So the meeting is now being recorded. Great. Hi, everybody. So we will start with reviewing the minutes and also identifying the minute taker. Who was last? Darcy, right? Darcy was the last, yes. Minute taker. OK, yes. So then, Sarah, I think that means you're the next to go. That's OK with you today. Sure, it has to be, right? Yeah. I mean, you could put somebody else. I'm staying. So then let's go ahead and review the minutes from last time. Is Darcy here? Is Darcy coming? No, Darcy, no, our son is getting married this week. And so he she's not available. I think it's being held at her house, too. So they could all come. Well, I hope they have weather like today. Does anybody when they're ready want to motion to approve the minutes or have any questions or comments? I'll move to approve. I'll provide a second. That means you want me to do the vote or? Sure, sure. I well, I can do the vote. Sorry. All right. So, Drucker? Yes. Rose? Roof? Abstain. Breger? Yes. Selman? Yes. Der? Yes. All right, great. You want me to let me see if I can get the agenda up for you. OK, can you see that? No, I can just see your folder. OK, I never understand why it does that. OK, I'll try again. Sorry. That's OK. I think next up is public comment. Are there any public attendees? I think that works, Stephanie. OK, good. We don't have any public in attendance. OK. And then staff updates? Sure. So the one grant funding opportunity that I think that's coming up that I mentioned to you all was the BRIC grant, the federal grant, which really focuses on resiliency in infrastructure. And I had mentioned something at one point about dam safety, and then I said we sort of switched gears and are maybe looking to do solar siting. And I spoke with Andra the other day and Jim Newman. And I think what we're going to try to do is to put something forward for townwide solar siting. So we're going to ask niche engineering to maybe help draft something that sort of starts the process. It wouldn't be like a full blown report because, frankly, we just don't have the kind of funding for that. But to do something that would sort of move us in the direction of having material to apply for the grant. So I'm going to follow up with Jim. Jim, I'm going to follow up with you after this meeting, maybe tomorrow if you've got a moment when we check in actually to speak about this specifically. So there are two other projects that the town is proposing. One is a stormwater project. One is a bridge project. So this isn't the only one. I don't know if the town, at this point, I'm not clear if the town is intending to put all three forward or we're just trying to sort of go through and see which seems like the most well-rounded proposal. I haven't reached out to Northampton and Pelham, but I was hoping that maybe there might be a way that we could get them involved to look at regional solar siding as part of the CCA effort. And that might make the application a little more interesting, especially if we pair it with battery storage. So that's just a sort of update on some of what I'm working on at the moment. And I've got a lot of reporting. Everything I have just a lot of reporting to do right now to different agencies. That sounds exciting. Not the reporting part, but no. The reporting part is not. But the grand part is exciting. It's a lot, though. So we'll have to see. I mean, I'm just I'm not again, I'm not clear what the town's thinking is right now in terms of if they're trying to prioritize out of the three projects. So it's not necessarily means we're actually going forward with this one. So I'm not clear yet. And I'll hopefully know sooner than later, certainly by the next meeting, I would know. Can I ask a question? Sure. So Dwayne, I remember that you had some kind of solar site study that a student did. Am I right? That was a while ago. That being said, I was going to offer after Andra went, which I think might be more helpful. Just something for you to look at as sort of an example. Maybe it's not an exact example, Stephanie, but we do have for the NREL, National Renewable Energy Lab grant that we have that you're involved with and some others maybe. They're draft reports, but we do have these solar solar assessment reports, solar siding assessment reports for three towns, pilot towns that could serve as an example, I guess, for you. They're drafts. I don't want them distributed, but you might be happy to send them to you or they might be on the NREL box that we have. I think you're part of that. I am. And I haven't been able to attend more recently, because I was only peripherally involved in that. But yeah, we can follow up, Dwayne, because I definitely wanted to check in with you about that and ways we could maybe use some of that information to bolster the application. Andra's point also, I do recall we did have a student. We had several projects that just students that are working in the GIS course. They're always looking for projects. I think we had a student take a project on for us on solar siding in Amherst. So let me dig back in and see if there's anything that came out of that that would be worth sharing. Great. That would be very helpful. Thank you. And I haven't looked into solar siding work in the past, but does it typically, or is there a way for it to include some sort of environmental justice element? And I'm thinking about it, because I was listening into a talk today about a proposed substation siding in Chelsea. And it just made me think, how are we going to equitably move forward with energy siding projects? Is it sort of taking a look at the region or the town and figuring out where things have been sited before, making sure we're siding other things in the places they haven't been sited? I don't know. I'm just wondering if there's a best practice there for how that's being done equitably moving forward. And if that's something we can incorporate. I can't speak for the past. And I don't know. Duane, I thought there was sort of a piece of that in the work that you all were doing. I seem to recall for the NREL project. Two aspects to that on both sides, maybe. One is there's a lot of interest in solar equity to site solar equitably where people want it on roofs and so forth so that low income and others can have access to the benefits of solar on their own roofs behind the meter, if you will. So there's that aspect where you actually want to find mechanisms to get solar access for lower income, middle income, other equity dimensions, I guess. And but then there's also more, I think, what you were getting at, Laura, also you don't want to necessarily site larger scale solar projects in areas that unduly burden one don't abide by sort of the sense of environmental justice. And so that's an issue as well. And I don't know. I mean, there it's also the one thing we're working with on this NREL project is to the extent to which third party developers come in and site systems and reap all the large majority of the benefits, that doesn't really provide too much economic or environmental justice to the community. And we tend to have a fair amount of pushback on siting solar in your midst. But if solar siting and solar development can be done with really community-based so that the community is invested literally economically into the project and that they can benefit directly either through the CCA or through para-purchase agreements, net metering, and so forth, and through the rates of return of owning these projects, then I think the sense is that solar siting will be, there'll be more interest in potentially hosting solar within communities. And my hope is that we're not just sort of looking at rooftops that we're also looking at parking lots and I feel like there's plenty of parking lots around town. So I'm hoping that we're looking at that and I don't know of any brownfields off the top of my head in numerous, but sort of not the usual, for one thing, not just agricultural fields or if they are sited in agricultural fields, ways in which they'll be sort of a dual use in those locations so that they actually benefit the agricultural operation as well. And I know there have been some projects where that's been the case where they've actually worked with farmers, have worked with solar development to actually do something that is consistent with what they're doing agriculturally. Yeah, and the smart program has a substantial adder for that. We actually review applications that come in for that dual use with their agricultural colleagues in extension. So yeah, there's quite a few of those being proposed, not any maybe constructed yet, but that's just because of the pipeline of development pipeline. So that's all I have. Okay, great. Any ECAC member updates? I have one thing to raise. Which is about... So I learned about this through some of the investors that I work with in my roll-it series, but others may know of it from other ways. Sir Andrew, you probably are well aware, but there's the Attorney General of Massachusetts has filed a petition to the DPU. Asking them to come forward to open an investigation, I'm gonna read it from here. Open an investigation into potential changes to natural gas distribution operations to support the Commonwealth legislatively mandated greenhouse gas emission reductions. And so the investors were actually writing a note to say that as people that are invested in things in Massachusetts, they want this to go through and they want to see them come up with a path forward. And it got me thinking about sort of the topic that we've discussed in the past around, there's things that we need to do in Amherst and that we can do. And then there's a lot of things that need to happen at the state and national level and what role does our committee have or can have in making sure that's clear. So like what role could we have as a committee or could we ask the town to have as a committee of the town to like support this petition and to support other things like this where there's movement at the state level and a legislative level to help address things that will be imperative to us meeting our goals. Yes.  