out that there will be “major investments in infrastructure, broadband, green technologies, home winterization incentives, etc., which will hopefully benefit large and small businesses alike.”

Being interested in small, green businesses, I checked out the two primary agencies that might have have some thing to say: The Environmental Protection Agency and The Department of Energy. It turns out, that according to Enesta Jones in the Press Office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one reason its difficult to sort all this out is because agencies that are slated to receive money haven’t decided exactly how they will dispense it. In other words, the programs that will dispense money have yet to be created. It appears that some chunk of the money will ultimately be dispersed as grants, some through loans and some through procurement (government spending). Additionally, some money will go to states to disperse through their sibling agencies and some with go through through the federal recovery efforts. It looks like we’ll all have to wait and see on the specifics of how exactly a business can obtain funds. But, every government agency that received funds to disperse has been required to issue a press release discussing how their stimulus funds will be spent. So, we have been told a few things:

The DOE press release states that there are 10 areas of funding through DoE:

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Is The Economic Recovery Plan ‘Green’ Enough?

Reenita Malhotra — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:43:56 +0000

The ‘green’ aspect of President Obama’s recovery plan has fallen short of expectations.

The $100 billion allocated to green measures representing just under 13% of the total package falls way short of the benchmark set in a recent report led by economist Nick Stern, that green measures should account for 20% of global economic recovery plans. It also fails to meet the UN target of 1% of GDP. This is especially shameful given that South Korea has devoted two-thirds of its $36bn recovery package to green investment. China too has allocated one-third of its $580bn recovery plan to green measures such as energy efficiency. (Source: The Guardian)

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Korean Tigers Back from the Brink of Extinction, But Not in South Korea

Gavin Hudson — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:50:36 +0000

“Long ago, when tigers smoked long pipes… ” begin folk tales in South Korea. The stories recall a time at the farthest reaches of living memory when Korean tigers, the world’s largest cats, still prowled the Korean peninsula.

Korea’s national creation myth also tells of a tiger and a bear who asked the son of the ruler of Heaven if he would make them human. He agreed, but only if they could endure 100 days in a cave eating nothing but garlic and mugwort. The steadfast bear endured and became a beautiful woman, who gave birth to Tangun, the legendary father of Korea in 2333 BCE. But the tiger grew hungry and impatient. He left the cave early, unable cope with the hunger and waiting, and has been slinking through the Korean mountains ever since.

That is, until the last century when hunting and habitat loss pushed the Korean tiger over the brink of extinction in the wild in South Korea. With it went an important symbol of Korea’s identity.

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Green Diva’s Guide to Delicious Living: Suppers for Sobriety

Megan McWilliams — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:04:53 +0000

My dear friend Cindy has been telling me about this friend of hers who helped create an organization called, Suppers for Sobriety. Her name is Cindy also. Cindy number 1 (my friend) gently and persistently reminded me about Suppers for Sobriety for over a year. Cindy 1 is not an alcoholic, but in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the reason she pestered me for over a year about Suppers for Sobriety is because she knows I have been a recovering alcoholic for many years (19 as of August to be precise) and she also knows I’m a foodie.

I met Cindy 2 at Cindy 1’s wedding this summer - finally. She apparently had heard about me too. She was very enthusiastic about Suppers for Sobriety of course and pitched hard to get me to attend a dinner.

This past Sunday I and the Cindys went to a monthly dinner held at the other founder’s home in Princeton, New Jersey.

What exactly is Suppers for Sobriety?

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Ecomugs Bury Styrofoam Cup Use Once and for All

GO Media Sponsor — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:30:27 +0000

Editor’s Note: This post was provided by one of our paid sponsors, Ecomugs, a company that offers lead-free mugs as a green alternative to disposable cups, while at the same time providing a healthy work environment and support system for recovering alcoholics.

Here is good news for offices taking steps towards going green - a blossoming company in California makes eco-friendly coffee mugs featuring your logo and employee name. There’s no minimum order required, so even the smallest startups can take advantage of Ecomugs handy dual purpose - the mugs are valuable promotional tools that also serve as a highly effective way to let your customers know that you are doing your part for the environment.

Styrofoam - Alarming Statistics

Did you know that over 25,000,000 styrofoam cups go into landfills every year? Styrofoam makes up 25% of our landfill space and is not recyclable, so any cup you use today will still be around 500 years from now. Incinerating styrofoam is not an acceptable alternative to burying the impervious material, as it gives off over 90 different hazardous chemicals, including styrene vapors and dioxin.

