I’ll be speaking about GeoEngineers’ work on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation urban campus at the NEBC Reusing Contaminated Land conference in June 6 in Tacoma, WA. Here’s a link to the conference agenda.
My entire career has been focused on recycling and revitalizing urban land. In my experience, all urban land has been negatively affected from an environmental perspective.
We’ve all heard recently about the fiscal cliff, budget cuts and sequestration. As those in Washington D.C. look to address these issues for future generations, we should all be looking at our own personal finances to see if we are wasting money. I came across this article by Whitson Gordon and found it highly informative. Some of the suggestions are also transferable to our businesses.
Are You Wasting Money?
For years we have been hearing, "take a break every hour or so, stretch, get up, walk around," and so on. But do we really do this or do we remain parked at our desks? And if we do get up, is it just for a bathroom break and another cup of coffee? There is another solution.
Current research points to mental and physical health benefits for adults resulting from spending quality time in nature. Research also indicates that accuracy (in proofreading, for example) is greater after spending time in a natural setting.
Take Ten Minutes Outside!
What if you lived in Lima, Peru? You’d notice extreme dryness in the summer (December to March), extreme fog in the winter (June to September) and almost never any rain (Lima receives 1cm of rainfall a year). It's hard to believe that this mega-city of 9 million people receives such little rainfall. All of its water is sourced from glaciers in the nearby Andes Mountains. The city’s population has also been exploding in recent years. This means poverty, slums and extreme demands on infrastructure, particularly water. 30% of Lima’s population lives in slums.
Every winter and summer, the Puget Sound experiences a tidal cycle of extremely high tides known as King Tides. This winter, as predicted, there were two, one in December 2012 and one in January 2013. The December episode, which had expected peaks of 12.8 in the Seattle area, actually experienced a peak of 14.5 due to extreme low pressure in the region, which caused the increase in tide height.
The long view has been under assault in recent years on multiple fronts. In this digital age, attention spans have shortened, with information being delivered and/or accessible at faster and faster rates. One can easily get caught up in a quick-response frenzy that leaves little time for more careful analysis and consideration. Many feel compelled to multitask in order to compensate, but this rarely yields better results.
Take the Long View
There’s big news in the science, technology, engineering and space world. On November 10, 2012, the Museum of Flight—one of GeoEngineers’ long-time clients—is having a grand opening for the new Space Shuttle Trainer exhibit in its Space Gallery.
“Screw Business As Usual.” I feel like I’ve been saying this for a while now, however Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, just put it in print in this Live Mint, Wall Street Journal article, “Volunteer Work: The Bigger Picture.”
"Screw Business As Usual"
Several months ago I wrote a Field Note about the Columbia River Treaty.
At GeoEngineers, I have been very fortunate to be involved with a tremendous partnership of firms who have collaborated over the past ten years on two redevelopment projects that have significantly transformed the look and feel of the White Center area of Seattle.
