Psyched to announce thier first offline event, TreeLife by The Cool Hunter, will be unveiled sometime in 2010 (city to be announced). Hey all you tree house builders and fanatics, your time has come for an inspirational modern prefab tree house playground made exclusively for forest loving, fresh air and sky dwelling mavens.

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Check out the prefab community blooming online these days! Tiny House Village is trying to connect communities of creative small dwellings. Ideas are abound for these eco communities with Resources For Life’s Small House Society.

Tiny House design has a great set of resources all linked here as well. Check out the plethora of architectural resources,

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The leader of one of Australia’s most influential unions has said that green jobs is a ‘dopey term’. Tony Maher went on to suggest that many of the environmental campaigns run in his country are ‘judgemental nonsense’ and that industries like coal and steel will have more impact on both prosperity and the creation of a low carbon future than people realised. As an example, he claimed that carbon capture and storage schemes would require vast amounts of steel and that this steel should be produced in Australia by Australian workers.

Union fights for blue-collar jobs, not green-tinged ones

Maher is President of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, a constellation of workers that might look odd in many other parts of the world where ‘green’ industries like Forestry have separated themselves from extractive industries by putting logging in with extraction and keeping woodland husbandry and tree surgery in with farming.  For over ten years, Tony Maher has spoken on behalf of the union, which states in its publicity material that it is the principal union for both brown and black coal mining. Brown coal is relatively recent in origin and falls between peat, which is still largely vegetable in structure, and bituminous coal. It is often known as lignite.

Many people feel that brown coal should not be extracted because it should be kept as a reserve for the distance future when it may have developed further and become more like bituminous coal or black coal, which is more consolidated, deep black in colour and burns more readily with greater fuel efficiency.

Union leader says more coal, not less, will be burned in 2050

It’s not surprising that a union leader representing coal minders should object to ‘green jobs’ but Maher went much further than simply protesting against the removal of blue-collar industries, he added that he thought that by mid 2050 the planet would be using twice as much coal as at present and that the recent protest at Hazelwood power station was ‘just silly’.

Hazelwood Protestors Get Direct

‘Switch Off Hazelwood’ the campaigning group that organised the protests claims a successful weekend’s protesting, with more than 300 people turning up over 12 and 13 September, to use such direct action tactics as the Bikezilla (a number of bicycles welded together to form a giant bike, which was impounded by police), the Ministry of Energy, Resources and Silly Walks, the wombat warriors and forming a giant windmill with their bodies.  The police say 18 people were arrested, the action group says it was 22 individuals who were arrested and then released on bail.

While protestors said that removing Hazelwood could be the first step to creating an employment-rich, renewable energy manufacturing region, Maher’s comments suggest that the opposition to renewable energy is entrenched in the old blue-collar industrial regions as a threat to well paid jobs, as well as being perceived as a threat to lifestyle. Maher added that Australia produced some of the best-quality coking coal in the world, which was used to make premium quality steel and that it was ‘silly’ to raise objections to industries that created a large amount of Australia’s exports.

Switch off Hazelwood: Starring the Wombat Warriors courtesy of Sean Bedlam at youtube

Despite the growing list of suspicious coincidences, a Chinese official has denied links between increased elephant killings in Kenya and a nearby influx of Chinese workers.

Recently, an increasing series of unfortunate events have suggested that Chinese workers in Kenya could be linked to a rise in elephant killings near these work sites. But according to an article in China Daily, there is no connection.

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In a stark contrast with how construction used to be thought of, the green building movement has been a shift away from the traditional concerns about money and time. The betterment of our planet, as it turns out, is quickly becoming a bigger priority. Since March of this year, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program has seen around 20,852 new LEED registered and certified projects.

Most of this can be attributed to the fact that builders view green buildings as more economical in the long run, and recent incentives on the part of the government have added an extra encouragement.  But while these positives have been talked about pretty often, there are some risks associated with going green that still leave many builders wary.

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The Kenya Wildlife Service suspects it is more than a coincidence that a large number of elephant killings have occurred in areas where Chinese crews have recently arrived for massive construction projects.

Wildlife authorities in Kenya are deeply concerned about the growing surge in elephant poaching - and the proximity of the slaughters to where Chinese newcomers are working on the road.

98 elephant carcasses - with tusks gouged out - were found in 2008. And 73 elephants have been lost so far this year.

At Save the Elephants, Moses Litoroh, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) elephant program coordinator, noted that:

More than 50 per cent of the dead elephants we have found have been in that area in the north where the Chinese are working on the road. We can perhaps assume that they have had a hand in it, maybe not all of them, but the coincidence is causing us great concern.

It has also been reported that “the majority of ivory smugglers arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi are now Chinese nationals.”

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Researchers from the University of Bath will be constructing a “BaleHaus” this summer made from prefabricated straw bale and hemp cladding panels.

The house will be a model for building carbon zero homes of the future. And because straw and hemp efficiently absorb carbon dioxide while they grow, the buildings made from them might even have a negative carbon footprint.

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The decimation of the Amazon due to increased logging, mining and road construction is causing vampire bats in Peru to feast more regularly on the blood of humans.

