Green

Green and Cheap: A New Identity for Affordable Housing – The Sustainable Cities Blog. Discusses Eneterprise Community Partner’s Green Communities program, which will provide more than half a billion dollars in the next 5 years to create more than 8,500 affordable homes. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference in St. Paul, MN (October 2-6^th) will include a panel on green, affordable, and historic housing – featuring a representative from the Enterprise Community Partners who will discuss efforts to include building re-use in the Green Communities program. It's not too late to register - we hope to see you there!

News to Keep you in the Know...

The 17-Year Progress Report On The Environment – The Daily Green. The Daily Green Looks at the Gains Made by the Green Movement, and Challenges That Remain. Includes reports on acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, water pollution, and world population.

Titans of Ecology - Washington Post. T.C. Williams Among Rising Number of 'Green' Schools certified by U.S. Green Building Council.

Biofuels May Be Threat To Food Supply, Increase Costs - Reuters. Biofuels, championed for reducing energy reliance, boosting farm revenues and helping fight climate change, may in fact hurt the environment and push up food prices, one study suggested on Tuesday.

Nuclear Industry Inches Toward New Construction In US - Reuters. the U.S. nuclear industry is hoping that its troubled building history will not repeat itself as it takes baby steps toward ending a 30-year nuclear construction hiatus.

House of Representatives Plans To Go Carbon Neutral - BuildingGreen. A new report details plans to move the U.S. House of Representatives to carbon-neutral operation by the end of 2008, to reduce energy consumption in House facilities by 50% from 2006 levels by 2017, and to “make House operations a model of sustainability.”

Wal-mart, Caterpillar, Ford, IBM, Dow, and Others Prepare to Share Their Sustainability Strategies - CSRwire. - Executives from some of the country's largest corporations will gather later this month to discuss sutainability. "If we are to truly address climate change and other environmental issues we must have everyone at the table," said Mayor Richard M. Daley. 'This gathering of some of largest companies in the world is definitely a step in the right direction.

Top polluters to discuss hard climate goals - Reuters. Twenty of the world's top polluting nations have agreed to discuss binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Germany's environment minister said on Tuesday.

And some good news...

Businesses Cut Carbon on the Scale of Two Cities, Carbon Trust Reports - Edie News. U.K. businesses have cut more than 10 million tons of C02 emissions since 2001 because of work with the Carbon Trust, according to the government-funded organization.

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Developing a hotter L.A. – L.A. Times. Why high density development could be on a collision course with efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

News to Keep You in the Know:

Northeast U.S., Europe cooling use of energy to rise -- Reuters. - Energy demand for cooling is likely to be above average in northeastern parts of the United States this week, while cooling demand in northwest Europe will also rise, forecasters Meteorlogix said on Monday.

World likely to pass dangerous warming limits --Reuters. The world will probably exceed a global warming limit which the European Union calls dangerous, scientists at Britain's MetOffice Hadley Centre said on Tuesday, presenting a new, 5-year research program.

In pure Arctic air, signs of China's economic boom -- Reuters. From a remote snowcapped mountain in the European Arctic you can detect China in the haze.

Blogger Joel Makower takes on two topics – Coke’s announcement that it has a goal to recycle or reuse all plastic bottles, and GE’s new Earth Rewards card – GE will invest 1% of consumer purchases in carbon offset projects. provide

More on bees … Virus Is Seen as Suspect in Death of Honeybees – NYT.

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Green Building Trend: More cities are requiring buildings to be constructed in compliance with LEED green building standards. For now, most cities exempt existing or historic buildings from the standards...but that could change. Since LEED compliance is likely the way of the future, the National Trust and its national partners are working with the U.S. Green Building Council to ensure that LEED standards recognize the inherenet sustainaiblity of preservation -- and to make sure that the greening of historic buildings does not compromise the architectural integrity of these cultural resources.

New York announces new standards for green buildings - Newsday.com. Dozens of state construction projects will have to meet the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED standardsd beginning next year.