I actually was about to say something that was related. I think that we should consider one of our roles being writing letters for the council perhaps to sign or suggest that they vote in favor of certain legislation that kind of thing to at least get something to their attention or perhaps we could write letters ourselves if we had the town manager's blessing. So that would be a good thing to find out what would be appropriate. And I'd be very happy to kind of give the committee some ideas of things that are happening as they happen. Yeah, I think that's my fundamental question is what is appropriate and maybe not to say that what has been appropriate in the past doesn't mean we shouldn't come up with something new because we have to do what we need to do but what is the, could we, can we draft, can Amherst as a town because we have these goals that we've agreed on, do we have some obligation or ability to then reach out to the state level and say, hey, we support this work because it supports our town's climate action goals. Like I just don't know what the precedent is for that. Yeah, Stephanie. I was gonna say, I think you absolutely because you're the body that's been tasked with doing this work. So I think certainly if there's anything that might be controversial that you're unsure of, you as chair or in the future, whomever is chair can always reach out to the town manager just to inquire whether or not it would be okay. If that's appropriate, but then I would just say, always drafting a position. You can always draft a position, take a position and forward it on to the town manager and the council. And maybe you can either draft it on behalf of yourselves making the recommendation or you can draft it for the council and then they can vote whether they wanna move forward with it. But I think you're always as a committee can take a position on something that you're specifically working on, especially when it's regarding state policies and procedures. I think you always have a right to weigh in on those things. I like Andra's notion that the town council send it. I think that's, as elected officials, I think that's got some weight behind it. Then it becomes an official piece of legislation or resolution, which I think is gonna be one of the ways that the state will move forward. I was gonna mention one thing that has come up in the community choice segregation conversations. And that's a way that it looks like the DPU is not being very welcoming of greenhouse gas reductions or creative approaches. And so I'm thinking we might need to have that law rewritten so that it's required that CCA is for greenhouse gas reductions rather than the other way around having to prove your good intentions and dot your eyes and cross your T's, which is what they're doing right now to Boston. Okay, yeah, I think this is a place where we could start to take some action. And I think this will be an important piece to include in the climate action plan that this is, we haven't talked about it much since we've started the task groups, but I think this was always an overarching thought of our committee that we're not gonna be able to go out and do it on our own. I think we could start with this particular example and just say that, write something for the council to say as a town that has set a greenhouse gas goal for net zero emissions by 2050, we support the attorney general asking of DPU or we could even just say we need to make sure that DPU is to Andra's point, not being unwelcoming to GHG reductions or whatever we wanna say, but I think we could start to move in that direction sooner rather than later if folks agree. Okay, great. What about? I agree with that. I think that it would be more effective if we had specific elements in our Amherst Climate Action Plan that needed support from the legislature and focusing our attention on those statewide initiatives, the ones that directly impact Amherst. Yeah, I think that's a really good point, Steve. And I think recognizing things like even into transportation work, we're not gonna, as a town, we're not gonna be able to fully find our own public transportation system. Like that has to be state level and even federal level support and recognition of the importance of public transportation, not only for an equitable society, but also for a society that's relying less on single use vehicles. So I think highlighting those in the report will be really important. Andra, you were gonna say something? Yeah, I was wondering also about writing letters to the editor, make our opinions known. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, of course, anybody is always welcome to do that, but I think particularly if there's issues for which more voices are better, I think we could put out calls through letters to editors to let other members of the community know, hey, you can submit a comment to this for this or things like that. Nice. And to pile on Steve's notion, I think the consistency of messaging, if we're writing a letter to the town council, that we want them to move to the state that's connecting to our climate action plan, we're also got a letter to the editor that describes that exact same topic. And so for each, there's a layered approach for each statement that we're making. It's pretty easy to imagine relevant state level actions. This move by the attorney general is, the only way that everyone will be able to afford to get off gas is if the gas companies transition to geothermal or get into the business of installing electric heat pumps. And that's the only affordable way to retrofit all of our buildings. Yeah, and in some of the language in this particular document, and I can send you all this article that I'm looking at is talking about how is the DPU gonna make sure that low income customers rates remain affordable as their own revenue shrink because they have a shrinking customer base, right? Like, I mean, I think there's some real practical things that need to be thought out as we're, really, we have to transition away from gas. So like, what's the plan? Okay, so I think that's something, I think we can sort of keep this as an action item. And maybe we can start, or Andra, if you had some ideas of other things that we should be putting forward to the town council, we can start to work on those. Another update is that I haven't finished writing our comments to the council committee, CRC community resources committee about the next zoning overhaul, but it is going slowly. So I will, and is that something, oh, I was gonna get people's input by through Stephanie. This is something that you want to come back to the committee and vote on, or once everyone's had input, just send it under your name, Laura. Yeah, I think we were gonna make sure everybody had a chance to look at it. So potentially if you could send it through Stephanie, maybe we can just include it on the agenda item for next time. I was gonna say what you would want to do is have me collect all of the comments and then distribute it to everybody and you can all decide at a meeting. You'd want to do it, you have to do it in public process anyway to make a decision about, because that would be something you'd all want to vote on. Okay. That's it. Okay, so we'll note that for the next meeting. Okay, okay. Any other ECAC updates? I have a colleague who's reached out to see if maybe she might get some FaceTime with this group at one of our upcoming meetings about the school buildings and potential collaboration and action there. Do we have a sense of what the best way to incorporate that kind of thing? Like the new school buildings? I think just know just the idea of what's happening with all those existing and new how are we, I think it's a general question. I don't want to spend too much time on it. Maybe I can ask Stephanie offline, but when people reach out to us and express an interest of like engaging our process, and I think it's my response was, Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I think your colleague reached out to me as well. And I thought it was more just attending the meeting, not specifically wanting to speak to the meeting, which is why I gave just general information. But so there's two ways that people can do so. That's to sort of just attend and speak during the public comment periods, unless it's a very specific agenda item that you all want to get into a more involved conversation, then they can make the request to me goes through Laura, because Laura ultimately is the one who sort of creates the agenda for the meetings. So those are two ways, two pathways. Okay, I'll follow up. Thanks. Sure. Okay, great. So next agenda item is discussion of cap framework goals. So I had put something together for this conversation, but I wasn't sure if there was a larger conversation that the committee wanted to have around this. So Laura, I want to defer to you as far as what the vision was for the full conversation before I jump in. I actually think this might have been a agenda item suggestion from Jesse. Am I remembering that incorrectly? I think I emailed you at the end of the last meeting. It seemed to me, and I looked at the presentation that you put together the slides. I actually would love to hear from Lauren and Jim about, as we start to pull all the ideas together, at what point is there kind of like an outline where we, like when did the buckets show up that we start throwing things into? And maybe just to talk about that process so we can kind of wrap our hands around it. To me at least it's a slightly opaque right now. I trust the process, but I'm not sure where it's going. That's a great question, Jesse. So I can speak to that a little bit and Jim jump in if there's anything I'm missing or anything you want to add. The way that we're thinking about it right now is that when the task groups conclude, that's when we're going to have a clear picture of what's come out of those. And we know there are going to be gaps. And so we're going to be trying to fill those gaps with actions and strategies and things that we know are important to the town but that have not come up in those discussions. And then to go back to both the participants in the task groups and city staff and you all to get feedback on how we filled those gaps, whether they are adequately filled and how we might make them even more robust, make the strategies that are coming out more robust. So probably by the time we are wrapping up with the task groups and starting to fill in those gaps, that's when we're going to have a pretty clear idea of what those buckets are. Where we're going to start developing those buckets and that's when we're going to be filling in the gaps to make sure that those buckets are full. Does that help Jim or anything you want to add? The only thing I'd say is that the material coming out of the task groups has an impressive amount of sort of ideas and strategies that are pretty well thought out and kind of discussed. More than I had really realized when we started to really look at the material. And so I think that process is not going to be, it's not like, oh, we talked about a couple of things and then we're going to really build out through it. It's like, no, I actually covered a lot of territory. So that's kind of cool. It is better than I had really expected. I'm not sure if everyone's had a chance to look at the notes that have come out of the task group meetings yet, but I think that was a very helpful process for me in pulling out what some of those actions are likely to look like. So can I say something here? To me, group conversations can riff off of some ideas someone threw out. And what we want, I think, is to really start with what we know or the basics and take those ideas that align with those basic ones look at those that nothing was discussed, those gaps and then consider, but not necessarily put into the bucket, things that came up in the task groups. But I think it has to start with those of us who have already been thinking about this in terms of an outline or, you know... Outline is the word I think, I have to say, I'm having a hard time proceeding in this process without an outline. And that's what I was taught in third grade on how to write an essay and it's old school maybe, but if we are, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like this group has been tasked with overseeing this process and managing it to some degree and if we don't see where it's going and the information comes back to us, it seems to me like it's too late. Like I want the conceptual design before the construction drawings. And maybe that's already happening in the works, but I guess I just don't see it happening. I will say, and Stephanie, I'll turn to you. So it feels like five years ago, but like in February, we, our group did develop an outline. So we spent like most of our first few meetings this year working on the outline before Linnean became part of our process and COVID happened. So that's out there somewhere. And that was the basis for which Jim and Lauren and team like built the task groups. And we haven't looked at it or talked about it for a while. So I think Jesse, your point's well taken that it's, that as we're moving into this third task group meeting, as we're starting to think through the next step of actually drafting a draft report, like we need to go back to that and see what, because there's pieces of that that we've definitely covered in the task groups. And there's pieces of that that we've expanded on through some of this really rich work we've done. There's also pieces of that that weren't really applicable to the task groups. Like a big piece we wanted to make sure we included was like staffing at the town level. Like that's not something we talked about at the task group but that's something we all want to have be a piece of our plan. Yeah, Stephanie, did you want to add in? I had a few things. Well, first of all, I just wanted to say that I think what, you know, what I heard from Lauren and the way I've understood this process all along has been that at the end of the task group work because a lot of information will be formulated there from pretty much constituencies that typically aren't at the table and which is why we did this process in this way, right? This was something that we're doing differently. And so they weren't, some of the things that were coming from that process weren't gonna necessarily be reflected in some of what you've already discussed or they had been, but maybe not to as much of a degree. And then that the outline was gonna come. So the outline is coming. I think it's just, the outline is coming. And then when that outline exists in front of you, that's when you can also look at the outline that the group had done before to say, okay, where are their gaps in this outline with maybe the outline that you had previously created that we can fill in? I think that's really, I'm just sort of reiterating what Lauren said because sometimes maybe hearing it twice is helpful. I don't know. But it's just that, you know, the outline, yeah.  This is like another outline that's being created based on this process. So I don't know if that's helpful. And then that information that you had that isn't reflected in the outline that gets created from the task group meetings, that's where we're talking about filling in, you know, the gaps with that information to make sure that it's a more comprehensive document that reflects both what you've already started working on and identified as wanting to work on, but also additionally with some community input on some priorities that maybe you didn't have identified so much at the beginning. Again, I keep going back to communication, but that seems to consistently come up. So again, not specifically identified in earlier framing but really important in moving forward. Thanks, Tiffany. Yeah, failed to mention the previous outline. So I think that was probably a helpful reminder for everyone. I see the, I was reading the Somerville carbon plan that Lauren, you sent out earlier today, I believe, and it's like, wow, why don't we do that for Amherst? I think that would be, that's what I'm hoping we can do which would be a greenhouse gas inventory analysis and then identifying pathways and then identifying implementation plans. That seems to have the perfect framework and outline for us. And then all this outreach that we've been doing that will provide some additional ideas and has provided principles on which sort of how we prioritize or make decisions. I just want to add to that, Steve, that that's part of the reason I think we were doing the work in the way that we were doing it too is because when these plans get developed and created in order to implement, sometimes people aren't at the table when these conversations are happening so that implementation suddenly becomes something that people feel that is basically imposed on them in some way, whereas this process is giving people an opportunity to have more of a voice and to get more involved and also to have some buy-in and to be more invested in what this is all about and understanding it. And I think that's what's something that's been really valuable is that we basically are working with people to sort of create ambassadors, if you will, of this information so that as we move forward, we have people who can really get behind it and sort of communicate it within their neighborhoods, their complexes, their layers of influence, if you will. So Steve, I wanted to address the issue of the pathway study. I'm glad you brought that up. And I'm glad that you had a chance to look through those slides. I'm not sure that everyone did. I see Andra shaking her head now. So maybe it would be helpful for me to go through them quickly. I see some thumbs up. All right, so let me just share my screen. Here we go. Can everyone see that? Yep. Great, thanks. So, sorry, I'm just having some issues here with Zoom. Okay, there we go. So there was a question out of the last meeting about how the plan will address carbon measurement. And I wanted to respond directly to that. But before we jump in, I just wanted to create a little bit of context around Amherst's current trajectory. So moving on to the next slide, this slide just shows the chart on the right is actually taken from the town's most recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory, breaking down emissions by subsector. And so you'll see all the different categories included. The colleges and university make up almost 50% of the town's emissions. And they've also made these really ambitious climate commitments, as I'm sure Steve Dwayne Ashwin, he's not here, but also, and Laura formerly, can attest to you. And they're working really diligently towards achieving them. So UMass and Amherst College have both pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030. And Hampshire College has pledged to become climate neutral in the next two years. So what this means going on to the next slide is that if the colleges meet their goals, then the town is going to meet its goals handily. But obviously the ECAC wants to be way more ambitious than that, and we're taking action to reduce emissions even further to prepare for carbon neutrality by 2030. So to really quantify that trajectory, that's why I put in this pathway's slide and why I sent along that study, a more in-depth analysis than what's possible within the current framework of the CARP will be necessary. So this graph shows the summary of the city of Somerville's carbon neutrality's pathway, carbon neutrality pathways study, which analyzed actions across all their emissions sectors using some pretty complex modeling and projections to evaluate their emissions reductions potentials over time. And they started with business as usual projections, which Amherst has from their last greenhouse gas inventory, which reflect the assumption that no new actions are taken beyond what is already being done. And then break down the relative contributions of different emissions reduction pathways on the way to carbon neutrality by 2050. So carbon neutrality pathways studies are highly individualized analyses. And as I'm sure many of you know, they take into consideration the unique emission sources and potentials of the location under study. And they're typically done in conjunction with an update to a greenhouse gas inventory, which is something on the immediate horizon for Amherst, given that the last greenhouse gas inventory was conducted in 2017 using data from fiscal year 2016. So next year, we will have the data from fiscal year 2021, which is we're actually in fiscal year 2021 right now. So that will have been five years since the last emissions inventory was conducted. So rather than abbreviating the current planning process to meet the town's budget request timeline, which we've talked a little bit about, we wanna recommend to the committee that you consider putting forward a budget request that includes funds for an updated carbon greenhouse gas emissions inventory and an accompanying pathway study that can go really in depth into what these different trajectories over time might look like. So what we will be able to do with the Climate Action Adaptation and Resiliency Plan is to use widely available information about the relative impacts of different types of actions on carbon emissions in other similar contexts to provide an indication of the relative magnitude of the carbon reductions associated with different types of actions, similar to how, for instance, Concord's Plan lays that out. And I know Concord's Plan is one that this committee has referenced extensively. So I can actually just wanted to pull up a page from it to show you an example of what I'm talking about. So give me one second here. I'm almost done, I promise. So here is just a page from the buildings and energy section of Concord's Plan. And you can see that the way that they've done this is that their actions are coded according to whether they contribute very positively or positively to greenhouse gas emissions reductions or neutral. This is the buildings and energy category. So most of them do have some greenhouse gas emissions reduction relationship. Some of them are just neutral with respect to emissions and other categories and that's indicated as well. Then for some specific actions, we will be able to provide an estimate for the associated emissions reduction potential, for instance, with the CCA. We can provide an estimate of how much greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced as a result of the CCA, assuming that a certain percentage of renewables is in the mix and the program gets a certain retention rate. We can do things like that. But the sort of in-depth pathways analysis that I sent to you that Somerville did, that's sort of the next level above and beyond. So I just wanted to share that with you all. And Lauren, I just want to say something on this page if that's okay. Yeah, of course. I really like sort of a combo of these two approaches. And I would even liked us to think about how we could add to this in addition to GHG reductions in resiliency, like a framework around environmental justice or equality or like a just transition, thriving economy, whatever terminology we want to use. And we won't be able to check it for all of them, but I think it would go a long way to make sure we're thinking about the impact all of these actions have in that space. Absolutely. That's a great thought, Laura. I feel like it also relates to the previous conversation around sort of how to integrate advocacy and policy into the plan and sort of, I think we're really talking about the larger framework of the plan here and definitely having those types of equity and justice analyses built into how we're thinking about actions is considered a best practice in the field right now. So definitely great thing to be thinking about. The Anchorage Plan, 2019 Anchorage Plan has that. They've got co-benefits, the section describing those benefits and then in the sections that look like the one that Lauren has showed up. In addition to columns for greenhouse gas reduction and resilience, there are other columns that might be equity or might be environmental or other, where's the list of them here? Other advanced quality, local environmental quality improve health. So they do evaluate their potential initiatives on the four additional things besides greenhouse gas reductions. The other dimension that might be worth qualifying, not quantifying but qualifying in this sort of way is ease of getting it done. So things that get good greenhouse gas reductions that aren't easy to get done. Let's go for those straight up. Others might have little reductions and hard to do. So it might cast those aside a little bit. So that might be another dimension to bring into this. Yeah, Jesse. So I think the pathway's analysis is very compelling, the graphics of it. You know, is it reasonable without the in-depth modeling and without the analysis to give order of magnitude predictions based on large primary strategies, the ability to look at a single image and say, here are the 10 big things we have to do and this one's gonna do between this and that. I just think the story being told here can we tell that story without the number, basically have the numbers be accurate but not necessarily precise? There's an interesting thought here where this is kind of a cheap answer but it's a good answer nonetheless. And that is that actually the committee itself has a ton of relevant knowledge on these topics and it may be that there's a series of meetings with the ECAC to quantify a series of things because of the specific knowledge that you bring to this process. And I think that there's a real opportunity there. You know, that's one of the fantastic things about the ECAC is that it really, you know, as a committee, it's loaded with people with tons and tons of knowledge on these topics. I think some of those answers, Jesse, can come out of the analysis of the Amherst Greenhouse gas inventory and then we might be able to say, let's reduce building energy by 15%. We kind of make up a target and then we try it. We see how much we accomplish in the year and then we readjust the target and the implementation strategies as necessary. I don't think we need to get too hung up on trying to predict what the outcomes will be. I think we're better off implementing the initiatives rather than trying to predict them. Yeah. And that's a great point, Steve, that how things get quantified or thought about is going to depend on the specific goals that the ECAC sets that then get codified in the plan. Yeah. Andra, did you have something to add? Well, I'm remembering back to a conversation maybe several with Stephanie over the years about how hard it is to get really accurate greenhouse gas measurements that it's a lot of guesswork anyway. And so the idea of getting ballpark, accuracy level, but reasonably derived estimates makes sense to me because there's so many assumptions you put in to predictions and even measurements of current greenhouse gas reductions or emissions that I'd like to keep that idea of not spending too much money getting too accurate. Well, accurate, stay accurate, just not too precise. I mean, and this has been my experience through the years is my one page spreadsheet and the 20 page passive house spreadsheet tend to end up with about the same number. And then there's some people that just like, yeah, that's the number. And then don't even turn their computer on. I- That would be Henry Gifford. Yeah, there's the Henry Giffords of the world. So I wanna, yeah, I like this idea, but you need certain language. Once you start giving images and numbers that say, this is what we can do and this is how much it's gonna cost and this is how hard or easy it is, you need something to back it up with, but, you know, I- I'm sorry to jump in, but you need the accuracy as you stated, but you need consistency. You just have to be doing it in the same way consistently in order to have anything that's a meaningful measure. So what I was saying before was that, you know, we have these numbers and so to a degree, you know, there is closest we can get to the information that we have available, right? But we can't then, you know, in the next inventory, unless we go back and sort of change how we gathered some of that information, we can't come back with a new inventory and do it completely differently. And then look at the two and compare the two. I mean, we either have to go back and change what we did or we have to create a whole new inventory in a way to start. So that's why I was saying it's, you know, it's about the consistency and how we do it. Yeah, I would just also offer, and I'm wanting to go with the 20 page spreadsheet, but I'm good with the single, the one sheet as well, but, and particularly for this reason, and let me just first say, I agree with Stephanie in terms of, for greenhouse gas accounting, you wanna be accurate, but also consistent over time. So, or at least know how you've made those adjustments so you can make adjustments so you can basically monitor yourself reasonably accurate in terms of the progress you're making during this time. But in terms of the pathways, I guess, I'm not sure if I agree with what I'm gonna say, but to some extent, I feel like we have an easy case here, because we were going 100%. So it's not like, do we do this or that? We gotta get rid of all of it. So it's not like we have to say, okay, well, you know, we gotta do this and that. You know, it's like, let's just do it.  And so it just a matter of what are the techniques and challenge and technologies to do it. So I would sort of be, you know, maybe what's more helpful is not, you know, showing the wedge that goes down to zero, because we sort of know the, we know the end of that story that we wanna show, but really get at what are the technologies and the business models and the costs and the challenges and the policy changes and the early actions we can take in the meantime that will start us off on this path. I think we did say early on that while we wanna report that shows how we get to 100% reductions by 2050 or whatever we said, that we really also wanna focus on what do we do in the next five years. And so to some extent, I, well, I did, I actually liked that AECOM, the, was it Somerville? Nice report and so forth. I didn't think it had too much in there in terms of how you get things done and costs and so forth. It was more technical, which I think helps, but at the same time, I think any of us, not maybe most of us could probably just had, had guests in this method that, you know, you need building energy efficiency, some district heating, some heat pumps, and some electrification in the gas and then in the transportation sector. And then electrify, a clean energy for all the electricity. And so to some extent, I think we got an easy analysis because it's all gotta be scrubbed out. Yeah, and then I think, yeah, I think, Jim, you're exactly right. I think we have a lot of talent and expertise in this group. We also have several of us, myself included, who sometimes try to get too detailed and so we'll have to be helped to stay above the fray. But I think even just like clearly recognizing, even for our own group, because I think sometimes we get caught up in topics that maybe, you know, we have to keep reminding ourselves. That's actually a really small part of our footprint.  Like it would be great if our report could show, yes, any new capital that buildings, any new buildings we build in the next 20 years have to be energy efficient, you know, and fossil fuel free, whatever. But even if we do that, that's only gonna be this much of our footprint because we still have all these other buildings. And so we still need to focus in on retrofits and, you know, just moving the whole system. That will be really helpful for when we get, then when we get questions or when we get pulled into conversations about library or the library or something, like we can make sure we're balancing that with all of the other work that we're trying to do. And that's why this effort is town-wide and why we're engaging community members because we need people in their own homes to be doing things and to take this seriously. And we need to reach landlords. We need to, you know, get people to really rally to advocate to get the landlords to do the right thing because we have several complexes. Because again, as was pointed out already, you know, the university and the colleges are 50% of the town's emissions. So on the municipal side that you have sort of a more direct influence over is so small. So it's really this sort of time-wide approach where we really need to engage everybody that's different than what we've done before. Okay, just go ahead, Andra, yeah. I think there's some things that we can decide like that as the town's committee, we have members of the university and college communities, but we don't have any control. And so I'd like us to agree that we are focusing on, when we say 25% reduction by 25, 50 by 2030, we're talking about what we have influence over and that, you know, we're really glad that the university and colleges are making progress, that's icing. But our job is really the cake. I would agree with that from a perspective of we shouldn't be focusing our actions on the colleges and universities. I mean, I think to Stephanie's earlier point, if the colleges and universities are part of the footprint, which they are, we'll continue to include them. And if they're doing their job, that's gonna help us meet our goals. But yeah, we need to be focused in on what, you know, assuming that we guess we could make some assumptions about where they may or may not be in five years, but I think we need to focus in on what we can do in the community. Yeah, that was gonna be my same question actually, was, you know, what is, and I think we talked about this early on, but I sort of forget. I mean, what is, what's the boundary we're drawing around the greenhouse gases for our purposes with regard to our goals.  And I think our attention should really be focused on everything else. Exactly. And I wanna first credit Lauren with that point that if the colleges are successful, then the town is successful. I just wanna make sure that was Lauren, not me, but I do, I agree and I hear you, but I also wanna be, you know, us to be mindful of the language that the town council passed, you know, and it was pretty much community wide. It wasn't, you know, just over committed to this piece that we have control over. It was like an agreement that community wide, the town would be carbon neutral by 2050. That's everybody. So it's just, and yes, I would say, don't focus so much on the pieces that you don't have control over. Yes, absolutely. And that's why this effort to do so much citizen outreach and, you know, resident outreach is so important and also business engagement.  But I guess I'm talking about the, that we ought to have a dual accounting system, community wide, including the campuses and within the town community. And that we should hold ourselves to making the kind of, you know, meeting our targets within the town community and not rest on the work that's happening on campus. You know, what I heard Lauren say is, you know, if they're successful, we're successful because we don't have to do anything. We don't have to do as much. But that's obviously not true. Yeah. And we can't use the call just to buy us time. All right, somebody wants to say hi. Say hi. Hey. Hi. Hi. Oh, I should go grab the puppy. He's been a little hyper. Yeah, I was gonna say that, you know, to that point, that's, I guess what I'm saying is you are working with the part of the town that you have control over and influence over. And that's not necessarily the colleges and the university. I mean, you're certainly, I think want to work with them and collaborate with them to this goal, especially if they have those existing committees, then we wanna have some more maybe interface with them. You know, that's something maybe that can develop over, as once this plan is done, maybe that's one of the things you wanna do is like have more interface or have our representatives to each of those institutions liaison with them in some form or other, if you all are willing. You know, and then that's a way to, to sort of have a common purpose. But again, your, you know, your influence is over the community members, the businesses and the municipal sector, you know, the buildings, the town buildings. And there's plenty to do there. Again, and I really, I can't say and emphasize enough about the residential sector that I just think that's a really big piece that keeps getting missed because it's not something you have direct influence over and why something like CCA will be important and CCA programming, hopefully that is gonna happen, eventually will be important. Those are the types of things that I think, you know, the kind of thought processes that need to be looked to. Yeah, Lauren. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify too that by no means is I saying that with the colleges meeting their goal means that you guys don't have to do anything. I think if anything, it means that you can be more ambitious because there's more, we know that you are taking action and those actions are going to have impacts. And so we're gonna go above and beyond those goals, which is great. Yeah, and I just add, yeah, Andra, I think you're right. I mean, I think we should be trying to identify enough projects that we think are gonna move us to our goal by 2025 without the colleges doing anything. I mean, I think we should do that analysis, right? I don't think we should take them out of our pie for a few reasons. One being that just the fact that they're in our pie is part of the reporting requirements of doing an inventory for a community. But also because what if they stop doing what they're supposed to be doing? We would want the town to be able to use its influence to say, hey, Amherst College, the town has a goal and you're part of it and you need to do your piece. So I think we wanna be able to play both sides and but yeah, I agree, we shouldn't be, and I don't think that that was Lauren's intention, but I think we should be trying to identify projects that we can do now in the residential, municipal and community space that help us meet our 25% goal. Anybody else have any? This has been a really, I think, helpful conversation and bringing us back to some of the pieces of the work that we know we need to do. Which is great. Any other comments specifically on this presentation or just thoughts about this topic before we move on? I just think quickly just to restate the importance of the story that's being told with the images and where it's very clear and where it's not. And I know that the pie chart is not, it didn't come from Linnean, but for example, just the word community. I don't think anybody knows what that means and you have to dig into a long explanation in the back of that spreadsheet. So just as we continue to, as this continues to evolve, just asking what story is being told, how clear is it? Because I think it's very exciting. I was very excited by this presentation. Great, so I'm trying to just pull up my agenda here. Discussion on communicating goals to town regarding zoning and budget. So we talked about the zoning discussion having next time. And the capital inventory were West. We did get a proposal through from Darcy or draft from Darcy. Laura, can I just jump in real quick because there's a piece about the communications that I wanted to, I did some follow up on and I just wanted to report out on that I asked Brianna Sunrid, who's the communications manager for the town to attend the next meeting because she and I were talking about dashboards which is something that Darcy had brought up several times and I'm aware of, but just ways in which there might be something we can do, but she can sort of talk a little bit about what's been done for other committees, what we might have the capacity to do, some of what our constraints are. So she'd be willing to come to the next meeting on the 7th, on October 7th or whatever that date is, provided we put her at the beginning and we front load her. She'd be able to come. Yeah, that sounds great. And maybe on that, Lauren or Jim, could you let us know when the next task group meetings are? Yes, sorry, I thought we had, I did send out calendar holds to everyone with those meeting times, but just for the larger groups' knowledge, we did need to spread them out a little bit more than last time this time just because of scheduling conflicts with folks being at home with kids right now and yeah, dealing with those types of things. So they're spread out over three weeks. We have the first one happening the first week of October on the, sorry, I was blank my calendar. The first one is happening October 8th. That's gonna be the land use task group from 6.30 to 8.30. Then we have the following week, the transportation task group meeting that's happening Wednesday the 14th from 4 to 6 p.m. Then we have the renewables task group meeting happening on Sunday the 18th from 3 to 5 p.m. And the buildings task group meeting happening Thursday the 22nd from 6 to 8 p.m. And if anybody did not get a calendar hold from me, please let me know. And also I'll be sending out the Zoom invitation links with those dates to everybody and with the meeting notes from the second meeting. So I'll be sending it all together. And that'll happen by the end of this week. Okay, great, that's helpful. Yeah, so I think in terms of timing, I think it'd be great to have Rihanna come next week. Annabelle, can you go? And I'm thinking that we probably wanna have maybe, like I think on this topic of outlines and sort of the framing of the report, I think we probably need to move forward on that while we're going through the task group. I don't think we can wait until the task group series are all done. So maybe we can figure out how to add that as a, I guess I'd look to you all for feedback on how to do that in a way that's not making you overdue or redo work, but like how can we push that forward? And if we wanna start like digging into some of these questions that we were just talking about around like percent reductions and things, we could do that in the next couple of meetings as we're waiting for that final task group feedback. So the next item is around the capital inventory process. And I believe Stephanie forwarded this, maybe Stephanie, you could pull it up. Yeah, I was just gonna say, let me get it for you. So just to remind folks, this is a point that Darcy had brought to us that we were requested by the finance committee to make suggestions regarding the capital inventory process. And so Darcy's done a first thought that what information we think is important, I think what's missing here that we've talked about, which we can add is just like in general, they need to do the inventory that they already have. Like we know that the inventory includes questions about operational energy use, but they don't necessarily fill that piece out. So I think we need a tactful way to maybe add that here and potentially offer up eCAC support if they have questions or want help on how they can do that. So I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we have like chaos happening behind me. So you didn't see it right. I don't know anything about that Stephanie. Yes, so I'm sorry, is it not showing? It's hard for me, I can't see what you're seeing. It's not, I have it right here, I can pull it up. Is it showing now? Oh, you got it, okay. Okay, page or face now, sorry. So I guess if we could just maybe look through this quickly and if anything's hopping out at anyone as being missing, let me know. Otherwise I can just add that point about the life cycle costing and energy use and we can send it on. I think this looks really good. I just wanted to like on, and turn also to think about it from their perspective in terms of what will they be confused about and unsure of how to respond to or provide information. So like for HVAC systems, I mean, do we really want them to give us how many, would the greenhouse gas emissions from that? That would be, I'm not sure if they're in a situation. Yeah, I was gonna say some of this, there's way more here than the town is gonna be able to do. And even with the tools and resources that I have, I don't, I'd have to look to our inventory to get some of that information. But I would like on either HVAC systems or maybe it's buildings is, in addition to what you do have there is how much their energy use if Stephanie thinks that's possible. I think, I mean, and again, that's something that we're more able to do if we were doing a sort of basic reporting out on kilowatt hours per square foot or something. If we were doing something that was a more straightforward calculation then we can do that. Trying to do emissions or- Yeah, maybe- What about EUI? What about just a simple EUI? Yeah, that's- It'll all be the same units. Right, exactly. Like we could do EUI for the facilities and HVAC systems, but we can't, you know, we're not gonna be able to do just greenhouse gas emissions. Yeah, I think potentially maybe we're just looking for the information we need so that we could do that calculation, right? Exactly, exactly. On the buildings, I think it would be helpful to know if they're steam heated or hot water heated. Oh gosh, now I've got another one. Chaos over here. I'm feeling so much better. Oh, okay, the cat's to the cat. Yeah, the cat was writing on- Thinking for you. If I am on mute, there is like a battle going on just outside my door. If you all, they could hear it right now. It's bad. Okay, that's helpful. Anything else? I think maybe Stephanie and I can go through this list and just update it to remove. I think that's a good point, Wayne, that it should be stuff that they can easily answer and that we could use. Is there anything else that's missing? Maybe plans already in place for upgrades, replacements, not just routine ones, but the water treatment plant is going through some changes already, right? Yeah, there's some buildings that we're specifically targeting to look at changing out the heating systems to, oh my goodness, sorry, I'm tired. Help me. To electric, yes, just something more efficient. Yes, thank you. Yes, heat pumps and yes. Yeah, I think that's a good point because even like projected lifetime necessarily doesn't necessarily say that when it's, they're thinking, but if they're thinking that this piece is gonna be replaced in the next two to five years or something, that would be helpful information to know. Yeah, and that's the kind of thing I think that I was saying to Darcy too, that the town is starting to work on. We've got this new person who's really great and it started with the building commissioner and he started to try to put things together and create sort of a master list so I know that there's an effort underway. I mean, they're looking at sort of the status of each municipal building and what state it's in and what heating systems are, exist and what can be changed out and we have funding to do some work too. There's definitely been projects that were, there was funding allocated for them that just haven't happened yet. So we still have lots of things that we can do. So this is a good timing to try to get this in front of them to consider all this. Okay, great. Yeah, and I think we can, I noted it here, but I'll add it to the top. Like just make this, make it clear that we're here just to help and support and be partners in this work. It's what I often say. Okay, well, we'll sort of make these changes and send this through. If anybody has any thoughts that come to them in the next couple of days, let us know. Let's see. I think that was everything on the agenda. We've talked about the next meeting agenda as well. Anything else, any last thoughts? That folks have? Or we can give ourselves some time back. Okay, great. I'm gonna take that as a no. All right, thanks everybody. We will talk soon. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye.


