Belmar featured in PBS “Green Builders” Documentary

April 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Community Notices, Green News

Belmar is receiving national exposure in the NJN Public Television Special, A Green Revolution Takes Root in the Garden State , which premiered on PBS stations beginning on Sunday, April 19. The documentary was filmed in Hi-Def format, and includes several stunning clips of Belmar, whose green building efforts are highlighted in the documentary.

“A quiet green revolution in the building world is evolving, and a first wave of innovative green design projects large and small have already hit the ground. NJN’s one-hour high definition special Green Builders profiles a cast of green building pioneers who have taken the leap into making their part of the ‘built environment’ a more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly place,” according ot the NJN advance about the documentary.

Funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, with support from the Cape Branch Foundation, Green Builders makes an excellent case for green building, and manages to include a vast array of approaches and viewpoints in the 60-minute broadcast. The documentary’s central thesis is one I believe strongly in, namely, that there is “no single way to build green.”

As the NJN advance describes the program: “Green Builders takes a wide-ranging look at a variety of approaches and levels of commitment, and at the individuals who have helped turn green building theory into reality. These individuals are not just builders and designers; they’re teachers and homeowners, corporate leaders and academic specialists, leaders of institutions and universities as well as renegade inventors. From The Willow School to PNC Bank to the first solar-hydrogen home called The Hopewell Project, people talk about why they made the move to go green, what the challenges were, and how their project has fared. In most cases, one finds that a green building project has more to do with smart planning and a mindset change about energy use than expensive technologies or consumer sacrifice. Innovation helps, and there are plenty of innovations included in Green Builders that are making green technology effective and affordable. Geothermal storage, wind farms and extensive solar array systems are examined in the program. As the stories in the documentary demonstrate, it is crucial for us to change our perspective on how we build, recognizing the wasteful impacts of the traditional mode of building and operating our structures, and realizing the environmental and economic benefits of building green. Only then will the green building movement be successful.”

The documentary also emphasizes a point that I consider essential to the long-term success of green efforts in the United States — the need to develop green techniques, policies and technologies that improve the environment without the need to sacrifice. As the NJN website explains, “The individuals in Green Builders have made the move to building green without suffering, sacrificing, or experimenting with a wispy might-happen. These are real projects on the ground, working businesses and college campuses that prove you can change your carbon footprint once you change your way of looking at how a structure operates. Collectively, the green builders are building the foundation for a more widespread movement toward making America’s built environment less harmful to the dwindling supply of healthy natural resources and even less expensive to operate. Their homes and offices are the proving grounds for green building, and their personal experiences reveal that building greener is less complicated and expensive than you probably thought, and more rewarding in the long run.”

Green Builders was produced by NJN’s very talented writer-producer Bob Szuter, who also produced The Highlands Rediscovered and Turning the Tide . To see an online stream of the documentary, click here . The segment about Belmar starts at about 35:20 into the video. The interview with Mayor Ken Pringle, and those of a number of others who appear in the documentary were, taped at a well-known, 100-year old Belmar landmark. Can anyone tell from the background?