For more info about the event, visit its Web site here.

 Did you go to the show?  What did you think?

Dubbed Main Street Green, this year’s Greenbuild, the eighth edition of the event, focused on the efforts of green building councils around the world. Fedrizzi introduced GBC leaders during the plenary; each gave remarks noting each region’s challenges and triumphs in sustainable building. Representatives came from the U.K., South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, India, Spain, Taiwan and Brazil.

The keynote speech was delivered by this man:
You may remember him from his gigs as Nobel laureate, presidential candidate, vice president of the United States, or from that little PowerPoint presentation-turned-Oscar winner, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Gore gave a pep rally, celebrating the attendees and their efforts toward green building. The event closed with a performance by recording artist Sheryl Crow.

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Today’s a big day: lots of appointments to see manufacturers, and hopefully I’ll get to catch a bit of the green film festival!  What are you seeing?  What’s hot?  Leave it in the comments!

• So much bigger than last year!  Over 1,800 exhibitors and 24,000 preregistered.  The floors are abuzz already!
• The Phoenix Convention Center, a LEED silver facility is beautiful and doesn’t make my nose run, like most traditional convention centers have in the past.  That’s a good sign.
• Ever been to a trade show?  There’s lots of new carpet all over the place, offgassing VOCs all over the place!  This place smells neutral, like virtually nothing at all.  And all carpeting will be recycled by Shaw flooring, so bonus points for that.
• Products, products everywhere!  More to come.

Officials cut the ribbon to officially open Greenbuild at the Phoenix Convention Center.

 But a little bit more from the USGBC, with links:

“The 2009 show will be held on Nov. 11-13, 2009, in Phoenix, Ariz. This past year’s conference in Boston, Mass. drew more than 28,000 attendees and featured more than 800 exhibit booths. Visit www.greenbuildexpo.org for more information. To view last year’s Greenbuild show, go to www.greenbuild365.org and to watch a video recap, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghqw9WqZ_i4“

OK, perhaps I’m getting too heavy for you, let’s back it up.  The USGBC announced this week that at the opening keynote to the annual conference and show, Sheryl Crow is going to be performing.  Neat!

This is shaping up to be an even better event than last year: the opening plenary complete with tunes, more tours of green buildings planned, a separate track for children and families so that attendees can bring the whole family with them and, lastly and possibly most vitally: a green job fair.  In these changing times, is there anything so important as feeling like an association to which you belong is on the pulse of what’s happening in society?  Greenbuild’s first-ever job fair will most likely be a work-in-progress, but a giant step forward, as well.

Happy World Environment Day!  For the uninitiated, today is the U.N.’s equivalent of Earth Day.  To learn more, check out the WED Web site here.

When you’re there, be sure to check out the Twitter for Trees (@UNEPandyou, for you Twitter twits out there) campaign and updates of David de Rothschild’s amazing Plastiki project.

(More about Plastiki, de Rothschild’s project to bring awareness to the cess pit that is the North Pacific Gyre, a story worthy of coverage in this reporter’s opinion, available here at The New Yorker)

Photo: BuffaloReadings.com, via TreeHugger.

The New Jersey-based company just announced it’s conducting monthly Webinars on what it’s calling “LED Basics”–what they are, how they work, and what their potential holds for energy efficiency.

See the complete release and info on how to sign yourself up, after the jump.

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Anything great and green happening in your ‘hood?  Leave it in the comments!

 Remember Greensburg, KS?  Remember how an F5 tornado 1.7 miles wide flattened 90% of the structures in town on Friday, May 5, 2007?  With virtually nothing left standing in Greensburg but the grain elevator, the New York Times reported on May 7, 2007 that the town of approximately 1,500 would have to be completely rebuilt. 

 Seven days later, there was already talk of rebuilding, and the town leaders were beginning to envision emerging from the tragedy.

 July brought the exciting news that Greensburg was literally going to become a Green burg, and the sustainable building folks rejoiced.  The goal: LEED Platinum, the first-ever city to aim for the rating. Zero-energy commercial buildings, houses and schools. Wind power, solar power, energy efficient everything. mong some donors to the reemerging town are names familiar to us in the k&b world like Caroma, Evolve and on the architectural/building side, companies such as Dryvit and PF Waterworks.

 And after one year had passed, the Discovery’s Planet Green channel announced that a new reality program called simply ‘Greensburg’, which had been in planning stages shortly after the LEED announcement, would follow the town’s journey from grisly scene to lean and green.

 Now, it’s the two-year anniversary of the tornado, the bustling town is well into its restructuring and is holding their annual celebration to mark the event.  Not only that, Planet Green renewed the town’s series for a second season; the season premiere is this Monday, May 4… it’s worth a look, for sure.  Check out details and local air times at Planet Green.

 Important themes here for green building and design in general, and a landmark achievement all around for everyone involved; it’s the making of lemonade from organic lemons, to be sure. I’ll be back with more K/BIS coverage later today.

 Stay green, America!

(To see the New York Times’ extensive coverage of the tornado and the rebuilding of Greensburg, click here).