our 242nd episode of Think Pickerwise, Human Humane Architecture, and you are about to be our 12,940 second viewer. And we're reporting life again from our transcontinental transcultural triangle, however, a little reduced this time because you, DeSoto Brown, in your Bishop Museum, hi DeSoto. Hello, everyone. And me, who we wish so for quite a while in the past, viewing the things in Honolulu from a distance, which sometimes makes a lot of sense. But also it makes sense to get up close and look. And that's what the two of us, DeSoto, are again, because I returned to Honolulu and I'm reporting here from a recording and reporting from my BB, which don't be afraid if you watch or pass shows. It's not one of these big bathrooms, because luckily or I should say, you know, fortunately, I can't afford one of these and never would I want one of these. But it's my bunkered bathroom in the Grand Hotel of Waikiki. And the reason why we can't basically do the show from outside, which is my ongoing experiment of easy breeziness with a single length hair blast jealousies of the sliding door open all the time is because we haven't converted Waikiki into what you suggested, DeSoto, about two shows ago into a more walkable neighborhood. As of now, we have the distraction of leaf blowers, lawn mowers, AC units on food delivery trucks and you name more than that would not allow you to listen to me. So that's what we're in here. But to be transcontinental, we are only things to you, Ron Lindgren, back in your Long Beach, California. Hi, Ron. Hello, everyone. Good to have you back. And Ron, again, thanks all the time. The more we think about what we have to report on in these shows, we can thank you enough for what you blessed us with the most exotic tropical architecture. And I was just we're just chatting before the show that I did my reconvene my early routine tour in your Hale Kalani and you agreed it by all the ground staff and they're happy to hear from you and we're happy that again, as we reported in a couple of shows, really not much significant change has happened. Even the bar that you were happy and you thought it's a great addition is now clad with some white tiles, pretty nondescript. So they're not really pretty much in your face. And that delivered your kind, generous opinion that you said, Ron, that you should have added that bar weight back then. And now that they do makes it makes it even better. So on these happy notes, unfortunately, we have to turn into some sadder stuff, very bad stuff. First slide up, please, because we don't want to forget that I just escaped the temperate and flee to our tropics here. And not very few people in the Ukraine have that chance. And the way their homes look like is what even the star appetizer here on the left pays attention to where all their facade or their threshold is blown out. And as we've been talking, this spring has been dragging along and has been really cold. So that easy breezy tropical exotic that I can demonstrate here is not possible over there, unfortunately. And on the right side, we see a couple of show quotes. Once again, Ursula von der Leyen inherited one of the worst possible form of this towers by Cope Himmelblau and that tradition, as we're reporting on some shows in the past here at the bottom left, is continued by colleagues Björke Engels and Ben van Berkel. And sort of ironically dismissing on what had been setting a signal beacon like in Frankfurt, which was Norman Foster's tower, the commerce tower, which we just reminded ourselves by looking it up is actually Korean now. Koreans bought it and at least the initiation of the developments in our area here in the Alawana area is also a Korean developer. So I thought immediately, well, then they should know if they're interested in buying a beacon of sustainable high-rise architecture, right? Maybe we should remind them of that. So they look up that that knowledge again and apply it to these projects here and lifting our spirits up a little bit when Iran had notified us about a number of how many residential high rises are destroyed. What is that number again, Ron? Yeah, in the city of Kharkiv alone, they're counting up as many as 1900 high rises not all flattened to the ground but all made completely uninhabitable. Yeah. And that's obviously utmost tragic as it can be. And lifting the spirit up. Is that no form and foster again? The architect of that most sustainable at least at its time high rise that he blessed us with in Frankfurt now basically reaches out to a mayor in the Ukraine and saying when hopefully this war will be over soon, I'm going to promise to help rebuilding.  Of course, you know, you want to bring back the historic legacy of but then as you also have always been looking and are looking to the future, you should also innovate that tradition. So obviously this is a great opportunity and Jay and I talking yesterday, it would be something to look up to. And if anything, and I think that's the way foster also meant it, not saying he wasn't serious. I think he's probably dead serious, but also it gives us a chance to gain to lift up our spirit and, you know, keep the fingers crossed for that happening sooner than later. But things being, you know, yeah, and I can also add to your home country of Germany went through this in World War Two even more extensively than Ukraine has. And there was exactly the same debate. How much do you rebuild? How much do you restore? What destroyed buildings do you replicate? And what new buildings do you build? So you, Martin, have lived through this. I've seen the end of tail end of that.  Yeah, I know it is. And but to be fair and correct, right? We caused that misery to ourselves back then and the Ukrainians have not, right? We don't want to absolutely. That's right. That's right. But carrying buildings down and actually decent buildings and good buildings is unfortunately something we have to continue to report on. And on that note, let's go to the next slide and you update us on that one. Just a little. Well, this is actually a complex of two different buildings on Kapilani Boulevard. And that's what we're going to be focusing on is what's going on on the Kapilani Boulevard strip, which is being extensively redeveloped right now. This is actually, as I said, two buildings. The lower building in the front facing Kapilani was a two story furniture showroom constructed for the C.S. World Company in 1958. But they always had the idea that they were going to add to that. And in 1965, that three or four story building behind it was constructed as well. But they're all together as one as one unit now. And this is yet another building that is probably going to be threatened or is threatened with demolition for yet another high rise in this area, which is growing up very quickly now. And obviously we look towards what are the good things on this older building? And not only is there sort of that interesting texture of those sort of shields, concrete shields that are across the tops of each one of those vertical windows, but they do probably do have some level of performance as well because they do provide some shade at certain times of the year. And shading, as we will talk about and as we have talked about a great deal, is very important here in the tropics. So just making a plain glass box is not to everybody's advantage. And if you can add things to cover up the sun, you're doing a good thing. Yeah, and I want to add the rain to that one. And they really remind me of what whoever created us has given us, which is eyebrows. And we all know that when it rains, the rain gets redirected to the side and keeps our visibility right. So they're pretty much like exactly right or lids very cleverly designed. And as you see in the row up there, portrayed by Bundit Kanista Khan and his exhibit about the master Alfred Yee that Iran had the privilege to have been working with, with your firm, he was as Bundit reminds us, the structural engineer on this project. And he was using something that great specific Rocky Mountain precast up to these days has the up all skills in which is prefab because prefabrication is very efficient and effective, and especially these lids are prefab elements that got basically craned into the project. So something very innovative at its time and actually pretty innovative to these days as well, because pouring these high rises in plays is actually pretty ironic with the cost of labor you have on the island. This is the way in efficient and effective way and using really the skills of great specific Rocky Mountain precast out there in Campbell Industrial Park would be actually way more clever. But then again, the Soto and Iran as well. We're, you know, progressive enough to say, OK, if something and, you know, we have a couple of questions from our colleague, Mark and Mark, thank you for all of these. We will address these over the coming volumes of the show. They're primarily, you know, what are these developments about, who's benefiting from them, what they're missing out on and would there be alternatives? And so while certainly I would up front and say we are basically trapped between two mountain ranges on the island. So we have a limit of land is garcity of land. So building high is pretty much the only or the main solution. So the problem is not that we build high, but the problem is how we build high. And that that needs to be addressed in a more creative, creative way, as we think. So how will this? So we're saying if something really good gets replaced, has to be replaced, maybe for a density reason, because this is only four or five stories high, then maybe needs to be replaced with something taller. But then, of course, something that is even more innovative and that exceeds the high level of innovation that this building already had. And if and how that will be achieved gets us to the next slide. Are you like wowing and are super excited about this? Do I hear that? Well, it does. It does harken out yet again. This is this purportedly is what's going to replace the buildings we just looked at. And it does have this kooky connection between the two towers. And it's not unlike the landmark building, which already is standing in Waikiki as sort of the entrance to Waikiki. But how innovative it is, we will have to wait and see. And Ron, you certainly have been informing us about some buildings like this in Singapore that really do have innovative aspects to them. And that is picture four, Michael, if you can zoom on into that one. And that's a safety Singapore, Ron. Tell us about it, please. Yeah, I was going to say Kapiolani 1500, which is the sort of cryptic name for this project, is about 500 independent residential condos. And I have to admit, it has a very lively massing to it. And when you look closely, there are some very serious attempts to go green, to bring gardens into the sky. In some cases near the ground, you see some very large wall surfaces around the plinth that are actually covered from top to bottom, side to side with live greenery. And there are ways to do such a thing and to make that be beautiful. And on certain lanai floors, there are actually pretty large-scale trees showing growing. And then there are two amenity decks, one on top of the plinth, which is parking above retail at grade. But the one at the top is at a 34th floor. And that's a sky deck with a very large pool and a lot of greenery. Yeah, I think you have to give a lot of credit to this developer for putting together a project that is very lively and massing. It does have balconies, at least. I'm not sure I can call any of them lanais because I'm not having enough depth or furnishing, but the attempt to make things green must be applauded. Interestingly