Category Archives: Recycling

USGBC offers Obama green building suggestions

From usgbc.org, retrieved on Wednesday, January 14, 2009:

In ongoing talks with the transition’s energy and environment team since November, the U.S. Green Building Council has advanced vital green building policy priorities that will simultaneously create millions of green-collar jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and advance proven opportunities to deliver greener, more energy-efficient buildings.

Already, the President-Elect issued a recent commitment to make the U.S. a global leader in green, energy-efficient government facilities, calling for an overhaul of 75% of federal buildings in an effort to save $2 billion through energy efficiency alone. On schools, the President-Elect has said repeatedly that green school funding will be another priority in the economic package.

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Green inaugural balls set

There are two “green” inaugural balls being hosted during Barack Obama’s big party next week.

Al Gore is hosting The Green Ball, which, according to the website, will celebrate “the expanding network of diverse organizations, companies, and individuals committed to advancing our clean economy to create shared prosperity for all.” It is invitation only.

Another organization is hosting The Green Inaugural Ball, which, according to organizers, will be wind-powered. All the food to be served will be organic and, to the extent possible, locally grown. You can go to this one — for $500 per person or more.

Neither event will be hosted by — or even attended by — the Obamas. But the concept does fit with Mr. Obama’s major policy theme.

The big book of environmental writing

A book review from slate.com, retrieved on Tuesday, January 13, 2009:

Bill McKibben—who is himself one of the most literate and talented environmentalists working today—has captured the great sprawling contradictions of the environmentalist tradition by locking the great greens of the past two centuries of U.S. history together in the pages of American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. As I pored through the extracts of enviro-speeches, books, and letters, I could see them all massed together in the Library of America’s lobby. Henry David Thoreau, the mud from Walden Pond drying on his heels, smiles and offers Al Gore a huckleberry; Al Gore smiles back and offers him a BlackBerry. Theodore Roosevelt makes them jump by taking potshots at the endangered owl Edward Abbey has brought along. Paul Ehrlich announces with a shriek that there are too many people in the room and chases Rachel Carson out. Everyone begins to shout.

What unites this cacophony? What makes them all environmentalists? McKibben says they all focused on “the collision between people and the rest of the world”—and together they as Americans gave the world the genre of environmental writing. When Europeans and Asians were destroying their forests and burning away their lush ecosystems, nobody was writing books. But the deforestation hinted at in the ancient epics of the old continents was witnessed firsthand by some of America’s greatest writers. They smelled the smoke, and it stung their eyes.

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Obama would double alternative energy in three years

From the Washington Post on Friday, January 9, 2009:

President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he wanted to double the production of alternative energy over the next three years, a goal that will probably require a new set of government incentives for the capital-intensive solar and wind industries.

Six months ago, some of the biggest names in solar- and wind-project finance were firms such as Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, GE Capital, Wells Fargo and Municipal Mortgage & Equity. But many of those firms are mired in their own financial crises, and existing tax benefits for renewable energy projects are now unattractive to them. A technical aspect of the bank bailout has even made renewable tax incentives useless for some profitable banks.

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Eating like it matters — with recipes

From slate.com, retrieved on Wednesday, January 7, 2009:

… Now Bittman has waded even further into the fray by publishing “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating With More Than 75 Recipes,” an unusual blend of manifesto, self-help manual and cookbook designed to convince people that they can drastically improve their diets with relatively little discomfort. Not only that, but in doing so, Bittman avows, they can also save the planet and relieve some of the pressure on their pocketbooks. As promises go, that’s a whopper, a super-trifecta encompassing the major obsessions of the current moment: weight loss, environmentalism and penny-pinching.

The formula is very simple (Bittman is the Minimalist, after all): “Eat less of certain foods, specifically animal products, refined carbs, and junk food; and more of others, specifically plants, in close to their natural state.” It is a recommendation that owes much (as Bittman repeatedly acknowledges) to the work of Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food”; the spirit of Pollan presides over this book like the Virgin Mary over a Catholic Church. In fact, you could describe “Food Matters” as “applied Pollan,” because Pollan, for all his endlessly inventive, inquisitive and adventurous writings on American eating and food production, lacks Bittman’s pragmatic touch.

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Obama's "green jobs" plan — retrofitting homes to be a major component

From the LA Times on Sunday, January 4, 2009:

Jones said Obama’s proposal to weatherize homes would pay for itself through energy savings while putting legions of unemployed construction workers back on the job. A $100-billion investment in a green recovery could create 2 million jobs within two years, a good chunk of them in retrofitting, according to a recent University of Massachusetts study.

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Two camps on climate change in Obama's team

From the New York Times on Friday, January 2, 2008:

But difficult debates lie ahead within the White House, between the White House and Congress, and within the Democratic Party, whose deep divisions on climate change break down along ideological and geographical lines.

The fight in November between two Democrats, Representatives John D. Dingell of Michigan and Henry A. Waxman of California, for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a preview. It pitted lawmakers from auto- and coal-producing states against liberal lawmakers from California and the East Coast, Blue Dog fiscal conservatives against environmentalists, pro-business moderates against regulatory activists. Mr. Waxman, with the tacit support of the Obama camp and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, won, but narrowly.

That was just a taste of the broader and potentially more bitter fight over global warming and energy legislation, which will have profound implications for the American economy, the environment and foreign policy.

Both sides — those seeking strict enforcement of emissions limits and those concerned about higher energy costs and potential job losses — will find receptive ears in the new White House, Obama aides and outside analysts said.

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A home made and filled with salvaged objects

From the L.A. Times retrieved from latimes.com on Friday, January 2, 2009:

Al Teman has a penchant for salvage, but his Silver Lake home in no way resembles a salvage yard. Old doors are neatly stacked in storage. Antique books, magazines and other ephemera are painstakingly sorted by genre, with labels such as “Communism,” “Scientology,” “Old Menus” and “Crazy Headlines From Newspapers.” Teman, a contractor, may have clients who want new granite countertops and pristine custom cabinetry, but his own home reflects an obsession with repurposing the old.

The front gate features recycled window shutters and a found sculpture. “Everything in the house is found,” Teman says of the goods he has discovered in the trash or along the side of the road. “The stuff is there for free everywhere. You just have to find it.”

Click here to see a slide show of the home.

Alaska eateries embracing local produce

From the Anchorage Daily News on Thursday, January 1, 2008:

 

Only about 40 miles or so separate Alaska’s farms from its urban restaurants, but locally grown food remains a niche item on most menus.

That is changing, and rapidly.

This winter, at least seven Anchorage restaurants — upscale venues and crunchy cafes alike— are mostly eschewing Outside carrots, potatoes and other root vegetables. Instead, they are buying their vegetables from the Mat-Su.

Click here to read the whole story.

 

GreenBuild announces 2008 top 10 building products

From buildingGreen.com, retrieved on Tuesday, December 23, 2008:

Three of the products this year save energy, including a low-cost, solar water-heating system; a combination heating, water heating, and heat-recovery ventilation system; and a system for monitoring real-time energy (and water) use in buildings. Water saving products are represented by a line of rainwater storage tanks—the first rainwater storage equipment ever recognized in our Top-10 lists.

Fully half of the products this year are green in part because they are made from natural, rapidly renewable, or agricultural waste materials; natural materials often require significantly less energy to manufacture. A new compressed-earth masonry block is particularly noteworthy in this regard. “Most of the Top-10 products this year have multiple environmental attributes,” said Wilson.

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