·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story in Interior Design.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) recently announced their picks for this year’s top 10 examples of sustainable architecture and green design solutions.

Via Librarian’s Internet Index.

Website for a nonprofit organization with a mission to make “air-drying laundry acceptable and desirable as a simple and effective way to save energy.” Features laundry tips (on energy savings for washing and drying), blog, clothesline art, and material on advocacy efforts to make clotheslines legal in light of community covenants, landlord prohibitions, and zoning laws.

Via Librarian’s Internet Index.

“From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. ‘The Story of Stuff’ is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled [video] look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.” Includes full movie, fact sheet, annotated script, reading list, and foreign-language subtitled versions. Sponsored by the Tides Foundation and Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption.

Via Librarian’s Internet Index.

This website offers “free, energy efficient, healthy house plans.” Each of the plan packages comes with “full construction documents or blueprints, … a home energy model for the city and state combination in which their home building project will occur, a LEED checklist,” and related material. Includes plans for models such as a “Modern Cube,” “Suburban Loft,” and “Simple Villa.” Also includes a blog.

MedlinePlus has added a topical guide to climate change, including its effect on human health.

Via Docuticker.

Background paper: How CBO estimates the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions (PDF; 795 KB)
Source: Congressional Budget Office

As part of its mandate to provide the Congress with the objective, timely, and nonpartisan analysis needed to make informed economic and budgetary decisions, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepares cost estimates for legislation under consideration by the Congress. In recent years, a number of legislative proposals have involved efforts to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States. To estimate the budgetary impact of such proposals, CBO must first estimate the incremental costs to firms and households of mitigating greenhouse gases. This background paper briefly describes the methodology that CBO uses to estimate those incremental costs, the data sources and models used to develop that methodology, and the rationale for using it. In keeping with CBO’s mandate to provide impartial analysis, the paper contains no policy recommendations.

Via Docuticker.

New Report Cautions Green Jobs Mean Lower Pay, Taxpayer Subsidies & Lost Jobs
Source: U.S. Senate Green Jobs and the New Economy subcommittee (Sen. Kit Bond, R-MO)

With green jobs the focus of the President’s Earth Day event and numerous recent media stories, Senate Green Jobs and the New Economy subcommittee ranking member U.S. Senator Kit Bond today unveiled a new report: Yellow Light on Green Jobs.

“This report signals a yellow light urging caution with green jobs,” said Bond. “We must avoid green jobs proposals that result in killing millions of existing jobs to pay for new green jobs, require expensive taxpayer subsidies, or pay low wages.”

+ Full Report (PDF; 656 KB)

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Colleges are going trayless in an effort to save money and water and cut down on food waste.