enough, as far as the market goes, 1500 Capiolani with its 500 condos, 60% of them are studios-only. And to make this a discourse, again, appreciating your collegiality, Ron, and recognizing there's something finally coming up that is more than just one plain box. But I will counter that and say, here's actually two plain boxes that maybe the green in there isn't as essential but more sort of effect-driven. Yes, you have one tree every, what, six, seven floors. But that is not, Michael had intuitively zoomed into number five. Can you do this again, please? Because this is a better example and this is what this one might borrow from because this is by Woha and Woha is that firm out of Singapore that prides itself to looking most into bio-climatic high-rises. They're easy breezy. There is some criticism to that as one of the external consultants that Bundit brought into the current, the ongoing Tropic Caring show where he was saying, well, they're mostly doing this in the common areas on the ground but the units are still pretty much conventionally conditioned. But again, you see similar elements in here but you can say Woha takes it to a more substantial level. And also the number four, Ron, tell us a little bit about what DeSoto was pointing out to that this project reminds you of Marsha Softy's project in Singapore and share with us to what regards. Yeah, when you look at Copy Lime 1500, you will see that that sky deck is actually a bridge between the two towers. That's really quite an interesting thing but it's really just playing off of something that most Softy has done extremely well over the years. Ever since 1967, when he built the habitat in Montreal, which was, oh, 350 or so concrete boxes that ended up being 158 houses. But from there, he found work in Singapore and the one that we were looking, the flag we were looking at just before was something now called the sky habitat in Singapore. And it has, again, this time there are two towers and there are actually these bridges, three of them that connect tower to tower. An interesting thing to do. The top one at the roof at the 57th floor has a 100 meter long swimming pool as the bridge but the two bridges below are actually meant to be communal spaces for the people living in the 500 or so condo apartments that are in this project. They actually are combination streets, terraces and gardens in the sky and the two towers step very interestingly and energetically and every unit has a very large lanai quote unquote because they're almost nine feet deep so that one could actually furnish them and use them as an outdoor room. What doesn't show in the most Softy schemes that really appeals to me is that these full block and sometimes larger projects can just be a block from getting from one place to the other but Softy wants his projects to be penetrated by sidewalks as continuations of city sidewalks. He wants the public, he wants to create a whole new sort of public forum and he wants to make these buildings not be so hermetic and looking in on themselves but welcoming and pulling people in from the city and live in a new urban experience. Yeah, and using these multiple piece that you provided, you know, the perforated with publicity. I also recall the term that used previously porosity and to bring porosity, you said he doesn't, he is actually objecting the typology of high rise and he wants to keep the ground floor open and porous but he also does that if you guys look up, we provided the link here to that source of architectural digest. If you look at it, also the fenestrations have that aim. So the project almost, we're still on the number four picture project is trying to read it dematerialize itself in its appearance almost decomposition itself. And I think that's what the new proposal isn't doing. It's doing the same old. We see too much glass. We see glass guard belts, which Safdie's project basically doesn't have. It has a combination of opaque ones that you can hide behind and find actual shade. And then there's open ones from the side. And also again, the greenery seems to be more decorative in here. And once again, it's certainly another exclusive project. We should also point out number five. This is Safdie's first inaugural project. It's actually his thesis project that he built. And that's an encouragement for the emerging generation. Make such an awesome thesis project. Make your thesis project that awesome that it will be built. And that's the habitat building on the Expo. Yeah, that one in Montreal in 67 where the multiple shows with Larry Medlin was doing the German Pavilion together with Fry Otto. So anyways, there's way more substantial innovation which is what Safdie is known for as, and the names of the architects of this project here we couldn't really retrieve to that regard which is also quite sad. And again, going back to Soda to the Landmark building we're also challenged and charged to maybe write one of the first architectural guides about our city that has been there in a while. So I, you know, I'm not saying it won't but I'm kind of questioning if that building might make it in there, although it has this very catchy gesture, right? Of that hole in the middle in that bridge up there. But at least there's some function above that in that bridge and here it's just a gentrified pool scape for the very rich people. And is that really, do we really need more of that? That's to be further debated in this show and in many more shows obviously coming. We no surprise are questioning that. So let's go next door to this building. Ever side of this new proposal is next layer. This slide is what we see here. And this might be seen as the sort of initiation or the nucleus of that new development in this area because there's two buildings and one is the one on the left, the Walgreens building and that brings back memories of this owner, right? Lots of. Well, yeah, we had a lot of debate when this was created and as you pointed out, I have told me, this is an architect from Germany who came up with this. So this was a concept that Walgreens at the time, which is the national drugstore chain was trying out, which is kind of a super Walgreens two story with a lot of other amenities to it. And it has this very distinctive sort of fractured facade. The architect claimed to have been inspired by Hawaiian fishing nets, which I don't quite see, but there it is.  So it sits empty now. It was intentionally constructed with a parking building attached, which is strong enough and reinforced enough to be able to support a high rise built on top of it. So this could still become another high rise built on part of the lot where this Walgreens, formerly Walgreens was. This also, as you just said, is this intersection of K.A. Amoku Street and Kapilani Boulevard is really the focus or the nucleus of what's going on right now with the construction of multiple high rises inspired by the planned expansion of the Honolulu train system to terminate at Alamoana Center, although at the moment that is up in the air. And if it does come to happen, it probably would not be in place and functioning to at least 2031. That's quite some time from now. However, we still are seeing a bunch of high rises. And one of those, the one that's right in the center here, which is one of the early blue glass buildings, of which there are an abundance and more are going to be built, it's actually part of Alamoana Center. It was constructed at the same time as the rest of this retail part was facing onto Kapilani. And it really does not fulfill what we hope buildings will. First of all, it is oriented in the incorrect direction so that it is interrupting the flow of the trade winds. And secondly, it's just a plain blue glass box.  It will get hot in the full sun and it requires a good deal of fossil fuel to air condition it all the time so that it remains livable. And just beyond that is another one of the early high rises as part of this new batch. And it does have lawn eyes, although you don't see them here. And again, however, it does face in the wrong direction. Its axis is not fulfilling what we would prefer would happen with these high rises. Yeah. And talking your cultural heritage in the solar and us Kuki Germans, Bettina Maynard, who is the one who's a principal and now an architect to why he was once at our school doing this pitch of having the warrants being inspired by your culture. I think it's something that your culture didn't had which is a microwave or refrigerator. And the terms of like these are American terms that I'm actually believing in because we always go back over the summers and the breaks to look at my work and how it's holding up over time. And Americans, these terms don't exist in German. So listen, this is your evidence-based design, EBD, your post-occupancy evaluation, P-O-E of your L-C-A life cycle assessment. And this building probably gets the worst ratings because you took all this energy, all this fossil energy of all these materials involved, built something that is orientation and fenestration wise wrong. And then the most lack of sustainability as this word that summarizes is all it's to keep it as long as you can because you put all this fossil energy in it. And this was only a couple of years before it was closed down. So one would even think was that intentional, right? Just to make a placeholder but it's way too much of an expense for a placeholder. And before we have to close very soon again another story to that one Alamoana to the right that you explained to us when I just came and summarized myself with what is actually the innovative nucleus of the areas of favorite Alamoana building. And I heard that the guy in charge of development is not just a colleague of mine as an architect but also a fellow European who was in charge at general growth properties who sold it now. I did a pitch presentation to him and he basically said, oh well, I didn't know I had such a beauty meaning the Alamoana building. And I said, well, now that you know whatever you do, you do with knowing. And secondly, he said, look down and he said, well, given all that you probably might not like what we have just been completing which is one Alamoana. And I said, yes, sir, that is the case. So anyways, yeah. And we have the Capulani Residences is the first inaugural of that new boom there but these two buildings might have started that in the tragic way. And the story is not over because there is as of now I think we can say unfortunately more to come along these lines but we have to save that for next time for next week. So hope to see you again for that one. And until then please stay inclusively tropical and tropical it's inclusive, not exclusive because these are all exclusive that's in my mind when I'm trying to say goodbye to you, right? All these projects are not for the increasing needs when I will leave this suffocating bathroom now I will catch the breath and breath again and be on my line. And I see the people down in the park that we need to provide for and not the rich ones. We have enough rich people on the island. So with that, see you again next week. Bye guys. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


Stina, what is your definition or perspective on what service design is? Service design is a way to use principles from the design discipline on both personal but also impersonal touchpoints on the customer journey. So this video is just one piece of the puzzle. Make sure you check out some of the other episodes to get the full picture. And if you'd like to learn how to explain service design in plain English, check out the free course that I've got for you over here. Thanks so much for watching and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.


