Your Green Home: A Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly New Home (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

Your Green Home: A Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly New Home (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series) Review

More and more homeowners today want houses that are healthy to live in and cause minimal damage to the environment. That’s what green building is all about.

Your Green Home is written for homeowners planning a new home—whether you are working with an architect or builder, or serving as your own general contractor. Intended to improve the overall environmental performance of new houses being built, the book sets out to answer some of the big-picture questions relating to having a home designed and built—and getting what you want.

Your Green Home covers:

• Home location and its relationship to the community
• Site design
• Construction systems
• Building design to optimize energy performance
• Renewable energy systems
• Material selection
• Indoor environmental quality
• Water efficiency
• Material selection

Written by the founder of BuildingGreen—North America’s premier green building authority—this book will prove useful not only to future homeowners, but also to designers and builders seeking to meet this demand. Building professionals well-versed in green building may find this a useful book to give to potential clients to convey the scope and principles of green building.

Alex Wilson is president of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News, the oldest and most respected publication serving North America’s green building industry. A green building expert since the 1970s, he has authored countless articles on the topic and several books, including Green Building Products, the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, and Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate.

Rethinking Sustainable Development (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Series)

Rethinking Sustainable Development (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Series) Review

Throughout the past decade, the meaning of "sustainable development" - which rose to prominence following after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - has evolved toward a broad and integrative concept that focuses on environmental protection as well as intergenerational social equity, human rights, and social justice.

As the definition of sustainable development has expanded its meaning has become even more ambiguous, and the gulf between theory and practice continue to widen. Often obscured by jargon-laden debate and embedded in capitalism, the possibilities of realizing goals of sustainable development have begun to fade while the reproduction of the socioeconomic forces that lead to unsustainable development continues to thrive. Yet to dismiss the notion of sustainable development would be a tacit acceptance of the conditions of unsustainable development.

The rapidly maturing capitalism worldwide appears have brought sustainable development to an impasse both in terms of theory and in practice. Capitalism has shown remarkable creativity and power to undermine the goals of sustainable development by appropriating and exploiting the language and practices of sustainable development. To effectively engage with the interplay between capitalism and sustainable development it is urgent that the debate takes on a greater conceptual and analytical clarity and be centered on the consideration of a just world order. A specific institutional environment is needed to achieve sustainable social justice must be clearly identified and articulated in ways that could be translated into effective practice.

This special issue of The ANNALS takes a radical departure from current reformist approaches to sustainable development and makes the argument for the necessity of an alternative vision of global political economy linked to strong commitment to a equity and social justice. With the help of case studies from different parts of the world, this volume examines and provides a foundation for thinking about alternative framework of analyses. Especially, it calls to reexamine the currently dominant formulations concerning the ‘desirable’ role of the state and no-governmental organization (NGOs) in sustainable development.

Providing an in-depth look at the conditions and processes that perpetuate unsustainable development, these articles examine a myriad of pivotal topics: poverty, prosperity, insecurity, diversity, and (NGOs), overproduction and scarcity, the role of the state, cultures of instability and violence, and social justice.

Social and environmental theorists, practitioners, and activists will find an innovative and ardent perspective that strives radical changes in the current discourse of sustainable development.

Sustainable Home Refurbishment: The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency (Earthscan Expert Series)

Sustainable Home Refurbishment: The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency (Earthscan Expert Series) Review

A retro-fit offers many benefits: cutting electricity and heating bills, increasing the resale value of homes, slashing carbon emissions and creating a healthier place to live. This book is the guide to making it happen. It looks at: - draught-proofing, insulation and damp - ventilation, heating and cooling - electrical efficiency and renewable energy - water use and re-use - materials' life cycles and incorporating nature - protection from climate change impacts - modelling energy flows and embodied energy - how we can meet the need to cut carbon emissions from dwellings by 80% by 2050. Projects can apply to apartment blocks, recent builds and older, solid-walled properties. Enlivened with helpful diagrams and photographs, plus plenty of pointers for further information, it provides a comprehensive resource handbook for any building professional and contractor, students - or any homeowner serious about efficiency (cash and carbon) savings.

All New York: The Source Guide (All City Series)

All New York: The Source Guide (All City Series) Review

This series of guides for finding everything from fine antiques to wine cellar equipment is an indispensable companion for the enthusiastic traveler/shopper in the never-ending quest for hidden treasures. Each book contains thousands of complete listings of carefully screened dealers and merchants who offer the beautiful things that make for gracious and elegant living. Categories range from priceless art and antiques to porcelain, silver, fine linen, parquet, stained glass, books, maps, and all kinds of collectibles. The authors have pounded the pavements of the world's richest and most exciting cities, searching out not only the best sources for beautiful things but also the skilled craftsmen who create and restore them. They apply their well-known rigid standards for dealers, merchants, and artisans: everyone listed not only is an excellent source for the best quality products and services but also has a reputation for honesty and fair dealing.