Two pieces in today’s Times …

This discusses the green building movement in New York, and features SOM’s recently completed 7 World Trade Center, and Sir Norman Foster’s Hearst Building. When they say ‘green,’ they mean it in more senses than one:

Of course, it isn’t just environmental consciousness that is motivating developers. Because green buildings use from 30 to 70 percent less energy, they can be run for less money — but leased for more, because companies want healthy offices, which several studies have shown lead to increased productivity.

This op-ed by Jamie Lincoln Kitman of Automobile Magazine applies some lucidity to the hype surrounding hybrid cars:

Several bills floating around Congress, for instance, have proposed tax incentives to buyers of hybrid cars, irrespective of their gas mileage. Thus, under one failed but sure to resurface formulation, the suburbanite who buys a hypothetical hybrid Dodge Durango that gets 14 miles per gallon instead of 12 thanks to its second, electric power source would be entitled to a huge tax incentive, while the buyer of a conventional, gasoline-powered Honda Civic that delivers 40 miles per gallon on the open road gets none.

And under some imaginable patchwork of state and local ordinances, the Durango buyer might get a special parking space at the train station and the right to use a high occupancy vehicle lane, despite appalling fuel economy and a car full of empty seats, while the Honda driver will have to walk to the train from a distant parking lot after braving the worst of morning rush hour traffic on the highway just like everybody else.

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Holy hyperlinking! While we are discussing the Times, I was pleasantly surprised when I saved the above article and received this smart, Amazon-style followup — a long-overdue feature, for sure: