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Accessibility and Visibility (pdf): HUD Design Strategies for housing that is accessible, attractive, affordable and welcoming to disabled and aging Americans are an integral part of a healthy, sustainable community.
Architects Can Look to Future through Vernacular Design Practices: Architecture that utilizes passive and active systems to
reduce a building’s carbon footprint has become vogue. But while green design has brightened our commercial
lives, architects have yet to develop green residential standards for vernacular architecture comparable to those of the commercial sector.
Campus Greening Movement: History and Importance. The environmental movement received an infusion of energy at the grassroots with the collegiate embrace of the first Earth Day in 1970. Campuses continue to play a vital role in developing environmental activists and leaders.
Carbon Capture Rain Gardens (pdf): Information from our friends at Ecological Gardens about carbon capture rain gardens and how to begin your own.
Carbon Offset Donation Guidelines: An industry in carbon offsets claiming carbon neutral results has grown out of the green revolution. All sorts of people - from your neighbor to Al Gore - are putting their money into this new industry.
Carbon Trading Schemes: Not all carbon trading programs result in genuine carbon neutrality, and the appealing practice bears some examination.
Climate Change and Water in the Rockies: Several studies suggest that high elevation environments are among those most sensitive to global climate change. This sensitivity provides us a sort of "fast forward" view of climatological effects, as in the case of the North American Rocky Mountain region.
Community Supported Agriculture: Everybody eats, but few of us know how many hundreds of miles most of the food we consume travels from the farms where it originates to the supermarket carts we load. Those fortunate enough to live near one of the more-than 1500 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms across America will tell you that if you want good food and good farms, you may need to pitch in yourself.
Diesel Goes Green: Companies are looking back to Rudolf Diesel's early innovations as they move diesel engines back to the future.
Earth Charter: We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. This famous statement enumerates a set of principles for moving forward.
Eco-dating Sites Bring Couples Together: Do you desire a companion who recycles and composts everything but toenails and lives in a crib lit by compact fluorescents? Or can you accept someone who proudly drives an SUV and tosses glass bottles into the trash? Eco-social networking takes the guess work out of the search for love.
Eco-love and Marriage: A new trend dubbed “eco-dating” helps create social networks of self-proclaimed tree-huggers, Prius drivers and composters who prefer a date familiar with Al Gore and global greenhouse population over one tied into television desperadoes and housewives and conspicuous consumption. And eco-dating can lead to eco-weddings.
Edible Gardens (pdf): Information from our friends at Ecological Gardens about edible herb and fruit gardens, and how to begin your own.
Energy Outlook : 2009 Energy Sector Oulook article
EnergyStar Standards (pdf): EnergyStar standards of the US Department of Energy for appliances and systems.
Ethanol: Powered by Corn: Increasingly, farmers, lobbyists, and the government look to ethanol, a fuel made from plants, as a substitute for gasoline. Whether ethanol and other agricultural biofuels are endlessly renewable, and whether they eliminate as much greenhouse gas as promised, are questions still open for debate.
Freewatt: The Future of Home Energy Has Arrived (pdf): Information from Climate Energy about the Freewatt cogeneration system.
Global Energy and Resource Availability and Usage 2007 Ever wondered how your nation and neighborhood compare with the rest of the world in energy use? Curious about what more we can wring out of the existing resources? You are not alone....
Green Building: The US Green Building Council has established standards for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and certifies buildings at their level of performance.
Green Building Trends 2008: An article full of stats and trends of green building in 2008.
Green Glossary: A nice little glossary of green terms and their meanings
Green Graduation Gifts: Giving green gifts is easier than you may think – but it does require some preplanning to get your graduate (or anyone) a gift that shows you are sincerely sustainably theirs.
A Green Midwestern Home Built Before Its Time: As the mainstream media begins to educate us on the idea of building green, a home built in 1988 by Chanhassen resident Eric Rivkin continues to be a model of what can be done to improve our indoor environment while helping to alleviate the impact on our outdoor environment.
Greening The Capitol: Summary of Congress's Initiative (pdf): While Congress isn't bound to adhere to all of the laws it passes, the House of Representatives has decided it's time time shrink its environmental footprint by using existing technology and techniques for energy efficiency and health. The GTC Report is a summary of the proposed changes.
How to Reduce Your Eco-Footprint Today: Like a fossil record, your eco-footprint will be here long after you are gone. You can't eradicate your footprint, but you are able to minimize it - and you can influence others to minimize theirs, as well.
Hybrid Cars: The surge in attention and market share encourages an understanding of the history and inner workings of the hybrid vehicle, and their importance to conversion to energy sustainability and pollution control.
IPCC Address to the C40 Large Cities Summit: The world’s largest cities have a critical role to play in the reduction of carbon emissions. At the second C40 Large Cities Climate Summit, the Vice-Chair of the IPCC Working Group II addressed implications for urban policy makers.
Making Blue Jeans Green: About Cotton: Cotton jeans and sheets have to come from cotton agriculture – and that can be an uncomfortable piece of knowledge.
Moving the Paper Waste Mountains: Americans have a problem with paper. The largest source of municipal solid waste is paper. What’s to be done? Plenty, as it turns out.
Native Landscape Solutions (pdf): Landscaping sustainably – advice from Top Notch, purveyors to Live Green, Live Smart’s The Sustainable House.
Native Plants in Urban Ecosystems (pdf): Urban landscapes can remember what they arose from. Indigenous planting advice from Top Notch.
Organic Food: From Buzzword to Mainstream: Eating well has become eating whole – food can connect you to both the earth and better agricultural practices.
Permaculture Resource Guide (pdf): A must-read piece for anyone interested in permaculture landscaping and gardening, written by our friends at Ecological Gardens.
Solar Heating: Using the Sunlight for Greener Living: Solar heating of the home, as a replacement for traditional furnaces, relies on collection of sunlight, storage of this energy, and a system for dispersion. Heating water with solar can reduce the need for a conventional system by 2/3 in the average household.
Smart Growth Concepts and Practices: One trend for rethinking our built environment and the sprawl that challenges a green future.
Summary of IPCC Report: The 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change develops the information garnered in the first three reports, and provides longitudinal analysis of the effects greenhouse gases are having on climate change, and the human-induced contribution to warming.
Sustainable Development (from the UN): Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development implies limits imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources, and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities.
Top Ten Job Hunting Tips to Avoid Scams: A list of things to avoid and to be weary of job scams.
Turn on the Sun: A Primer in Photovoltaics: Be sunlit - even at night – with a little help from technology.
Us to Dust: Eco-burial practices are attracting more interest ecological and aesthetic concerns have some people speaking up about the impact modern burial and mortuary practices have on the environment.
Visionary Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Alternative Car Before Its Time: Most people know futurist Buckminster Fuller's geodesic designs of the 1960s - but Bucky was workng on alternative vehicles, too, as early as the 1930s: Meet the Dymaxion cars.
What is a Sustainable Society? The conversation about sustainability requires some definitions and proposed solutions - and this article by the Sustainable Society Club ventures both.
Zero Emission Vehicles, Meet Xebra: The personal transportation revolution is off and running as Xebra joins battalions of alternative vehicles.
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