It’s the Oil, Stupid !
It’s a sign that ought to hang over the desk of every politician, general and journalist—and architect.
OIL has literally made us what we are today.
Without it, we would not have had the mechanization of agriculture. Before that a farmer could only support the food needs of about 5 others and most of those were his family. Most of us would have been farmers without oil.
I think the green building movement has generated so much enthusiasm because of its comforting message that we’ll be able to change just a few relatively small things, avoid any real sacrifices, and everything will be just fine. In this way, “green building” gives us a framework for doing trivial stuff and thinking it’s a big deal. This, to me, is a dangerously misleading message, even if promulgated by some very fine, well-intentioned people.
Thgis second installment on the sometimes fuzzy word “sustainbility” shows it not to be as fuzzy as, let’s say, “hard core pornography but it may not be waht you think it is either.
Jamie Wolfe, skilled contractor, devoted NESEA member and one of the most nimble minds I know, was curious about my previous post on frost-protected slabs. He wrote the following:
I’d like to know more about the building envelope. I did some presumptive math (1/4 cord = 5MBTU/768SF=4557BTU/SF/YR) – pretty impressive. My questions are as follows…
The public forum at this year’s NESEA conference “What’s Right and What’s Wrong with LEED” was in many ways NESEA at its best. It helped separate truth from hype. It addressed the unfortunate reality that
Green building is dead—its time has passed. We lie to ourselves when we think we can build in an environmentally sustainable way. We need to acknowledge that every building is an unnatural act. We want a building to be warm when it’s cold outside, cool when it’s warm outside, dry when it’s wet outside, and light when it’s dark outside. Although rot and decay is the essential refueling mechanism in nature, in a building, rot and decay is the surest sign that something has gone seriously wrong. Looked at this way, every building is an environmental mugging.
about this conference that I’m trying to put my finger on. A tone, a sense, a gestalt that makes it different than previous conferences. How many NESEA conferences have I been to? Twenty? Twenty five? I don’t know, but I remember that some, in the early days, had a giddiness to them – like we had stumbled upon each other, discovered our commonalities, and couldn’t believe our good fortune.
Conversations with NESEA members aren’t always easy, but they’re always a learning experience. We’re a hard core group with major experience and proven results. We are thirsty and passionate for what works. Some of us have no manners whatsoever, others of us are examples of equanimity. Either way, NESEA gives us a forum, that is becoming rare, to express our thinking about buildings and energy with others that are educated.
