So the concept of “daylighting” has been on my mind quite a bit. Daylighting is the use of green materials to maximize natural light from strategically designed skylights and windows.  Entire buildings can keep most of their lights off during the day as natural light infiltrates even the darkest spaces. Not only can daylighting provide an energy savings of 50 to 75 percent, numerous studies over the past several years have consistently shown that employers report improved productivity in the workplace and students’ test scores are higher when learning in a brighter environment. That’s not surprising. Humans are dramatically impacted by sunlight or lack thereof.  

The good news is, green construction is expected to grow dramatically over the next few years. In fact, the green building market is expected to more than double from $49 billion today to approximately $140 billion by 2013, according to Inc. Magazine, citing McGraw-Hill Construction.  Further, the U.S. Department of Education announced this spring it will award states $48.6 billion if school repairs and renovations qualify as green construction.

With the concept of daylighting gaining the attention of corporations, government agencies, and  school administrators, let’s hope lighter, brighter, and cheerier environments will be one of the many benefits of going greener. Being less dependent on the weather forecast will give us all a better feeling of control. Especially here in New England.

What is the “green freeway” on the West Coast?

Could ethanol someday be made from Florida’s orange peels? 

The New York Time’s new blog, “Green Inc.: Energy, the Environment, and the Bottom Line,” is a comprehensive column that addresses energy and environmental topics, helping readers understand the latest green headlines across the globe.

What makes this column valuable is not only its experienced and diverse group of journalists, but “the Bottom Line” component — which helps the layperson better understand the technology under discussion, the issues at hand, and what is hype and what ideas have true potential. 

According to its editor, Tom Zeller Jr., Green Inc. is a “daily churn of insights, observations and dispatches from that often contentious place where business, politics and the environment meet.”

This “often contentious place” is important for readers to fully comprehend, as it’s not enough to come up with the next best technology that will help save the planet – it’s equally challenging to build a consensus in moving promising initiatives forward.

Green Inc. explores all this, and more:   http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/.

Headlines aside, where would Boston be today without the improvements made over the past 15 years?  Probably in a perpetual state of gridlock, cloaked in a perpetual state of smog. Still, while the Big Dig was never without controversy, it successfully retrofitted one of the oldest cities in the country, building underground next to the nation’s first subway system, relocating hundreds of miles of utility lines, and digging next to buildings that were built during the 17th and 18th centuries. These were just a few of the many challenges that project engineers, architects, and managers faced, but in the end, the project was built and Boston is better and greener for it.

To understand the price tags that come with construction projects is to understand what it takes precisely to go from drawing blueprints to breaking ground to pouring concrete. It’s not a straight line, nor is it fast and easy. So with a top priority being placed on repairing the country’s infrastructure, widespread support is needed more than ever to help make sure the stimulus plan allocates enough resources for a new era of big, medium, and little digs from coast to coast.

While the price tag of the stimulus package is unprecedented, so is the state of the economy. So is the condition of our infrastructure. 

Last week, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a grade D to the country’s infrastructure. This is not just about repairing a few bridges, this is about large-scale improvements critically needed to ensure not only public safety, but a structurally sound system in which our country can begin to rebound economically. This includes roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, drinking water, wastewater systems, levees, solid waste systems, rail, aviation, transit, and more. 

“We really haven’t had the leadership or will to take action on it,” said Patrick Natale, the group’s executive director, “The bottom line is that a failing infrastructure cannot support a thriving economy.”

Reconstructing and repairing the infrastructure also gives engineers, architects, scientists, environmentalists, and builders an opportunity to work together to advance green and sustainable technology, such as the national power grid and different types of renewable energy. 

“There’s been a mentality in the United States of short-term fixes and hoping that they work — “patch and pray,” Natale said. 

“By underinvesting,” he said, “the price tag escalates.”

“We all want President Obama to succeed in reviving the economy, but that shouldn’t obscure the long odds he faces,” Samuelson writes. “We need to recognize that we’re grappling with three crises that, though interwoven, are also quite distinct. The solution to any one of them won’t automatically resuscitate the larger economy if the others remain untreated and unchanged.” 

