Taxonomy Term

Do adobe homes really work in all climates? – Book review

Web Master — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Author name:

Tristan Roberts

Blog Category:

Books & Media

Nature & Nurture

BuildingGreen's Top Stories

The weather is turning cold here in southern Vermont. A friend just got chased off the Long Trail (which she was hiking from the Massachusetts to the Canadian borders) by 18 inches of snow on Killington. While the leaves are still turning here in the Connecticut River valley, it's time to start huddling up by the fire and thinking cozy thoughts.

It was with this frame of mind that I excitedly cracked open Adobe Homes for All Climates Simple, Affordable, and Earthquake-Resistant Natural Building Techniques by Lisa Schroder and Vince Ogletree. It's another well-produced addition to the library of natural building tomes offered by Chelsea Green Publishing.

Images:

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Urban Planning, 1948

Web Master — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:23:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

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

link to video

The Climate Scoreboard

Web Master — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:53:00 +0000

Author name:

Nadav Malin

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 a list of what we call 'current proposals' — possible scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions by UNFCCC parties. We share our compilation and use the C-ROADS-CP climate simulation to calculate the expected long-term impacts (in terms of GHG concentration, temperature increase, and sea level rise) if those proposals were to be fully implemented." For more info, see the Climate Interactive website.

Confronting Water Shortages — Post-Greenbuild Travels in Southern Arizona

Web Master — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:03:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

(click photos for larger versions)

Greenbuild in Phoenix was the usual high-energy panoply of educational sessions, new product introductions in an ever-larger trade show, networking events, and — the reason our company sends so many of us — opportunities to promote our green building information resources.

But this year, I was also looking forward to some vacation time following the conference. Jerelyn and I took five days' of vacation after Greenbuild to explore southern Arizona and celebrate our 25th anniversary.

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Why are people drawn to design inspired by nature?

Web Master — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:36:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

I received an email from a Design student at Kingston University (London) writing a dissertation on "why people are drawn to design inspired by nature." Three questions were sent; I went overboard answering the first one, and basically wussed out on the second two. I'd be interested in your takes on this highly subjective stuff, and will be sure to let our dissertation author in on the discussion.

1. Why in your opinion are people so drawn to design inspired by nature?

2. What in your opinion is the finest example of design inspired by nature in the field of product and furniture design (my course)?

3. Do you think there are psychological benefits to design inspired by nature, and what do you think they are?

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Living With Climate Change: How to Design Buildings and Communities for Adaptation

Web Master — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:34:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

The living space in this new home built by Global Green in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans is elevated four feet (1.2 m) to keep it above expected flood level. Numerous other "passive survivability" features are included.

A lot of people have been working for a long time to try to head off global warming — and some progress is being made. Buildings are becoming more energy-efficient, fuel economy standards for vehicles are finally rising again, and use of renewable energy is burgeoning.

We need to continue these efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon dioxide, but the reality is that it's too little, too late to prevent climate change. Even if the CO2 spigot were turned off tomorrow, the earth would still see significant warming and the other predicted impacts of climate change: more intense storms, flooding, drought, wildfire, and power interruptions.

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Mud and Straw in the Shadow of the U.S. Capitol

Web Master — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:56:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Bill Steen

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Men Should Pee Sitting Down

Web Master — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:21:00 +0000

Author name:

Allyson Wendt

Men should pee sitting down.

Now before you call me a strident feminist, let me say that I'm backed up on this one by male colleagues and the reasons aren't what you think. I'm not arguing for toilet equality here.

I'm talking about urine-separating toilets, which are much easier to use for men and women when sitting down. The bowl of these toilets takes urine in the front, feces in the back. It's hard enough to aim for the whole bowl (or so the evidence of many bathroom floors tells me), much less the front part of the bowl. One guy put a pee can in the corner, but that seems inefficient: pee in the can, then pour it down the toilet. Why not just pee in the toilet?

Why should you care? Because urine contains up to 90% of the nitrogen and 50% of the phosphorous in domestic wastewater. Those chemicals make for great fertilizer — stuff we have to use a lot of energy to produce artificially. In healthy populations, urine is sterile, and removing it from feces makes composting the solids easier and more effective.

Two models of these toilets are available in the U.S., both from Ecovita.

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B'eau-Pal Bottled Water - Dichlormethane, Carbon Tetrachloride, Chloroform...

Web Master — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

The label says:Bottled at Source — Hand Pump #1, Atal Ayub Nagar, Bhopal, Madya Pradesh, India.

And in tiny print:Not suitable for human consumption.

The nutrition label says:
Total Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0g
Sodium 22mg
Dichlormethane
Carbon Tetrachloride
Chloroform0%
0%
1%
-400%
-200,000%
-250%

The website says:The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world's largest industrial accident.

The Yes Men's website says:Twenty Bhopal activists, including Sathyu Sarangi of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, showed up at Dow headquarters near London to find that the entire building had been vacated.

Images:

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Putting Greenhouse Gases In Your Face

Web Master — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:11:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

This morning, at 33rd St and 7th Ave in the middle of New York City — right outside of Madison Square Garden and Penn Station — a 70-foot-tall digital billboard displaying a real-time running total of atmospheric greenouse gases was unveiled. The display reflects a measurement of 24 long-lived greenhouse gases (not including ozone and aerosols) named in the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols, and is based on Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research. The Carbon Counter is part of a "Know the Number" awareness and education campaign by Deutsche Bank's institutional climate change investment and research business, the DB Climate Change Advisors group (DBCCA).

