Meanwhile,

polar ice is melting. The July 21 issue of

Science reports that the massive Greenland Ice Sheet, which contains roughly 10% of all fresh water on earth, is melting at a rate of 12 cubic miles (51 km3) per year. This melting results in 0.13 mm of sea level rise worldwide annually, according to NASA researchers.

In what EPA is calling the “largest enforcement penalty ever taken against a single ‘smokestack’ company under the Clean Air Act,” Portland, Oregon-based Willamette Industries is expected to spend in excess of $90 million in fines and pollution controls. The company violated the Clean Air Act by failing to install proper pollution controls or... Read more

Although the number of

local green building programs is still relatively small—there are fewer than 20 nationwide—forces are growing. In June of this year, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (Greater Seattle) released their Built Green™ program. Partners for the home builder-based program include King and... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council would like to thank

Environmental Building News for an excellent article in the June issue on the development and content of LEED™ Green Building Rating System (EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). We are extremely excited by the market response we have seen and believe that LEED is, and... Read more

Recent doctoral work in geography by Ryan Jensen at the University of Florida-Gainesville revealed that the city of Gainesville has twice the leaf coverage of the nearby city of Ocala. When Jensen then checked average utility bills from the two cities, he found that Ocala residents were paying $126 more per year than Gainesville residents.... Read more

On August 1, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation merged its GreenStone cellulose insulation division with the U.S. Fiber division of Casella Waste Systems, Inc. to form U.S. GreenFiber, LLC. With the creation of this 50:50 joint venture, both U.S. Fiber and GreenStone have ceased to exist. The new company will... Read more

A study commissioned by the City of Portland, Oregon attempts to quantify the impacts of applying the LEED Rating System to city buildings. Allen Lee and his associates at XENERGY, Inc. examined three relatively new buildings and found that they could have achieved 32 LEED points (the minimum number required in the LEED 2.0 ballot version) with... Read more

According to statistics from the American Public Transportation Association, reported in the July-August issue of New Urban News, public transportation ridership is up. In 1999, Americans took 9 billion trips on mass transit—a level not seen since 1960 and almost 40% above the low of 6.5 billion trips in 1973. The 1999 level is still far lower... Read more

by Sandra F. Mendler, AIA and William Odell, AIA. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000. Hardcover, 400 pages, $69.95

When we reviewed HOK’s Sustainable Design Guide in 1998 (EBN Vol. 7, No. 5), our only complaint was that it lacked a pretty cover. Now that it has been updated, expanded, and published by a mainstream publisher, The HOK... Read more

A British mortgage lender, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P), has teamed up with the environmental group Future Forests to make its green mortgage “climate neutral.” Homes must have a Standard Assessment Procedure rating of 80 or greater to qualify (80 out of 100 in an energy rating program similar to our HERS). N&P,... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council’s success with a green building rating system for commercial buildings has led to the formation of a task force to develop a residential LEED system. Approximately 40 experts in energy-efficiency, indoor air quality, materials, and sustainable land development recently met at the Johnson Foundation’s Wingspread... Read more

BP Solarex, the subsidiary company formed when British Petroleum acquired Solarex Corporation, is now

BP Solar. This change is part of a new corporate look for BP (no longer BP Amoco), which includes a logo with interlocking green and yellow sunbursts and the catchwords “beyond petroleum.” According to a company press release, “The... Read more

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 50-unit Erie-Ellington Homes housing project was held on June 22. The triplex units cost $94... Read more

I’ve been harboring this illusion that once the doubts were adequately addressed, the world would wake up and take real action to... Read more

The

Innvironments® series from Innovations® in Wallcoverings picked up Best of Show at the recent NeoCon® event. Three products make up the series. Eco-Alchemy is a scrubbable Type II (general use in areas of average traffic and scuffing) covering made of recyclable nylon on a polyester and wood pulp backing, which allows... Read more

EBN conducted an... Read more

I’d like to thank you for publishing such an excellent article on the LEED™ Rating System (EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). Not only does it provide a helpful snapshot of the system’s content, but it also pointed out some of the history, challenges, and unresolved issues in the system. I need to provide a... Read more

The TranStar... Read more