Its website says:

Repower America is the bold clean energy plan to "repower" our country with 100% clean electricity within 10 years. By making buildings and homes more efficient, ramping up renewable energy generation, constructing a unified national smart grid, and transitioning to clean and affordable plug-in cars, we can address our country's economic and national security challenges — all while making huge strides to solve the climate crisis.

Is it possible? Yes, it is. Will we actually do it? I'm less certain about that.

John F. Kennedy famously said in 1962, "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade." And in seven years, we did. We implemented new technologies and knowledge at a tremendous pace to support a vision, and we pulled it off.

What motivated us? What was at the root of that amazing achievement? We were afraid of the Soviet Union conquering space, and then using space to conquer us. In the same speech, Kennedy said, "Only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war."

Repower America uses this line of reasoning in their pitch, citing "our country's economic and national security challenges" as primary motivators, and noting that it can help solve "the climate crisis" to boot. Should nationalism be a motivator for renewable energy? We don't collectively seem to be afraid of the hellish potential of climate change (yet) to take unified, swift, and sweeping action... and it's not as if they're promoting jingoism, right? And it is unavoidably political after all, isn't it?

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For the EBN feature article this month I spent weeks learning about building-integrated wind. I'm a huge fan of wind energy in general, and the idea of putting wind turbines on top of buildings — or actually integrating them into the architecture of buildings — was really appealing. Why not generate the energy right where it's needed, and by putting turbines on top of buildings wouldn't you be getting them up higher where it's windier? What a cool idea.

Unfortunately, as I point out in this month's feature article, "The Folly of Building-Integrated Wind," it's actually pretty hard to get wind turbines to perform well on buildings and, even if you can, the economics are not very good. A huge challenge is noise and vibration. Spinning things tend to generate noise and vibration, and that can be a big problem when people are occupying the building those turbines are mounted on. I went from being open-minded about the practicality of building-integrated wind to believing that it's usually a pretty dumb idea.

Another big drawback to building-integrated wind is that even though it's often windy on top of buildings, that wind tends to be quite turbulent. It's twisting around and not nearly as effective for wind turbines as laminar flow.

But a lot of rooftop wind turbines are being installed — how are they working?

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They found Greg, and his car, yesterday — a month after he mysteriously disappeared. According to the Denver Post, he had slipped off the road and rolled into a ravine. Daily Camera has a more detailed article.

I was hoping that when we found out what happened to Greg, even if the news was bad, there would be relief in the closure. There is some of that relief, but it's overwhelmed by the suddenly concrete sense of loss. And of my own vulnerability. It's funny how my response to someone else's huge misfortune becomes about me and my fears, but that's how it's playing out right now.

Greg exuded vitality and energy. He embraced and energized those around him, literally all over the world. If someone with that strong a presence in the world can die so unexpectedly, what does that mean for me? A reminder that we're all here on borrowed time — at least in our current form. An invitation to use this time well.

For his family and friends, for everyone who is committed to green buildings and making a better world, Greg's sudden departure is a huge loss. There is some consolation, however, in recognizing how much great work he left behind, in his designs, his ideas, and the thousands of people he taught and inspired.

Look to the great folks at the Rocky Mountain Institute to help channel grief into yet more positive action.

— Nadav Malin

At the 2008 "Summer Camp" in the Adirondacks. Photo: Mike Cox

Gail has been a key part of the green building movement since its earliest formative days. She was one of EBN's most enthusiastic supporters since joining our advisory board at the beginning of 1994, and was always willing to share wisdom and encouragement whenever asked. For architects, Gail was perhaps best known as chair of the National AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) during a particularly formative period when the annual Top-10 awards were launched.

For thousands of architects, builders, developers, and facilities managers, Gail is remembered as an enthusiastic and inspirational teacher. She led more than 200 workshops and charrettes on green building, and never failed to brighten and inspire those participants.

I remember sitting in one of those charrettes — I can't remember where or when. After each of the 30 or 40 of us sitting in a circle introduced ourselves, I was astounded to hear Gail repeat each of our names. It was one of Gail's many gifts, and it helped each of those participants feel listened to and important. It was all about them, the students, not about her, the instructor.