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Global Green’s Holy Cross Development in New Orleans

Philip Proefrock — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:34:08 +0000

Two years ago Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and brought enormous devestation to the city and the region. Since then, numerous agencies and programs have been working on projects to rebuild and revitalize this region. An architect and online friend of mine wrote an excellent article about the recently publicized pictures for Global Green’s proposed Holy Cross development for the redevelopment of New Orleans.

This guest post is by Sarah Nagy. Sarah is in a position to be a much better critic of proposed New Orleans construction because she, too, lives in a hurricane-prone region (the Florida panhandle), and is directly acquainted with appropriate design for a Gulf Coast environment. I think her analysis offers an excellent review of this project, balancing the applause for what she calls ‘Sleek Contemporary Prefab Housing Solutions’ with some pointed criticisms of some of the apparent problems in the design.

The complete essay can be found on Sarah’s blog, Front Step Design.
[Disclaimer: As critical as this post will be, I want to applaud the folks involved with this project for their initial feelings of goodwill, their obvious effort, and all the good green decisions that lie under the aesthetics.]
To look at the images of these houses, Holy Cross is clearly located on the rural prairies of Southern Louisiana. Each of these houses will survey 20 acres. But enough sarcasm. The situation, to anyone who has been there, looks more like the pictures below (from The Urban Conservancy).

The Holy Cross graphics show a narrow house that might fit in an empty shotgun lot. It’d be nice if they showed other houses around it. It’d also be nice if they could ‘age’ the finishes - because as in the Urban Conservancy bottom left photo, everybody in town knows what the ordinary weather does to buildings, and that if those buildings don’t look more charming with peeled paint, mildew and warped wood, they’ll be regarded as slummy. Remember, new and shiny doesn’t last. ‘Sustainable’ means ‘last a long time’.

On to the building. I suppose that monoslope roof w/solar panels faces south, for best solar orientation. Fine. And the next building to the north, #98, its roof will reflect light into those clerestories of #100. Is that okay? Speaking of clerestories, are they operable, to heat-chimney the famously sultry New Orleans air through the structure? Doesn’t look like it. Let the house be a ‘machine for living’ - don’t make people live in a machine.

Cross-ventilation was all the pre-AC shotgun house had - again, windows don’t look large enough to encourage this effect? I can tell you from experience that awning windows suck at letting a breeze in. How about a nice double-or triple-hung with the top sash up against the ceiling, like those oldies in the French Quarter? Examine historic solutions and benefit from generations of testing.

Daylighting: You’re okay here, mostly due to the skinnyness of the form. Good. Overhang on the south side looks pretty good for summer - but your heat gain on the east/west upstairs is going to be tremendous. Better spec solar shades and maybe some sort of awning. However, that south overhang looks too deep for winter heat gain, and there isn’t enough glass on that side to get it. But perhaps there’s enough appliances and people to heat the house in the winter. It does actually get cold enough for central heat in New Orleans. Plan for all expected extremes, not just the famous ones.

Materials: All those thin horizontal slats had better not be local pine, since they’ll warp beyond recognition. And if they’re exotic, you’ve blown your green credential. Perhaps they’re recycled something. Foam insulation, BluWood, PVs, water cisterns, recycled flooring, low-VOC paints = all good. Fiber-cement siding~ iffy. Great for durability and users know what to do with it (paint it! not too often!), but the Portland cement manufacturing process is hugely polluting, and the stuff is awfully heavy to cart around the country. Do they make this stuff local to New Orleans? I don’t know. At least they can bring it in directly from the port. Pursue ‘technological improvements’, but with skepticism.

Systems: A SEER of 10??? [Referring to the energy efficiency rating for the air conditioning equipment.] Hello, what year is this? Illegal in Florida, where 13 is the minimum. 20 if you can afford it (and these government programs should be financing such purchases). Tankless water heaters, good - but solar water heaters are the same initial cost, can be multi-tasked for space heating, and are not mentioned. Use money efficiently, in every direction you can think of.

All that said, I am really an optimist (surprise!). Therefore I have perfect faith that people will pick and choose lots of wonderful ideas that are featured in this program and recombine them into better and better holistic solutions than any architect can devise by himself. Hold off the hurricanes for another couple years, and stand back - housing is finally going to change.

Link: Front Step Design