The Murie Center's Teton Sustainability Project and Teton County Library hosted authors Wayne Bingham and Jerod Pfeffer earlier this week for a presentation about their new book: Natural Timber Frame Homes: Building With Wood, Stone, Clay and Straw.

I've known Jerod for a couple of years, and knew he and his wife Sage were building their own green home in Felt, Idaho, but I had no idea the depth of building expertise that Jerod brought to the task.

Natural Timber Frame Homes is a book about the future of houses — those inspired not by a technology-governed and energy-intensive world, but instead developed organically in response to the places in which we live. Through beautiful photography and informed text, Natural Timber Frame Homes explores the quiet splendor of traditional timber frame homes built with straw bales and plaster or clay-finished walls.

My wife is fascinated by home design, and I've been known to give her books like this for Christmas in the past. She was with me Monday evening, however, so I don't think giving her Natural Timber Frame Homes would be the big surprise I'm shopping for …

If you do buy Natural Timber Frame Homes, or any other book as a Christmas present, don't forget about Eco-Libris and their tree planting scheme to offset the impacts of paper production.

Carbon Neutral Journal's tips are brought to you by nuts & bolts.

Popularity: 14%

As y'all know, I'm very frustrated by the pace on negotiations on policies that address global warming.

As the Senate minority holds the energy bill hostage, news from the U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Bali focuses largely on U.S. and Chinese intransigence.

According to coverage in the New York Times:

The world's top two polluters, the U.S. and China, say they are not ready to commit to mandatory caps on greenhouse gases…

The chief U.S. negotiator said Washington would come up with its own plan to cut global-warming gases by mid-2008, and would not commit to mandatory caps in the coming days.

''We're not ready to do that here,'' said Harlan Watson…

China, which is increasingly turning to coal-powered electricity plants and factories to help fuel its booming economy, has also stood firm in saying it would not agree to binding targets. It says the West is responsible for rising temperatures, because it has been pumping climate-changing gases into the air for centuries.

And U.N. leaders aren't exactly helping matters. In typical conciliatory fashion, U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said:

This meeting is not about delivering a fully negotiated climate change deal, but it is to set the wheels in motion…

Reaching a conclusion even in two years is going to be very ambitious, let alone trying to achieve that kind of result in two weeks.

Sorry guys, but I just don't buy this laissez faire approach. We need demonstrable action to be taken by all parties — by Congress and by the delegates in Bali.

If not now, when?

Carbon neutral Journal's rants are brought to you by Vertical Media.

Popularity: 11%

China or the U.S.?

In the 21st Century global warming version of the 19th Century gunfight at the O.K. Corral, we find the forces of good pitted versus the forces of evil — we just can't tell who's who.

In the New York Times coverage of Al Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Gore

singled out the United States and China — the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide — for failing to meet their obligations in mitigating emissions.

In fact, he called on both nations to

stop using each other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate.

Gore went on to call the Bush administration

the principal stumbling block to progress in Bali right now.

The Chinese are trying to advance that same point of view, even though they are every bit as much to blame for rampant greenhouse gas emissions as the U.S.

In an AP story from Bali, titled China Says West Should Deal With Warming, China insists

the U.S. and other wealthy nations should bear the burden of curbing global warming, saying the problem was created by their lavish way of life. It rejected mandatory emission cuts for its own developing industries.

Su Wei, a top climate expert for China's government attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference, said:

the job belongs to the wealthy. He said it was unfair to ask developing nations to accept binding emissions cuts and other restrictions being pushed for already industrialized states.

He said the United States and its fellow industrial nations have long spewed greenhouse gases into the atmosphere while newly emerging economies have done so for only a few decades.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that this pointless showdown is all about shooting one's self in the foot.

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

Popularity: 5%

Not in my backyard. Or, in this case: not in my ocean.

Wrong answer.

To state the obvious, folks, we're running out of options. Whether it's a wind farm on Nantucket Sound, or a wave farm off the coast of Oregon, we've got to fully explore the possibilities of these alternative energy sources.

Sure, we have to be sure that any potential environmental impacts are fully explored and addressed. But the point of view expressed by a fisherman in the Washington Post story titled Efforts to Harvest Ocean's Energy Opens New Debate Front just won't do:

I don’t want it in my fishing grounds. I don’t want to be worried about driving around someone else’s million-dollar buoy.

Makes you wonder how many of the concerned fisherman are running their boats on biodiesel.

Carbon Neutral Journal's choices are brought to you by Jorgensen Associates.

Popularity: 3%

That was the vote in the Senate on Friday: 53 for closing debate on the energy bill, 42 against — 7 short of the number in favor that would prevent a filibuster.

So it's back to the drawing board, with the following items among the most likely to be scaled back:

• the rollback of $13.5 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies
• the requirement that 15% of electricity come from renewable energy sources by 2020

At least the 35 mpg CAFE Standard seems safe.

With a Senate vote on a revised energy bill expected late this week, Democratic leaders have a lot of work to do.

The Washington Post has a good overview of the situation. In that piece, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman said:

We have to figure out how to pass a bill in the Senate that will accomplish the same general objectives the House is trying to accomplish.

Carbon Neutral Journal's news is brought to you by High Country Linen Service.

Popularity: 10%

This is a story of something taken for granted for much too long — perhaps as long as 700 years.

I can't tell you how many times I've driven from Portland, Oregon to Seaside. I can tell you that I've never stopped along the way at Klootchy Creek County Park to view the largest Sitka spruce in the United States. Well, it's too late now.

The storm that ravaged the Pacific Northwest last weekend "snapped" the tree some 75 feet off the ground, in effect killing the largest tree in Oregon and one of the oldest living things in the state.

Today's stats are devoted to Klootchy:

• height: 200 feet
• diameter: 17 feet
• circumference: 56 feet
• crown spread: 93 feet
• age: Estimated 500 to 750 years old.

According to  the Clatsop County website:

The tree started as a seedling shortly after the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. (The only way to determine the age is by counting the rings. There is no tree borer big enough.)

In honor of Klootchy, NewWest takes a look at a few of the things that have happened to the environment over the past 700 years — it's worth reading and reflecting upon.

Carbon Neutral Journal's stats are brought to you by Blue Spruce Cleaners.

Popularity: 10%

With the risk of a Senate filibuster and/or defeat of the energy bill looming, it may seem premature for me to applaud House Speaker Pelosi, Michigan Representative Dingell and all the other key players who were instrumental in the passage of the energy bill by the House yesterday. Nevertheless, their efforts are much appreciated.

Here's a body of lawmakers who, in effect, have snubbed their collective nose at President Bush and his lackey Allan Hubbard. By a vote of 235 to 181, the House passed a bill that would accomplish the following:

• raise CAFE Standards to an average 35 mpg by 2020, a 40% increase in efficiency over today's standards
• require 15% of electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2020
• provide tax incentives for developing ethanol as a motor fuel, and require 36 billion gallons of it to be produced on an annual basis by the year 2022
• impose new light-bulb standards that would effectively eliminate the incandescent bulb by 2015
• finance tax incentives for hybrid cars, ethanol production and renewable-energy development
• rollback $13.5 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies

It's not perfect, and there are bound to be some changes made if/when the Senate takes up debate. But if nothing else, the House has sent a clear message to the White House that it's time for action. The President's bluff has been called.

Carbon Neutral Journal's kudos are brought to you by Grand Targhee Resort.

Popularity: 14%