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The Eco House

By: Kira Black, Production Assistant

We are living during a time where a change needs to happen and the change needs to begin at home or the reconstructing of our homes. With the high effects from global warming we all need to start thinking or seeking to live in an eco-friendly environment. The increasing global temperature change is raising concern for people and our solution is to use natural materials to build homes and businesses. There are studies that preach switching to eco-friendly products will decrease the harmful effects of gases into our environment.

“Natural Building” is a term that describes the use of natural materials as opposed to the use of man-made or industrial materials. Our focus needs to be directed toward the ways of building homes that minimizes the use of products that require a sizable amount of energy from their manufacturing and transportation. Most green houses are uniquely, artistically designed and a homeowner saves money on the energy expenses because green houses run on solar and wind power (reusable/non pollutant resources).

There is a housing company based in Phoenix, AZ that provides affordable ecological housing for residential communities called Upcycle Living. The creators of Upcycle Living built these eco-friendly structures out of four remodeled shipping containers which is proven to be extremely durable. The house is made into two floors, two bedrooms, and two-and-a-half bathrooms while furnished with bamboo cabinets, dual-flush toilets, Energy Star appliances and low-flow showerheads. “The inspiration for Upcycle Living came from our desire to create a quality housing project that was sustainable yet affordable, durable and mobile in nature,” says Ashton Wolfswinkel, the co-founder of Upcycle Living.

The goal with eco-friendly housing is to build homes from simple techniques that will not further pollute the environment or prolong the consumption of fossil fuels. We need to desist from our extraction of resources from our Mother Earth and switch to reusable, less pollutant materials that will in the long run save this planet.

Research what natural materials that you can integrate into your home that will decrease your carbon footprint and help make a significant contribution to the environment.

For more information: www.greenhousing.net or www.livegreencheap.com

Photo courtesy of the University of Houston

By Michelle Reed, Production Assistant

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred after the April 20 explosion of BP’s Macondo well has become much more than a natural disaster, it has become a historical event, and for Tyler Priest, director of Global Studies at the University of Houston and newly appointed senior policy analyst for the President’s National Commission on the oil spill, historical knowledge of offshore drilling might be the key to saving Houston’s energy industry.

“As someone who has long studied the history of oil in South Louisiana and offshore Gulf of Mexico, I feel an obligation to make sense of these events and make sure that we do the right thing as a nation going forward,” Priest said in an e-mail.

In early August, Priest was asked by friend and colleague Jay Hakes, a research director for the commission and the former advisor to the Secretary of Interior Cecil Andrus during the Carter Administration to testify during the commission’s second meeting.

“He invited me to come to Washington to brief the commissioners on aspects of the history of offshore drilling and testify on the history of federal oversight of offshore oil, alongside three former directors of the Minerals Management Service,” Priest said.

Priest’s knowledge of offshore history proved to the commission’s staff that a historian could be beneficial to its reports.

“The research and investigative work conducted by the commission is essentially historical, looking at how technology, federal regulation, and environmental impacts have evolved over time in order to identify what kind of changes need to be made (in) the way we manage offshore oil,” Priest said. “My role is to provide historical background and analysis to commissioners as they develop their recommendations.”

Photo courtesy of energycities.org. Houston is the fourth largest city in the world, and the leading city in energy.

Houston’s energy industry has suffered many drawbacks since the oil spill. One of the drawbacks included the loss of thousands of jobs from the 6 month moratorium placed on offshore drilling by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in late April.

“A lot of people have been hurt by this disaster and the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that followed,” Priest said.

Despite concerns about offshore drilling in the Gulf, in which Priest says could stem from insecurities felt after the Santa Barbara blowout of 1969 when an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil escaped into the channel and onto the beaches in Southern California, the Gulf Coast’s opinion on offshore drilling is different.

“Oil and gas is part of this region’s culture and heritage. Most people here are ready to green light deep-water drilling again,” Priest said.

The Obama Administration has seemed to have recognized that in order for the Gulf to thrive, the moratorium must be lifted. On Tuesday, Salazar announced that the moratorium had been lifted and that in order to promote stronger safety regulations, operators now have to comply with tougher rules. These rules include making operators show that their proposed development and exploration plans can deal with blowouts and undergo detailed inspections, Michael Bromwich the head of the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling said in a CNN article.

“The deep-water drilling suspension was always about keeping the Gulf workers and waters safe from another oil spill, and it has been effective in doing so,” Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts said in the article. “The new rules that the Interior Department has issued will help ensure that if oil companies are going to drill ultra-deep, they are doing so in a manner that is ultra-safe.”

With the improvement on offshore drilling safety, the energy industry needs to work on improving its relationship with a healthier environment in the city of Houston.

“There is quite a lot we can accomplish to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’ simply by using fewer hydrocarbons and using them efficiently,” Priest said. “The transition away from hydrocarbons as our main transportation fuel and key source of power will take a while. But as a nation and global society, we should consider developing all forms of energy especially those forms that are less harmful to the planet.”

Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/12/drilling.moratorium/index.html?hpt=T2;

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/295170-3;

http://www.tamupress.com/product/Offshore-Imperative,1716.aspx.

Note: The views expressed in this entry do not represent the views of Houston PBS.

Can’t wait for the Houston Have Your Say Town Forum on October 26 at 7 p.m.? Here are a few interesting articles for you to read during the wait.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7203038.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i0AWAL31jeB2XPX7r9HQpnc7_WHgD9I9PMA80

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7201303.html

Also, come watch episode #130 of Latina Voices this Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The episode features Dr. Richard Tapia, a mathematician and professor in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University, and his views on Latinos in higher education.

In 2006, Al Gore starred in a documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, that campaigned global warming issues that recognized it as a worldwide problem. This documentary sparked the public’s interest with the horrors of the long term effects that global warming will have on our planet. Global warming has been around for billions of years alternating with ice ages and will continue to occur naturally. However, it has become a main interest because all the human activities and practices that we do have contributed to it’s occurrence and severity.

Global warming is basically the increase of temperatures of the earth’s atmosphere, which disrupts the earth’s natural blanket, the greenhouse effect, from properly trapping heat and keeping the planet insulated. Continue Reading

Written By: Michelle Reed, Production Assistant

As the energy capital of the world, Houston is a cut above the rest in terms of energy. The city is home to five of the six superpower’s in energy corporations including ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil and the largest division of BP America whose international headquarters are located in London, England.

But with the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill explosion on  April 20 that killed 11 platform workers and released 4.9 million barrels of oil, including 800,000 barrels that BP captured, anxiety over unsafe off-shore drilling operations is still high and Houston’s reputation is still on the line. The unanswered question still remains, could BP have saved the rig before it was too late? Continue Reading