The first crisis, he says, is the collapse of consumer spending.  “American consumers represent 70 percent of the economy. Traumatized by plunging home values and stock prices — which have shaved at least $7 trillion from personal wealth — they’ve curbed spending and increased saving. That’s led directly to layoffs. In December, vehicle sales were down 36 percent from levels a year earlier.”

Second is the financial crisis.  “Lower lending deprives the economy of the credit to finance businesses, homes and costly consumer purchases (cars, appliances). The deepest cuts involve “securitization” — the sale of bonds. Investors have gone on strike. In 2008, the issuance of bonds backing credit card loans fell 41 percent and those backing car loans 51 percent.”

And third, which has not received as much press, is a trade crisis. “Global spending and saving patterns are badly askew. High-saving Asian countries have relied on export-led growth that, in turn, has required American consumers to spend ever-larger shares of their incomes. Huge trade imbalances have resulted: U.S. deficits, Asian surpluses. As Americans cut spending, this pattern is no longer sustainable. Asia is tumbling into recession.”

The three together, he says, are “the economic equivalent of a combined Ironman triathlon and Tour de France.”

The crisis is far more extensive than we ever could have imagined – not just across the country but across the world. The best we can hope and work for is a stimulus package that both democrats and republicans can agree upon, a reverse domino effect that begins to take hold much sooner than later, and new legislation and initiatives that will prevent the economy from plummeting out of control again. 

Among those confirmed was Steven Chu, the first energy secretary who is also a working scientist. In 1997 he shared the Nobel Prize in physics and has been a longtime advocate of scientific solutions to climate change.

“While much of the Department of Energy’s attention has previously focused on nuclear weapons and waste,” according to Time Magazine, “Chu, a firm believer in the dangers of climate change, will try to fulfill Obama’s promise to create millions of green collar jobs, develop alternative energy options and make the nation more energy independent.”

Speaking about Chu in December, Obama said, “His appointment should send a signal that my administration will value science … We will make decisions based on facts.”

Yesterday, Obama further elaborated on this point during his address:

“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

All this we can do. And all this we will do.” 

Apparently many Americans agreed. A poll by the Associated Press-Knowledge Networks reported today that by a 3-1 margin, people feel more optimistic about the country’s future now that Obama has been inaugurated, including 30 percent of Republicans.

By merging much-needed infrastructure projects with alternative energy programs, Obama is positioning the country to effectively utilize its greatest resources at home and efficiently plan for a stronger, safer, and sustainable economy.

In order for the construction industry and other vital sectors of the country to move forward, however, the financial clock is ticking.

An estimated two-thirds of the nation’s non-residential construction companies are planning to cut their payrolls, according to new employment and business forecast figures released Jan. 8 by the Associated General Contractors of America. Those layoffs are forecast to result in a 30 percent decline in the number of people working on construction projects.

“Unless the business climate changes significantly and soon, the construction sector will continue to experience the kind of devastating job losses and crippling declines in business activity that will undermine efforts to end the recession,” said Stephen Sandherr, the association’s chief executive officer. However, the association said planned investments in infrastructure projects as part of the stimulus package is likely to dramatically improve the employment and business outlook for the year. For example, 85 percent of non-residential construction companies would either cancel layoffs or add new employees if states embarked on stimulus-funded infrastructure projects.

Obama has not yet provided specifics on the total funding of the stimulus package, saying, ”the scale of this plan is unprecedented, but so is the severity of our situation.There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable. It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short-term. But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all, for that will lead to an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes, and confidence in our economy.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan won’t just throw money at our problems—we’ll invest in what works. I urge Congress to move as quickly as possible on behalf of the American people. For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs.”

Let’s hope when Obama takes office next Tuesday, Congress will swiftly pass a plan that strategically and intelligently invests in our future – one that so far makes the most sense in moving America forward.