Green Living columns are published bi-weekly in the Las Vegas Review Journal, appearing every other Thursday in the Home section. They are written by GreenDream Enterprises president, Steve Rypka.

In the list below, the left side has links to the columns and the right side has links to further information relating to each particular column topic. The list is in reverse chronological order with the most recent column at the top. You can also read past columns from 2006 and 2007. Reader comments are welcome via email.

Green Living Column

Fireworks - Why?

(Click to read column)

The thumbnail above is a photo of an accidental explosion during a fireworks show in Capay, CA on July 4, 2008. A fire department professional was injured.

Photo: Steve Rypka

• Declare Your Independence from Toxic Fireworks Pollution
• 8 Fun Alternatives to Fireworks - Avoid the Danger and Toxic Pollution with These Alternate Activities
• Chris Conway's take on toxic fireworks (lots of details and references).
• Enough of those toxic firework displays! - Guardian
• Fireworks Harm Environment, Health
• Officials warn of fireworks danger
• Fireworks warnings are nothing new - NY Times, 1987
• Preventing blindness from fireworks.
• Effect on the lakes of New Hampshire (downwinders)
• Does the Dose make the Poison? NOT! Read here and here.
  

Fireworks are not worth the risk

• Las Vegas Green Building Tour flyer & registration info (PDF)
• New Horizons Academy
• Energy Education Station
• Video about the New Horizons Academy Green School Project
• Core Construction
• Molasky Corporate Center
• Springs Preserve
• Villa Trieste
• Funding Green Buildings
• Learn about the Earth Bus

• HomeFree Nevada
• Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program
• RESNET - Residential Energy Services Network
• BPI - Building Performance Institute
• How to Become a Home Energy Rater (PDF)
• Green For All - A national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.
• Download the Green Jobs Guidebook (PDF)

PBS' NOW interviews Van Jones, Green Jobs Handyman

• Pool pump savings calculator (Pentair)
• Pool pump savings calculator (Hayward)
• Pool pump rebates from NV Energy
• Variable-Speed, Low-Energy Pool Pumps Can Help Slash Energy Costs
• Basic pool efficiency info from the Dept. of Energy: Installing and Operating a Swimming Pool Pump for Energy Efficiency
• Pentair intelligent pool pumps

• The Green House of the Future, Wall Street Journal (includes section on William McDonough's vision of a House like a Tree.
• Brief synopsis of the above on TreeHugger.com.
• A New Geography of Hope, William McDonough
• Treescaper Tower
• The King of Green Architecture
• Visit VerticalFarm.com for some great info on urban agriculture potential.
• Watch this Discovery Channel clip on vertical farming.
• Skyfarming, New York magazine.
• Meet Farming’s Future, Next American City.
• High Rise Farms? The New Model for Sustainable Cities by Peter Gorrie
• Solar Today article on Vertical Farms by Rona Fried, Ph.D.
• Vertical Farms for Food & Restoration, Rona Fried's interview with Dickson Despommier.
• The Hanging Gardens of the Future, by Peter Madden

Successful organic urban farming in Cuba.

• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster, an excellent book full of low-cost, practical solutions for wiser water use.
• Home Use of Graywater, Rainwater Conserves Water--and May Save Money, University of Arizona
• Safe Use of Household Greywater, New Mexico State University
• American Water Works Association: Water Use Efficiency
• Greywater Central, Oasis Design
• Recycling Water the Greywater Guerrillas' Way
• Graywater: Don't Lose It - Use It!
• Residential Graywater Reuse Study, Water Casa
• Water Efficient Landscaping (see page 7) , Environmental Protection Agency
• Using Gray Water at Home, Arizona Dept. of Environmental Qualtiy Gray Water Guidelines
• Arizona gives a Gray-Water Conservation Tax Credit! (Why not Nevada?)

Brad Lancaster talks about graywater.

