CHILDREN?S fascination with tree houses evolved out of their desire to create a sense of place away from the serious world of adults. Lately, however, even adults have taken a liking to tree houses for their homes.

A particular ?tree house? has caught the attention of many people the world over. It is called the Heliotrope, from the Greek words for ?sun? and ?turn.?

The heliotrope in Freiburg is a high-tech house that rotates on a single huge axle at the center of the house. The column or ?trunk? is standing on a rear gear with a swinging element run by an electric motor. This makes it possible to orient the building according to the movement of the sun.

The cylindrical house has triple heat-absorbing glazing on one side and high heat insulation on the other side. It has a billboard-sized solar panel on the roof and evacuated tube collectors for heat gain and passive solar window use.

It also has a waste compost system and a research monitoring system to control heating and cooling.

Rolf Disch is the German architect who designed the Heliotrope for his family residence. He is also responsible for many of the solar-powered buildings around Freiburg, which is today considered as the ?solar capital? of Germany and is a role model far beyond Europe.

Freiburg can justly be called the birthplace of the green movement. It successfully campaigned against a nearby nuclear power plant in 1975, thus establishing the legends of the Green Alternative Movement.

With Freiburg now a rallying point, a coalition of student, farmer and anti-nuclear activists together with proponents of a new social movement began to emerge. They did not want nuclear power in their backyards and fields.

By 1986, the year of the Chernobyl disaster, the municipal council decided to abandon nuclear power. Solar energy was to become the main source of energy.

The protest led to experts converging in this intellectual city with many good universities to help develop alternative energy solutions.

Today Freiburg with a 200,000 population has more than 900 solar installations and contains well-known research institutions and companies working to make renewable energy more practical.

Homes, neighborhoods, and whole communities are individual power houses generating solar energy for their use. They belong to the energy-plus category of energy consumption because they generate more energy than they need.

World situation now

Carbon emissions today, mainly from coal-powered plants and fossil fuels are affecting not only the atmosphere but also sea waters, and sea water acidity in some places has gone up 30 percent. This has a negative effect on marine life, animal life, and human life.

People everywhere are looking around for renewable sources of energy. The poor countries are rather slow in the race and are accused of burning most of the coal that pollutes the planet. The other side of the argument is that the rich countries are buying the cheap products that the poor countries are producing. But that?s another story.

European benchmarks

At a recently concluded energy conference in Europe, energy efficiency and conservation benchmarks in the European Union were discussed together with other environmental issues.

It was noted that the ASEAN region?s standard of 220 kWh/sq/year, is much higher compared to the standard in Europe. And yet how many of us in the region are able to maintain energy use at that level for commercial buildings?

Nuclear power

The Philippines is now looking at the possibility of reviving the nuclear plant to reduce our dependence on coal to fire our power plants.

There is one vital question that many would like to ask the experts. And that is, if and when we activate the nuclear plant, how do we handle nuclear waste without harming the environment and the people?

Perhaps we can study what Freiburg has done to earn the enviable title of the greenest city in Europe and probably in the world.

Freiburg enjoys regular sunshine six months of the year, and the people make good use of precious solar power. The city now stands for a unity of soft ecology and hard economy. Environmental policy, solar engineering, sustainability and climate protection are the main focus of their economic, political, and urban development.

Our country has sunshine practically the whole year. When will we make good use of this precious and abundant resource? When will we muster the political will to carry on extensive research to develop affordable and environmentally-safe technology to harness solar energy for homes and offices?

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