Did you know that in addition to carbon dioxide, humans release as much as 150 volatile substances from our bodies, including carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, phenol, and hydrogen sulphide?! I got this from the book “How To Grow Fresh Air – 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office” by Dr. Wolverton. Since we […]
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Diana Wells’ book “Lives of the Trees” is a veritable folkloric historical encyclopedia for the common folk about trees. If you ever wondered what the Apple tree had in common with Shakespeare, where the tree originated, what political impact it has had on Europe, and why the Golden Delicious is just a marketing name after
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There are a number of ‘green’ product listings and databases on the web; Greenspec at BuildingGreen.com and Pharos, for example, but most (if not all) of them require a paid annual membership. One good source of free information on green products is Oikos.com. More than 2,500 companies are listed in a searchable database. Others are
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I copied this from my email. Worth reading and writing. Greetings! This is the moment that supporters of legalizing beekeeping in NYC have been waiting for. The Department of Health is proposing changes to it’s Health Code that would once again make honey beekeeping legal in NYC! Between now and Wednesday, February 3rd, you
Here is a cool insight into nature. It is by Michael Pollan. He also talks about the Polyface Farm which is run by “grass farmer” Joel Salatin. Joel is interviewed a lot in the Food Inc Movie. Check out the talk below, follow the links above. All very cool stuff. Not directly connected to green
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The book “New Green Homes” by Sergi Costa Duran, Liliana Bollini and Ethel Pohl is a focused book. It is an architects visual study of modern homes around the world. They claim the homes are green but I didn’t really see that. What I did see was a study of a very specific architectural style,
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I’m seeing two styles in green building. One I call the Hobbit house and the other is the Glass Box house. One looks like the past, the other the future. Here are some examples of the Hobbit house. Hobbit Houses are: low tech, low embodied energy, dark, local materials, high thermal mass, part of the
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This is the season of phone calls from clients needing Eco Brooklyn’s help with their brownstone extensions. The problem is always the same: they are cold. They call us up because we are Brooklyn brownstone insulation specialists. Here are my observations having seen and fixed extensions for a while now. There are two types of
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This book has a long title: Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods Earth Plaster * Straw Bale * Cordwood * Cob * Living Roofs. But then again it is a big book. Written by Tim Callahan and Clarke Snell this book overflows with 600 pages and 1500 images. The book aims
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I had been avoiding the movie Food Inc for a while. I’ve seen lots of animal rights movies: they are depressing. They make me angry because of the barbarity and frustrated because I feel helpless. But one evening I was feeling especially brave. It turns out the movie is UPLIFTING! Sure it jumps all over
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