National Geographic has reported that as human population grows and local wildlife numbers decrease because of development throughout the region, vampire bats have no where else to turn but human blood. As a result, outbreaks of rabies are increasing, and it’s killing people in places where its occurrence has previously been rare.

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The new flick 500 Days of Summer, which generated much buzz as the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, rolls out in limited release today. Lot’s of people are talking about it as a romantic comedy meets Memento which in film terms means that those with ADD or short attention spans might be confused by this rambunctious romantic romp. But for us, the buzz doesn’t just lie in the zigzagging sex talk but rather in the architecture talk. Even more specifically in the Green architecture talk.

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These are the green ideas in order of importance to sustainable design:

1. On-site solar panels for green electricity - to make net zero energy onsite;
2. Solar thermal collectors for hot water supply and radiant floor heating;
3. Radiant cooling via infloor cold water in the same circuits in summer; (great idea!)
   
4. 10-ft high trombe wall collects passive solar heat;
5. Butterfly roof for rainwater collection;
6. Rainwater collection used for toilets/landscaping;
7. Drought tolerant, native landscaping;
8. Maximimum openings for natural ventilation;
9. Low-water use fixtures and plumbing;

In addition there are the usual elements that garner so many LEED points:

1. 95% of the construction waste is recycled.
2. Use of FSC-certified woods and low VOC products.
3. High recycled content materials used throughout.

…and indeed, this building has gained LEED Platinum certification, the third to do so in Utah.

It’s a good example of the self-sufficient new design vernacular in sustainable design - including net zero solar power and the new butterfly roofs for rainwater harvesting for a water constrained future.

Because Utah, in the American Southwest, is an arid land and will be increasingly drought-prone as our hotter future heats up the region.

Via Jetson Green

A new exterior film for glass has been developed which can be seen by birds but not humans. It could be used to help prevent the needless deaths of billions of birds which collide with windows annually.

Collisions with windows are estimated to be the most common cause of bird death worldwide aside from habitat loss. The numbers of deaths are staggering, outranking deaths by domestic cat, hunting, vehicular collisions, and wind turbine accidents combined. Thus, preventing bird-window collisions could be the simplest way to significantly reduce bird fatality around the world.

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It seems like if a building is going up, its just as likely as not to be green. McGraw-Hill research tells us that 53% of building professionals expect to be dedicated to green on over 60% of their projects in the next five years. It seems like there is ample opportunity for innovation in the building industries despite a downturn in overall building. I guess NYC is as good a place as any to lead the charge.

Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower, which sits atop a 1928 landmark building in Manhattan is engineered to use 25% less energy than required by code and boasts the world’s largest “air conditioner.” The two-story, stepped waterfall is also a huge radiant cooling system that along with other measures saves 1.7 million gallons of water every year. Other interesting facts about the building include:

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A project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) at Exit Art, “Vertical Gardens is an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof.” The exhibit features over 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects envisioning solutions for building greener urban environments.

Details for the FREE two-day event (featuring eco architects, artists, professors, and poets) at Exit celebrating Earth Day 2009 are as follows:

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Houses built out of hemp instead of traditional building materials leave a ‘better than zero carbon’ footprint, according to new research out of the UK.

Aside from helping to combat global warming, building homes from the cannabis plant could also give a boost to struggling rural economies. That’s good news almost everywhere except for within the U.S., where industrialized hemp is still illegal to grow under federal law.

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Construction projects routinely over-order material to avoid shortfalls and keep projects on time.  In many cases, this excess material is regularly thrown away because there is no need for it.

One company is setting out to change all that.

CMDepot.com is a website that helps construction companies “visualize” their excess material.  By being able to see what excess material they have, companies can better utilize it.  Today, most projects within a company do not know what excess material is available outside of their own project.  CMDepot is changing that.  By cataloging their excess material using CMDepot.com, companies can quickly look for material across all of their projects in a region.  If excess material is available that fits their needs, they can pull from it and save money.

While recycling is a green practice, even greener yet is reuse.

Green buildings have never been so popular, at least when it comes to public policy. Looking at the stimulus plan you see how a concept that until lately was relatively marginal suddenly becomes a significant policy tool, which is expected to stimulate the economy, lower energy consumption, create jobs and support the environment, all the same time.

But what does a green building or a green home actually means? well, for most of us it would be difficult to get into specifics as so few had the chance to experience it personally, but for Avrim and Vicki Topel know the answers.

They have built a green home (LEED Silver Certified) at Kennett Square, PA and they’re sharing their story in a new book entitled “Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home“. This book is a valuable book for anyone interested in going green or building a green home. It is also part of a greater effort of the Topel’s experience to share their experience with others, which includes tours in the house and a documentary video. And last but not least, as we reported earlier, Eco-Libris is collaborating with the authors to plant trees for the copies sold of the book.

As we wanted to learn more about the authors’ experience and their book, we asked Avrim Topel to join us for an interview.

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Do you want to learn more about green building and gain valuable hands-on experience by helping to build an earth sheltered home? There are several natural building internship and work exchange opportunities at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeastern Missouri, an off-the-grid intentional community devoted to ecological sustainability. Read ahead to learn more about one particular earth sheltered home and green building construction work exchange.

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