Author: Melanie Tebbutt File Type: pdf This original and fresh approach to the emotions of adolescence focuses on the leisure lives of working-class boys and young men in the inter-war years. Being Boys challenges many stereotypes about their behaviour. It offers new perspectives on familiar and important themes in interwar social and cultural history, ranging from the cinema and mass consumption to boys clubs, personal advice pages, street cultures, dancing, sexuality, mobility and the body. It draws on many autobiographies and personal accounts and is particularly distinctive in offering an unusual insight into working-class adolescence through the teenage diaries of the authors father, which are interwoven with the books broader analysis of contemporary leisure developments. Being Boys will be of interest to scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences and is also relevant to those teaching and studying in the fields of child development, education, and youth and community studies. **

Author: Greg Kats File Type: pdf Green buildingsbuildings that use fewer resources to build and to sustainare commonly thought to be too expensive to attract builders and buyers. But are they? The answer to this question has enormous consequences, since residential and commercial buildings together account for nearly 50% of American energy consumptionincluding at least 75% of electricity usageaccording to recent government statistics.This eye-opening book reports the results of a large-scale study based on extensive financial and technical analyses of more than 150 green buildings in the U.S. and ten other countries. It provides detailed findings on the costs and financial benefits of building green. According to the study, green buildings cost roughly 2% more to build than conventional buildingsfar less than previously assumedand provide a wide range of financial, health and social benefits. In addition, green buildings reduce energy use by an average of 33%, resulting in significant cost savings.Greening Our Built World also evaluates the cost effectiveness of green community development and presents the results of the first-ever survey of green buildings constructed by faith-based organizations. Throughout the book, leading practitioners in green designincluding architects, developers, and property ownersshare their own experiences in building green. A compelling combination of rock-solid facts and specific examples, this book proves that green design is both cost-effective and earth-friendly.ReviewBy every measure, green building is an idea whose time is now. Kats ongoing work in this area is part of the reason, and this book will be an invaluable resource to builders, cities and companies on why and how to cost-effectively green their own built worlds.(Rick Fedrizzi president and CEO, USGBC 20090825)Building green offers the potential for important health and economic benefits.As our nation faces the twin mandates to improve health and control costs, analyses such as this one including full benefit accounting are indispensable.(Howard Frumkin director, National Center for ENV Health ATSTR, CDC 20090825)Everyone who is serious about climate change should get this book. Greg Kats brings a deep knowledge of energy and construction to show that the benefits of green construction outweigh the costs and could jump-start a national revolution toward the use of renewable energy sources.(Don Kennedy president emeritus, Stanford University Bing Professor of EnvScience and Policy 20090825) About the AuthorGregory Kats is a managing director of the investment firm Good Energies. He was formerly a managing principal of Capital E, a national clean energy technology consulting firm. Previously he was Director of Financing for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. He is a member of the LEED Steering Committee and serves as Chair of the Energy and Atmosphere Technical Advisory Group for LEED. In 2003 he wrote the first in-depth study of the long-term economic benefits of green buildings, The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings.

Author: Tyler Cowen File Type: pdf Americans agree about government arts funding in the way the women in the old joke agree about the food at the wedding its terrible--and such small portions! Americans typically either want to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, or they believe that public arts funding should be dramatically increased because the arts cannot survive in the free market. It would take a lover of the arts who is also a libertarian economist to bridge such a gap. Enter Tyler Cowen. In this book he argues why the U.S. way of funding the arts, while largely indirect, results not in the terrible and the small but in Good and Plenty--and how it could result in even more and better. Few would deny that America produces and consumes art of a quantity and quality comparable to that of any country. But is this despite or because of Americas meager direct funding of the arts relative to European countries? Overturning the conventional wisdom of this question, Cowen argues that American art thrives through an ingenious combination of small direct subsidies and immense indirect subsidies such as copyright law and tax policies that encourage nonprofits and charitable giving. This decentralized and even somewhat accidental--but decidedly not laissez-faire--system results in arts that are arguably more creative, diverse, abundant, and politically unencumbered than that of Europe. Bringing serious attention to the neglected issue of the American way of funding the arts, Good and Plenty is essential reading for anyone concerned about the arts or their funding. **

Author: Franklin Foer File Type: pdf