In a press release, MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science Ronald Prinn is quote as saying:

"It is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change. This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase.

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Northeast (U.S.) Natural Building and Living Colloquium

Web Master — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Images:

Renewables may fuel new import addictions

Web Master — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Author name:

Tristan Roberts

It has become a truism that the U.S. is addicted to foreign oil. Heck, even George Bush owned up to it a couple years back. As we're trying to climb out of that addiction, are we about to fall into another?

As a Greenwire.com article points out, a boom in clean and renewable energy sources in the U.S. could lead to a new dependence on imported minerals and metals. We may shed our need for oil from the politically treacherous Middle East, only to replace it with a need for gallium and indium (ingredients in photovoltaics from central Africa, China, and Russia -- places with their own foreign-policy problems.

Says the article:
How about batteries for storing wind- and solar-generated power or for hybrid and electric vehicles? They need vanadium, zinc, bromine, nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium and rare-earth elements, a group of 15 metals that are "absolutely indispensable in the use of clean-energy technologies," said Mark Smith, CEO of rare-earth miner Molycorp Minerals.

Images:

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Wanted by Chemical Industry: Young, Pregnant Spokesperson for Bisphenol-A

Web Master — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:29:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

On Friday, May 19, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal published a damning story based on the leaked minutes of a private strategy meeting of food-packaging executives and chemical industry lobbyists that took place in Washington DC the previous day. The story's authors spoke with the chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance (NAMPA), John Rost, who verified the talking points, but indicated that the summary wasn't complete. "'It was a five-hour meeting,' he said."

On Saturday, NAMPA responded by distributing a press release claiming that the leaked minutes were "blatantly inaccurate and fabricated."

On Sunday, the Washington Post released its own story on the leaked minutes. They spoke with Kathleen M. Roberts, a lobbyist for NAMPA with Bergeson and Campbell.

Images:

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"You are brilliant, and the Earth is hiring"

Web Master — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:53:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Paul Hawken gave the commencement address for the University of Portland earlier this month, and it's making the rounds. Deservedly. Its message is as good for the building industry — for anybody living, for that matter — as it was for those graduating seniors. Here it is. Please read it.

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.

Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Images:

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The most overlooked building material in the U.S.?

Web Master — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:55:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Even though there are extant and occupied earthen homes scattered throughout the northern states and Canada from the mid-19th century, raw earth as a building material is overlooked in most of the USA. See Richard Pieper's article, "Earthen Architecture in the Northern United States" and these photos of earthen houses in upstate New York that I took in 2004, following Pieper's trail.

Those are the tip of the iceberg, of course.

Images:

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Food, Inc.

Web Master — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:03:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

The Obamas put in the first food garden (organic, natch) on the White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden during World War II. We dig that.

Skeptics may scoff that's it just symbolic, but I don't think so. According the The New York Times, the garden will have "55 varieties of vegetables, from a wish list of the kitchen staff. Cristeta Comerford, the White House's executive chef, said she was eager to plan menus around the garden, and Bill Yosses, the pastry chef, said he was looking forward to berry season."

And 1100 square feet can produce a lot of produce — the Old Farmer's Almanac says that "A good-sized beginner vegetable garden is 10 x 16 feet [160 square feet].

Images:

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Grow Clean Air!

Web Master — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Author name:

Allyson Wendt

The myth that plants will clean the air is a seductive one: if true, we could fix indoor air quality problems without expensive changes to mechanical systems and without worrying about what materials we introduce to the indoor environment.

There is scientific evidence that plants clean the air, pulling formaldehyde and other pollutants out of the air and turning CO2 to oxygen (after all, this is what trees and outdoor plants do for the earth). But plants are not necessarily a practical approach to fixing indoor air problems.

Kamal Meattle's talk on TED.com is a good example of how the myth of plants is promising, but not necessarily practical. He claims that three common plants can clean the air in homes and offices, and has shown this in an office building in New Delhi. Sounds great!

Images:

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Experts Say a New Ice Age is Imminent

Web Master — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:13:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

(For those who might feel that the Climate Denial Crock of the Week post needs some balance.)

Images:

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Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Web Master — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:57:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Peter Sinclair is a graphic artist, illustrator, animator, and environmental awareness advocate. He's been posting a series of "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" videos on the internet.

The Great Petition Fraud. "We've all heard about the 'Petitions' of 'Scientists' who disagree with Climate Science. This sordid little episode in the history of Climate Denial points up once again the fundamental dishonesty of the climate denial industry."

82 Tons of Earthquake: Straw House Gets The Shakes

Web Master — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:03:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Images:

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Something (Bioaccumulative) in the Water

Web Master — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the first-ever nationwide report this morning on the level of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) found in U.S. coastal areas and the Great Lakes. The report contradicts earlier surveys that suggested PBDEs, chemicals commonly used as flame retardants in commercial goods since the 1970s but in large part discontinued because of health concerns, were found in only a few U.S. sites." — Water & Wastewater News

Building on the recent post about flame retardants, here's an excerpt from the executive summary of An Assessment of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) in Sediments and Bivalves of the U.S.