• NREL description of Southern Nevada wind resources
• NREL wind map for Nevada
• DOE Wind Powering America
• DOE Wind Powering America 50 meter wind map for Nevada (PDF)
• NOAA - Chart of Average Wind Speeds for U.S. Cities
• DRI - Chart of Average Wind Speeds for U.S. Airports
• American Wind Energy Association - Rooftop Wind info
• FirstLook Wind Speed Mapping (create free account)
• AWS Truewind - windNAVIGATOR Wind Speed Mapping
• Skystream 3.7 wind turbine information
• Skystream 3.7 spec sheet (PDF)

• Las Vegas Sun, WATER: Using Less but why?
• Review Journal, NOT A DROP IN THE BUCKET: Top 100 users consume enough water to supply 1,950 homes
• Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada: Water for All
• Water Footprint Network
• No Such Thing As Waste Water
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster, an excellent book full of low-cost, practical solutions for wiser water use.
• Toward Sustainable Sanitation (PDF book)

• Las Vegas-Clark County Library District
• Henderson District Public Libraries
• Kill A Watt monitors join 'green' books
• Efficiency Maine's Kill-A-Watt Program, South Portland, ME
• Kill-A-Watt Program @ Efficiency Maine

• City of Las Vegas, Home Energy Audio info
• NV Energy, Energy Audits
• RESNET, Residential Energy Services Network
• Home Energy Connection, Home Performance Specialists

• Pulte Homes - Villa Triest info
• Eco Home article
• UNLV lends expertise to eco-friendly homes, Las Vegas Sun
• RJ articles 1 and 2 on Villa Triest
• Watch a video about green homes from the U.S. Green Building Council

• Cradle to Cradle Certification
• Forest Stewardship Council
• Green Seal
• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP), EPA
• Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art
• Report: PRIMARY GREEN PRODUCT STANDARDS AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS: A COMPARISON (PDF)

• Dept. of Energy, Passive Solar Home Design
• The Passive Solar Energy Book: A Complete Guide to Passive Solar Home, Greenhouse and Building Design, by Edward Mazria
• Sunlight Passive Solar Homes
• Passive House
• Solar House Plans

• Festivus, an alternative holiday in response to the commercialization of Christmas.
• Housing Industry Can Take Lead in Green Movement and Economic Recovery
• Springs Preserve Holiday Tree Recycling Program

• Watch Dr. David Suzuki's recent keynote speech for the (Canadian) National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE). (This talk is very good and was the inspiration for this column. Thanks to Mary Beth for the link!)
• On fishing down the food chain: SeaWeb and a brief audio report.
• On oceanic dead zones from: NASA, The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
• On species extintion from: CNN, Reuters, Huffington Post.
• On floating mid-ocean islands of plastic trash: American Chronicle, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, good video at PBS' NewsHour, The Plastic Sea, One Man's Junk is Another Man's Cause.
• On Ocean Acidification: Science Daily, European Project on Ocean Acidification, Discover Magazine, NOAA, ABC Science (Australia), A Sea Change (watch the trailer for this coming documentary), The Darkening Sea by Elizabeth Kolbert (PDF).

• The Gottfried's LEED Platinum home project.
• Eco-Craftsman blog - a chronicle of the journey to deep green.
• Planet Green's video blog series on USGBC Founder David Gottfried's LEED Home Renovation
• David Gottfried's book, "Greed to Green"
• Want to green your own home? Check out the U.S. Green Building Council's Green Home Guide.

• Recycling event at UNLV - flyer (PDF)
• Blind Center of Nevada - PC Recycling Program
• NevadaRecycles.gov - Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
• America Recycles Day
• Republic Services - Curside Recycling info
• National Recycling Coalition
• Earth 911 - Recycling
• EPA Personal Emissions Calculator - Including recycling benefits
• Evergreen Recycling - Good for the planet. Good for your business.

• World Changing - Change your Thinking.
• Watch Alex Steffen of World Changing speak about the creation of a sustainable society in the video below....

• Your Money or Your Life, a best-selling book by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin about a nine-step program for personal financial transformation (available at the library).
• Find out about the New American Dream and the Simple Living Network.
• There's a lot of detail about Simple Living on Wikipedia.
• Check out Janet Luhrs' Simple Living Guide (available at the library).
• Get a life at gettingalife.org. Lots of links and informative articles.
• Any student of voluntary simplicity should not miss the pleasure of reading some of the works of Henry David Thoreau, especially Walden (also available at the library).

• Information on WoolieBees products.
• Product line with "Ultra Fresh" treament.
• Read the toxicity report for Ultra Fresh.
• Royal-Pedic makes some great organic latex mattresses.

• CASE HISTORY: Going Solar in a Condo, from Solar Today magazine
• Kilowatt Ours, a great DVD. Get it, watch it, share it.
• Who Killed the Electric Car?, another very good DVD. (There are several copies of the DVD available for free through the Clark County Library.)

