April, 29 2010, 12:54pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Suzanne Struglinski, 202-289-2387, sstruglinski@nrdc.org;
Josh Mogerman, 312-651-7909, jmogerman@nrdc.org
LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System Launches as Benchmark for Green Neighborhood Design
Environmental Leaders Partner to Advance Walkable, Sustainable and Economically Thriving Communities
WASHINGTON
The Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC), The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Congress for the
New Urbanism (CNU) announced today the launch of the LEED for
Neighborhood Development green neighborhoods rating system. LEED for
Neighborhood Development integrates the principles of smart growth, new
urbanism and green building, and benefits communities by reducing urban
sprawl, increasing transportation choices and decreasing automobile
dependence, encouraging healthy living, and protecting threatened
species.
The rating system encourages development within or near
existing communities and/or public infrastructure in order to reduce the
environmental impacts of sprawl. By promoting communities that are
physically connected, LEED for Neighborhood Development conserves land
and promotes transportation efficiency and walkability. A 2008 study
entitled "The Economic Value of Walkability" found that households in
automobile-dependent communities devote 50 percent more money - more
than $8,500 annually - to transportation.
The correlation between transit-oriented development and
proximity to services, amenities and jobs to human health benefits and
economic capital has been found by numerous studies and is advocated by
the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and
Human Services. Furthermore, the connectivity to neighboring communities
with existing transportation and thoroughfares or local retail and
services greatly benefits the citizens, businesses and local economy of
the surrounding regions.
"Half of the buildings we will have in 25 years are not yet
on the ground," said Kaid Benfield, Director of the Smart Growth Program
at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Where we put them is even
more important to the environment than how we build them, and NRDC is
proud to stand alongside our partners with a system that helps guide
them to the right places while avoiding the wrong ones."
LEED for Neighborhood Development strives to create healthy,
safe neighborhoods in which people from a wide range of economic levels
and age groups can live and work together. Green neighborhoods foster
social inclusivity as they provide accessibility to transportation,
jobs, resources, education and promote healthier lifestyles. LEED for
Neighborhood Development projects include or are sited to have good
access to schools, businesses, residences, shopping, dining and
entertainment.
"Sustainable communities are prosperous communities for the
occupants and businesses which inhabit them," said Rick Fedrizzi,
President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. "LEED
for Neighborhood Development projects are strategically located in or
surrounding metropolitan areas - often times revitalizing brownfields,
infills or other underutilized spaces, opening new revenue streams,
creating jobs opportunities and helping to drive the local, state and
national economies."
NRDC helped to establish LEED for Neighborhood Development by
soliciting the help of Smart Growth America, a national coalition of
organizations working for better communities and recruiting smart growth
experts to participate on the committee of volunteers that authored the
rating system. The principles of smart growth focus on the importance
of considering location, transportation alternatives, equity, and
community form when developing land use plans.
"LEED for Neighborhood Development contains the components
for compact and complete neighborhoods. With walkable streets,
appropriately-scaled schools, and a mix of amenities close by, residents
can lower their environmental impact while improving their quality of
life," said John Norquist, President and CEO, Congress for the New
Urbanism.
CNU brought a number of leading planners and architects from
the New Urbanist movement to help shape the new rating system. New
Urbanism promotes compact neighborhood form, a wide range of urban
housing types from multi-unit buildings to single-family homes, a
vibrant mix of uses within close proximity of each other, humane public
spaces and well-connected streets and blocks serving users ranging from
pedestrians and cyclists to transit riders and drivers.
"LEED for Neighborhood Development projects are designed to
highlight the best in a community," Fedrizzi continued. "By bridging
together adjoining districts, neighborhood developments take advantage
of the greatest things a community has to offer - the people and
amenities which enrich our lives on a daily basis."
The consensus-based process that drives the development of
the LEED rating systems ensures and encourages the very best in
building, design and development practices. The scope of LEED for
Neighborhood Development projects can range from small projects to whole
communities and encompasses a broader set of stakeholders in the
process. Because of the scale of neighborhood development, projects are
measured on acreage - the first LEED rating system to use a measurement
other than square footage.
This is the seventh LEED rating system released by USGBC and
is the first comprehensive benchmark for green neighborhood design.
Projects certifying under LEED for Neighborhood Development must achieve
points in three major environmental categories: Smart Location &
Linkage, Neighborhood Pattern & Design, and Green Infrastructure
& Buildings across a 110-point scale.
Also launching this spring is the LEED Accredited
Professional (AP) Neighborhood Development (ND) credential for
professionals participating in the design and development of
neighborhoods. To read more about the LEED AP ND credential, go to www.usgbc.org/credentials
or to learn about the neighborhood development educational offerings,
visit www.usgbc.org/leedcurriculum.
Read more about LEED-ND on Kaid
Benfield's blog.
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
(212) 727-2700LATEST NEWS
State Department Spokesman Urged to Resign Over 'Despicable' Attack on UN Expert
One critic described Matthew Miller's attack on United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese as a "Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."
Mar 28, 2024
U.S. State Department Matthew Miller faced calls to resign Thursday after he accused a United Nations special rapporteur of engaging in antisemitism—an attack that came days after the human rights expert presented a report concluding that Israel's assault on Gaza has met the threshold of genocide.
Asked about the report during a press briefing on Wednesday, Miller said the U.S. has "for a longstanding period of time opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive."
"And when it comes to the individual who holds that position, I can't help but note a history of antisemitic comments that she has made that have been reported," Miller added, pointing to comments that Francesca Albanese—the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories—"made in December that appeared to justify the attacks of October 7."
