Please explain what makes “polyester yarn … impregnated with an acrylic-based material” fire resistant, as claimed in the article “PVC-Free Interior Shade Screening from Nysan” (

Vol. 12, No. 12). As far as we know, polyester and acrylics are both flammable.

Tim Burns, President

The Vinyl Institute

Arlington,... Read more

® landscape timbers, fencing, and pavers made from 100% post-consumer plastics, closed its doors in February. The Stamford, Connecticut company survived perennial capital shortages over its 15 years until an accident last April left owner Celeste Johnson unable to maintain sales streams, which plummeted more... Read more

Kaplan, McLaughlin and Diaz), based in San Francisco, has been awarded the prestigious MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Award for the design of the Jie Fang Daily News and Media Group headquarters in Shanghai, China. The project employs numerous green systems, relying heavily on natural ventilation and... Read more

The

Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) was launched in December 2003, initiated by Meeting Strategies Worldwide, of Portland, Oregon. Recognizing that over a million meetings and events, and over 12,000 tradeshows, are held each year, GMIC is committed to “balancing economic, environmental, and community objectives as they relate to... Read more

11 liters) of diesel fuel each year, emitting over 350 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Facing a predicted 25% increase in these numbers by 2012, EPA launched a new program in February focused on making America’s... Read more

In a unique agreement, the leaders of four architectural institutions have committed to sustainable design. The “

Barcelona Declaration on Sustainable Design” was signed at the Construmat Fair in Barcelona, Spain by Jaime Lerner, representing the International Union of Architects (and former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil); Paul Hyett, for... Read more

by Angela Dean. Gibbs Smith Publishers, Layton, Utah, 2003; 136 pages, softcover, $24.95

Homeowners wanting to understand what a green home is and custom home builders wanting to introduce green home ideas to potential clients could benefit... Read more

Continuing a trend of rapid growth, the

U.S. Green Building Council announced in early February that it had accepted its 4,000th member. USGBC membership—which is open only to companies and organizations, not to individuals—hit 2,000 in September of 2002 and 3,000 in May of 2003.

Thank you for the excellent article on the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild conference (

Vol. 12, No. 12). I would like to take issue, however, with the claim that the conference was free of carbon dioxide (CO

2) emissions.

The chart accompanying the article shows that this claim was made because USGBC received a... Read more

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), representing 155,000 Inuit people in Russia, Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, is planning a human-rights legal case against Arctic states—particularly the United States—for their

complicity in global climate change. “What is at stake here is the cultural survival of Inuit as a people,” said ICC... Read more

In an appendix to the draft environmental impact statement for the

World Trade Center reconstruction project in lower Manhattan is a set of sustainable development guidelines that should help green the huge 16-acre (6.5 ha) development. Already, construction equipment on the site is using low-sulfur diesel fuel and high-performance... Read more

The product line includes 34... Read more

The year 2003 tied 2002 as the

second-hottest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All five of the hottest years on record (since record-keeping began in 1880) have now occurred since 1997. Details are available on NOAA’s Climate Data Center Web site, at www.ncdc.noaa.gov.

... Read more

In its Beyond 2000 Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) set a goal of reducing nonmunicipal solid waste by 88% by 2010. In order to reach that goal, the SWMP has proposed banning the disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) waste at both private and municipally owned landfills... Read more

U.S. Department of Commerce Silver Medal for her work. Lippiatt is an economist in the Office of Applied Economics of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory at the National... Read more

A study by leading global climate scientist Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Larissa Nazarenko of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies suggests that carbon black (soot) from the

burning of diesel, biomass, and other fuels may contribute more than was previously thought to global warming, especially in polar regions. Soot accumulation on... Read more