In early April 2009, the Vancouver Convention Centre officially opened for business, boasting the largest non-industrial green roof in North America. Located in Vancouver, Canada, this six-acre rooftop garden is crafted as a habitat for the 400,000 native plants and grasses growing there, as well as for birds and insects, including hives for 60,000 bees. The building is expected to achieve LEED Gold designation and incorporates significant green building technologies. They include natural daylighting, seawater heating and cooling, natural ventilation, and on-site sewage treatment and desalinization systems that will reduce potable water use by as much as 60-70 percent (compared to similar-sized convention centers).
The current world-record holder of green rooftops is right here in Dearborn, Michigan at the Ford Rouge Truck Plant. Renovated in 2004, this massive green roof retains as much as 1/2 of the rainwater that falls on its surface. Runoff is collected in nearby ponds where sediments settle out before entering the nearby ecosystem. When constructed, 14 species of sedum (such as Biting stonecrop in the photo above) were used on the roof. Sedum is often used for green roofs, as the plants are hardy and their leaves effectively retain water. Many species of Sedum are native to Europe, but have become naturalized in North America.
While it won't be a world record-holder, Chippewa Nature Center's Visitor Center expansion project will also feature a green roof on part of the building. Shown here, this component will serve similar functions to the mega-size roofs described above. It will limit rainwater runoff, help improve insulation, and offer homes to insects, birds and other wildlife. We're currently developing a plan to use as many native plant species as possible in CNC's green roof.
Once the project is completed in Spring 2010, visitors will be able to climb the observation tower and get a birds-eye view of the green roof, solar panels and other energy-saving features. Of course, you'll also get a great look at the surrounding ecosystems which you can explore year-round on our system of trails!
Generally, people have a tendency to glorify the "good old days." It seems like the air was cleaner, grass was greener and everybody skipped around singing "Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah" all the time. The truth, of course, is much more interesting and complicated.
While the 19th century was an age before gasoline engines and nuclear power plants, much of America was rapidly being deforested and coal-fired factories blackened the skies of many cities. At the same time, there are lessons we can learn from the lifestyles of our ancestors. This is partly due to technologies available (or not) in the past. In other cases, "green living" ideals were intentionally being carried out by our ancestors.
Think of a home in 1870, such as CNC's Homestead Cabin, shown above. If left to the elements, a cabin like this would eventually rot and crumble to dust. What would be left 100 years later? Surely, archaeologists would find bits of glass and ceramic, bricks, nails and other metal pieces such as a sled runner, woodworking tool, or piece of a woodstove. What would persist of the barrels, ropes and basket shown here?
What if your home were left abandoned for 100 years? What would happen to the vinyl siding, heaps of plastic, styrofoam, and other synthetic materials that abound in our lives today? Surely they wouldn't look very nice a century from now, but most of them would still be there, some for hundreds and hundreds of years. We've chosen to live this way and in many respects our lives are "better" (or at least more convenient) for it. But because we've made these choices, it's also up to us to be responsible consumers, reducing, reusing and recycling in order to limit this large and long-lasting footprint we're leaving on planet Earth.
For sure, it's quite impractical (if not impossible) to return to a primarily biodegradable lifestyle like our ancestors lived more than a century ago. But in the rush and tumble of our modern lifestyles, it's also important to pause once in awhile to really think about all the little choices we make each day. How can we live more lightly on the planet? We can decide what will remain.
