ARTICLE TWO
“The Origin of 'Green' "
The term “green” has become very popular
lately: green fuels, green materials, green products, green buiding design, green
jobs, green labor force, green economy.
The origin of the term “green” has arisen out of the U.S. Federal Government’s
LEEDSTM Program that affects all of us in society, but more especially
impacts architects, interior designers, engineers, building owners and real estate managers, scientists,
manufactures of products, manufactured processes and services, furniture, furnishings, chemicals such as paints and coatings,
etc.
As a result of the world's first environmental conservation
protocol signed between the U.S.A. and Canada, the U.S. Federal Government's initiative to implement a strategy of environmental
conservationism and especially to reduce air pollution, the U.S. LEEDS Program was instituted circa 1989. With
this program in place, a national policy was set forth, the measures of which impact both public health and sustainable
building design.
A key factor in the LEEDS Program is the goal of reducing the number of free-floating volatile
organic compounds (v.o.c.s) in the ambient air that we breathe. V.O.C.s contribute to ground-level ozone making
it hard to breathe on hot and humid days and can bring on an attack of chronic allergies such as asthma in both children and
adults, lower immune system responses to flus, viruses and colds, be a serious irritant to persons with upper respiratory
conditions such as COPD, lung disease, chronic bronchitis: all of which result in lost days from work and school, high
medical bills, higher health insurance premiums, in some cases untimely death, loss of human potential within society.
The LEEDS Program is a follow-on to President Jimmy Carter's Executive Order which established
the 1976-1977 U.S. BOCA Energy Code. The Code became an initiative for a national policy in the U.S. of energy conservation.
The Code regulated indoor ambient temperatures: 68 degrees F. in summer and 72 degrees F. in the winter months.
This mandate required many mechanical equipment (HVAC-MEP) revolutionary technological changes to be instituted in order to
conserve energy throughout the United States.
The LEEDS Program has 17 points to it: the first 12 include the BOCA Code energy conservation measures and the second 5 points concern environmental
conservation measures: sustainability of materials toward the preservation of raw resources and green building design.
This initiative is one of the reasons why we separate our food garbage from packaging together
with recycling of bottles, aluminum cans, white paper, printed media paper and brown paper boxes all separated
into different waste streams.
The goal is that food-garbage landfills that produce methane gas during the decay process do not
contain materials that can be “re-used” through the recycling process. Recycling plants in close proximity
(within 50 miles) to where the materials have been used and discarded is also part of the LEEDS Program sustainability issue.
Recycling practices save on mining for new quantities of aluminum, sand and silica, the manufacturing
process of blowing new glass requiring more fossil fuels to heat the industrial furnaces for such processes that result in
greenhouse gases and toxic contaminates released into air, water and agriculture-grazing lands: CO2, SOX, NOX, and methane,
heavy metals, PCBs (209 contaminates) and CFCs, as well as more trees cut down to produce additional paper supplies,
releasing CO2 into the ambient atmosphere.
Moreover, when we separate our actual food garbage from
recyclable waste streams, non-recyclable materials may then be used by local municipal utilities to produce low-cost
electricity from that waste stream.
There are other points in the LEEDS Program, but what must needs be defined here is the
popular term “green” , its origin and many connotations.
“Green” energy or “green fuels” refer to those fuels which are sustainable
on their own such as can be renewed from nature or which are sustainable
on their own such as thermonuclear fusion energy technology for powerplant generation of electricity and/or fuels
which do not pollute or contaminate precious natural resources as do fossil fuels: air, water, agricultural –grazing
soil.
"Green fuels" by definition do not contain any carbons from hydrocarbons (as do coal, petroleum
oil, LNG, natural gas: methane, propane, butane, ethane, or CNG compressed natural gas) all of which contribute to the carbon
footprint of humankind's activities on the environment.
This carbon footprint is widely recognized by scientific disciplines across the board
worldwide as the root cause of the El Niño/La Niña extreme meteorological syndromes resulting in catastrophic worldwide
hurricane, cyclone, tornado events and out-of-season temperatures which result in loss of agricultural produce, livestock,
real property assets, erosion of coastal boundaries, municipal infrasctructure property assets, and human life.
For more "green" information, see FUSION ENERGY ~ THE PUBLIC’S GUIDE, VOLUME I, VOLUME II, and VOLUME III in the series of books, films, seminars, lectures or by becoming a Member.
In Article Three you will learn how thermonuclear fusion energy technology is especially unique
as a "green fuel" in its ability to generate plentiful commercial electricity without polluting precous environmental resources
as well as create by-product “green fuels” or “alternative fuels” that
can aide in environmental clean-up and restoration while providing the U.S.A. with ~87% of its fast-track energy demands.
Article One
Article Three
Author: Diane A. Davis, Founder and CEO
The International Institute For Thermonuclear Fusion Energy Education, R&D, Regulation,
Technology And
Public Policy, Inc.