In our previous video, we had talked about unions and intersections of sets and which how unions correspond with the word or and how intersections correspond to the word and when it comes to set theory. Now that we want to come over to logic, specifically Boolean logic, we want to see their counterparts. In logic, a conjunction is an expression that uses the idea of and and the symbol we use is actually an upward pointing arrow. If you want, you can compare this to the intersection symbol. It's just ours comes to a point as opposed intersection doesn't. I mean, to make a calculus pun here, a union has a horizontal tangent line while a conjunction is non-differential, all right? And so a conjunction is when you're using and so you put two ideas together by an and. And so consider that for a moment. Look at these three primitive statements. So P, Q and R, let P be the statement one is an even number. Yes, I know that statement's false. We'll play with that in a second, but just take it as a statement, right? False statements are still statements. One is an even number. Three is an odd number. Five is a prime number. So that's P, Q and R respectively. Respectively here meaning that the order I listed these is the same order I listed these. It's not scrambled up or anything like that. So this is P, this is Q, this is R. So if we were to consider the statement P and Q, and so that's how you read a conjunction, you just say the word and. Honestly, many of us will forget the word conjunction unless, of course, you saw that schoolhouse rock song, you know, conjunction, junction. Anyways, P and Q, it means you put the two statements together via the connection, the connective of and. So P and Q means one is an even number and three is a non-number. That's how you read it. Now, how do you interpret it? When it comes to Boolean logic, a conjunction is only true if both primitives are true. So if the first statement was true and the second statement is true, then the conjunction, because the conjunction is itself a statement. While P and Q were simple statements, P and Q is a compound statement. But as it is a statement, it is either true or false. And the truth value of the conjunction will be determined by the truth values of the primitives. And that's what this right here is supposed to indicate to us. If your two primitive statements are both true, then the and, the and statement, the conjunction will itself be true. So for example, if you promise your children that you're going to go to the store and buy them ice cream and cookies, if you don't buy them ice cream and cookies, then you lied to them that because your statement was false.  Or conversely, if you buy them cookies but not ice cream, you've also lied to them that statement was false. The only way your children will be satisfied in this situation is if you get cookies and ice cream, both have to be true for your statement to be true. And that is what this is saying here. The conjunction is only true when both primitives are true. If one primitive is false, then the conjunction is likewise false. And of course, if both primitives are false, then the conjunction was likely false.  And that's how we should interpret these conjunctions. So then pivoting back down to these statements we were looking at a moment ago. P stands for one is an even number, three Q stands for three is an odd number, and R stands for five is a prime number. If I look at the statement P and Q, remember, this means that one is an even number and three is an odd number. This statement, one is an even number and three is an odd number is itself a false statement. Why? Because it's a conjunction. It's an and statement. Ands are only true if both statements, the first and second simple statements are true. But this one is a false one is not an even number. Well, you know, three is an odd number. This is true. And so we currently have a false and true scenario. So the first one was false, the second one was true. And so the and statement becomes false. This is false because the first thing is false. Likewise, if you look at the statement P and R, what would P and R be? P remember is one is an even number and five is a prime number. Well, the statement R is a true statement. The statement one is an even number is false. So when you conjoin a false and true statement via an and that makes it a false statement for the same reasoning. All right, both primitives have to be true for a conjunction to be true. On the other hand, if you take the conjunction R and Q, that would be the statement five is a prime number and three is an odd number. Well, five is a prime number. That's true. Three is an odd number. That is true. And so with the and statement, since they're both true, that makes the conjunction a true statement. The statement, which is compounded by the word and here's that's how you connect two statements together, its truth will be dependent upon the individual truths here. Since they're both true, the whole statement is true. An and statement is only true when both primitives are true. That's what we need to remember about and now let's look at the counterpart of a conjunction, which is actually a disjunction. And if you want to make a schoolhouse rock about that one too, you can do it, you know, disjunction, junction, what's my function? It rolls off. It's the same rhyme there. A disjunction conveys the idea and logic of an or much like we did with unions with set theory. Disjunctions are about or and the symbol is very simple, very similar as well to unions. The symbol for a disjunction, it kind of looks like a V, much like how for a union, you have a U and the same the same joke about calculus applies right here. The union symbol is going to be smooth. It has a horizontal tangent line as opposed to the disjunction. It's going to have a non differential point at that cusp right there. And so it looks like a V and it carries this idea of or where or means at least at least one is true. They can both be true. Both is okay. That's a possibility. No problem with both being true. And so a disjunction works in the following way. If one of the primitives is true, the or statement is likewise true. So if like the first primitive is true, then this is going to be true as well. So let me give you an example of this. Let's say you're trying to make a promise for your kids here and which case, oh, let's I'm going to go to the store and get ice cream or cookies because you're such great kids or something like that. When secretly it's just you want ice cream or cookies, but you know, you make the kids feel like they earned it. You're going to buy them anyways. Anyways, so let's say that this is the promise you made them. Well, if you come, you'll go to the store and you buy the ice cream, then that means you were telling the truth. The kids will be happy about it. Conversely, if you instead buy the cookies, but not the ice cream. So the ice cream is false, but the cookies is true. You still told the truth. Everyone will be happy about it. Now, if the unfortunate situation is you go to the store and you don't buy ice cream and you don't buy cookies, right? Both statements are false.  They might not even let you inside the house. But of course, there is a fourth possibility. What if you go to the store and you buy cookies and you buy ice cream, right? What if both statements are true? Well, you still kept that you still were telling the truth, right? You bought cookies or ice cream, you got both. That was a possibility and they'll be ecstatic because you got both cookies and ice cream, right? So in the situation of both, that'll be true as well. Or does not mean in logic what it often does in English words, an exclusive thing. Or by default is inclusive of war where both statements could happen at the same time. So a disjunction is true if at least one of the primitives is true. If they're both true, that's also true. The only way a disjunction can be false is if both of the primitives were false. Now, conjunctions work the exact opposite. For a conjunction, sure, if they're both true, you'll get true. But if one of them is false, so if you get like true and false are false and true, of course, if they're both false, then you're going to get false in that situation. So there's this duality between conjunctions and disjunctions. A conjunction is only true when they're both true and a disjunction is only false when they're both false. But just think of it as and or reasoning. So let's look at our primitives, P, Q and R again, where P is the statement, one is an even number. I know that's false. Let Q be the statement, three is an odd number. I know that's true. This time we're going to tweak R a little bit. This time R is going to be six is a prime number. The reason I changed is now this is a false statement, five is a prime number. That was a true statement. So I did want to change it a little bit because disjunctions and conjunctions work a little bit different. So look at the compound statement P or Q. So P was the statement, one is an even number. Q was the statement, three is an odd number. And our V symbol here means or. And so that's our compounded statement, the disjunction. So from what we've seen before, I guess I just hit it. There we go. From what we've seen before, P is a false statement. One is not an even number. Three is an odd number. And since this is an or statement here, we end up with false or true. This compounded statement is in fact true. So you might be like, okay, either one is an odd number, excuse me, one is an even number or three is an odd number. That's a true statement. Even though I know one of them is false because the other one's true, that makes the compound statement true. And similarly, if you took the statement R or Q, that's also a true statement. Or excuse me, R is six is a prime number. That's a false statement. Q, three is an odd number. That is a true statement. So false or true is true by the same reasoning as above. Now, consider the statement R or Q. So one is an even number, which is not true. Or six is a prime number. That's likewise not true. So you have a false or false happening right here. False or false is actually a false statement. Because both primitives are false, that means the compound statement is also false. And so from this video, I just want you to be able to learn how you can compute the truth value using these two connectives, the conjunction to form an AND statement and a disjunction to form an OR statement. And we'll do some more calculations with these new logic operators in the future.