Long Island Town Requires LEED Certification -- ENN. Babylon, NY - Developers and builders in Babylon, New York, are preparing to register their buildings for LEED certification to comply with a 2006 local law that goes into effect in December 2007. The law requires all new commercial buildings larger than 4,000 ft2 (400 m2) to achieve at least a LEED Certified rating.

Thoughts on Improving LEED... Use Performance-Based Transportation Credits in LEED -- Building Green. Why the siting of buildings is so important -- and how LEED can be modified to reflect this. 

Measuring Operational Efficiency: Measuring operational efficiency is no easy thing. New standards from ASHRAE may help.

ASHRAE Publishes Energy Performance Comparison Standard -- Environmental Protection. provides a method of energy performance comparison that can be used for any building, proposed or existing, and that allows different methods of energy analysis to be compared. This will help facilitate comparison, design and operation improvements and development of building energy performance standards.

News to Keep you in the Know:
APEC countries bolster UN climate change process - ENN: A growing economies attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit rejected attempts by Australia and the US to bypass the United Nations in negotiations to reduce climate damaging emissions, says WWF.

APEC draft climate statement seen a compromise --SYDNEY (Reuters). Asia-Pacific officials agreed on Friday to a draft climate statement which reaffirms a U.N. treaty on fighting global warming, while urging non-binding "aspirational targets" for greenhouse gas reductions, a delegate said.

Mark your calendars. PBS Documentary: The Silence Of The Bees -- ENN. From crop fields to hi-tech labs, scientists and bee experts are investigating a rapidly unfolding ecological nightmare. The Silence of the Bees premieres on Sunday, October 28 at 8 p.m. eastern on PBS (check local listings). Academy Award-winning actor F. Murray Abraham narrates the series. It was shot on high definition cameras.

Most polar bears could be lost by 2050 -- Reuters. Two-thirds of the world's polar bear population could be gone by midcentury if predictions of melting sea ice hold true, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on Friday.

And Finally.... is all this just a passing fad?

Online ‘Buzz’ on Environmental Issues Sharply Up from Last Year - Green Lifestyle. Prolonged online “buzz” (posts in blogs, boards and discussion groups) about the environmental terms “green” and “sustainability” suggest that heightened awareness of environmental issues is much more than a passing fad, the Nielsen Co. concluded in a report from Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

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• Losing the Forest to Save a Few Trees: The Problems Behind Green Sprawl -- Greener Buildings. Columnist Shari Shapiro talks about the problem of sustainable buildings on unsustainable sites.

News to keep you in the know -- Energy Use and Policy

• Coal Use To Grow Despite Green Concern -- ENN. Coal use grew by 30 percent in the last five years and future demand will likely fuel more power plant construction despite environmentalists' opposition, the head of U.S. coal mining company Peabody Energy said on Thursday.
• U.S. Geothermal Energy Sector Promising -- Reuters. Geothermal energy could fill a sizable chunk of United States electricity requirements if legislative, technological and other challenges are met, a senior U.S. Department of Energy official said.
• APEC rift opens over climate change debate-- Reuters. Leaders at an Asia-Pacific summit appeared deadlocked on Thursday over what their "Sydney Declaration" on climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions should say. The Climate Change Wars.
• GAO Faults Agencies Over Global Warming - ENN. GAO Criticizes federal agencies for lack of action on climate related issues.
• Green Valley in WalMart's Back Yard -- Washington Post. Will Fayetteville " become to sustainability what Detroit is to the automotive industry and the Silicon Valley is to technology"??
• Love it? Check the Label -- NYT. "Buy American" is back.

Green Building

• Minnesota Creates Green Building Certification Program The Minnesota GreenStar program is a new standards program that will certify environmentally friendly building practices for new and existing buildings alike, as well as remodeling and building addition projects.

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• Big Steps in Building: Change our building code from relative to absolute (TreeHugger.com)
• A values debate: green vs. historic (The Baltimore Sun)
• Scientists Say Global Warming To Hit Africa Hardest (Environmental News Network)
• Conservationists: Australia Kyoto Failure $3.8 Billion Dollar Mistake (Environmental News Network)

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