by David Pearson. Gaia Books Ltd. and Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2001. Hardcover, 95 pages, $16.95.

Treehouses features arboreal residences from all over the world in a wide range of styles, scales, and levels. Some of these homes shelter activists who have taken up permanent residence in a tree in the... Read more

Gypsum Construction Handbook (see page 145 in the 90th anniversary edition), there is a completely impractical detail for depressing and subsequently hiding wallboard butt joints. But in the head and hands of a craftsman, this detail has been transformed into the ButtHanger, an elegant (despite the name) materials and labor-... Read more

Following 10 years of often-rancorous debate, California Governor Gray Davis on October 9 signed into law a bill that requires builders of large subdivisions to demonstrate that there will be

adequate water supplies for the development. The new law prohibits cities and counties from issuing permits to projects with 500 or more homes... Read more

Our recent spurt in production at BuildingGreen—new editions of

GreenSpec,

EBN Archives and

Green Building Advisor—has brought home a message that we often convey to others: being environmentally responsible can be a challenge.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority released two

Program Opportunity Notices announcing nearly $2 million in funding for high efficiency lighting products and demonstrations (PON 629-01, $1.2 million) and heating and cooling (PON 649-01, $750,000). Proposals for both are due in late November. Details are... Read more

by Dan Imhoff, forewords by Randy Hayes and Sim Van der Ryn, 2001. Watershed Media, Healdsburg, CA; 707/895-3490,

www.watershedmedia.org. Paperback, 136 pages, $22 plus shipping.

Mayor Richard Daley saw his first planted roofs several years ago while visiting Chicago’s sister city of Hamburg, Germany. At the same time, he was learning about urban heat islands (in which our urban areas maintain temperatures considerably higher than surrounding suburban and rural areas). He was particularly attuned to the urban... Read more

Through a new partnership with the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC), Home Depot stores across the U.S. will now contain

recycling stations for used portable rechargeable batteries. This partnership should provide a significant boost to the efforts of nonprofit RBRC to keep cadmium, lead, and nickel out of the... Read more

Kompan, Inc., the nation’s largest manufacturer of commercial wooden playground equipment, is

the latest manufacturer to abandon CCA-treated wood. Citing concern on behalf of customers, the company completed the switch to nonarsenic, nonchromium pressure-treated wood on September 15. Kompan is using Natural Select™ wood treated with... Read more

mourns the loss of friend and green building champion David Kibbey, of Berkeley, California, who died on August 9, 2001 after a long battle with cancer. A native of Vermont, Kibbey was an artist, craftsman, scientist, and counselor. He designed and built beautiful spaces, edited the

Architectural Resource Guide product directory,... Read more

At its August 19, 2001 meeting the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council voted unanimously to set a new course for updates to the LEED™ Rating System. “What we realized is that we’re overwhelmed by LEED’s popularity,” said LEED co-chair Rob Watson of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We wanted to ensure that LEED has a really solid... Read more

CD-ROM of 46 technical papers, 2001. Send a check (made out to “Tides Center/Ecological Building Network”) to: Bruce King, Ecological Building Network, 209 Caledonia Street, Sausalito, CA 94965. Price: $70 + $10 shipping

When we reported in

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 4 that annual energy use in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s recently constructed Cambria office building was coming in at 62,300 kWh, or $0.18/ft2 ($1.94/m2), we noted that this seemed too good to be true. Alas, this suspicion has been borne out. The incorrect energy... Read more

Vol. 10, No. 6). We are pleased to report that we were off by at least one! E-Crete, whose plant is located in Casa Grande, Arizona (near Phoenix), has been producing AAC blocks since December 2000. The... Read more

Edited by Lynne Elizabeth and Cassandra

Adams, 2000. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

New York. Hardcover, 392 pages, $70.

terrific overview of various methods

for building with earth, straw, and

bamboo. With writings from over 30

authors—many of them experts or

... Read more

guaranteed that every one of his homes would have annual heating costs less than $100. “My competitors just tore us up over this, claiming it must be bogus because it just could not... Read more

A $150,000 grant from the U.S. EPA is funding research by the New Buildings Institute (NBI) of White Salmon, Washington, to

assess actual energy use of newly constructed buildings. NBI will work with subcontractors Eley Associates of San Francisco and Architectural Energy Corporation of Boulder, Colorado on the project. Using the Energy... Read more

The tragedies of September 11th are almost too horrible to comprehend. We were fortunate at

EBN that no close friends or family members were killed or injured at the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. Our staff joins the millions around this country and the world in mourning the loss of life that occurred that day. We hope and pray... Read more