New California Museum to be Greenest Ever

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s only natural that a Natural History museum is as eco-friendly as possible.

And, it’s only natural that “the world’s largest eco-friendly public building” will be a Natural History museum located in America’s most eco-friendly city.

Sometime next year, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park will throw open its front doors and invite the public into “one of the most expensive museum projects in a century,” according to Wired Magazine.

The $484 million building is incorporating a slew of green technologies to really put its money where its mouth is. How ironic it would be otherwise to celebrate the natural world while polluting it at the same time with an energy-consuming hog of a building.

With this in mind, the architects have implemented such innovations as a lawn roof that doubles as a natural habitat, 60,000 photovoltaic cells atop another roof, and shredded blue jeans as wall insulation (hey, isn’t Levi’s corporate headquarters located in San Francisco?).

When it is completed, the California Academy of Sciences is going to be one of the most impressive buildings around; what other piece of architecture so thoroughly practices what it preaches?

Bill Bryson Takes on Rubbish

by Kelly Amabile on

The Times Online published a lengthy piece about Bill Bryson’s crusade against fly-tipping (what the Brits call littering) now that he is officially the new president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). The longtime UK resident has decided to do his part to raise awareness about rubbish issues in his adopted homeland, although he didn’t exactly set out to take on this position.

Bryson’s still under contract to write two more travel books, but that won’t stop him from rising to the challenge that seemed unavoidable after he asked his readers to email him if they were concerned about litter. He got about 1,000 responses and made a conscious decision to get involved with CPRE as a result. Does this mean future travel writing from Mr. Bryson will be green and litter-free? We shall have to wait and see…

As he explains in the interview: “I’m not doing this because I’m American and think I can tell you how to run your country,” he says. “I’m doing this because I’m a long-term resident and I’ve seen all this happening over a very long time. I would rather not be doing this at all; I’d much rather be at home gardening.”

Brad Pitt's Green New Orleans

by Erik Olsen on

Apparently taking a break
from his rambles across Africa, Brad Pitt is now throwing his substantial celebrity, liberal message muscle behind efforts to improve New Orleans. He has
recently invited the public to submit "green design" ideas as part of a competition aimed at helping rebuild
the hurricane-devastated Big Easy. Yes, Pitt is teaming up with the oxymoronic group Global Green USA on the project,
which says should help turn the catastrophe from calamity into opportunity. Says the steely-jawed Pitt: "Can we
create for these neighborhoods something even better than they had before?"

Pitt will lead a jury of
lesser-peers, including local folk, to select six finalists by July all in the hope of building 10,000 energy efficient
structures in the city. So nice. What would Earth Day be without some celebrity activism?