Grand green vision for S.F.’s Parkmerced

The owners of San Francisco’s Parkmerced want to add nearly 5,700 homes to the World War II-era rental housing complex, an ambitious renovation that could rank as one of the greenest in the country.

Over 20 years, the developer says, the minimum $1.2 billion project would take the 115-acre property off the power grid by employing wind turbines and other low-emission energy sources, slash water consumption through improved plumbing and recycling, and halve tenants’ automobile use by, among other things, adding public transportation options.

“I almost consider it a moral obligation in a project of this size to be responsible and do whatever we can do to help confront the problem of climate change,” said Craig Hartman, lead architect on the project and partner with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.

Read more at Grand green vision for S.F.’s Parkmerced – SFGate.com – James Temple

Brown offers China green incentive

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised China £50 million in aid for “green” technology as he seeks to switch the focus of his visit to the country to climate change.

The Prime Minister has promised at least that sum will be handed out to support investment in energy efficiency, so-called “clean coal” and carbon capture in the booming Chinese economy.

The deal was done on the first day of Mr Brown’s three-day visit to China, where the environment will now increasingly take centre stage.

The Prime Minister will visit the environmentally friendly Taiyang Gong Power Station on the outskirts of Beijing which recycles its own heat sources to supply hot water and other benefits to the community.

Mr Brown will later fly on to Shanghai to see progress being made in the Dongtan “eco-city” with lessons being learned for the Thames Gateway project currently under development in London’s suburbs.

Brown offers China green incentive | UK Latest | Guardian Unlimited.

Rare plant halts Sydney development

An investment company bought the 181ha former Air Services Australia site at Cranebrook in 2004, intending to subdivide and develop it for 1800 new residents.

Since then, a number of rare and threatened plants and animals have been found on the land.
The state environment department specifically recommended in 2006 that the entire site be protected.

A December study of the land identified nine threatened species and three endangered ecological communities across the rugged bushland, including 30 endangered flowering nodding geebung shrubs, of which just a few thousand remain in the wild _ and only in Western Sydney.

Rare plant halts development | The Daily Telegraph.

Tower of strength for Expo — Shanghai Daily

SHANGHAI will turn a 165-meter chimney at an old power plant into a state-of-the-art observation tower for the 2010 World Expo.

The building will demonstrate architectural prowess in combining advanced technology with the city’s history – and to say that it is on track is a truism in more ways than one.

see image at Shanghai Daily

Tower of strength for Expo — Shanghai Daily

ADB to help China fight desert drift

China is getting outside help for a project to stop the alarming spread of deserts in its western interior that causes siltation of the Yellow River, the Asian Development Bank said Saturday.

Manila-based ADB said it will help Beijing design a project to restore the severely degraded drylands of Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, as well as Xinjiang autonomous region, which together cover 40 percent of the country.

“Land degradation is a critical environmental problem in all three project jurisdictions,” an area that once hosted the ancient Silk Road trading route between Asia and Europe, a bank statement said.

AFP: ADB to help China fight desert drift.

1 ... 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 ... 92