“Green Building” can mean more than just building environmentally-friendly or energy-efficient structures – clean energy and green techniques can also be used during the construction process itself. This videos show how 150 construction workers in Binghamton, New York are on the job without a single conventional generator in use.

Thinking of the sprawling, materialistic metropolis of Las Vegas can send shivers up the spine of any environmental advocate: excessive water use, unsustainable urban planning, and unnatural buildings in the middle of a desert.

Design teams are competing to make your hotel room greener. The US Green Building Council has joined forces with the American Society of Interior Designers and The Hospitality Industry Network to launch the Sustainable Suite Design Competition.

The US-China Clean Energy Research Center. Yup, you read that right. The two countries that produce about 42 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions AND two of the countries that refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol are getting together to study how they can curtail carbon emissions.

Interested in wind turbines? You might want to take a peek at the on-line book “Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects.” It was written by some important sounding people: Committee on Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Division on Earth and Life Studies and published by the National Research Council of the National Academies. Whew…

My grand-dad used to say “pick your poison.” He knew that nothing is perfect. There are good things and not so good things about every choice. When sustainability is your primary goal, you make decisions with a different set of parameters.

Recipes for earthen plaster abound. Some recipes use straw, some use manure, some cattail fuzz, and others add lime. Read a ton and learn, but remember the earthen plaster mix or recipe you end using is your individual choice.

Smear mud all over the walls of your house. Really. It’s an idea whose time has come. Actually it’s an idea that’s been around for eons of time, but has been mostly lost to contemporary American culture. I know that the dry wall guys claim to be using “mud,” but I’m talking about real earth, real mud.

Parades, picnics, fireworks, add family and friends—seems like a perfect 4th of July. As I watched and experienced all the events yesterday, I wondered what we could have done differently.

So you thought it was that swarm of cars on the freeway or that refinery’s smokestack belching black fog that was the major contributor to CO2 emissions. Well it turns out that it isn’t cars or even industry that is the biggest contributor to this CO2 mess … it’s buildings.