Star Island won’t make you change

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It seems like every effort to “go green” requires a change of behavior. Hotels let you choose to use towels or sheets twice. Your parents instructed you to turn the lights off when leaving a room. These measures can affect change, but they usually don’t. Despite the clear benefits, people just won’t change. But, what if you could find a way to protect the environment without having to change any part of your life? This is the elusive goal of most eco-minded designers, builders and activists, but few have discovered the secret handshake.

David Sklar, it seems, has found the answer.

Star Island, located in Eleuthera, Bahamas, is designed to be carbon-neutral, even if you forget to turn the television off when you slip out to the beach. A unique combination of embedded power sources that harness natural forces and savvy architecture allow you to save the planet by doing nothing. Sklar’s project, which includes both resort and residential properties, is your ticket to guilt-free luxury.

The property is currently under construction in the Bahamas. Sklar, the president and lead designer, and his team at Dalu Design Group, envisioned a resort built around pragmatic environmentalism. Buildings account for about 70 percent of the factors that lead to global warming, he says, particularly around the consumption of energy. So, Sklar realized that a better design could have a pronounced impact on the environment. The key, however, is to affect conservation without thought. People won’t change, but you can change everything around them.

See artist renderings of Star Island, including an EXCLUSIVE shot of the pavilion.

%Gallery-41493%

Here’s where the essential tension lies. We all love fast cars, big rooms and oversized televisions. We like big and convenient and immediate. When traveling, we’re even worse. At home, my sheets are fine for a full week, but on the road, I can’t imagine using the same set two nights in a row. I have the same attitude toward towels. Conservatism doesn’t work unless I can have fresh sheets every night without damaging the planet. We all love big rooms, oversized television screens and fast cars. Even if we privately lament what we’re doing to the environment, we can’t let go of what makes us happy.

Fortunately, this is what Sklar has in mind. He believes you shouldn’t have to make these tough choices. A carefully considered engineering effort can deliver the lifestyle you crave without impairing the world around you.

Star Island does not tap the power grid to fuel the washing machines, lights and kitchens. The resort generates its own power. Don’t expect to see any wind farms or endless rows of solar panels on the 35-acre resort. The tools are built into the structures, with photo voltaic energy-generating roof panels, and water is gathered through a rain water collection system.

Once open, the resort will offer guilt-free villas, bungalows and homes, where visitors (or residents) can live guilt-free. The Star Island villas range from one to three bedrooms and include custom gourmet kitchens. And, they aren’t small, some reaching 2,000 sqft in size (much, much larger than my apartment). Restaurants and recreation (such as snorkeling) are available on site, a nice touch since you probably won’t want to leave anyway.

The amenities that Sklar promises are exactly what you’d expect to find at an upscale resort. You can dip into a private plunge pool at one of Star Island’s bungalows or refresh yourself in an outdoor shower. Of course, you’re never far from the beach, not to mention snorkeling and other on- (or under-) water activities. None of it happens with the help of oil, coal or split atoms.

What possesses a man to pursue green recreation and living with such zeal?

Sklar was not kidnapped by Greenpeace, and he didn’t have a mountain-top epiphany that changed his view of the world. Instead, he took his cues from his life. The experienced architect, who was “raised on fossil fuels,” as he puts it, realized when he looked at his son that the Earth would continue to be here well into the future. Even though he may not be around to suffer the most severe consequences of environmental mayhem, he understood that his actions would shape the world his son inherits.

Star Island began with this altruistic motivation … and a sense of defiance. Sklar sought to prove that he could create from scratch a top-tier resort that could operate without the support of a substantial, global energy industry. He plans to resist the convenient pull of traditional energy source and create an example to his peers, one that can be replicated. Sklar believes that Star Island can serve as a model to real estate developers and architects everywhere. If a trend emerges, he will have started a revolution in building design and construction.

But, we need to take this one step at a time. Star Island is still under construction. Houses have yet to be sold, and guestrooms need to be filled. Sklar doesn’t expect the warm, fuzzy feelings of environmentalists to get his business humming, though he certainly welcomes them. The call of luxury, he expects, will bring people to his resort, and their experiences will bring them back. Star Island is a business, after all, it just happens to be doing something great in the process.

Learn a bit more about Star Island in the NY Times.

Continental Airlines experiments with algae jet fuel mix

by Scott Carmichael on

On Wednesday, Continental Airlines flew a Boeing 737 from Houston in a circle over the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing too special about that. Except that this flight was a test of a new 50/50 jet fuel/biofuel mixture, powering one of the engines.

The bio portion of the fuel was a mix of algae and jatropha oil, an alternative fuel that can be grown in poor soil, yet is able to produce more yields than soybean. The fuel was approved for aviation use last year, and meets or exceeds all requirements for a jet fuel.

The jet was not the first biofuel powered airplane. Early last year, Virgin Atlantic flew a 747 from London to Amsterdam powered partially by coconut oil.

Most experts agree that the aviation industry will have to invest heavily in finding alternative fuels, but given how much is at stake during these trials it is understandable that they take things kind of slow.

This trial was a huge success, and the test pilot called it “textbook”. Whether or not we’ll start flying in coconut and algae powered jets any time soon, will all depend on how quickly these new crops can be grown on a massive scale. The amount of biofuel required to become a really viable alternative is quite staggering.

(Via: BBC News)

Gadling Take FIVE: Week of Jan. 3-Jan. 9

by Jamie Rhein on

With the 2009 turnover has come new beginnings and changes that have influenced the travel world. Some changes began to happen a few years to thousands of years ago.