Solar Success Story, Stephen Heckeroth ;

• Thinking long term with The Clock of the Long Now. Our decisions matter.
• Recycling CFLs at Home Depot (PDF)
• Download the Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb Investment Analysis Worksheet, by Andy Kerr (Excel).
• Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs, Energy Star site.
• Energy Star's CFL FAQ including what to do if a lamp is accidentally broken (PDF)
• "Shedding Light on Mercury Risks from CFL Breakage," (PDF) a report from the Mercury Policy Project.

• Post Carbon Institute - getting off our additiction to fossil fuels.
• Post Carbon Cities - Reduce consumption, produce locally.
• The Relocalization Network supports and connects groups as they work toward building strong communities.
• Boulder County's Going Local site helps prepare for the impacts of peak oil and climate change.
• The Cambridge Energy Alliance is creating green jobs by helping homeowners and businesses reduce their energy use and carbon footprint.
• Check out the Urban Farm concept, including a successful vertical garden in LA.
• Rainwater and Greywater Harvesting for Drylands
• Greywater information sources: Univ. of AZ, ClivusMultrum, GreyWater.com, The Greywater Guerrillas, ReWater Systems, Austrailian site with good info
• What's in a Name? EPA Proposes to Call Sewage Sludge "Compost", by Laura Orlando
• Toward Sustainable Sanitation, an excellent white paper (PDF)
• Some composting toilet systems: Envirolet, SunMar, ClivusMultrum, Naturum
• Download the entire Humanure Handbook.

• Events Calendar for U.S. Green Building Council - Nevada Chapter
• Nevada Renewable Energy Leadership Award banquet
• National Clean Energy Summit
• 2008 UNLV Renewable Energy Symposium
• Events Calendar for Solar NV
• Peabody Energy Earnings are up over 140%. Read their news release for yourself. More fossil fuel use will result in continuously rising energy prices.
• Big Coal's Campaign of Lies, by Jeff Goodall
• Read the Position Statement on Energy in Nevada from the U.S. Green Building Council - Nevada Chapter. Sane energy policy with lots of additional references.

• Information on Green Burials at greenburials.org
• Green Burial Council
• Forever Fernwood
• Ramsey Creek Preserve, Memorial Ecosystems
• National Geographic: Dying to be Green
• Green Graveyards, A Natural Way to Go - AARP
• Wikipedia on Natural Burials
• Natural Burial Sites in the U.S.
• Conservation Burial: A list of "standards"

• Springs Preserve
• Springs Preserve Class Schedule
• Springs Preserve Sustainable Living Classes
• Springs Preserve Library
• Springs Preserve Cafe
• List of LEED certified projects in Nevada.

• Home Energy Checklist, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy
• Guide to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Dept. of Energy
• Home Energy Conservation, Nevada Power
• Tips to Lower Your Energy Bills, Alliance to Save Energy
• Check out the film "Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America" by Jeff Barrie
• UNLV's Zero Energy Home project with real-time data
• EPA's Energy Star site with lots of great information

Energy Star Tips

• HowToCompost.org
• How to Make Compost, a Composting Guide
• Envirocycle Backyard Composter (This is the one I use and I like it.)
• Composting for the Homeowner, The Science of Composting
• Indoor composting system
• Path to Freedom. An inspirational family with an incredible urban garden!
• See a row of mature trees that sprouted from a nurse log in the rain forest.

• AIA Nevada web site
• Download the Blueprint for Nevada directly (PDF)
• AIA Las Vegas web site
• AIA National web site on Sustainability
• Sustainable Architectural Practice Position Statement from AIA (PDF)
• Position on New Power Plants in Nevada from AIA Nevada

• Green For All is a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.
• Green Collar Jobs Campaign, an Ella Baker Center Intitiative
• Find out more about Van Jones.
• Van Jones compared to MLK on Energy Smart blog.
• Green Jobs article on The Oil Drum.
• The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America.
• Listen to a recent discussion on KNPR's State of Nevada on Green Collar Jobs.
• The Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee of Southern Nevada has an excellent training program for solar installers.
• Good Jobs - Green Jobs, National Green Jobs Conference, a strategic partnership between the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club!
• Report on green economy and jobs from the American Solar Energy Society. (PDF)

Van Jones - Eco-Equity

• Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age considers the future of a transport sector now 95 per cent dependent on liquid hydrocarbon fuels: World Wildlife Fund news release with links to the full report.
• Smart Grid Consortium to Develop Smart Grid City; Support for PHEVs with V2G Part of the Design: Green Car Congress
• Xcel Energy's Smart Grid City project. This is a utility with leadership and a vision for a better future!
• PG&E, one of the nation's largest power providers, is teaming up with Tesla Motors and Google to test V2G technology.
• V2G: Vehicle to Grid Power: A research program at the University of Delaware.
• Vehicle-to-Grid Power: Executive summary of V2G research that analyses the feasibility and financial benefits of the concept. (PDF)
• What does Wikipedia have to say about V2G?
• Find out more about Plug-In Hybrid cars at CalCars.org and Plug-In Partners.

• Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance (film web site)
• Stop Toquop - Mesquite's battle for justice and clean air
• On "unbalanced interests," Granny D. From "Americans Who Tell the Truth" portrait series by Robert Shetterly
• One Hand Clapping in the Coal Fields by Robert Shetterly

We Cannot Eat Money

• The Green Home Guide: Green homes for everyone. From the U.S. Green Building Council.
• REGREEN: Green Home Renovations. Download the free guidelines. (12 MB PDF)
• From Megawatts to Negawatts, Living on Earth interview with Amory Lovins of RMI (transcript or MP3).

• Solar 2008 conference web site
• Post Carbon Institute - Learn about the transition to a post-carbon society.
• Post Carbon Cities - A program of the Post Carbon Institute that focuses on urban transformation toward sustainability.
• Comparison chart: One YEAR of Solar to ALL Fossil & Nuclear Fuel (PDF).
• NPR Radio: The Potential of Solar Power

• FACE IT: There IS a solution to Global Warming (watch or download the web cast)
• Architecture 2030 and the 2030 Challenge
• Warming to the truth, Las Vegas Sun editorial
• Nevada doesn’t need coal-fired plants, ‘green’ report says, Las Vegas Sun
• NEVADA VIEWS: A better approach to energy policy, Las Vegas Review Journal
• The Energy Challenge: Turning Glare Into Watts, NY Times
• Conservation, 'small power' can make energy debate moot, Reno Gazette Journal editorial
• New economic outlook possible with investment in renewables, Reno Gazette Journal editorial
• U.S. coal power boom suddenly wanes: Worries about global warming and rising construction costs give the edge to natural-gas and renewable-energy plants, Christian Science Monitor
• U.S. scraps ambitious clean-coal power plant, Christian Science Monitor
• Coal Industry Spending on Election Ads, Associated Press

• Note: The Solar Home Tour is on April 5, 2008 - Some of the articles below are about previous tours with different dates. Don't be confused! Check Solar NV's web site for the latest details.
• Solar NV - Southern Nevada Solar Home Tour (info & registration)
• Green Living column about the 2006 Solar Home Tour .
• American Solar Energy Society - National Solar Tour
• Review Journal article about the 2006 Solar Home Tour
• KNPR piece on the 2005 Solar Home Tour
• KNPR's State of Nevada including the 2006 Solar Home Tour

• U.S. Dept. of Energy, Moving Toward Zero Energy Homes (PDF)
• UNLV's Zero Energy Home Project in Las Vegas
• Zero (or close) Energy Homes Around the Country:
  • Going Green at the Beach (Oregon Coast)
  • Maine Solar House (Northeast)
  • Borrego Springs, CA (Hot desert)
  • Creve Coeur, MO (Midwest)
  • North Texas (South)
  • Cerritos, CA (N. California)
  • New Jersey Near ZEH Home Video (East)
• Florida Solar Energy Center on ZEH (Southeast)
• Near Zero Energy Housing Community, Builder includes solar array on EVERY home

• Origin of Human Species, Wikipedia
• The Redwood Forest and the humbling size of one tree.
• Deep Economy by Bill McKibben, an alternative to constant growth (an excellent book)

Watch this video of David Suzuki, a well-respected scientist, speaking on the economy and the environment. There are six clips in this series on YouTube for those who want to see the entire speech.

• Springs Preserve, seeking LEED Platinum
• Molasky Corporate Center, LEED Gold
• Mayor's Climate Protection Center
• Clark County's "Eco-County Initiative" (PDF)
• UNLV's 2007 Inaugural Energy Symposium
• UNLV's 2007 Urban Sustainability Initiative
• Nevada Solar One (CSP)
• Nellis AFB Solar System (PV)
• U.S. Green Building Council - Nevada Chapter
• AIA Nevada's Position Statement on Coal Power Plants
• Nevada Renewable Energy Report (PDF)
• Climate Change and Peak Oil
• Who are the Skeptics? 1, 2, 3, 4
• Alex Steffen: Don't Just Be The Change, Mass-Produce It
• Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million, by Bill McKibben