Green Buildings

This morning I worked at the Davis Farmer's Market. It's always a pleasure to work in Davis, but today was particularly interesting. First of all, the Davis crowd is just way to smart for us. We are the Yolo Energy Efficiency Project, but today we had to field a complex and random variety of questions, comments, and concerns. One man decided to state proudly that he doesn't wear sunscreen (who makes fun of sunscreen?), one man asked us about gardening and landscaping (uh, we may be green but we don't know much about greenery), one man asked us about how he could get solar panels for his farm (a valid question but something I don't know much about), and to top it off, one women told us about the side effects of her medication (TMI). But by far the best inquiry was about green buildings. One woman approached me and stated that she was in charge of some development somewhere in So Cal. I forgot the details, but she then asked me how to make the buildings green and energy efficient. Well, that is a pretty broad question, but hopefully I steered her in the right direction. I asked her a few basic questions to gauge her knowledge, and surprisingly, she knew very little. I don't understand how she could have this job and no nothing about green design…but that is beside the point. Maybe she was flattering me. Even if she was faking it, I at least got to tell her about some companies that produce environmentally friendly carpet and roofing products. I also informed her about the Savings by Design and LEED Certification programs. Then I felt proud of myself for knowing this kind of stuff.

A few weeks ago we tabled at the Davis Food Coop when they unveiled their new solar panels. There I met the director of roofing for the State of Nevada (a very random position if you ask me) and I started talking to him about the urban heat island effect. He didn’t know very much about it, so I tried to convince him that the costs of using roofing materials that reflect heat rather than absorb it into the building are less than the benefits of energy savings because the building won't be absorbing heat and then need more AC. Not to mention keeping the heat down reduces smog production. I think I’m starting to like this job. Very rarely I get to spew some knowledge at some people. Fun times.