A new low by the Biden team.
In response to UN Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs new report - Anatomy of a Genocide - concluding that the threshold of genocide has reasonably been met, the State Dep chooses to attack her persona and accuse her of antisemitism :( :( pic.twitter.com/iNpVT3BWQy
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) March 27, 2024
It's not entirely clear which comments Miller was referencing.
In an interview with Jewish News Syndicate in December, Albanese was asked whether Palestinian militants' killing of Israeli soldiers on October 7 was a violation of international law. Albanese, an Italian attorney and academic, said that "killing a soldier is a tragedy under international law, but when there is an armed conflict, like in this case, killing a soldier is not illegal."
But Albanese stressed in the interview that the Hamas-led attacks on Israeli civilians—including the taking of hostages—were "not legitimate resistance."
"These are crimes and cannot be justified," she added.
Miller's attack on Albanese Wednesday—which echoed earlier attacks on the special rapporteur by U.S. officials and lawmakers—sparked immediate backlash and calls for his resignation.
"Matthew Miller should be forced to resign for trying to endanger the life of a U.N. official with falsehoods," Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, said in a statement. Albanese said earlier this week that she has faced threats following the publication of her report accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, called the State Department spokesman's remarks a "truly despicable, Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."
"Note the lack of substantive rebuttals of her careful analysis, and the resort to ad hominem attacks," Talbot wrote on social media. "Not the sign of a confident administration."
"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians."
The Israeli government has similarly attempted to cast Albanese as an antisemite, drawing pushback from human rights organizations and academics who say the claim is a baseless attempt to discredit her work.
"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians—and U.N. officials and experts have been among the most consistent victims of those attacks," Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Common Dreams.
"Almost 15 years ago Richard Falk," Bennis added, "an internationally respected Princeton professor of international law who had just been appointed special rapporteur, was not only denied access to the occupied Palestinian territory to carry out the terms of his U.N. mandate, but was also arrested and jailed by Israeli authorities."
"Since then every special rapporteur has been similarly excluded, their mandate and their work undermined, and their commitment to international law and human rights attacked as antisemitic," she said. "Francesca Albanese has been among the bravest of these SRs, maintaining her commitment to calling out all violations of international law relevant to her mandate—including when Israel has violated international covenants against apartheid and now, against genocide."
Albanese's 25-page report, which she delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday, argues that "the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group."
"There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups' members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," the report states. "Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials."
Amnesty International praised the report as "a crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action."
The Biden State Department has publicly rejected genocide accusations against Israel as "meritless" and said it has not found Israel's military to be in violation of international law during its monthslong war on Gaza—an assessment that conflicts with the findings of leading human rights organizations and U.N. experts.
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Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric.
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Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said the killings took place near where World Central Kitchen recently dropped off food aid.
The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
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Watch:
مشاهد حصرية للجزيرة لإعدام جنود إسرائيليين مدنيين فلسطينيين أثناء محاولتهم العودة لشمال قطاع غزة#الأخبار #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/QER98mv2n6
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) March 27, 2024
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides "vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities" and spotlights the "unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis."
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The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, whose board Falk chairs, has documented numerous examples of Israeli soldiers conducting close-range field executions in Gaza since October 7, when Israel launched its latest assault following a Hamas-led attack.
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The video footage emerged just days after the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The U.S., Israel's leading arms supplier, abstained from the vote and falsely claimed the measure was "nonbinding."
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Sophie McNeill, a human rights campaigner, called the footage released Wednesday "horrifying" and demanded that the International Criminal Court "urgently prioritize investigating and charging all those carrying out war crimes in Gaza."
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"Joe Lieberman's legacy will live on as your medical debt."
Mar 27, 2024
While current and former officials across the U.S. political spectrum shared praise for and fond memories of former Sen. Joe Lieberman in response to news of his death on Wednesday, critics highlighted how some of his key positions led to the deaths of many others.
Lieberman's family said the 82-year-old died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital after a fall at his home in the Bronx. He served in the Connecticut Senate, as the state's attorney general, and in the U.S. Senate—initially as a Democrat and eventually as an Independent. He was also Democratic former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
"Up until the very end, Joe Lieberman enjoyed the high-quality, government-financed healthcare that he worked diligently to deny the rest of us. That's his legacy," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare.
As Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
explained, "Joe Lieberman led the effort to ensure the Affordable Care Act did not include a public option or a reduction in the Medicare eligibility age to 55."
Noting that Lieberman also lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq—which was used to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion—Gunnels asked, "How many people unnecessarily died as a result?"
He was far from alone in highlighting the two defining positions.
The Lever's David Sirota declared, "RIP Joe Lieberman, Iraq War cheerleader who led the fight to make sure Medicare was not extended to millions of Americans who desperately needed the kind of healthcare coverage he enjoyed in the Senate."
The Debt Collective said on social media that "Joe Lieberman killed so many people when he killed the public option. Not to mention all the people he killed by cheerleading every war and every lie that led to war. A truly horrible person with a shameful legacy."
Journalist Jon Schwarz pointed out that Lieberman continued to lie about the WMDs long after the claims were debunked.
FormerMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that Lieberman declined an opportunity to apologize for the disastrous war, sharing a clip from his on-camera interview with the ex-senator in 2021.
And please don\u2019t give me this \u2018don\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u2019 stuff - 1) I\u2019m not speaking ill, I\u2019m stating facts, and 2) public figures are public figures, and their obits reflect their legacies and so we should be honest in our accounts of their legacies. Not offensive but honest— (@)
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