According to noted Muhlenburg College biologist Dr. Daniel Klem, as many as 1 billion birds a year die in collisions with windows. While some attention has been given to nighttime collisions of migrating birds with large buildings such as office towers, Klem’s extensive research indicates that the vast majority of strikes and fatalities involve... Read more

It’s never good to misquote a source, but it’s especially embarrassing when that source is one’s own research! In our “Buildings and the Environment: The Numbers” feature article (

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Vol. 10, No. 5) we listed the amounts of paved area in the U.S. in millions instead of thousands. The correct values are:

•Total area of public... Read more

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has a

new global warming action Web site—

www.SafeClimate.net—where individuals and businesses can determine and take action on their carbon dioxide footprint. The site contains an easy-to-use carbon dioxide emissions calculator, suggestions for ways to reduce estimated emissions, and the... Read more

At the 2001 Convention of The American Institute of Architects in Denver, AIA members reacted remarkably quickly to the Bush Administrations Energy Policy, which was released as the convention got under way. On May 19, 2001 delegates passed a resolution titled “

Design and Energy Efficiency Initiative-Committee on the Environment,”... Read more

Advances in wireless communication and Global Positioning System

(GPS) tracking are improving mass transit. A system created by NextBus sends users automated phone alerts when a designated bus is nearing their bus stop. The system has been extensively tested in San Francisco and was recently installed in Vail, Colorado. For information... Read more

by James Wines, edited by Philip Jodidio, 2000. Taschen; Köln, Germany. Paperback, 240 pages, $24.99

“Without art, the whole idea of sustainability fails.” With this principle at its core,

Green Architecture argues that technological approaches to reducing the environmental impacts of buildings are, in themselves, not enough to head off... Read more

Scientists at NREL have achieved a

new efficiency record for cadmium telluride photovoltaic cells. The new record of 16.4% beat the previous mark of 15.8%, which had stood since 1992. Cadmium telluride is an increasingly attractive PV technology. First Solar’s new 100 MW CdTe plant in Toledo, Ohio began operation this spring (see

... Read more

I read with great interest your recent article “Getting the ‘Right Stuff’: A Guide to Green Building Retailers” (

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Vol. 10, No. 4). Your newsletter has always been a source of valuable, and credible, information. I would like to tell you a bit about my company and point out a couple of differences of opinion I have with your... Read more

On April 12, 2001 the U.S. Department of Energy released EnergyPlus, the successor to its venerable DOE-2

energy simulation software. For many years, DOE-2 has been the standard energy modeling tool for large buildings and the benchmark against which other simulation tools are tested. It has some weaknesses, however, including being notoriously... Read more

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recently reported on sulfurous emissions from painted drywall (

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Vol. 9, No. 11), but the actual source of the problem was a mystery. We now have some answers. According to Joe Lstiburek of Building Science Corporation, some painstaking investigation and very expensive chemical sampling has identified the problem:... Read more

California gave a big boost to small power producers in the state by

increasing the cap on power-production systems that can feed power into the grid through

net metering provisions. The cap has been increased from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawatt. Net metering laws or regulations in more than 30 states allow power producers to “run... Read more

by Norbert Lechner, 2001. John Wiley & Sons, New York. Hardcover, 640 pages, $85

The Second Edition of

Heating, Cooling, Lighting is one of the most useful and important books on building design in the last ten years. The book is not inexpensive, but it’s worth every penny. Norbert Lechner, an architecture professor at Auburn... Read more

On March 23, Dewees Island developer John L. Knott Jr. and the City of North Charleston, South Carolina announced a 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) urban revitalization project—“the largest such effort in the world,” according to Knott. Four years of behind-the-scenes planning and negotiations with public officials were needed to come up with the plan,... Read more

Nigel Howard

has accepted a position as Vice President of the U.S. Green Building Council, with primary responsibility for technical development and implementation of the LEED™ Green Building Rating System. Until November 2000, Howard was with the Building Research Establishment in the U.K., where he oversaw that organization’s influential... Read more

Most of us have a general understanding that buildings and the process of development have a pretty big impact on the environment. But what are those impacts and just how significant are they?

For this article, we have attempted to track down a wide range of statistics on the impacts of buildings on the environment. Most of these are fairly... Read more

EPA Energy Star® has just refined its logos and their use. Most important, there is now only one certification mark for all labeled products, including homes. The growth of all the various Energy Star programs prompted this effort to

consolidate Energy Star brand awareness among consumers. In a recent letter to all partners, the manager of the... Read more

The architecture and engineering firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) was among the recipients of this year’s

Green Cross Award from Global Green USA and Green Cross International, the peace and environmental organization founded by Mikhail Gorbachev. Accepting the award for HOK from Mr. Gorbachev at the April 25, 2001 gala in New... Read more

While efforts by American industry to clean up its act have been well publicized in recent years, toxic releases appear to be on the increase. The quantity of

toxic chemicals emitted by U.S. industry grew by 5% in 1999, according to the annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A total of 7.7... Read more

It was great to hear from so many of you again—over 200 subscribers completed and returned our second reader survey this past fall. We pored over the returns, looking for trends, ways we can improve

EBN, and things not to change. It was particularly interesting to compare the current results with those from our first subscriber survey conducted... Read more

Droughts are increasing

in severity in many parts of the United States. In the Southeast and Northwest, drought conditions range from moderate to extreme, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In pockets of West Texas, the Central Appalachians, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Iowa, and eastern Tennessee, drought conditions... Read more