• Most Americans and Canadians say "green" labeling just a marketing tactic.
• Harnessing the Wind to Fuel India’s Growth – as nations examine their carbon output, wind turbines provide one alternative to coal.
• Will sustainable development "shake up" architecture?
• Clean energy can’t meet growing demand, which is outstripping supply, pushing up prices, and raising the specter that some states may not meet clean-energy mandates. 
• Green Building Moves Outdoors – the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced the development of a new rating system for landscape design. 

It’s Friday, why not watch a little video?  High quality video content like this is hard to find online, so I thought I would share it.  A lot of people think green building is about saving energy.  It is.  But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Buildings. Use. Water. Materials. Land. Space. Air. And. Money.  Click on over to KQED for some background information on the above video. 

• The highly respected Ed Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030, says, "The only fossil fuel that can fuel global warming is coal. If you stop coal, you stop global warming. End of story."
• The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) reports on their green roof: it retained lots of water, reduced building energy costs, and lowered the outdoor air temperature.
• Green Technology Forum report finds that nanotechnology can make green buildings more cost-effective, energy-efficient, and in tune with their environment. 
• Greener homes mean much more than planting lots of trees.
• Texas Traffic Institute study says traffic congestion is worse than last year and cost the nation over $78 billion, including the cost of lost time. 

• The Green Standard?  LEED Buildings get lots of buzz, but the point is getting lost. 
• What’s right and wrong with LEED.
• USGBC advised to make location part of LEED certification to avoid sprawl. 

It’s Friday — why not enjoy a little video action?!  Via Equity Green, also filed in the JG Video Library.

I watched this video of the Jellyfish House by architects Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott, and needless to say, I was kind of blown away.  It’s quite compelling to watch, but at the same level, it’s complicated.  I can’t say I understand everything that’s going on but I like it.  Jellyfish are responsive to the environment around them, so like jellyfish, one concept with this house is that water is filtered and harvested through the actual structure of the home.  The structure uses UV light filtration, which could come down in price in the future, and titanium dioxide, which is now used for self-cleaning glass in tall skyscrapers.  This concept prototype for the future of sustainable living was designed (hypothetically) for Treasure Island, a decommissioned military base in San Francisco Bay with toxic top soil. 

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