Images:

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Redux: What do you do when a good product has bad stuff in it?

Web Master — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:36:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

About three weeks ago I posted here about a product that decreases heat loss, decreases installation time, provides a termite shield, prevents damage, is cost-competitive, and is partly made with PVC. We ended up listing this product in GreenSpec, and to our members' credit, we got some pushback. I cross-posted a response from the members-only system to the public comments of the earlier blog post; now we've received another thoughtful member comment, so I figured I'd bring the concern back here to the blog to hear what you smart people have to say.

A BuildingGreen Suite member wrote to suggest that this product, and any others containing EPS, should be reconsidered for potential removal from GreenSpec due to the use of hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), "a persistent, bioaccumulating, and toxic fire retardant [...] widely detected in household dust, sewage sludge, breast milk and body fluids as well as wildlife and the global environment. [...

Images:

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Building Science for Strawbale Buildings

Web Master — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:15:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Over at buildingscience.com, the online home of Building Science Corporation (where you can benefit from the big-brained research and synthesis of Joe Lstiburek, John Straube, and others), there are tons of great articles like Can Highly Glazed Building Façades Be Green?, Capillarity — Small Sacrifices, and Ground Source Heat Pumps ("Geothermal") for Residential Heating and Cooling: Carbon Emissions and Efficiency.

A new article went up there in the last few days titled Building Science for Strawbale Buildings.

Images:

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Growing Greener

Web Master — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:46:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

Over 18 years and more than 160 issues of Environmental Building News, I've written quite a few articles — I hesitate to think about how many — but out of all of those, I think I had more fun and learned more in writing my most recent than ever before. "Growing Food Locally: Integrating Agriculture into our Built Environment" examines opportunities for producing food around, and on, our buildings that few architects, builders, or developers have yet considered.

I think I had my first vegetable garden when I was five or six — back in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. There were a few years during college and perhaps some of my time in New Mexico when gardening didn't fit into my life. But other than that, growing some of my food has always been important to me. Thus, I surprised myself to realize a few months ago that I had yet to write — or even consider — an article for EBN addressing the potential for integrating food production into our built environment.

Images:

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Should the Plastic Bag Be Saved?

Web Master — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:07:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

I've traveled outside of North America only once in my life, and that was to Ireland in 2002. That was the year they switched from the Irish Pound to the Euro, and it was when they put a tax on plastic bags. We dopey tourists didn't know anything about that plastic bag thing before we got there. The deal, in theory, was this: If you wanted a plastic bag when you went to the store, you had to pay for it. But, at least where we were, in the southeast, the little goods-and-grocers we went to weren't even offering the option to buy a plastic bag — they simply didn't make them available at all. Or paper.

Once I found out about the new tax, I asked quite a few people there how they felt about it — people working in stores, and people shopping in them. To a number, every response was positive. The older folks remembered when that's the way it was anyway... everybody brought their own cloth bags and wicker baskets when they went shopping. No big deal. The younger folks said that it made so much sense, even if it wasn't as convenient.

Images:

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Stormwater Detention in a Parking Lot at The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

Web Master — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:07:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Posted live from Greenbuild.

Rock-filled channels between parking rows drain to a large detention area beside the lot.

In the background, rental cranes dance in the sky.

Images:

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You have 61 trees... please don't lose them

Web Master — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:26:00 +0000

Author name:

Tristan Roberts

We humans number about 6.5 billion. How many trees are there? NASA has been taking satellite pictures of the Earth's forests for years and sharing them with ecologists who have figured out an algorithm for calculating worldwide tree totals based on patterns of sunlight.

The result of that research is a worldwide tree census, as of 2005, of 400,246,300,201, or 400 billion. Now, do the math -- that's 61 trees per person -- a figure that professor Nalini Nadkarni of the Evergreen State College in Washington seems to have been the first to calculate.
Speaking on NPR, Professor Nadkarni said, "This number is one of the interesting things you glom onto, because suddenly you can picture yourself and these trees." That's something I relate to, living in southern Vermont with intimate experience with hundreds if not thousands of trees per person. The figure, which Professor Nadkarni acknowledges is approximate, puts worldwide demand in perspective.

Statistics from the North Carolina Forestry Association show that the average American uses over a ton of wood annually. That's equivalent to a single tree measuring 100 feet tall and 18 inches in diameter.

Images:

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Transportation Energy: Consumers vs. The Consumed

Web Master — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:02:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

A current article from Reason magazine (their tag line — "Free Minds and Free Markets" — might reveal a hint of a bias), "The Food Miles Mistake: Saving the planet by eating New Zealand apples" questions one of the main ecological premises of the localvore movement, saying:

...a comprehensive study done by the United Kingdom's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)... reported that 82 percent of food miles were generated within the U.K. — consumer shopping trips accounted for 48 percent and trucking for 31 percent of British food miles.

In the United States, a 2007 analysis found that transporting food from producers to retailers accounted for only 4 percent of greenhouse emissions related to food. According to a 2000 study, agriculture was responsible for 7.7 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Images:

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Guerilla gardeners caught on tape

Web Master — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:11:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Should we prosecute this type of illegal public improvement? Or participate in it? (The correct answer is the latter.) In this clip, ringleader Richard Reynolds incites rogue acts of civic delight:

(link to video)

Previously on these pages: Guerrilla Gardening.

