Cost is a very real concern, and played heavily in our recent architect choice. We first narrowed the field down to two candidates.

We loved the design aesthetic of our initial front-runner. He had some green design experience, but all of his previous green work had been on large projects with correspondingly large budgets. No doubt he would have designed us a beautiful eco-home, but a demonstration home that costs three-quarters of a million dollars to build (nevermind appraisal value after the fact) isn’t really demonstrating the right things IMO.

In the end, we went with an architect who has much more experience in residential green building. Her name is Jane Thompson. Her previous projects were much more sane price-wise, and in line with what we are planning to do. Our one nagging concern, however, was the lack of any obvious design elements that linked her projects together….the lack of a “Jane Thompson” signature, if you will. We chalked this up to her ability to design what the client wanted rather than imposing her own aesthetic, but we didn’t want to completely sacrifice form at the altar of function. Why bother even hiring an architect if all you want is a super-insulated box?

Late in our architect decision process, we visited her firm’s new office, currently under renovation in New Edinburgh. The new office incorporates an impressive array of green building principles that we expected — mixed-use space at street level (apartment dwellings + green building community resource centre), library and office space on upper levels, top-notch insulation and passive solar planning, and a multi-level green roof with rain water collection — but the roof also follows a beautiful, huge, glorious curve that spans the entire back half of the structure. We were pretty much sold, right then and there.

She’s not hurting for work, but we’re still pushing her to get a website going. It’s in the works, apparently.

Anyone who was curious how budget cuts might influence a major government program need look no further than the Meteorological Service of Canada, the sub-agency of Environment Canada responsible for, among other things, tracking weather and climate for all of Canada.

The Meteorological Service’s long-range forecast accuracy has been terrible for a while, but lately they’ve been having trouble with day-to-day and even intra-day predictions.

For example, I’m interested in the weather for tonight because it determines first of all whether my ultimate game will even be played, but also whether it makes any sense to bring my son with me. Sitting in the rain for 2 hours does not make for a happy 3-year old. Since I began checking last Friday, the forecast has changed *at least* once a day, and I’m not talking by a degree or two. I’m describing full-blown changes as to whether it will be sunny or rainy…and then the opposite change back again less than 24 hours later. I know we’ve screwed up the planet’s climate something fierce, but honestly, I might as well just look out the window tonight when it’s time to go to the game.

I know there are other sources for weather information, but my wife works for Environment Canada, so there’s some brand loyalty at play. In a broader context, the implications for the larger objectives of the Meteorological Service, namely monitoring climate, atmospheric science, air quality, ice and other environmental issues (to quote their website) are pretty scary if they can’t even get the weather right.

Sometimes a tweet simply does not do a subject justice.

I’m a science geek, and honestly, they could have stopped the video after the swimming robots with the blue eyes, and I would have happily lit a metaphorical smoke, raided the fridge, and gone to bed. But no! Those mylar, zeppelin penguins are quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

(Originally seen over at Topless Robot, my favorite-ist place on the web)

This is a false dichotomy. For the atheist, there is no one book but many, written by many philosophers and scientists over the ages, each of which undoes a small part of the religious web. My problem historically has been how to arm myself appropriately against such religious inquiry by reading the most important and seminal of those works. How easy it must be to rely on just one book? It would certainly cut down on library fines, not to mention my Amazon bill.

Over the past decade or so, prominent atheists have taken up that charge. Authors like Richard Dawkins have done much to popularize the atheist “cause.” My most recent discovery is Christopher Hitchens whose book, God Is Not Great, has given me some serious pause for thought. I will also confess that I was turned on to Hitchens by his appearance on The Daily Show and The Hour. See, book tours really do work!

Whereas Dawkins may advocate for “brights” and our need to stick together, Hitchens simply lays it all out: arguments presented by various religious organizations, along with why they are at best wrong and internally inconsistent, and at worst, dangerous. As a reading list, an atheist could do much worse than to use Hitchens’ references section as a starting point. His style isn’t for everyone, though, so if you’re interested in pursuing the matter further, I recommend his Authors@Google talk on YouTube as a starting point. Some basic searching will turn up other priceless nuggets if you’re then so inclined.

Let me reiterate that conversion is not my goal here, I’m merely arming myself with defensive knowledge, sad though it may be that I feel the need to couch it in those particular terms. In no way am I ashamed of my beliefs, but atheists don’t have much of a lobby group.

My question is this: why isn’t this technology available in all North American cars, or at the very least in non-hybrid cars of the same model line? I was dismayed to discover that the hybrid Civic included the mileage display while the non-hybrid Civic I ended up purchasing did not. At the current price of gas, I know that I would change my driving habits if I had instant and ongoing information about how my driving was affecting fuel economy.

• Elsewhere in Canada: Wind Power Certificates
• USA: DOE Green Power Network
• UK: Ecotricity
• EU: Eugene Standard

After thanking Chris and Sarah for their hospitality, Ian and I headed back to L.A. once the sun went down to avoid the heat.

Dinner tonight was at Ajisen Ramen in San Gabriel. Mr. Noodles has done the world of ramen a great disservice; fresh ramen is quite fantastic.

Oh, and if anyone offers you some harsmar to drink, it is perfectly safe, even tasty when mixed with mango and coconut, but all things considered, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.

• OMG, pwned. (Actually, I pretty sure I’m jealous of your situation, but let’s just keep that between you, me, and the rest of the internet, m’k?)
• As everyone else is reporting, Google Maps are very cool, mainly because toggling between “Map” and “Satellite” in the top-right corner does what I expect.
• Kev brought his PSP to dinner at the Glen last night. It’s pretty slick.
• And in today’s evil-genius news: Troy, the “retarded cousin from Australia.”

The work component of the visit was busy — very busy — but I was left with a good feeling for the upcoming few months at the end of the meeting.

I did manage to see some of the city that wasn’t the inside of bars on Sunday. I purposely arranged my flight out for Sunday evening, even though it meant risking getting stuck overnight in Detroit, so that I would have a fighting chance of seeing the New England Aquarium during the day, and now I have.

I think I still prefer the Monterey Bay aquarium, especially now that they actually have a Great White Shark on display. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out to Monterey to see it before they realize that it’s a bad idea.

Sadly, and this is the cynic in me talking, Dr. Schindler was preaching to the choir. I didn’t see a whole lot of the “general” populace in the crowd; the only people who are going to shell out $10 a pop to hear someone talk about water scarcity and the science of conservation are the people who are already scientifically literate and are therefore (hopefully) already aware of the problems, even if only in broad strokes.

Many of the questions after the lecture focused on why society continues to ignore environmental issues that are spinning out of control, even in the face of recent disasters and existing programs and guidelines to make things better. The fact that the Walkerton tragedy doesn’t still keep Ontarians awake at night scares the bejeebus out of me. Do people not know where this place is? This isn’t some cyclone destroying a tropical paradise half a world away. This is your own backyard, people.

Again, my inner-cynic believes that until we have an environmental catastophe that directly impacts health care and the economy for a lot of people, and that also happens sufficiently close to election time, we are unlikely to see science affecting politics in any appreciable way.

Please prove me wrong.