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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)