EcoTherapy, Corey Glickman & Jeff Kavanaugh’s “Practical Sustainability”, Barocaloric Materials for Sustainable Cooling Technologies

PRACTICAL SUSTAINABILITY, BY COREY GLICKMAN AND JEFF KAVANAUGH 

As reported by The Climate Daily, the need to transform how existing buildings are powered, heated, cooled and insulated is crucial to make a significant dent in GHG emissions.Buildings and commerce are vital to this green future, but environmental challenges and market pressures block the path to sustainability. “Market pressures” like too much real estate, not enough incentive to move quickly.

Corey Glickman and Jeff Kavanaugh decided to break it down in their latest book, Practical Sustainability. It’s a practical approach to sustainability, blending the physical and the digital, the human and the machine.

By some estimates, there is over $8 trillion of existing commercial real estate that must become more intelligent and sustainable as quickly as possible. So, according to these guys, Practical Sustainability is required reading for anyone involved with sustainability, intelligent buildings, and supply chains, illustrating how technology combined with physical environments is ushering in a greener, more prosperous future.

Jeff and Corey both work at Infosys, of Infosys, a digital services and consulting firm. Jeff is its global head of Infosys Knowledge Institute, the research and thought leadership arm. Corey Glickman is Vice President and leads its sustainability and design business. He’s also a member of both the World Economic Forum Pioneer Cities group and the MIT Technology Review Board, and is a faculty expert at Singularity University.

Why does what they think matter to us? According to Diana Bowman, ASU Associate Dean and Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Smart Cities and Regions, “Practical Sustainability is required reading for universities, government and community leaders, and students looking to fulfill the promise of smart region initiatives.

DEEPER DIVE: Bookshop.org, Infosys, Singularity

BAROCALORIC MATERIALS FOR SUSTAINABLE COOLING TECHNOLOGIES

Ten research teams will share $1.3 million in the eighth round of the Climate Change Solutions Fund (CCSF) awards. Aiming for impact at both the local and global level, these projects will seek to reduce the risks of climate change, hasten the transition to renewable energy, diminish the impact of existing fossil fuels on the climate, understand and prepare for the effects of climate change, and propel innovations needed to accelerate progress toward a healthier, more sustainable future.

Jarad A. Mason, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, FAS; Joost J. Vlassak, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Materials Engineering, SEAS.

This project is aimed at advancing the basic science of solid-state barocaloric cooling, a technology that promises to reduce energy consumption and the use of harmful refrigerants in cooling buildings and removing heat from data centers. Cooling accounts for more than 20 percent of the world’s electricity consumption, and, therefore, better understanding barocaloric materials could ultimately yield a significant climate benefit. Funding will support a research collaboration between the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which will allow for the researchers to bridge the gap between materials discovery and prototype development, with a particular focus on discovering novel materials and mechanisms critical to realizing solid-state cooling at scale.

ECOTHERAPY

You know what’s depressing? Continent-wide heat domes, wildfires strung across entire countries, like flaming rubies on a map of the world, annual 100-year storm events that produce village-destroying flash floods swamping seventeen nations simultaneously. Oh, and climate change.

But you know what’s the cure for what depresses us? Ecotherapy. It’s a term coined in the mid-1990s for using nature to promote psychological healing. In an interview with Outside Magazine, Linda Buzzell, co-editor of the book Ecotherapy and a psychotherapist at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, said, “Nature therapies are being used very successfully to ease both emotional and physical trauma, and stress is one more form of this.” 

Statistics back her up. According to findings published in 2010 from the University of Essex, in England, five minutes of “green exercise” outside in nature was as effective in treating mild-to-moderate depression in people of all ages as taking anti-depression medication, with young people and the mentally ill benefiting most. 

A seminal 1984 study from physician Roger Ulrich found that hospital patients recovered faster from gallbladder surgery when they had a view of nature out the window. A Japanese study published in 2006 in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology determined that “Shinrin Yoku” or “forest therapy,” walking through treed landscapes, has a calming effect on people—lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol by 16 percent, as well as heart rate and blood pressure. 

Why does ecotherapy matter to all of us? Two reasons. First, according the late biologist and “father of biodiversity,” E.O. Wilson, we all possess “biophilia,” the primal urge to connect with nature.“ According to Buzzell, “It’s a physical and emotional need. We’ve just forgotten it.” And second, people who find healing in nature are more likely to protect it, and thus the climate.

DEEPER DIVE: EcoTherapy, Intro to Shinrin Yoku Video, EcoTherapy, By Linda Buzzell