Green
The case against meat
I am still fighting it out with my fellow green builders on a list serv. I still eat meat, although a lot less, and am still not sure if my body is made to not eat meat…..but…here is what I wrote:
After cooling off a bit I am ready to come back in. I have a [...]
Green By Design Book
The book Green By Design, Creating a Home for Sustainable Living by Angela Dean is a good exploration of green design and the process behind it.
In green building the process is just as important as the end result. A beautiful home is not beautiful in the green builder’s eyes if the materials are not sourced [...]
A green builder is a reluctant builder
A green builder should be treated the same as a coroner or dentist. You don’t call them if you don’t have to.
The greenest building is to not build at all. At the industry’s current evolutionary state in building it is best to avoid building if possible because building inevitably consumes resources and destroys things.
So as [...]
Mini House Now Book
The book Mini House Now is a picture book of small houses, specifically houses with less than 1080 square feet. They are all free standing houses, most of them in the country side but one or two surrounded by other houses.
The pictures are great. Do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph [...]
Eco Brooklyn Needs a Green Space!
Eco Brooklyn is desperately in need of a green space where we can store and share with others all the materials we salvage. The city provides and we constantly find good materials in dumpsters and demolitions.
But we have no place to put it! The Brooklyn Green Show House is bursting with material and we are [...]
Eco-Luxe Media Showcase
I just got invited to a greenwashing event called “NEW YORK CITY’S FIRST EVER PRESS ONLY SHOWCASE OF ECO-LUXURY PRODUCTS & SERVICES FROM THE PRODUCERS OF GO GREEN EXPO”:
You are invited to showcase your environmentally friendly LUXURY product or service at New York City’s premiere Eco-Luxury Press Event on September 22nd. Leverage Rubenstein Public Relations’ [...]
Boutique Green Building
Boutique Green Building is the dominant business model of most residential green building right now. It is a combination of three things:
1. bad business management
Usually you have a skilled artisan who is not naturally a good business person. So their efficiency is not great and they waste resources and energy. This drives costs up (sometimes [...]
Brooklyn Green Decking
Here is a great run down of wood types by a master carpenter, Stan Pike. Check out that page. It is cool.
I found the site while researching Black Locust, an underused wood in the US. It is considered a weed pretty much so grows in abundance. It is one of the hardest woods around and [...]
Case for Vegan
As a Brooklyn green contractor we are always looking for ways to save resources. The key ones are water, electricity, and raw materials. We don’t mind using up human energy. It’s good exercise and pretty much limitless.
But when you hear facts like the ones in the video below you realize how important it is to [...]
Old Growth Forests In Perspective
This image shows the time it takes to attain old growth for a forest. It is a humbling time frame. It is a classic example of build it forward thinking. If we plan on an old growth forest now it will need to be tended and protected for at least 200 years into the future [...]
Bats in Brooklyn
I’ve been speaking with Wendy in Suffolk County about bats. She makes and sells bat houses and we’re talking about the best way to have a bat house in the Brooklyn Green Show House.
Bat are a very important part of the ecosystem. One of the reasons Brooklyn has such a problem with mosquitoes is that [...]
How Bad It Is – Brooklyn Wake Up Call
Most people have no idea what state the ecology of the world is. They still think it is about saving the wildlife.
But they are terribly wrong.
The wildlife has already been decimated. The forests, plants and animals are for the most part destroyed. Not some of it but the majority of it. We have these little [...]
Green Decking
Here is a great rundown of alternatives to normal decking. It is by a fellow emailer Tim Keating, director of
Rainforest Relief.
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Re: wood-plastic composite lumbers (WPCLs) a la Trex, Weatherbest, etc.), imho, these are fine for a home but have problems that ‘true’ recycled plastic lumbers don’t have. First, many of these lumbers are manufactured using [...]
Natural Floor Finishes
Brooklyn has a lot of wood floors. The common finish is some toxic varnish. As a Brooklyn green floor installer we don’t use that and are constantly researching more natural floor applications. Our floors are always salvaged and usually need a good sanding and sealing.
Recently I was discussing this on an email list and got [...]
What is a green builder?
I interview a lot of people and I always ask them if they are a green builder….what is a green builder?
For me a green builder is that unique person who chooses green building over many other opportunities. They have the talent to play the piano, they have the offer to run a restaurant, they inherit [...]