Among the many charrettes Gail was involved with were the Greening of the White House, the Greening of the Pentagon, the Sustainable Design Initiatives for the National Park Service, and the Sustainable Design Training Program for the Department of Defense. I remember her describing the bizarre ending of a charrette at a military base on September 11, 2001. President Bush was diverted to this base on his return from Florida to Washington after the terrorist attacks. The military personnel didn't know what to do with these civilian instructors in their midst so, in the panic, locked them up in a room.

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Over 18 years and more than 160 issues of Environmental Building News, I've written quite a few articles — I hesitate to think about how many — but out of all of those, I think I had more fun and learned more in writing my most recent than ever before. "Growing Food Locally: Integrating Agriculture into our Built Environment" examines opportunities for producing food around, and on, our buildings that few architects, builders, or developers have yet considered.

I think I had my first vegetable garden when I was five or six — back in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. There were a few years during college and perhaps some of my time in New Mexico when gardening didn't fit into my life. But other than that, growing some of my food has always been important to me. Thus, I surprised myself to realize a few months ago that I had yet to write — or even consider — an article for EBN addressing the potential for integrating food production into our built environment. I had nibbled (sorry!) around the edges with articles about green roofs and passive survivability, but for some reason it never occurred to me to tackle this topic of food production directly.

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What's so funny about green building? Email me and let me know, or comment below.

Here's my latest contribution to the genre of green building jokes:

A LEED-certified building walks into a bar around closing time. It orders a drink, throws it back, and leaves. The next night, it comes in again, asks the bartender for a shot, throws it back, and leaves. It does this every night for the next year, without fail.

On the 365th night, after the building has had its shot, the bartender is surprised to see it sidle up to the bar's piano instead of leaving.

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I've traveled outside of North America only once in my life, and that was to Ireland in 2002. That was the year they switched from the Irish Pound to the Euro, and it was when they put a tax on plastic bags. We dopey tourists didn't know anything about that plastic bag thing before we got there. The deal, in theory, was this: If you wanted a plastic bag when you went to the store, you had to pay for it. But, at least where we were, in the southeast, the little goods-and-grocers we went to weren't even offering the option to buy a plastic bag — they simply didn't make them available at all. Or paper.

Once I found out about the new tax, I asked quite a few people there how they felt about it — people working in stores, and people shopping in them. To a number, every response was positive. The older folks remembered when that's the way it was anyway... everybody brought their own cloth bags and wicker baskets when they went shopping. No big deal. The younger folks said that it made so much sense, even if it wasn't as convenient. And everybody said that they didn't miss all those empty plastic bags blowing around the countryside.

They did say that there were people who didn't like the new tax at all, and that its introduction wasn't without some serious resistance. Resistance, I suppose, from people like the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which seeks to expose "the anti-plastic bag misinformation campaign." Misinformation such as this, I'm guessing:

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As promised, here it is.

GreenBuildingAdvisor.com is dedicated to providing the most useful, accurate, and complete information about designing, building, and remodeling energy-efficient, sustainable, and healthy homes.

A product of BuildingGreen, LLC, a provider of information on sustainable building for more than 23 years, GreenBuildingAdvisor.com also draws on the resources and expertise of partner Taunton Press, the publisher of Fine Homebuilding.

Most of us who bring you GreenBuildingAdvisor.com (Our Team) are former builders, remodelers, and architects. Because of that we know the need for a single resource where design and construction professionals and knowledgeable homeowners can get the full complement of the information — and insight — they need to design, build, and remodel green. That's why we've brought proven construction details, in-depth how-to advice, a green-products database, green business strategies, design tools, and alternate paths to code compliance together in one place.

Who is it for?

I've been scoping it out over the last couple days, and it's already so much deeper than I'd imagined it might be. Here's some quick links to some of my favorite content so far to get you going:

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Happy holidays!

If M. Night Shyamalan did a movie on carbon emissions, it might look something like this.

The Alliance for Climate Protection has a video that helps homeowners visualize their carbon emissions. After all, they're colorless, odorless, and come with a nifty time-delay of consequences that can lull a person into thinking that it's all going to be fine.

Everything was fine... until someone left the coffeemaker, but who? The bed is made, but no one's home. Whom does the dryer tumble for? The ancestral photo in the hallway? The lamp is on and blowing balloons. The refrigerator is strangely empty. Wait... it's happening in the whole neighborhood! "Village of the Damned... Emissions"?