West Elm's Organic Collection

If your looking to outfit your home in organic wares but don't want to compromise on style check out West Elm's new organic collection offering bedding and bath products.  All too often the organic lines are in dull colors and designs but not the snow leopard towels which range in price from $9-24, also making them affordable for everyone!

It's about more than just energy ...

While LEED construction has soared in the commercial market the residential market is just catching up. But if you think buying a green home is just about the energy savings here are a few reasons why a LEED certified home is the best investment you can make.

• Our LEED homes are priced at market rate; there is no premium attached for the energy efficient features and appliances, air quality controls and non-toxic finishes. 
  
• Just because oil prices are going down doesn't mean electricity will.  In fact projected rate increases have nothing to do with the cost of oil or inputs.  Deregulation of the energy market has resulted in rate increased between 20-70%.  
• Lastly, energy efficiency is not the only or primary benefit of LEED construction.  John Gattuso, senior VP of urban and national development for Liberty Property Trust says that "productivity is the key, it's more important than energy costs and the environmental footprint, both of which are also critical."  Gattuso is referring to the business case for green building, which results in improved air quality.  This improvement according to a Department of Energy Study showed the average productivity gain is 15%.  Even a conservative improvement of 1% results in a staggering productivity gain of $600 per employee.  
• Gattuso also predicted a bifurcation of class A buildings, dividing sustainable design from those that are not.  In other words, LEED buildings will be worth more.  

Organic Upholstery Fabric

If your looking to recover your sofa or chairs Greenable is a great resource for environmentally friendly fabrics.  One fabric I love is this 100% organic cotton paisley print called 'sutara - pomegranate' by Robert Allen.  Greenable also has a great selection of environmentally friendly fabrics from Knoll that are greenguard certified to use in buildings with LEED commercial interiors.  

Smartest Paint Brush!

I'm sure you've had one of those moments where you see something so smart, so simple and wonder ... why you didn't I think of that?    That's exactly what crossed my mind when I purchased a new paintbrush from Greenable recently.  The top of the brush connects to a hose so you can rinse the brush from the top down. No longer will the paint collect at the top of the bristles.  

Recycle Your Batteries

If your looking for a place close by to drop off your old batteries check out the Big Green Earth Store. They also take cell phones and eye glasses and have a refillable laundry detergent system – so forget recycling that old bottle, reuse it!

Big Green Earth Store

Neighborhood: Olde City
239 Market St
Philadelphia, PA 19176
(267) 909-8661

Goat Mowers?

A lawn mower can easily spew as much smog-causing hydrocarbon into the air in an hour as a modern car, even though the car has 30 times as much horsepower, according to the New York Times.  That's bad news for Philadelphia, which has some of the nation's worst air quality.  

Perhaps the Park Rangers at Independence Mall and whoever (if anyone?) is overseeing the management of the city's vast portfolio of vacant lots should copy Seattle's City Government and unleash a herd of goats and sheep as an environmentally friendly alternative to mowing.  No word on weather it also saves money but it would be nice to see some signs of life along independence mall's pastures.

T. Boone Pickens is after BLUE GOLD

You’ve probably seen T. Boone Pickens TV ads about the urgency to solve the global warming crisis and maybe even some fluffy press coverage about this oil man's amazing conversion into an alternative energy advocate. But don’t be fooled by Boone’s mea culpa, it’s a clever ruse to get what he’s really after, a resource that’s quickly becoming more precious than gold, water.

It appears that Boone's support of Wind is a strategic cover to extract and profit by pumping ‘blue gold.' Pickens has rights to pump from the vast Ogallala aquifer in the high plains, one of the world's largest fresh water aquifers.  Boone owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and continues to acquire more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property.  But Pickens needs a pipeline, and he'll get that pipeline by promoting the electrical transmission of Wind power.  Thanks to lobbying, Boone's pipeline can run along the same corridor.   

The world is in a water crisis and the warning signs are clear.  Many scientists believe that water will become the most serious environmental issue for this generation.  The Ogallala Aquifer, spanning from South Dakota to Texas, could be completely gone in as little as 25 years, thanks in part to pumping by Pickens.  People in 8 states rely on this aquifer for drinking water, in parts of Texas it has been pumped dry.

Water is a $425 Billion dollar industry whose global greed and dominance echos the oil industry in so many ways, not the least of which is the players.  The Bush family recently purchased a 100,000 acre ranch in Paraguay, directly over South America’s largest aquifer, putting themselves in a power position over the fresh water rights for more than 200,000 South Americans. By controlling this aquifer Bush could become the equivalent of the Saudi Royal Family. But, hey, Paraguay seems like a natural fit ... isn’t South America where dictators retire anyway?

CHECK out the trailer to FLOW a documentary about the water industry which was an official selection of at the Sundance Film Festival and received rave reviews from the New York Times

SHOW ME THE GREEN

When the preeminent building industry association, whose members include big names like Westrum and Grasso, starts talking green, you know it’s a new day in Philadelphia.

The BIA has been an advocate for reforming the zoning code, the department of Licenses and Inspections and the permitting process to make it easier to do business in the City. Now this group is recognizing the business case for green. In today’s market it’s clear the value of a property is more than just bricks and mortar – it’s about performance. With increasing costs of energy and water, buyers and tenants want to know the ‘life cycle costs’ of a building.

Onion Flats, which has been the local pioneer of green building and more recently, LEED certified construction, will speak about green home building to some of the City’s most well-known developers. One of Onion Flats most recent projects, Berks Hewson, uses nearly 40% less energy than a home built to traditional code standards. Saving energy is good for the environment and it’s great for business!


“Introduction to Green Building”
Wednesday, October 15, 2008—1:30 – 5:00 p.m.
The Friends Center, 15th and Cherry Streets

Frightening Home Heating Forecast

In February of this year the Wall Street Journal reported that the average cost of delivered residential propane gas was up 28% from a year earlier. Residential heating oil was up 37% from a year earlier. While prices for natural gas usually go down in the summer, prices have continued to rise and are 50% higher since January according to one Ohio paper.



Prices for natural gas are being driven up by a lack of reserves, which are down 29% from the average. A colder than average winter on the East Coast last and the inability of production to keep up with demand are to blame.

In July National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp. in Ohio announced the company has raised its gas rates by 44 percent. Oregon’s three natural gas utilities told a state regulatory panel that residential prices could go up by 10 to 40 percent this winter.

Many power plants use natural gas to generate electricity which may result in additional rate hikes beyond the last round of rates hikes in July that averaged nearly 30% across the country.