Lost in Las Vegas: A Search of Irony in the City of Excess

Web Master — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:10:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

I spent three days in Las Vegas recently. I was there for the first annual WaterSmart Innovations Conference, sponsored by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the recently formed Alliance for Water Efficiency, EPA WaterSense, and several other sponsoring and partnering organizations and agencies.

The conference and trade show were great. They really were. I saw more than a dozen new products — some really cool — that you'll be hearing about in EBN and GreenSpec over the coming months. It was one of the best conferences — from a learning standpoint — that I've attended in recent years.

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On the Path to Passive Survivability

Web Master — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:49:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

Creating a superinsulated building envelope is one of the key requirements with passive survivability. I saw this superinsulated home feature when I was in Sweden last year.

Photo: Alex Wilson. Click for bigger.

Images:

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Outlawing Toilet Seats

Web Master — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:02:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

The current issue of The New Yorker has a sprawling piece about the illegal logging market, titled "The Stolen Forests", which cuts a global swath and at times reads like a spy novel.

They've also posted a couple related treats on their website: an audio interview with the article's author and a nice little movie showing poached Russian timber winding up as a toilet seat at Wal-Mart.

Which, in addition to being a Russian crime, is about to become an American crime. Finally. As noted in the article "Illegal Timber Trade Targeted by New Law" in the current issue of Environmental Building News, congress amended the Lacey Act in June to prevent sales in the U.S. of all timber and other plant materials illegally harvested elsewhere.

Also see The U.S.

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Shhhhh....Don't Tell Anyone. I Love Plants.

Web Master — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:39:00 +0000

Author name:

Allyson Wendt

As I was researching the current feature article on indoor plants, I was constantly questioning the science behind indoor air quality and productivity claims (a certain amount of skepticism comes with the job). The analytical side of my brain was looking at how studies were funded, performed, and presented. It was asking questions about real-world verification. It was finding that although there have been some promising studies, the science behind indoor plant claims just isn't fully developed.

Another part of my brain was making noise, though, piping up every so often with arguments for plants. Even as I was trying to pick apart the claims for indoor plants, I wanted those claims to be true.

I love plants. To be honest, I find them pretty miraculous. I have some plants that have made it through several moves with me, from two different graduate school apartments in Chicago to an apartment and finally a house in Vermont. One aloe plant has created so many offshoots that it has spread to three pots in my house and several in the homes of friends.

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The Miniature Earth

Web Master — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Better version: ww.miniature-earth.com

I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Web Master — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Plastics — chemical compounds which are compressed under heat into desired shapes, and thereafter are not subject to corrosion — are increasingly in use. Some are made of coal-tar products, some of milk; and one... utilizes the Chinese soy bean. This useful plant, is, next to rice, the staff of life in the Celestial republic; like beans, peas, and other "legume" plants, it contains the proteins, or nitrogen compounds, for which we eat meat.

The mechanical uses of the soy bean (which does not resemble American beans) are of more recent discovery. It furnishes a fibrous flour, which gives body to a phenol (carbolic acid) compound. Under heat and pressure, this changes into a hard, strong, glossy substance, suitable for buttons, knobs, handles, mouldings, etc.

Excerpted from "Auto Made from Beans," Everyday Science And Mechanics, April 1936.

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Hurricane Disney: Stormstruck in Orlando

Web Master — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:28:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

I was down in Orlando last week — land of asphalt, ChemLawns, and Mickey Mouse. As is typical in that part of the world, it was too hot outside and too cold inside. In one of the mammoth Disney hotels, I was participating for two days in the Tenth Anniversary Annual Meeting of an organization called FLASH. FLASH is the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes — it used to be the Florida Alliance for Safe Homes, which explains the "L."

FLASH is all about disaster resistance, so the sessions were about communicating fire-resistant construction practices, hurricane codes, 2x4 projectile penetration of wall systems, safe rooms in houses — cool stuff like that. In one session, two different speakers addressed pandemic flu — not because that's in the purview of FLASH, but because the challenges of educating the general public to those concerns are very similar to the challenges FLASH faces in communicating disaster resistance.

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Toilet paper is major emitter of bisphenol-A

Web Master — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:03:00 +0000

Author name:

Tristan Roberts

As a key component in polycarbonate plastics such as those used for reusable water bottles, baby bottles, canned-food liners, and some building materials, bisphenol-A (BPA) has become the new chemical to fear.

Despite that, I had to track down a paper from the Transactions of the Wessex Institute on research conducted at Dresden University to understand better what may be the next problem area to emerge for BPA: toilet paper.
Backing up, it's really about the thermal paper that has become ubiquitous in the form of credit card receipts and other point-of-sale printouts. Thermal paper is a very smooth type of paper with a thin coating of leuco dye, and a phenol developer such as BPA. This chemical cocktail is like an invisible ink that reveals a message under application of heat, usually with a laser.

