The Most High-Tech Green Buildings

Buildings that communicate and change shape to keep their occupants comfortable and safe. By Jonathan Fahey, Forbes In England there is a building made with insulation that can be inflated or deflated to adjust to outside temperatures. In Germany there is a house designed to be easily disassembled and recycled. The New York Times Co. building is draped in shades that automatically adjust to the movement of the sun. In Milwaukee a museum changes its very shape to shade itself. The point of a building is to keep its inhabitants comfortable: Humans want to be warm (but not too warm) and dry. The problem comes in providing heating or cooling, and replacing the light lost when the sun is shut out. The solutions are becoming ever more creative. "Heat and light are the things people are most concerned about, and they are the things that take energy," says Brendon Levitt, an architect with the San Francisco Bay Area firm Loisos + Ubbelohde, which specializes in so-called hi…
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ENGEX Conference in San Diego

Why Attend EngEx? Access to over $500+ Billion! SAN DIEGO will be the place to be this summer for an estimated 10,000 of the nation's top professionals in the energy, water, transportation and environmental industries. EngEx 2010, taking place at the San Diego Convention Center from July 29 - 31, will make America's Finest City home to some of the top technologists, researchers, policy makers, governmental agencies and investors all looking to collaborate together under one roof. "We are looking forward to having a great conference that really creates some strong business and innovation opportunities for our nation's future," said Kris Ellis, VP of Operations, with EngEx 2010. "The plan is to evolve some big ideas into action from this conference." 9 Government agencies hosting workshops to help businesses grow: * How to get government contracts? $500 Billion Given Annually! * How to get access to government grants? $2.2 Billion Given Annually! * BLM: How…
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Leilani Munter: Life is Short. Race Hard. Live Green.

This article originally appeared on EcoStiletto.com, a website dedicated to sustainable, eco-friendly, green and organic fashion and health. Leilani Munter encapsulates the ecoista’s dilemma: It’s all well and good to want to live sustainably until you work in an industry that doesn’t share your views. What are you supposed to do, quit your job? Leilani takes this concept to an extreme most of us can’t even imagine. That’s because she is—if you haven’t already guessed from the photos—a racecar driver. Not just any racecar driver, mind you, Leilani has serious on-track cred. She’s the fourth woman in history to race in the Indy Pro Series. She set the record for the highest finish for a female driver in the history of the Texas Motor Speedway when she finished fourth in 2006. Sports Illustrated named her one of the top 10 female racecar drivers in the world. The girl really can’t drive 55. More like 200. But all that speed takes a serious environmental toll—and Leila…
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Public and Private Roles in Sustainability

By Eric McNulty I had the pleasure of introducing Rep. Edward Markey for his opening keynote at the recent Executive Council Sustainable Cities leadership forum. Markey has been at the forefront of the Congressional response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is the co-author of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, and author of the bill that increased auto mileage standards for the first time in three decades. The League of Conservation Voters calls him the environment’s best advocate in Congress. Markey gave a fiery address about the need for the U.S. to become the leader in alternative energy. What I found interesting was his view that regulation can be a catalyst to those efforts. While many business leaders think that regulation in anathema to innovation, Markey disagrees. He pointed to his prior work on the Telecommunications Committee that shifted a segment of the broadcast spectrum into commercial use for cellular and other wireless com…
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Get Unnecessary Oil Out of Your Life

By Tracy Hepler The Green Lifestyle Series is supported by Yourdailythread, a modern guide for the eco-curious and social do-gooder. This post was originally featured on YDT's online magazine which offers a free daily email with entertaining and informative green tips. It has been over 65 days (at an estimate of 504,000 gallons a day) since the B.P. oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. While we here at YDT have left the reporting of it to major news sources, we can’t help but think about it and all the devastation that has come. On an individual level I have wondered, what can I actually do? There are obvious things like drive less, donate human and pet hair trimmings to Matter of Trust, but beyond that I wondered… I took a look around at everything around me and realized, it’s all from oil. Every possession was brought to me through oil and many of the products I owned include oil-by products. I thought, what if we get the unnecessary oil out of our…
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