  • Jeremy who struggles with change on laundry day, discusses the lack of coins problem in Argentina, an issue that has been exaserbated by the economy.
  • As a postive change, Brenda highlighted a recent move by President Bush. He announced this week that three marine monuments have been created in the Pacific Ocean in order to protect the environment. Yes, it’s true, Shon. It was Bush, the guy in the White House. (Shon left a comment on Brenda’s post. We love comments.)
  • In his post on Australia’s Monash University’s new Web site, Aaron points describes how you can find out how the Earth’s physical appearance has changed over thousands of years as ice has melted by using the interactive map.
  • As tourism to Cambodia continues to rise, changes are happening in its travel landscape. Tom delves into the country’s ecotourism efforts.
  • Scott’s post on the first passenger airplane from Europe to land in Baghdad over the last 18 years, hopefully, indicates positive changes to come. The charter plane from Sweden had mostly Iraqis on board. They now live in Europe.

This week also marked the beginning of Gadling’s month long Budget Travel series where we point you towards places that might help you keep more change in your pocket. Check every Monday through Friday for new destinations. So far we’ve covered: Baltimore, Amsterdam, The Lake Effect Wine Trail, San Francisco, and Butte, Montana.

Also, don’t miss the posts of Jon Bowermaster, Gadling’s latest guest blogger who is writing posts from Antarctica. Each week there will be something to learn and enjoy from Jon’s intimate connection. He first went to Antarctica twenty years ago as part of an international dog sled team.

Bowermaster’s Antarctica — Grand Dider Channel, Antarctic Peninsula

by Jon Bowermaster on

I first came to Antarctica twenty years ago, as part of an international team intent on dog sledding across the continent. Since then, I’ve been back more than a dozen times; last season for nearly three months, much of that time traveling the length of the six hundred mile long Peninsula by sailboat and kayak, the rocky finger jutting into the Southern Ocean from the continent. Unlike many of the most veteran of Antarctic aficionados, I’ve had the good fortune to get to know both the stark, forbidding interior of the continent, as well as parts of its glacier-lined coastline.

What I’ve learned is that every summer season – roughly December through February – is vastly different here. And every day is vastly different too. What is not changing is that during the past fifty years, most noticeably during the past decade, air temperatures along the Peninsula have warmed more than anywhere on the planet. The impacts of warmer temperatures are evidenced everywhere, from loss of ice cover to changing wildlife habits. The ability to take a close-up look at that evolution is a great chance for me.

This morning I spent the morning among the Yalour Islands, near the northern end of the Grand Didier Channel, zipping by Zodiac around icebergs of a variety of shapes and sizes. Initially the skies were bright and blue, the first such we’ve seen in a few days. Actually, the last blue skies were accompanied by hurricane winds, which blew every cloud in the sky out of the way. But as is typical for Antarctica, things changed rapidly today as a fast-moving snow squall blotted the sun and turned the idyllic scene quickly more ominous, a whiteout, impossible to see the shoreline.

%Gallery-40580%

We passed through these islands eleven months ago by kayak and the difference today is dramatic. Because we were going to travel along the Peninsula by kayak last January, for many months I had started each morning checking out www.polarview.aq and its satellite images of Antarctica’s ice.

Each year more than seven millions square miles of sea ice freezes around the continent, growing the continent to twice the size of the U.S. And each year that pack ice breaks up and melts in different patterns and stages dependent on how warm the temperatures are, how big are the winds. Thanks to a colder-than-usual winter last year the continent was ringed by frozen sea ice until late in January, even the Peninsula, which is generally the first Antarctic region to lose its ice.

By comparison, this season the Peninsula is amazingly clear of pack ice, less than anyone can remember seeing.

Perhaps most telling: Yesterday at Cuverville Island, on a rocky, north-facing slope we spied something very new to Antarctica: Grass. About twenty feet off the sea, two small patches of just-greening herb sprouted, fed by summer sun and warming air temperatures, clear evidence the Peninsula is warming.

Click HERE for more dispatches from Antarctica!

Bush goes green by creating blue sanctuaries

by Brenda Yun on

Yesterday afternoon marked an unprecedented day for marine lovers around the world. Bush announced the creation of three marine monuments that are protected under the Antiquities Act, which was created a century ago to safeguard areas of public interest. In this case, this new treaty places important restrictions on oil and gas exploration as well as commercial fishing for an area that covers close to 200,000 square miles in the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s a breakdown of the three major areas that have been declared as protected marine sanctuaries by Bush’s newest water treaty:

  • The northern Marianas Islands and the Mariana Trench (the deepest point in the world)
  • The Rose Atoll near American Samoa
  • Several remote islands in the middle of the Pacific, including Wake Island

These monuments make up a 50-nautical mile radius of protected islands and waters around the Mariana Trench and are full of marine life including sharks and coral, which are most crucial to a healthy ecosystem, as well as unique creatures found only in this part of the world such as the coconut crab and a bird whose eggs incubate by way of volcanic heat. The protected marine area will therefore inevitably become a bird sanctuary as well. In addition, it will

Back in 2006, Bush established a near 140,000 square-mile marine reserve (one of the largest in the world) near the Hawaiian islands, so this is his second good ocean deed in one term. Collectively, this is the most ocean a single person has protected. That’s a pretty admirable feat for a President who hasn’t been particularly green. Certainly, ocean lovers like myself fully appreciate Bush’s final environmental gesture. It’s something we will be thankful for for years to come.

[via the Washington Post and Time Magazine]