Images:

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Learning From Ancient Fertilizer Factories

Web Master — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:37:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Talk about appropriate technology. They cooperate with nature on all levels — the design, the materials, the function... and gorgeous to look at besides. How would we build something like this today? This is very sexy stuff, even if it's all about pigeon poop. Click the image for a high-res narrated slideshow (or here for low-res.)

From Jadid Online:

The pigeon towers of Isfahan are a perfect example of man working with nature in common alliance. Before the use of chemical fertilisers alternative means had to be found for generating large quantities of fertiliser.

Using their knowledge of the natural environment the architects of Isfahan created pigeon towers. By attracting wild pigeons with seed and a safe place to roost the towers acted as a natural collection point for waste which could then be used as fertiliser.

Images:

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Teardowns and McMansions

Web Master — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:37:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Across the nation a teardown epidemic is wiping out historic neighborhoods one house at a time. As older homes are demolished and replaced with dramatically larger, out-of-scale new structures, the historic character of the existing neighborhood is changed forever. Neighborhood livability is diminished as trees are removed, backyards are eliminated, and sunlight is blocked by towering new structures built up to the property lines. Community economic and social diversity is reduced as new mansions replace affordable homes.

Images:

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Planet Earth goes online

Web Master — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:23:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

This press release just came through; sounds like it will be a pretty great resource. It's not up yet though — check it out in a few days.

The Natural Environment Research Council — the UK's leading organisation that funds research into the environmental sciences — is launching an online version of its award-winning magazine, Planet Earth, on 29 September 2008.

The website will be updated daily and feature news, features, blogs, opinion, podcasts and video from the environmental science community on climate change, biodiversity loss, volcanoes, earthquakes, the rainforests, oceans and poles. The content will appeal to a wide, non-specialist audience.
Editor Owen Gaffney said: "Environmental issues are at the top of the political and news agendas. We need to make independent, impartial environmental research news available to a wider audience. Planet Earth online will do just that.

"We have unique access to a massive range of science.

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The Gospel of Consumption

Web Master — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:16:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

America's buildings are no small contributor to our environmental difficulties and energy use... but they're far from the biggest part of the problem. The enemy is us — the choices we make individually and as a society. America's building envelopes are getting better and tighter, our heating and cooling systems are getting more efficient, but every year we keep using more energy. And our carbon emissions keep going up, not down.

Part of the equation, certainly, is that the U.S. builds more buildings and is home to more people all the time. But per-person energy use and emissions aren't just staying the same, they're increasing. The LIVE post Plug Loads and Small Electronics addresses just one small piece of the puzzle, but the example is cross-applicable.

An article in the current Orion Magazine, The Gospel of Consumption, takes a look at salient lifestyle trends over the last 80 years or so, with a dual emphasis on workplace issues and consumerism. (Excerpts below.)

Yes, life is different than it was 80 years ago. It's different than it was ten years ago, or even five.

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Mud, Straw, Sticks, Stones

Web Master — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

In a few days I'll be leaving for the fifth annual Natural Building Colloquium East in Bath, NY. I go every year. So does David Eisenberg and a bunch of other people that I really like.

Is it anything like them green conferences?

No. It is nothing like them.

(Most of the quotes in this article were gathered at the first colloquium held at that location five years ago.)

Tantalizing photos after the jump:

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The Not-So-Green Grass of Home: "Nature purged of sex and death"

Web Master — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Oh, we've written about lawns over the years. And so have other people.

The current New Yorker has a great article about lawns — looking backward, forward, and around.

Images:

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The Unclear Origins of Oil

Web Master — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:37:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Excerpted from a post titled "The Unclear Origins of Oil" on Kevin Kelly's CT2 (Conceptual Trends and Current Topics) blog:

Crude oil is almost $140 per barrel. By now you'd think we would know where it comes from.

The conventional wisdom is that oil descends from algae from eons ago. Lots and lots of algae. Unimaginable mounds of dead algae in quantities no longer found on this planet, pressed, and cooked into hydrocarbon liquids. Thus: fossil fuel. Others, notably the Russians, have an alternative theory that oil comes from non-biological carbon compounds deep in this planet, like the methane oceans we find on other planets.

An emerging third theory is that bacteria living within rocks produce oil.

Read the original post...

The Carbon Calculator Morass

Web Master — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:06:00 +0000

Author name:

Jennifer Atlee

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 calculators for businesses and households and also specialized calculators for everything from wineries to land remediation activities. It seems everyone is getting into the act — utilities, environmental groups, oil companies, government agencies, and offset providers (especially offset providers) are all offering up their own calculators.

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Making vs. Assembling

Web Master — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:46:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

I have a huge amount of appreciation and respect for (and some jealousy of) people plying artisan trades, and had a couple good conversations with AIA'08 exhibitors offering that sort of thing.

The John Canning Painting & Conservation Studios goes beyond artisan; check out the featured projects on their website. In my capacity as poster boy for the A Little Knowledge Club, we chatted a bit about lime plaster and mortar while I stood in awe of their portfolio.

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Preparing for the 2030 Challenge (AIA'08)

Web Master — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:19:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

"Using case studies of recent high performance architecture, this session will identify key strategies required to increase sustainable methods to achieve zero carbon goals by the year 2030. The case studies examine design strategies and processes for the next generation of sustainable architecture, going beyond current best practices through synergistic approaches to bioclimatic site design, envelope, energy optimization, daylighting, passive and active systems, and materials." Presented by Terri Meyer Boake and Mary Guzowski; provided by the Society of Building Science Educators.

