Monday, January 10

First thing in the morning, we meet in the lobby of our hotel and discuss the first six chapter of the Sustainable House book. The meeting that we had originally planned on having Monday morning with 30 Bond got pushed back at the last minute to Thursday. So, after our book discussion, we did a bit of sightseeing to the Darling Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. Unfortunately, the Opera House is closed for renovations, so we weren’t able to go inside and take a peek.

After lunch at a very interesting Chinese food restaurant in China Town, we headed to the Powerhouse Museum. The Museum has a new exhibit titled “Ecology: Creating a Sustainable Future”. The entire exhibit was there to stress awareness about the global warming issues facing Earth and also showed specific ways that we, as inhabitants, can adapt our way of living to minimize our negative impact. The exhibit showed items such as the Toyota Prius, stormwater harvesting tanks, energy efficient appliances, light control systems, solar hot water systems. Each of these items displayed had a plaque that showed how the energy/water efficient devise worked and what benefits it produces. There was also a very interesting display that showed how much tonnage of green house gasses our everyday activities emitted (eating meat every day=1 ton/year, buying a car=7 tons/year, etc.) and it posed the question of whether or not you can keep your annual greenhouse gas emission below 10 tons (while the average Australian produces 20 tons per year). 10 tons of greenhouse gas emissions is what experts believe to be the maximum amount that people can produce before resulting in a dangerous climate change.

Also on display was a model of Michael Mobbs’ Sustainable House. There was a model of his house that showed the major sustainable elements incorporated into his house (rainwater harvesting, waste treatment and energy production in the form of solar panels). The model had button activated narratives that discussed these major components and, as it was written in his book, in very lames terms.

What I saw that was pretty cool, was that while we were there, a bunch of junior high age kids were coming through the exhibit and it looked like they were on a scavenger hunt. From what I could tell, they had to find certain displays throughout the museum and write a few paragraphs about each item. While this whole exercise may not have been specifically about sustainability, they did have to come through this exhibit and in turn, forced them to at least get exposed to sustainability and what it is. I, honestly, didn’t know what sustainability (in terms of the way we live and in construction) until the first time I heard about LEED after graduating college. For these kids to get exposed to it at such a young age is awesome. They may not know what they can do to help their environment yet, but just getting an introduction is a very important first step, so that as they get older and these issues become more and more prevalent, they won’t be working off a blank slate.