Sunil Somalwar, a physics professor at Rutgers University, presents the following argument at the Better World Club site:
How can LEED hope to transform the building industry in an environmental mold if, to highlight the achievements of buildings, it relies on outmoded stores of value whose extraction and use does vast environmental and social harm: Silver, Gold and Platinum?

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Common-sense steps can cool your home and reduce the need for air conditioning.

I'll admit it. I dread this hot, sticky weather. Give me a cool autumn-like breeze any day, even if it means wearing a sweater in July. But I also hate using a lot of energy, including electricity for air conditioning. So, what are our options for staying comfortable in the summer with little or no use of air conditioning?

Here are a few suggestions:

The price of crude oil is reaching historic high levels.

As I write this, crude oil has hit another all-time record price, above $145 per barrel. Heating oil is over $4.50 per gallon today, with some local pre-buy contracts above $4.70 per gallon--almost double my pre-buy price last winter ($2.60/gallon). It doesn't take a math degree to figure out that this sort of price increase will hit hard this coming winter.

Excerpted from a post titled "The Unclear Origins of Oil" on Kevin Kelly's CT2 (Conceptual Trends and Current Topics) blog:

Excerpts from a BuildingGreen press release that's being distributed today:
There are a number of easy ways to weatherize your home for the winter and help reduce energy costs.

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In researching Forbo's Marmoleum Composition Tile (MCT) for the July issue of EBN, I found out that the product wasn't actually all that new. We had first covered the idea of it in 1998:
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, swings and swings and swings and misses the point entirely. As do most of the comments — over 2,200 of them so far. So much darkness.

A graphic from The Oil Drum — Gigatons per Year of Cement Produced: