April 22, 2024 Earth Day Musings
...fossil, forests, and commerce... biking and walking... happy earth day...

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Once again we reflect on how to reduce the environmental impact of building, manufacturing and commerce, for that matter any large or small scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures that directly or indirectly affect a sustainable healthy climate.

Climate action starts with the materials to choose to move any commercial activity. To move toward a more sustainable supply chain, an increase in the use of organic, recycled and responsible materials is critical, of vital importance.

Wood is one of the key raw materials,
so it matters how it is sourced for a sustainable forest and stable climate. Manufacturers of wood products must responsibly support the most reliable sustainable forest management concepts with the goal of protecting and reversing the degradation of the world’s forests. Wood materials must be sourced from responsibly managed forests.

Sustainable healthy climate relies on alternative energy sources that support our daily lifestyle activities. Heartening to know that there is a world consensus about the usage of renewable alternative energy that it decreases our dependence on fossil energy and will move our society towards carbon neutral operations. Picture walking as a step in holistic climate action.

All that said some ethical civil conduct of principles must be observed and implemented. This is quite fundamental and will involve basically improving the well being of the public, fair wages, health, safety and environmental protections. The wide encompassing comercial activities among nations will play a pivotal role in the continuous social, environmental and climate improvement. The building design and construction industry (architecture and engineering disciplines) will continue to be in the front and center towards achieving a carbon neutral society thus existing laws relative to and  affecting these carbon neutral activities needless to say must be observed and new regulations towards achieving healthy sustainable environmental climate, politics aside, must be put in place.

As a concerned, conscious and mindful consumer member of a civil society you can reduce your carbon footprint to zero by living entirely off the grid and rely entirely on renewable energy like wind, solar or geothermal... and believe it or not so does biking or walking instead of driving.

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Source references: LEED and climate change articles online and print materials

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©ndr 04.22.3024
Photo: ndr / sun setting view from my front porch in Durham NC on  Earth Day 04.22.2024 @ 6:40 pm while gardening the bank in front of my house...