Discussion Areas
Some discussion areas on Sustainable Building related topics:
Listservs:
Listservs are email-based discussion or announcement services. When you join or "subscribe" to a listserv (don't worry, they're usually free) your email address is put on a list with all the other subscribers. Any mail sent to the listserv is forwarded out to all the subscribers. Discussion lists have an inherent advantage over Usenet in that they usually require that the sender be a subscriber to the listserv. This drastically cuts down on spam and other "drive by postings".
The following are some of the listservs on sustainable building topics that may interest you. If you know of any other listservs that we should include here, let us know. Among our many services, Sustainable Sources hosts listservs... let us know if you'd like to start one.
Greenbuilding. The Greenbuilding listserv is one of the best we've found. Populated by a good number of green building professionals, discussions on this list run a broad range of topics. See the archives (prior to 2003) (2003 forward) for an idea of what type of discussions take place. To subscribe, go to http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding
Big Green. A spinoff from the original greenbuilding list, aimed specifically at large scale projects.
To subscribe, send email to requests@forum.oikos.com with the words
subscribe biggreen
in the BODY of the message.
Strawbale. The Strawbale listserv is one of our favorites. While theoretically about strawbale construction, the informed and often humorous discussions can range to just about anything remotely connected to building a home out of straw. Participants range from seasoned pros to complete newbies.
In late 2002 there were some problems at the list host of the strawbale list, and things got a bit fragmented. A new list - SB-R-Us - was started up on Yahoo after a month or so of silence. After 2 months, the original strawbale list was resurrected on a new server. Meanwhile, the upstarts at yahoo had discovered the expanded abilities there - file and photo repositories, database capabilities, etc, and began putting them to good use. The original list does not have such capabilities as of this writing.
Though there are some efforts to re-unify the two lists - possibly by including file and photo capabilities with the original list - as of late February 2003 those are still speculation. We suggest joining both, or at least reading the archives (and files, etc) of both.
For the original list, see http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding for pre-2003 archives, and http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/strawbale/ for 2003 and later archives.
To sign up.
For the SB-R-Us list, see http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/sb-r-us/ for archives, sign up instructions, files, and photos.
Cob. This list is intended for the discussion of Cob construction and related alternative building technologies. Cob is a technique which uses earth (clay and sand) mixed with straw and water to build walls, floors, and a wide variety of other items including book shelves and fireplaces.
To subscribe, send email to Majordomo@deatech.com with the words:
subscribe coblist
in the BODY of your email message:
Willing Workers in Appropriate Technology (WWAT). The purpose of WWAT is to link those who are interested in learning various skills in Appropriate Technology fields with those who are interested in taking on workers in an internship type of arrangement. WWAT is just the initial networking tool; the interested parties work out the details between themselves. Archives available.
To subscribe, go to http://SustainableSources.com/mailman/listinfo/wwat.
Solar A/C. That's Solar Air Conditioning, not alternating current. That's right, a discussion list about cooling your home/office/store/whatever using the power of the sun. Begun in July 2001, it had grown to aprox. 140 subscribers in just 6 months. See the archives at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solar-ac/messages.
To subscribe, send email to solar-ac-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .
Indoor Air Quality.
The [iaq] discussion group has merged with the iequality discussion group. The new website is: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/iequality/
Permaculture. Permaculture listservs and their archives are assembled at CSF's site.
Sustainable Sources Announcement List. We established this list to keep our users up to date on changes and additions to this site. Mailings occur once a month at most. Go to http://greenbuilder.com/mailman/listinfo/sustainablesources/ to sign up.
Cohousing. The CoHousing list has over 500 participants from over 60 different Cohousing groups and typically 100 messages per month.
The easiest way to subscribe, unsubscribe or change mail mode (normal, digest or nomail) is via a web page. Visit the Cohousing-L Info Page at http://cohousing.org/cohousing-L Archives and search facilities are accessable from this page as well. For more information about cohousing see http://www.cohousing.org
Natural Building Colloquium. To subscribe send an email to majordomo@deatech.com with the following line in the body (NOT SUBJECT) of the message:
subscribe nbcolloq
Regional Discussions
Design~Build~Live (formerly Austin Sustainable Building Coalition). Design~Build~Live's monthly newsletter usually includes some excellent resource material such as listings of articles or books relevant to that month's topic. http://designbuildlive.org/mailman/listinfo/DBLNews/ to sign up and for post- May2008 archives. Full archives of all newsletters from SBC and DBL are available at http://designbuildlive.org
InTheLoop Green/Sustainable/Natural building workshop/event announcement list for Central Texas.
Texas Solar Energy Society (TXSES). Announcements and discussions related to solar energy in the great state of Texas. Sign up at http://www.txses.org/lists.phtml, and check out the rest of their great website while you're at it!
Green Building Alliance Northeast. Announcements and discussions for a built environment that is clean, green, and sustainable related to the Northeast United States. Archives available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gbane
To subscribe, send email to gbane-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Some other lists which may be of interest
The following are some other lists that are hosted on our servers that may be of interest to you.-
Gaviotas is a discussion group relating to Gaviotas village in Colombia, their technologies, philosophy, etc.
Ban-GEF Ban Genetically Engineered Foods. The name pretty much states the purpose of this one. Genetically engineered organisms are being slipped into our food supplies - soy, corn, tomatos, potatos, canola oil and others are either already on the shelves or on their way, not to mention the so-called Terminator genes. This group questions the reliablility of the testing done to date and notes the potential damage that could occur to the world's food crops should the safety promised by the proponents of genetic modification (the corporations who stand to make a lot of money) actually not be all that safe after all.
This can be a high volume list.
To join, send email to ban-gef-request@txinfinet.com with SUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT line and a message describing why you would like to subscribe.
Planeta.com Update Periodic updates from the wildly popular Planeta.com website.
To subscribe, send a blank email to planeta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or register online http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ planeta/
Newsgroups:
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alt.architecture.alternative
Note: All of the above newsgroups exist (at last check). If your internet service provider does not carry them, you will get an error. Ask your ISP to carry the newsgroup in question.
Webmaster for this page is Bill Christensen, founder of Sustainable Sources/TxInfiNet