So... much... important... stuff...

So... much... common sense...

There were entirely too many open seats — but nearly the entire audience was paying rapt attention. It felt like a real victory. Just eighteen credit-chasers left during the summary slide. I counted. True to form, during Q&A, the room cleared — but the exodus started comparatively late.

Listen. There's no way I can do this presentation justice, so I'm not going to try. Forgive me.

Product Certifications, and Social Justice (AIA'08)

Web Master — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:41:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Nadav Malin and Scot Horst offered up a great, head-twisting presentation about product certifications called "It's Certified Green But What Does That Mean?" to about 500 people. It covered all the territory in the EBN feature "Behind the Logos: Understanding Green Product Certifications" and more.

There may have been some misunderstanding on the part of some attendees who only read the title, however, and not the program description: It sounded like it might have been about LEED certification rather than product certification. And the amount of information to process, even though they presented it in an engaging, conversational style, was voluminous — especially for the abject novice — bringing to light individual certification program histories, inconsistencies, and limitations in what was probably about the simplest way to do it, which was nonetheless hard to digest.

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Trucks Without Gas... Really

Web Master — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:51:00 +0000

Author name:

Jim Newman

(click images to expand)Jerelyn and Alex Wilson of BuildingGreenWhat kind of truck doesn't use any gasoline or diesel fuel to move heavy materials around the city? A bicycle truck, of course.

Back in March BuildingGreen was introduced to The New Amsterdam Project , a bicycle trucking firm in Cambridge, Ma. We tried them out moving our convention booth and materials in and out the NESEA BuildingEnergy 08 conference in Boston. If you attended BuildingEnergy this year, you may have seen their red bike-truck parked out front of the Seaport World Trade Center.

We think this is a great development in transportation for cities like Boston. No carbon emissions, no diesel fumes, much easier on roads and traffic, and fast and efficient.

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Green Buildings and Infrastructure Are Half the Solution

Web Master — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:39:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

"Green buildings have captured the imagination of many in the mainstream, but for green professionals the time has come to stop designing for mere energy efficiency and start designing to regenerate and restore. And that means taking responsibility for what people do in buildings and communities after they are built." — www.greenmanifesto.org

Also from the website:

Communities are people, not buildings.
Communities will change when the people living in them change.
At least half of human impact on the planet comes from our lifestyles — the choices we make every day. Where, and how, we travel. What we eat. What we wear. The stuff we buy, and how we get rid of that stuff when we're done with it.
These lifestyle choices are not made in a vacuum.

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FSC-certified bamboo? Yes.

Web Master — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:01:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Smith & Fong's bamboo plywood panels are now available with FSC-certified bamboo.
If you're a regular reader of the posts here on BuildingGreen.com LIVE, you might remember that we had a couple folks from Smith & Fong in our offices back in January. That was when we first got wind of their pending FSC certification — for bamboo. But it wasn't a done deal. Now BuildingGreen is pleased to be the first to report the breaking news that FSC certified bamboo plywood is on the ground and available for specification. Though Smith & Fong isn't releasing the news until next week, they've given us the scoop and the go-ahead to tell all. Read the story FSC-Certified Bamboo Plywood Now Available.

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CO2 maps zoom in on greenhouse gas sources

Web Master — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:20:00 +0000

Author name:

Brent Ehrlich

One summer day a few years ago I was standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon expecting to look down and across at light and shadows melding with multicolored layers of bedrock, the whitewater from the Colorado River calmly glistening a mile below as it carves through rock and time itself... etc etc. Instead, I found my gaze drawn to a line of gray clouds blowing in from the west. They didn't look like rain clouds, and it wasn't long before I discovered it was smog carried on the wind all the way from Los Angeles. I did spend part of that day contemplating the vastness of nature and the power of time, but it was done through a haze of personal guilt. I had just come from a wedding in LA and was sightseeing my way back to Colorado. Part of that cloud was most certainly mine, just as the 3-D explosions of CO2 shown here engulfing most of the U.S.

Great Cities and Climate Change

Web Master — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Author name:

Jim Newman

Last week was great for learning about positive approaches to solving our collective climate change problems. First, I attended the MassImpact: Cities and Climate Change symposium at MIT on Friday (March 28, 2008). Then I got to see Michael Singer present some of his work at the down2earth event in Boston on Saturday.

Pretty jam-packed.

Jaime Lerner lead the MassImpact event through a visual description of his understanding of the ways that urban livability and vitality are directly related to reducing environmental impact and creating regenerative built environments. Jaime's perspective is summed up in his statement, "Every city that has a good quality of life... is sustainable."

Here's Jaime speaking at last year's TED conference.

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Earthen Architecture in Earthquakes

Web Master — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:06:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Down To Earth Building Bee (Vancouver, BC, Canada) had a shake test on a half-scale model of a cob structure done at the UBC Earthquake Engineering Research Facility. It happened a while ago, but they just posted video:

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RoofBloom

Web Master — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:10:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

"Instead of waiting for green roofs to come to the Twin Cities [St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota] as a product for mass consumption, RoofBloom was created to empower individuals with the knowledge and materials needed to install green roofs themselves. A collaboration between the Minnesota Green Roof Council and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, RoofBloom is taking action at a grass roots level, while focusing on improving the sustainability and effectiveness of green roof construction." — RoofBloom builds a green roof in 7 minutes

At their website, RoofBloom offers a downloadable 19-page booklet introducing their concept, Green Your Garage: Volume One.

