President's Message
by Craig Hill (Earth Systems, Inc.)
To Green Or Not To Green, That Is The Question,
(or Dare To Be Green)
Happy New Year to all as we strategically enter into 2008. While we shift our efforts from the residential slow down to seek other opportunities to remain busy and profitable, we are also challenged with the 2007 California Building Code, Global Warming and trying to understand and adapt to being Green.
A few short years ago, about 20 be exact, an acute awareness circled the globe about “Ozone” a term we learned about in grade school. In the last 20 years it has become more common knowledge that Ground-Level Ozone is a gas that occurs both in the Earth's upper atmosphere and at ground level. Ozone can be "good" or "bad" for people's health and for the environment, depending on its location in the atmosphere. A Stratospheric Ozone or "good" ozone layer extends upward from about 6 to 30 miles above the earth’s surface and protects life on Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. Man-made chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have gradually depleted this natural shield. A depleted ozone shield allows more UV from the sun to reach the ground, leading to more cases of skin cancer, cataracts, and other health problems. Many nations recognized these changes and responded by reducing the use of certain harmful pollutants key to the depletion of the “Good” ozone.
Although the term has been in common use in other countries since about 1975 "brownfields" first came into use in the U.S. at a Congressional field hearing hosted by the Northeast Midwest Congressional Coalition in June of 1992. Also in 1992, the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission convened the first detailed policy analysis of the issue. The U.S. EPA selected Cuyahoga County as its first brownfield pilot project in September 1993. Brownfield’s are typically abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations.
If you have a lot of money and can get global interest in a potentially earth threatening problem you too can be the proud owner of the Nobel Peace Prize. So what is Global Warming, other than what’s obvious by the name? Wikipedia states the following: “The global average air temperature near the Earth's surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 year period ending in 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes, "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" via the greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward. These basic conclusions are endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with the conclusions of the IPCC, the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change are in agreement with the conclusions.”
All this said, the current buzz word is “GREEN.” Everybody wants to be green. You see it in government publications, from non-profit organizations, and more and more in corporate marketing materials. In general, to be Green is to consider all the areas I previously mentioned and more. Being Green doesn’t just refer to our energy consumption, emissions, and renewable resources (recycling). Green includes the development of less tangible ideas such as sustainable development and “carbon footprint”.
So how does this apply to the Geotechnical Engineering industry? Every day, we as a profession, make recommendations that generally include or at least affect products and services used on projects. Examples may include aggregate base rock, asphalt, geosynthetics, types of cement for concrete, materials such as masonry block and steel. Not only should we consider the cost of the material, but also the reuse of the product after the design life is reached. Green includes its reusable value, longevity, energy consumption to produce the material and the cost associated with producing and delivering the product to its destination. All in all we have a responsibility to address the current issues and ensure as best we can that those who come after us can enjoy the same or better quality of life afforded to us.
This article has been reprinted from the February 2008 issue of CGEA’s newsletter, the Geogram. The Geogram is available for download as a PDF file on this website. Please go here to download the current version. For more information on the Geogram, please contact the Administrative Office. The Geogram is available to non-members on a subscription basis.
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