Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid: Your Path to Building an Energy-Independent Home: Sheri Koones, Robert Redford

Prefabrication offers a simple path to the green home of your dreams, and in her latest book, Prefabulous author Sheri Koones highlights the many ways of using prefabrication to create almost-off-the-grid homes—houses that are not only environmentally friendly but often operate at nearly zero annual energy cost.
Taking energy from the grid when necessary and returning any excess energy produced, almost-off-the-grid homes function on a fraction of the energy required by most houses, and additionally are more comfortable, healthier, quieter inside, and far cheaper to operate. As energy costs continue to rise, the almost-off-the-grid house proves its worth.
Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid profiles more than 30 of the most energy-efficient homes in the United States, and this hardworking guide reveals how homeowners can achieve similar results with floor plans, the latest, most efficient technologies, and multiple images of the exterior and interior of each home.

Praise for Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid:

Recipient of the 2013 Robert Bruss Gold Book Award from the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE)

“You can build a high quality, environmentally friendly and efficient home at a reasonable price with a look and feel of a traditional home. Advancements like those used in our house and the other houses in this book will transform the homebuilding industry.” —Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

“The time has come to throw out the old stereotypes and to embrace prefab building techniques as the way of the future—and the best approach for today. For anyone wanting to create a house that’s sustainable in every sense of the word, this book is an excellent place to start.” —Sarah Susanka, architect and author of The Not So Big House series

“I’m passionate about prefab because I know that it can spark an incredibly positive change in the building industry and dramatically reduce costs and construction duration. Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid is an enlightening guide on using prefab to create your own affordable, energy-efficient home.” —Bruce Ratner, chairman and chief executive of the Forest City Ratner Companies

“Sheri Koones highlights the many ways of using prefabrication to create almost-off-the-grid homes that are not only environmentally friendly but often operate at nearly zero annual energy cost. . . . This is an easy-on-the-eyes guide that includes floor plans and multiple images of the exterior and interior of each home. It is not a manual for green construction, but a general overview of aspects of prefab and green construction. And it does that well.” —Natural Life magazine

“If you’re ready to do something about your energy dependence, or if you enjoy stories of people who’ve bucked the trends, you owe it to yourself to give Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid a look. Beautifully illustrated, it ends with a great resources list for the homes showcased.” —Examiner.com

“Indispensable guide to creating the ideal, almost-off-the-grid home. . . . This text is both timely and tempting to anyone interested in inhabiting a more comfortable and cost-efficient abode.” —Bask

“This attractive coffee-table-style book, the third in Koones’s Prefabulous series, features 32 prefabricated houses that, to a greater or lesser extent, boast environmentally friendly, efficient, and renewable-energy elements.” —Publishers Weekly

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Prefabulous Small Houses: Sheri Koones

Prefab home construction has arrived. The benefits of buildings a prefab home (they are better built, use resources more efficiently, and are healthier to live in) apply just as well to vacation homes as they do to primary residences. Prefabulous Small Houses explores the beauty, variety, design, and environmentally positive benefits of prefab construction through the wide variety of prefabrication methods in use today and with prefabulous examples from across the country.

The houses range in size from 400 sq. ft. to 2,000 sq. ft. and are built with modular, SIPs, panelized, log home packages, kit packages, and hybrid systems. Building with prefab usually means spending less for a better quality home. And it also means building greener; all the houses featured are highly energy efficient and sustainable.

Global Climate Change
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Prefabulous World: Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Homes Around the Globe: Sheri Koones, Robert Redford

The rising cost of fuel and the growing commit­ment to protect the environment have sparked exciting innovations in prefab home construction. \

Showcasing the unlimited possibilities offered by prefabrication to build incredibly energy-efficient, green homes, Prefabulous World features sophisticated examples of eco-friendly home design in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, the United States, England, Germany, South Africa, and beyond. With floor plans, multiple images of the exterior and interior of each home, and an extensive resource section listing architects, builders, and suppliers, this book is a vibrantly illustrated yet practical guide that reveals how living in a beautiful, well-built, energy-efficient home is achievable for us all.

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Prefabulous: Prefabulous Ways to Get the Home of Your Dreams: Sheri Koones, Sarah Susanka

This is the only book that gives homeowners who are dreaming about building or planning to build a new home the good and the bad on all types of prefabricated houses. Shows that prefabricated can be mainstream traditional design and does not have to look like a mobile home or a modular “Dwell” box.

Prefabulous describes the many systems available for prefabricating all or parts of a new home, including timber frame and log, as well as modular, panelized, structural insulated panels, steel framing and concrete systems, which are relatively new. Prefabulous describes these systems, compares their advantages and disadvantages, and shows beautiful examples of houses built using these techniques. Although all of these “prefabricated” houses look very different, all of them were manufactured partially or almost completely in a controlled factory environment and transported to the home site to be erected. As a group these systems offer a faster, more energy-efficient, and sometimes more cost-efficient method of building.

Includes a foreword by Not So Big House author Sarah Susanka, who writes: “For homeowners who want to know the options, the advantages and disadvantages of those options, and to see how those prefabricated parts come together into a good, attractive home, read this book.”

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Prefabulous and Sustainable: Building and Customizing an Affordable, Energy-Efficient Home: Sheri Koones, Robert Redford

Prefabulous and Sustainable dispels the negative myths associated with prefab homes and shows the reader how beautiful and remarkably green prefab homes are.