Northeast (U.S.) Natural Building & Living Colloquium
This natural Building Colloguium, hosted by Peaceweavers, I really think is great. No continuing education credits. No high-power, big-project architectural, engineering, interior designing firm reps to hobnob with. No suits, no ties, no shiny shoes. Sleep in a tent, eat vegan food. Learn about things like strawbale, cob, cordwood, timber framing, straw-clay infill, permaculture, community-supported [...]
Pew study: Green Jobs Growing More Than 2x as Fast as All Other Jobs
This just out: Green Business is Booming. I agree. Eco Brooklyn is getting almost more jobs than we can handle.
From the wire:
The Pew Charitable Trusts has conducted the first-ever hard count across all 50 states of the actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments that supply the growing market demand for environmentally friendly products and [...]
Survey: Green Professionals Well Paid, Happy & Have Job Security
This just out: Green workers are doing well.
I would have to agree it’s good to be in green business right now. The only stress I have is growing pains.
From the wire:
The newly published, inaugural Carbon Salary Survey, is one one the first studies to provide detailed information about professionals working in the climate change and [...]
Green Brooklyn – A 10 Year View
Here is my take on green building in Brooklyn over the next 5-10 years. It is actually a lot wider than Brooklyn, but that is my focus.
Rising fuel costs will drive people back into the city, this means there will be an influx of people into Brooklyn. This will keep housing prices more elevated than [...]
Green Building Perspective
There is this great Zen saying: “Before Enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. After Enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood.”
From the Zen perspective it is an acknowledgment of the “isness” of being, meaning that with enlightenment you see life as it is, free of expectation or judgment. You and life are simply “being” perfectly and the mundane [...]
Civil society strategies on the Gowanus Canal
Here is something I found on the MIT site. It had some bad links so I reproduced it here. The reason I find it useful is that it was done by a student without any financial interest in the canal. It was also done before the whole Superfund issue, so it is not polarized yet.
I [...]
Conservation and Efficiency Before Renewables
The concept of “Conservation and Efficiency Before Renewables” is an important green building practice.
Lets break it down.
Conservation
The greenest building is to NOT build in the first place. In any green building it is important to constantly ask, “Is this building step necessary? Do we really need to buy this product? Does it really require is [...]
The Common Fire Foundation
I was recommended this web site by a friend of mine who thought they had commonalities with out company. The Common Fire Foundation has a lot of cool stuff going on.
They have a wonderful combination of idealism and high quality action. As you can see from their web site they are passionate about green [...]
Seeking Green Builders
Are you passionate about green building? Do you have building skills (metalwork, carpentry, electric, plumbing…)? Do you want to learn more in this area? Do you like to use unusual materials to build in innovative ways? Do you look at a product off the shelf and ask, “How can I built that myself better instead [...]
500 Mile Radius Around New York
LEED uses the 500 mile radius as the benchmark for local materials. I don’t know why they picked that number. But it is as good as any I guess. 500 is what you could cover in one long day if you were really hauling it. By car, that is….
I don’t think you want more than [...]
Eco Brooklyn offers English Classes
I grew up in Spain so our job site tends to have a lot of Spanish speakers. But if they are speaking Spanish at work and at home they have no way of learning English. They have the skills in terms of green building but they lack the communication skills to be able to sell [...]
PeddlersWaggon.com – Web site of the day
I was checking out some cool plant pottery at this site PedlersWaggon.com. The pottery holds water and lets it out slowly, keeping the plants fresh during times of no rain. Very cool.
And then I noticed on the shopping cart page a little note that said:
“We ask that wherever you may live to refrain from purchasing [...]
Green Manifesto No. 1521
“Understanding Whole Systems means looking both larger and smaller than where our daily habits live and seeing clear through our cycles. The result is responsibility, but the process is filled with the constant delight of surprise. Neither the Earth nor our lives are flat. What happened in the 20th century? The idea of self — [...]
Think Different
It is cool to be green. Wearing green is the new black. Green power is the new black power. It is cool to be green.
But it is important to not let the fad take over the message. Being green, like every other revolution (revolution = full turn), is about moving one rotation up the circle [...]
You get what you build with
I was discussing with somebody about straw bale homes and how they
don’t actually last as long as other well built homes.
It made me think that you basically get what you build
with. Hold a peice of the material in your hand and it will give you a
very good indication of how long it will last. Straw, [...]