All the water, all the air

Web Master — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:12:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

ADAM NIEMAN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

"Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density. Shown on the same scale as the Earth."
— blog.phiffer.org

"Caption: Global water and air volume. Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of water on Earth (left) and of air in the Earth's atmosphere (right) shown as spheres (blue and pink). The spheres show how finite water and air supplies are. The water sphere measures 1390 kilometres across and has a volume of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. This includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as ground water, and that in the atmosphere. The air sphere measures 1999 kilometres across and weighs 5140 trillion tonnes. As the atmosphere extends from Earth it becomes less dense. Half of the air lies within the first 5 kilometres of the atmosphere."

Images:

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Regional Natural Building Conference

Web Master — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:15:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

I'm in Ithaca, NY, this weekend at the third annual meeting of Natural Builders Northeast (NBNe), an association of professional natural building practitioners. Like the early days of the NESEA conference — another annual gathering of regional experts working to help the built environment move toward something more environmentally sane (and often a fair piece ahead of the curve) — it's a small, enthusiastic, well informed, and forward-looking group of smart, funny, concerned designers, builders, architects, engineers, and doers. It's inspiring to see the pool of knowledge and experience growing and maturing, hearing the softly exhaled expressions of new understandings as people learn from their peers. Punctuated with lots of laughter.

Meetings in previous years were held in northern Massachusetts and central Vermont. The location of next year's meeting is a decision coming up on the agenda.

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Do we want to clean up another country's scrap tire problem?

Web Master — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

The title of this post is taken from a question we received about the source of recycled rubber used for a parking-bumper and speed-bump manufacturer. It motivated me to do some digging to get a better understanding of the scrap tire industry. As it turns out, it's actually kind of fascinating. The following is unverified single-pass research, and any thoughts, additions, or corrections are welcome.

The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) provides a bunch of info on domestic scrap tires in a 2006 report titled Scrap Tire Markets in the United States. According to their data, in 2005 almost seven-eighths of domestic scrap tires were finding their way to end-use markets — about 259 million tires. Nearly seven-eighths, or 87%, is an exceptionally respectable rate of reuse.

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YES!

Web Master — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:01:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

Jerelyn Wilson — who has the inadequate title of "Outreach Director" for BuildingGreen — came down the hall and into my office a few minutes ago, bright-eyed and holding the current issue of YES! magazine in front of her, folded open. "Have you seen this?!" she asked, holding it out for me:

Powerful image — even more powerful in the magazine, where it's bigger and crisper. If you haven't read YES! before, please pick one up at a newsstand... or request a free trial issue.

About that photo:

"Tsewang Norbu lives in the village of Digger across the 4,500 meters high Khardungla pass in the Leh District. He is twenty-eight years old, has five children and keeps goats.

He was selected by his community to be trained in the installation, repair and maintenance of solar photovoltaic units. All the solar units he installed were brought to the village by Yak and on the backs of people from the village. He was trained on the job: he installed fifty-nine units himself, taking three months to complete the work.

The units were installed in 1992.

Images:

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Guerrilla Gardening

Web Master — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:53:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

It's not a new idea, but this book is less than a year old. From the blurb for Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto, by David Tracey:

"In the case of guerrilla gardening, the soldiers are planters, the weapons are shovels, and the mission is to transform an abandoned lot into a thing of beauty. Once an environmentalist's nonviolent direct action for inner-city renewal, this approach to urban beautification is spreading to all types of people in cities around the world.

These modern-day Johnny Appleseeds perform random acts of gardening, often without the property owner's prior knowledge or permission. Typical targets are vacant lots, railway land, underused public squares, and back alleys. The concept is simple, whimsical and has the cheeky appeal of being a not-quite-legal call to action."

Just sowing some seeds. Spring is right around the corner.

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Walking in the Footprints of Dinosaurs, Childhood Nature Trauma, and other thoughts from Yale

Web Master — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:07:00 +0000

Author name:

Tristan Roberts

I had the great pleasure to speak on a panel last week as part of the nationwide Focus the Nation series. Billed as the largest campus teach-in in U.S. history with events at over 1,000 colleges and universities, it was timed to inject climate change into local, state, and national political debates in the thick of the presidential primary season.

A student group at Yale University invited me to speak, and I was joined by a green chemist, an artist, a pastor, and a mayor -- kind, accomplished, insightful people who had a lot to share.

Our topic was environmental sustainability, what are the needs that we see from our vantage points in our various jobs, and what today's students can do about it in their careers. Among the insights shared by several panel members were how their careers were shaped by childhood experiences with nature -- and by being traumatized by destructive land development.

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No-added-formaldehyde bamboo flooring and panel products

Web Master — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:55:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

This interior features Plyboo bamboo flooring and cabinets made with Plyboo panels.

Images:

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What's Your Water IQ?