In this guide to prefab home-building author Sheri Koones, demystifies the prefabricated house by using 25 unique homes to showcase how factory-built homes are greener, more efficient, sturdier, and more cost-effective than site-built homes. The book is divided into 3 categories—green, greener, greenest—and the homes featured vary in style, design, type of construction, and size. All of the homes included in Prefabulous and Sustainable have been customized to create a level of sustainability beyond the inherent qualities of prefab.

Written in an easy to understand and approachable style, author Sheri Koones walks the readers through each of the homes, explaining the materials, strategies, and systems used to create a sustainable living environment. Photographs, captions, floor plans, and sidebars illustrate to readers that green living is not as complicated as one might think, and attainable for everyone. Also included is a resource guide, making this book a hand-on guide for homebuilders.

Praise for Prefabulous + Sustainable

“Authoritative and beautiful. Once again, Koones builds her case for pre-fab thoroughly, and presents it in a compelling, well-organized package.”
—Allen Norwood, NAREE Book Competition Head Judge

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Hillary Clinton and Al Gore Campaign Together in Miami – The New York Times

Hillary Clinton with Al Gore during a campaign rally Tuesday at Miami Dade College’s Kendall Campus in Miami. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

By MATT FLEGENHEIMEROCT. 11, 2016

MIAMI — The guest of honor strolled across the stage — hair slicked back and grayed, no tie — embracing his host, briefly, before looking out on the campaign crowd.

It had been awhile. He opened with something safe.

Al Gore was back.

In a rare return to presidential politics, Mr. Gore, Bill Clinton’s former vice president, joined Hillary Clinton for a 45-minute Democratic call to arms, vacillating between a familiar drawling delivery and the urgency of a seer sent from another era to warn future generations of prospective doom.

“I understand you’ve got a pretty good women’s volleyball team here,” he said, a bit tepidly, inside a college gymnasium on Tuesday. “So, go Lady Sharks. Is that what you say?”

“Your vote really, really, really counts,” he said, from the state synonymous with his excruciating 2000 election loss. “You can consider me as an Exhibit A of that.”

It was a remarkable turn in one of the most consequential, and fraught, relationships in recent Democratic political history — a halting public embrace between two figures long defined by rivalry, ambition and a complicated union with the same man.

The event’s ostensible focus was climate change, Mr. Gore’s signature issue. But the wider message of the gathering, 16 years after the recount fight that begot the presidency of George W. Bush, was unsubtle: As Mrs. Clinton seeks to encourage registration efforts and convince Americans that every ballot counts, Mr. Gore is the nation’s ambulatory cautionary tale.

“Now, for those of you who are younger than 25, you might not remember the election of 2000 and what happened here in Florida,” he said, addressing students from Miami-Dade College, among other attendees. “For those of you older than 25, I heard you murmuring just now.”

Soon, a chant rang out: “You won!”

Introducing Mr. Gore, Mrs. Clinton spoke of clean energy, curbside gardens, the Paris climate agreement and Donald J. Trump’s suggestion that climate change is a hoax.

…(read more).

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Pre-Debate Roundtable: Lee Fang on “Cozy” Relationship Between Clinton Campaign & Press

Democracy Now!

Published on Oct 11, 2016

http://democracynow.org – On Sunday, Democracy Now! aired the full debate between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and got response after the debate from Jill Stein of the Green Party. Before the debate began, we hosted a one-hour roundtable. Guests included Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University; Black Lives Matter activist and professor Melina Abdullah, chair of pan-African studies at California State University; journalist Lee Fang of The Intercept; indigenous writer Gyasi Ross, a member of the Blackfeet Nation; Kimberlé Crenshaw, law professor at UCLA and Columbia University; and more.

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Media

How we work | Logistics

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Published on Oct 11, 2016

From donation to treatment in country, we look after the entire process. At the heart of this are our logisticians, who ensure that we get medicines and equipment where they’re needed, when they’re needed. At four MSF logistical centres based in Europe and east Africa, we buy, test, store and package supplies, including vehicles, power supplies, water processing facilities, medicines and nutritional supplements. We also keep emergency supplies in Central America and east Asia.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare.

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Public Health

Raw: World Food Programme Delivers Haiti Relief

Associated Press

Published on Oct 11, 2016

The U.N. says Haiti is in dire need of humanitarian assistance, and this week the World Food Programme has begun distributing food rations to people whose homes have been destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. (Oct. 11)

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How do we grow from here? Towards sustainable food production

Grantham Imperial

Scheduled for Oct 18, 2016

Join us to discuss with experts the challenge of feeding the world without costing the planet.

This event is open to anybody interested in food and sustainability, so whether you’re an aspiring ethical consumer or a green-fingered producer be sure to join in the debate.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #SustFood.

Speakers:
Andrew Clark, Director of Policy, National Farmers’ Union
Neil Parish (@Neil_Parish),Chair of the Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, House of Commons
Angela Karp, Associate Director for Science Innovation, Head of AgroEcology Department, Rothamsted Research
David Powell (@powellds), Environment Lead, New Economics Foundation
Chair:
Louise Gray (@loubgray), Environmental journalist (formerly of the Daily Telegraph) and author of The Ethical Carnivore, published by Bloomsbury.

Global Climate Change
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Food-Matters