Championing the
Changemakers

How to build a stronger country and a cleaner planet

Last week's column took a quick look at the science of climate change and how scientific hypotheses have shifted over time based on new... Read more

Global warming deniers have garnered a lot of attention in recent years. From opinion columns and letters in our local newspaper to heated reporting on Fox News (whose trademarked slogan "Fair & Balanced" is often anything but), those who doubt the underlying science of global warming are receiving unprecedented access to the American... Read more

10 Ways to save energy in 2010

Some energy-saving strategies involve spending money: replacing appliances and lights with more energy-efficient products, tuning up a heating system, and insulating an attic, for... Read more

You're down to the last few days before Christmas. You're looking for that meaningful, special gift for a family member, special friend, or co-worker. Buy a gift that keeps on giving--by saving energy! Below, is my... Read more

Interesting how it's at once forward-looking and backward.

Last week we took at look at one way to achieve very-high-performance windows: adding additional layers of glazing and multiple low-emissivity (low-e) coatings. This week, we'll look at another option that's even higher-tech: vacuum-... Read more

It won't surprise many of my readers to learn that I'm a fanatic about energy conservation and efficiency. That goes back more than 30 years to the mid-70s. During those years I've paid a lot of attention to windows--and seen dramatic... Read more

Here's a tool that tries to connect the best available science directly to the international climate change negotiations and commitments, and the politicians are using it! Perhaps that, in itself, is progress. "How Does It Work? In the run-up to COP-15, we are scanning UNFCCC submissions and news sources from around the world to collect... Read more

In this month's feature article, I talk about the risks of green building. I note that one of the problems with model contracts, such as those from AIA, is that they don't adequately address issues of green building technology, performance, or certification. Of course, a few days after that article goes live, AIA releases a model scope of... Read more

Last week I wrote about one of the innovative building materials that I saw at this year's Greenbuild Conference in Phoenix (phase-change drywall). This week, I'll cover a very different innovation from the conference: dynamic window glazing.

Windows provide some... Read more

By the end of Greenbuild, I was exhausted/troubled/elated with all sorts of conundrums swirling around in my head — not to mention a few partly written blogs, abandoned in favor of the next conversation... ... I had wanted to write about the 'executive roundtable' that happened that Wednesday — and responses to the twitter-submitted question... Read more

I just returned from the Greenbuild conference in Phoenix. This annual event, now in its eighth year, has become the leading locus for exchange of information about the rapidly growing green building movement.... Read more

The easiest energy savings come from little changes in our behavior that don't cause any hardship--or even result in ancillary benefits. Such is the case with reducing the amount of time spent... Read more