Poster child: Dana Rubin shows off her silly side at work

One of our busier interns this summer has surely been Youth Liaison Dana Rubin.  She leads an extensive effort to introduce ideas about energy efficiency to young people in Cambridge.  Dana doesn’t play teacher here though–the idea is to get the right sort of educational materials into the right hands.

Ever since May, Dana’s been researching and compiling ideas for lesson plans, which present concepts related to energy use in bite-sized and fun ways.  The lessons are geared towards kids age 9-13 and are very much hands-on or crafty.  In one deceptively simple lesson, the children build paper pinwheels and stick them outside to twirl in the wind.  At the most basic level, these toys… [view entry]

This is the first installment in a series of featurettes on our current interns’ summer projects.

Ilona Shmulevich in action!

At CEA, our overarching aim is to spread better energy efficiency to buildings in the city of Cambridge.   We target this goal with what can effectively be described in four steps:  First, we encourage residents to sign up for a free energy audit through MassSave.  Second, an auditor visit is scheduled and carried out wherein they perform a full assessment of a building’s energy usage, providing a list of recommended improvements.  Third, the residents learn about available rebates and decide what improvements they are willing to invest in.  Finally, a MassSave or independently-appointed contractor comes and does all the installations, leaving the residents with increased building performance… [view entry]

If you’re a habitual reader of the environmentalist news stream, as I am, you notice that much of the discussion about climate change pertains to the urgent need for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a focus that’s well-warranted given both the huge scale and urgent timing of emissions reductions that are necessary to lessen (or ‘mitigate’) the amount of warming that occurs and avoid the severest impacts.

The flip-side of the climate science picture is the undoubtedly gloomy understanding that a certain amount of future warming is unavoidable regardless of how quickly emissions are drawn down. It’s in the spirit of realism and responsibility—not defeatism—then, that people are beginning to think about how we should prepare ourselves for the coming climatic changes. In the lingo of climate policy thinkers, this type… [view entry]

What does ‘green building’ mean?  How can principles of sustainability be implemented in building design and construction and be certified as such?  These were questions that the U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org) dealt with when they rolled out their first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (“LEED”) guidelines in the 1990s.  Although LEED has received criticism for not incorporating measured building performance in its accreditation service, their guidelines have evolved over the years and are regarded as the leader in the world of green building certification [1].  Energy 2.0 contributor John Bolduc reports that here in Cambridge–one of the nation’s most accomplished cities in sustainable practices–64 buildings have either been registered with LEED or accredited.

But for all the usefulness a green building certification system brings with it, it still doesn’t get at the need for sustainable developments on a slightly larger scale–that… [view entry]

Governor Chris Christie

You may not know this, but “Cap and Trade” isn’t just a buzz-phrase for something many environmentalists would like to see the U.S. adopt for regulation of greenhouse gases–it’s been a reality for 10 northeastern states since 2009. With the announcement of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s plan to withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) this year, the hot-button issue of Cap and Trade has again come to the surface of environmental news sphere.  Cap and Trade, the market-based mechanism that many call for to help steer our energy production from fossil fuels to renewables, has been employed under a cooperative agreement called RGGI (“reggie”).  RGGI is a joint venture by the New England states along with New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, to… [view entry]