LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is leading the green building movement

There's a new sheriff in town -- and he's sporting a green badge! His name is LEED. And that's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design to you, pa'dner.

Buildings that use the the US Green Builders Council LEED(R) green building rating system as their benchmark for green building deliver immediate and measurable results through energy, water, and material efficiency; stronger financial performance; and better health and productivity for the people who live and work in them. Cities that embrace and encourage green building practices reap the same immediate and measurable results, including a healthier balance sheet, a healthier environment, and healthier people

LEED is a building standard that measures such things as the kind of plumbing used, the roofing, the amount of green space, the treatment of runoff, and even the kind of paint or wall covering used. Points are given for each conservation measure built into a building's structure and finishing touches.

LEED conservation planning and building is not only being applied to office buildings and residential buildings, but schools. Our children are able to learn better, breathe better and enjoy more natural lighting, and contact with the outdoors -- real nature.

Building and real estate industry members can take courses to become certified in LEED property design and mangement principles. These principles are going a long way toward cleaning up urban living spaces -- affecting quality of life by respecting air, water, land, habitat, wildlife and people.

$10 can improve life for truckers...and reduce air pollution, noise and fuel consumption

My buddie, Perry, recently pointed out to me that almost everything in my house depended on trucking. It made me pause! Today I discovered more facts and a solution to a big chunk of pollution.

The trucking industry is indispensable cog in the American economy and its importance is growing:

- In 2002, the trucking industry hauled 8.9 billion tons of freight, or 68% of total U.S. freight tonnage.

- 82% of U.S. communities depend solely on trucking for delivery of their goods and commodities

- Professional truck drivers drove 440 billion miles in 2004, a 146 % increase in 25 years.

- There are an estimated 2.6 million large tractor-trailers on the road in the U.S. and half of those have sleeper cabs. The sleepers provide living quarters for drivers because motel rooms are too expensive and their rigs and loads are too valuable to be left unattended. They are required to rest 10 hours for every 11 on the road.

- Most long-haul drivers average 100,000 to 110,000 miles per year; the average daily run for an over-the-road driver is almost 500 miles.

Feel informed? Here are a few more key facts:

- During these rest periods drivers idle their truck engines for extended periods, primarily to heat or cool their living quarters, whether they are resting or waiting to load or unload.

- Most extended idling occurs at travel centers (truck stops), according to the Department of Transportation, but it also occurs at fleet truck terminals, distribution centers, ports and border crossings.

- This extended idling consumes fuel at a gallon or more an hour, creates air and noise pollution, shortens engine life and vibrates the truck cab - unpleasant impacts for the driver, the truck owner, the travel center or other parking location, neighborhoods and for the nation's energy independence.

One innovative company has developed a $10 adapter to help solve this problem: IdleAire's Advanced Truckstop Electrification (ATE) system is being installed wherever long-haul trucks congregate and idle for extended periods. The only retrofit required for any long-haul truck to access the system is the one-time purchase of a $10 window adapter.

Know a trucker...maybe this would make a good holiday gift!

Garden management practices at Lotusland

Lotusland is a public garden that practices ongoing permaculture improvement. All materials used today in the garden are certified organically-based and the least harmful alternatives available.

Lotusland is a unique 37-acre estate and botanic garden situated in the foothills of Montecito to the east of the city of Santa Barbara. The gardens now covering the estate were created by Madame Ganna Walska, who owned the property from 1941 until her death in 1984. Before her death, Madame Walska established the nonprofit Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation, which now preserves this unrivaled botanical treasure.

A successful sustainable gardening program is built by incorporating various practices and ideas relevant to the specific site that encourage as much compatibility among diverse organisms as possible.

Here are a few strategies practiced at Lotusland:

- Green garden waste is managed onsite in compost piles and returned to the garden as mature compost

- Difficult to compost green waste such as fibrous leaves and palm fronds are transported to the county's green waste recycling program.

- Use large quantities of organic materials from the county green waste recycling program, as well as wood chips from tree companies

- Promote the use of mulches to raise awareness of their value

For more tips on sustainable land management, check their website or BackyardNature.com for a summary of sustainable tips.

Edible Estates -- SoCal seed of urban change

The Edible Estates project is part of the Gardenlab program, established by Fritz Haeg in 2001. With the garden as a metaphor and actual laboratory, it supports ecology based initiatives in art and design.

Edible Estates is an attack on the American front lawn and everything it has come to represent.

Edible Estates reconciles issues of global food production and urbanized land use with the modest gesture of a domestic garden.

Edible Estates is an ongoing series of projects to replace the American front lawn with edible garden landscapes responsive to culture, climate, context and people.

Edible Estates is a practical food producing initiative, a place-responsive landscape design proposal, a scientific horticultural experiment, a conceptual land-art project, a deThe Edible Estates project is part of the Gardenlab program, established by Fritz Haeg in 2001. With the garden as a metaphor and actual laboratory, it supports ecology based initiatives in art and design.

Invasive plants are damaging California's wildlands

Invasive, alien, weeds -- these pesky plants have various nicknames, but the reality is that native habitat, especially in the wild promotes a more stable ecosystem -- which promotes air, water and land system health.


The California Invasive Plant Council says, "Across California, invasive plants are damaging wildlands. Invasive plants displace native plants and wildlife, increase wildfire and flood danger, consume valuable water, degrade recreational opportunities, and destroy productive range and timber lands."

How do invasive plants do all this? Basically, by growing so fast that they disrupt the balanced system of plants and animals that developed over thousands of years.

What can we do about it? Several things:
- Don't buy or sell invasive species
- Remove invasive species from your spaces before they escape into the wild by wind, birds or other sneaky modes of transport
- Request your garden center to NOT carry invasives, or to at least label them as non-natives, or "very aggressive".
- Request that your garden center carry native plants and to label them as such.
- Take responsiblity for your landscape and learn which native plants will enhance your enjoyment of native habitat and the wildlife that is nourished by this system.

Everything is harder when we have millions of people living in a natural system! I know -- if there were only a few folks here and there, it would be a different story so we have to adapt, right?

Check
the California Invasive Plant Council for the 2006 Invasive Plant Inventory database.