BuildingGreen Report

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June 30, 2008

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

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June 30, 2008
There are a number of easy ways to weatherize your home for the winter and help reduce energy costs.

It seems odd to be thinking about next winter's heating already, but a lot of us are. While the pre-buy contracts for heating oil last winter were for about $2.25 per gallon, it looks like the price this coming winter will be double that, and... Read more

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June 29, 2008

On June 20, a briefing about straw-bale construction organized by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) was held in the Russell Senate Office Building. Laura Bartels (President of GreenWeaver Inc. and member of the Builders Without Borders Building Team), Sandy Wiggins (immediate past Chairman of the Board of the USGBC), Bob... Read more

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June 27, 2008
In researching Forbo's Marmoleum Composition Tile (MCT) for the July issue of EBN, I found out that the product wasn't actually all that new. We had first covered the idea of it in 1998: "Forbo Industries also has some exciting new developments. The company is introducing a new linoleum tile this December that will be thinner (2.0 mm) and priced... Read more

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June 19, 2008
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, swings and swings and swings and misses the point entirely. As do most of the comments — over 2,200 of them so far. So much darkness.

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June 18, 2008
In the process of looking into carbon calculators for buildings as a behind-the-scenes assistant for the EBN feature article "Counting Carbon: Understanding Carbon Footprints of Buildings," I took a short detour into the wider carbon calculator world. While construction calculators may still be rare, the Web offers a multitude of general carbon... Read more

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June 18, 2008

A graphic from The Oil Drum — Gigatons per Year of Cement Produced:

Quoting from the website: Remember, in China, oil isn't used in cement production. In the "clinker" stage, it's all coal. In the blending stage it's electricity (which is generated 80% from coal in China). And cement production in China is inefficient. There are... Read more

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June 18, 2008

USGBC is distributing the following email:

The USGBC public comment period for LEED 2009 will be open until this Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 5 PM PST. Any member of the public may comment on the proposed changes to LEED. USGBC will respond to all comments and post the comments and responses (without commenter names or organizations) to the... Read more

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June 17, 2008

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

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June 12, 2008
7/1/09 Update: If you are looking to learn about the LEED 2009 rating systems, there's no better tool out there than our own LEEDuser.com, which was launched since this post was made. LEEDuser makes the LEED credit language available online, which is a great step up, in my book! In studying for the LEED-AP exam, the best advice I received was to... Read more

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June 10, 2008
A friend of mine near Barcelona wrote me that truckers in Spain are on strike and are blocking roads. They demand the government set a 35% haulage tariff, which would be in proportion to the increase in fuel costs in the past year. Anticipating the stores will soon be empty, my friend made a trip into town, by train, to get a 50-pound bag of rice... Read more

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June 6, 2008
French climber Alain Robert, who has taken to climbing skyscrapers instead of cliffs -- so far he has made more than 70 urban ascents -- scaled the New York Times building June 5. Before being arrested, Robert unfurled a banner reading, "Global warming kills more people than 9/11 each week." Robert targeted the Times building as the perch from... Read more

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June 5, 2008

Greasy Socks and Certifications Recently I was doing research for a brief item about green education for "real estate professionals," that is, real estate agents, appraisers, house inspectors, and loan officers. I read about a new course being offered, covering global climate issues, green building, indoor and outdoor air quality, and, last... Read more

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June 5, 2008
I bought some Ultratouch cotton fiber insulation a few months ago thinking that it would be a great natural product for the cabin I am building. This is the stuff that comes in blue unfaced batts, and is often said to use recycled blue jeans, although it uses pre-consumer denim from factory waste. I bought it from a (great) Brattleboro, Vermont... Read more

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June 3, 2008

So says the Urban Land Institute. The following grabs are from a couple slides in A Plan for Tomorrow: Creating Stronger and Healthier Communities Today and the nearly identical A Plan for Tomorrow: Creating Stronger and Healthier Cities Today, companion PowerPoint presentations to Higher Density Development: Myth and Fact.

"About... Read more

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May 30, 2008

Jennifer Atlee has posted notes from the session she co-presented at USGBC Cascadia chapter's Living Future 'Unconference'. See them here.

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May 30, 2008

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Read the current bulletin

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May 28, 2008
In some of the posts I wrote during the recent AIA convention, I was coming down pretty hard on "credit-chasers" in the ranks. (AIA members are required to earn 18 "learning unit" hours annually, with at least eight about health, safety, and/or welfare.) The conferences I typically attend are smaller and more focused than the AIA behemoth, and... Read more

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May 27, 2008

Does wind power increase carbon emissions? That was the question I asked in a recent post after seeing a analysis by Stanley Rhodes of Scientific Certification Systems, a major testing and certification agency for green building products, among other things. Stanley, who is a respected expert on life-cycle assessment, looked beyond the carbon... Read more

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May 23, 2008
I just learned about Arizona State University's new building energy/resource use dashboard called Campus Metabolism. The dashboard was apparently put together by a team of students and is currently up and running for their new Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) building, with more buildings to come on line in the future. It looks like the... Read more