Web Master — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:49:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

The folks who make Waterless No-Flush urinals (we've had one in our office since 1998) have been distributing the following quiz.

"Large areas of western United States and even parts of Canada are either in a drought or have received considerably less rainfall than normal. It has not yet been determined if this is simply a temporary weather trend or signs of a climate change. Nonetheless, Waterless Co LLC believes everyone needs to become more water-conscious. Understanding where and how we use water is often the first step in saving this precious resource. (All statistics are derived from various reliable studies or from U.S.

Fail early, fail often, and other riffs from Bruce Sterling

Web Master — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:11:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

"There's one thing worse than being young and full of stormy tantrums, and that's being old and backward-looking and crotchety."

So said Bruce Sterling (author, thinker, critic, doer) in this year's annual rollicking and roving discussion of the state of the world at The Well — the still-kicking "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link" founded by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant in 1985 (more than 20 years ago!) for the writers and readers of the seminal, sadly defunct Whole Earth Review. Among much else, Bruce is the instigator of the Viridian design movement, described as a confluence of "environmental design, techno-progressivism, and global citizenship," from which grew the popular Worldchanging website, and more recently, book of the same name.

The turn-of-the-year conversation is still unfolding.

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Notes from Sweden #3: The Scandinavian Green Roof Institute in Malmo

Web Master — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:37:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

Blog Category:

Product Talk

The Industry

Nature & Nurture

[Clicking an image in this post will load a larger version of the image. A slideshow of the images in this post, and more, is also available. Previous posts in the "Notes from Sweden" series include #1: How They Get Around, and #2: Western Harbor in Malmo.]On a wide-ranging tour of interesting projects, programs, and companies in the Skåne region of Sweden this past Monday, we visited the Scandinavian Green Roof Institute in Malmo. It's a fascinating project in an equally fascinating neighborhood in this very green city.

Images:

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Notes from Sweden #2: Western Harbor in Malmo

Web Master — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:56:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

Blog Category:

Op-Ed

Nature & Nurture

Miscellania

The Industry

Product Talk

[Clicking an image in this post will load a larger version of the image. A slideshow of the images in this post, and more, is also available. Previous posts in the "Notes from Sweden" series include #1: How They Get Around.] It's enough to make architects go weak at the knees. I'm not an architect, but wandering around Malmo's Western Harbor (Vaestra Hamnen), I can imagine my architect friends going bananas about these buildings — many of which were designed and built through an architectural competition that attracted many top architects. Overlooking the area is the remarkable 190-meter (630-foot) Turning Torso building designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. I'm usually not so taken by architectural statement buildings, but one could literally spend hours gazing up at this twisting spire with its exposed exoskeleton on one side. Its appearance changes dramatically as one wanders around the building and views it from different angles.

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Who's Gonna Change the World?

Web Master — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:27:00 +0000

Author name:

Jim Newman

The answer to this question is... MIT might, but only if it wants to.

I went to a "lecture" at MIT a few days ago — part of the "Critical Issues" series put on by, of all groups, the MIT Women's League. (Kira Gould, author of Women In Green would have a field day with this!) The idea for the evening was to present ways in which MIT might think about greening the campus, in the context of making a much wider impact on the world. Lofty goals indeed.

The interesting points from the afternoon were that first, a little elementary school in the woods of New Jersey has had a disproportionate impact on its community by following its regenerative design ideals; and second, that MIT could easily perform a similar duty in a much larger community and have pretty far-reaching effect.

The folks presenting ideas were:

Rebecca Henderson, the George Eastman Kodak Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management. (I'm sure we could toss a few more words in there...

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Notes from Sweden #1: How They Get Around

Web Master — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:13:00 +0000

Author name:

Alex Wilson

Blog Category:

Op-Ed

Nature & Nurture

Miscellania

[Clicking an image in this post will load a larger version of the image. A slideshow of the images in this post is also available.]Despite the light drizzle and the fading light of Sweden's mid-afternoon dusk when I arrived in Lund, it was immediately clear that the prevalent form of transportation here is bicycling. Bicycles are everywhere. Hundreds are parked at the train station, where I arrived from Copenhagen. For every person I saw in a private automobile, there were probably 20 on bicycles.

It's such a pleasant contrast to the U.S. and our car-dependent cities and towns. Of course, I suppose it helps that this part of southern Sweden is quite flat. The region has some of the best farmland in the country.

Images:

The Story of Stuff

Web Master — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:10:00 +0000

Author name:

Mark Piepkorn

From www.StoryOfStuff.com:

"From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Watch the whole thing for free at their website. Download it to your computer.

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IPCC to Building Industry: Tag, You're It

Web Master — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:20:00 +0000

Author name:

Nadav Malin

So, this is it. The shoe has dropped. The Fourth (and final) Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is out, and people seem to be paying attention. It got prominant coverage in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and a zillion other places—would have had even more impact if it were not on a Saturday, but what can you do? Apparently emboldened by their shared Nobel Prize, the scientists on the Panel reportedly stood their ground against attacks from the big polluters (that's us, and China) and from Saudi Arabia. They released a final Synthesis Report and a Summary for Policy Makers that doesn't mince words in laying out the likely consequences of various levels of warming.

It's scary stuff. The warming has already started. Some more is inevitable.

Images:

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