Turning Brown to Go Green by Greg Larkins We always pride ourselves on having one of the nicer yards on the block. Something I inherited from my father, who had my brother and I always doing yard work while all the other kids were playing down the street. I thought then that when I grew […]
First Person Report: Foreign Travelers Using Mass Transit to The Max by Greg Larkins My wife and I recently challenged ourselves to use mass transit as much as possible on a trip to Paris and Amsterdam. This started from our journey from our home in San Jose to San Francisco International Airport and concluded with […]
Santa Clara Agrihood – Steinberg Hart The Bay Area, like much of California, is facing record heat, chronic drought, housing affordability/access issues, strained electrical grids, and a democratic crisis at the community level–to name a few of the issues. This puts greater emphasis on the importance of a city’s physical resilience, sustainability, and regenerative capabilities. […]
As has been noted, we had a great BIG time over the two days of Sustain-a-Palooza! Here’s a bit of a recap incorporating the “gems” from the ongoing session chat, which is not to be confused with chaat, which come to think of it would have been an excellent (sweet, sour, tangy, spicy, crunchy) accompaniment. Lyngsø Sustainability […]
Acta Non Verba Farm via California Academy of Sciences How can SSV exert its expertise, experience, and influence to promote environmentally friendly, sustainable, livable, and workable new construction in the Bay Area? Answering this question is at the core of our developing project, Regenerative Communities. We see an opportunity to inform and educate Bay Area […]
“The Dome of California’s Capitol” by Walter Parenteau is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. This is the busy season for legislation and rulemaking. Here’s a review of what SSV has been up to on a number of fronts. Here are excerpts from our letters. The Securities and Exchange Commision Subject: Proposed Rule [Release No. 33-11402; […]
Our latest WET Talk featured Galen O’Toole and Renee Murphy of Intrinsyx Environmental talking about the promise and potential of plants and the power of endophyte-assisted phytoremediation. (Watch the WET Talk 8 video) (Phytoremediation is cleanup of tainted soil or water using plants; endophytes are microbes that live in a symbiotic relationship inside plants and […]
Imagine a world, much like ours, burdened with a toxic legacy. Underground plumes of a ‘rocket science/chip fab’ past haunt the groundwater present. In this world, some smart researchers figure out how to employ trees as “solar-powered pumps” that draw contaminants up through its roots and naturally break the compounds down into harmless components. They […]
Global urban adoption of Smart Surfaces would cost-effectively deliver a 15% CO2e emissions reduction and 5°F of city-wide cooling—with enormous co-benefits California is trying to solve multiple problems simultaneously: rising heat, inequality, clean air & water, and making cities and neighborhoods more resilient and sustainable As average temperatures rise, and storms grow more forceful, […]
On a December day in 2021, Chris “The Maven” Austin met with SSV’s Water Director Dennis Murphy to chat about all things water in California. Chris has been publishing Maven’s Notebook since 2013 and has been aggregating California water news since 2007. CA Water 101 is one of numerous informative resources that can be found […]