Here are a few gifts in the spirit of green for the gadget lover on your list. The Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Meter will tell its owner which appliances have been good or bad when it comes to wasting energy. Plug in individual appliances, lamps, or any of those electronic gadgets under the tree to find out how much they affect household electrical consumption and therefore the electric bill. The checkbook sized unit has a large LCD display and gives information in voltage, frequency, current, volt amps, watts, power factor, kilowatt hour, and elapsed time. There are a series of these gizmos available at http://www.chooserenewables.com at prices ranging from $24.99 to several hundred dollars. The environmental wisdom of building a roaring fire in the fireplace is open to debate, but recycling...(read more)

I'm more cranky than usual and already regarding red and green as the world's worst pairing since Jon and Kate. It must be Christmas. That gets the bah humbug out of the way - if only for the moment - so here are the first of our 2009 green (the red will be your bank balance) ideas for the upcoming holiday. Today's selections are for the sports and outdoor lover in your life. New Balance Trail 20 running shoes are the first green shoes in NB's line. The shoe is designed to reduce waste in manufacturing and the materials themselves are largely recycled. The outsole is rice husk rubber, the insert and upper are both natural and recycled. All synthetics on the shoe are made from recycled materials and the adhesives are water-based. The shoe is light weight (8.6 oz.) and available...(read more)

In September we introduced a project in Southhampton (Long Island), New York under which is being built a completely carbon-neutral home from the ruins of devastating residential fire. As background, the home of David Dubin and his family was hit by a major fire on December 22 of last year. The fire ruined the center of the house but left the shell. The original house was a relatively new shingled, center entrance colonial that looked like hundreds of thousands of houses in the region. The new house, while it will be built from the remains, will have an 800 foot addition (an 4000 sq. ft total) and will resemble the Canadian "lodge houses" Mrs. Dubin recalls from her childhood in that country. The house, at least from viewing the architectural drawings, is quite spectacular. The designers...(read more)

A few months ago we posted a very popular piece on this forum about Dragon Board (April 9, 2009), a drywall substitute that has many environmental, structural, and economic advantages. We christened it almost too good to be true. Let me quickly say that I stand by that statement. But, in the course of researching that article we ran across a reference to Chinese gypsum, another drywall substitute, that was giving the Dragon Board people fits as customers confused their quality product with an import that was anything but green. We rather off-handedly mentioned the confusion in our article. Let me state again - Chinese gypsum has nothing to do with Dragon Board! Since then the negative news about Chinese gypsum, now commonly called Chinese dry wall, has exploded. While use of the product has...(read more)

Nine months after a fire partially destroyed their home in Southampton, a Long Island family is turning the tragedy into a green opportunity . After losing their home last December 22, the David Dubin family joined with members of The Hamptons Green Alliance to rebuild the house in what is believed to be the first net zero energy consumption, certified carbon neutral, and LEED Platinum home in Long Island if not the nation. And it is a project that the world is being invited to watch. After the fire the Dubins began to talk with their friend and local architect Richard Stott, a LEED certified specialist, about planning their new home. Stott, knowing that the Dubins were also environmentalists, began to discuss with them the idea of incorporating state-of-the-art materials, procedures, and techniques...(read more)

The surface of a dark roof can reach 180° on a sunny day. A roof that hot does a lot to the temperature inside the structure, a situation that would be welcome in Minnesota in January but is more likely to occur in Texas in August. The heat is absorbed into the structure where, even with its tendency to rise, will still elevate the inside temperature increasing the need for and cost of air conditioning. That superheated roof will also send some of the heat back out into the surrounding air, creating what are called “heat islands” in densely populated areas. While absorbing the suns heat, a dark surface also absorbs its rays, lowering the earth’s overall solar reflectance (called albedo) and possibly promoting climate change. For those reasons there is a growing movement...(read more)

On Monday while discussing dark roofing materials we mentioned albedo, a word we are sure the majority of non-scientists have never heard of. That may not be the case for long. Here's the deal. Albedo is defined as high solar reflectance, i.e. the earth's capability of bouncing the sun's rays back into the stratosphere. If a surface absorbs all light it looks black and has an albedo of 0; if it is perfectly reflective it looks white and has an albedo of 1. All surfaces, in fact all objects, have an albedo within those two numbers. A new sheet of copy paper has an albedo of 1 while a brick wall or a freshly plowed field has an albedo closer to 0 than to 1. When the rays are absorbed or bounced, so is the accompanying heat from those rays. Thus the many chocolate colored roofs and...(read more)

If you live in a four-season climate you have probably heard that a dark roof will cut winter energy costs. It ain’t necessarily so. The oft-stated theory is that the dark roofs will absorb heat from the suns rays, heating the house and cutting down on the amount of gas, oil, or electricity needed to heat it in the winter months. With the new push for white roofs – Department of Energy Secretary and Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chou is a big proponent – it is time to look at this widely held belief and the harm it may actually be causing. There are a number of reasons that dark roofing materials are not as energy efficient as advertised. First, hot air always rises. Thus, whatever heat is transmitted into the attic or into living areas from a dark roof will stay very...(read more)

Gas powered lawn and garden equipment are environmental disasters. Here are some ugly statistics from the EPA. Gas lawn mowers create 5 percent of U.S. air pollution; and even higher percentage in metropolitan areas. Garden equipment engines emit high levels of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxide. Gas mowers consume 800 million gallons of gas per year. Gardeners spill 17 million gallons of fuel each year while refueling lawn equipment - more than the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez. Now believe that last one if you want, but I have heard 100,000 gallons spilled in the U.S. just from mowers - sounds more realistic - but whatever the volume, spilled fuel contaminates groundwater and evaporates into the air leaving volatile organic compounds that create ozone when exposed...(read more)

Today it becomes official. Sustainability is in . Wal-Mart says so. The marketing giant is expected to release details Thursday of a new initiative which it claims will help its buyers, customers, and other retailers determine the social and environmental impact of every product on Wal-Mart's shelves . According to Stephanie Rosenbloom writing in The New York Times, the company will announce the implementation of an electronic system, a sustainability index, that would give stakeholders a way to determine which products to put on their shelves or in their carts. As Rosenbloom puts it, determining which products are "greener" will no longer be just the consumer's job. The program is expected to take five years to reach full implementation. In the first phase Wal-Mart will gather...(read more)