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BLUE VINYL, New DVD Edition
Award-winning cinematographer Dan Gold joins with Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand to co-direct a sobering, shockingly funny and uniquely personal search for the truth about the vinyl siding on her parent's Long Island home. The result is a deeply personal and vital expose that has been called "scary and hilarious" by the New York Times and "one of Sundance's best documentaries" by Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times. The Environmental Building News dubbed it the green building movement's first "cult classic." The new DVD edition of this HBO Feature Documentary, winner of a Sundance Film Festival award and an Emmy nomination, includes an epilogue, a new short film "Habitat for Humanity," and other special bonus features.
Book Selections
New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape
Recommended to us by Andres Duany, AIA, the New Urbanist leader tapped to lead the first post-Katrina design workshops in the Gulf States region, this book is important reading for those interested in the rebuilding of New Orleans. In his now classic work of historical geography, published in 1976, Pierce F. Lewis, past president of the American Association of Geographers, documents the rise and expansion of what he calls the "impossible but inevitable" city of New Orleans through four major historic periods. This revised and greatly expanded second edition predates Hurricane Katrina, but presciently frames the very debates that rage today concerning environment, race, wealth and power.
Philosophy of Sustainable Design
This book is intended as a starting point for anyone involved in the building industry who is on a journey to learn how they can build more responsibly. We found it to be an excellent primer for those of us who are not green building professionals, but who want to understand more about this rapidly growing field. We also like it because it forecasts the end of PVC plastic, also known as vinyl, building materials. Tapping into the work of many pioneers and 'green design philosophers', author and architect Jason McLennan clearly presents a framework for people to understand Sustainable Design and how ultimately it will become the future of architecture and design.
The Making of a Conservative Environmentalist
If you can find another book endorsed by both Greenpeace and Republican strategist and commentator Mary Matalin, let us know. In 1989, President George Bush appointed lawyer and former diplomat Gordon Durnil as the US chairman of the International Joint Commission (IJC), an American-Canadian organization charged with protecting the environment of the Great Lakes, the world's second-largest freshwater resource. The experience transformed the conservative Republican Durnil into a Republican conservationist. Under his leadership, the IJC recommended a phase-out strategy for chlorinated products. In this book, Durnil tells his story, examines the strategies and tactics of environmental groups and big business, and explains why political conservatives should be leading the effort to take precautionary steps to eliminate persistent toxic chemicals from the environment.
Green Dollhouse
For the green building professional who has everything, this might be the perfect gift. Possibly the most original green building book on the market to day, the Green Dollhouse Book celebrates the ideas produced by entrants to the Green Dollhouse competition, sponsored by Sustainable San Mateo County in 2005. The book showcases the most compelling entrants and highlights the environmental features and lessons of each of these selected green dollhouses. Illustrated with beautiful, full color photographs, the book also contains three How-To sections so that readers can build upon the lessons learned from other dollhouse builders.
The Ecological Engineer: Volume One, KEEN Engineering
"Engineering is sexy!" proclaims architect and author Jason McLennan. He and co-author David R. Macaulay succeed admirably in their goal of presenting the profession "with as much fanfare and clarity as the architecture that cloaks it." This inaugural volume of Ecotone Publishing's new Ecological Engineer series highlights the work of KEEN engineering to illustrate the leadership potential of the engineering profession in producing functionally outstanding structures, systems and technologies, in a way that embraces the emerging philosophy of sustainable design. Organized into three critical sections - Practice, Principles and Projects - the book provides a valuable resource and touchstone for engineers, architects and other building professionals who hope to embrace an ethic that is responsible to both people and the environment.
Who's Green 2006
This new directory by Ecotone Publishing is designed to serve as the pre-eminent resource book for locating firms, organizations and institutions that are actively participating in the growth of the green building industry. The directory functions as the definitive clearinghouse of contact information for the best talent and knowledge that constitutes the sustainable design and construction field. Containing contact information and profiles for the principal organizations involved in the green building industry in North America, the guide is organized by the categories of Architecture Firms; MEP Engineering Firms; Interior Design Firms; Green Consulting Firms; Green Building Organizations and Non-Profits; and Schools of Architecture with a green focus.
Living Downstream
A beautiful book about an ugly reality, that chemicals released into our environment are linked to cancer and other serious human health impacts. Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer in her twenties, traces with a lyrical voice and compelling precision the entire web of connections between our bodies and the ecological world in which we eat, drink, breathe, and work. This brave, clear, and careful work establishes her as the rightful heir to Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring.
Having Faith
In her second mesmerizing book, Sandra Steingraber, brilliant writer, first-time mother, and respected biologist, explores the intimate ecology of motherhood. Environmental hazards—from industrial poisons found in amniotic fluid to the toxic contamination of breast milk—now threaten each crucial stage of infant development to an alarming extent. In this month-by-month story of her own pregnancy and childbirth, Sandra weaves into its telling new discoveries about genetics, the intimate unfolding of embryonic organs, the architecture of the fetal brain, and the astonishing transformation of the mother's body as it prepares to nourish and protect a new life from the relentless assaults of industrial toxins in the environment. Having Faith combines poetry and science to give us a meaningful appreciation for the beauty and mystery of life, and a passionate call to arms for the love of our children.
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