What do you think of when you hear the word GREEN?
Each and every sustainability presentation starts with the same well-worn graphs, charts, diagrams, and horrifying images extolling the “reality” that, while we were not paying attention, it was decided, remember the debate is over, that we have actually destroyed the Earth and that within the next 24 hours or so we will find ourselves struggling to survive in a frozen, sunless, barren, nightmarish world along the lines of the blockbuster movie The Day After Tomorrow… a world from which we will never return. However, all I really want to know is if we will still be able to get American Idol.
If I have to sit through another presentation about GREEN this or GREEN that, I will have to get triple strength duct tape and wrap my head to keep it from exploding. A lexicon of normal words have been commandeered and assigned entirely new meanings; I will prove it …. GREEN …. which came to mind first a tree or grass, or USGBC or LEED? Many of you that know me also know that I am having difficulty embracing “the green movement” and “drinking the Kool-Aid.” Which brings me to my point – while I am not a man of a few words, I like to share a couple thoughts.
I fully accept responsibility for being a good steward with the resources of the Earth, and I believe that is a goal that should be aspired to by the architectural profession. There are many good ideas floating around within the green movement, many of which are sound, pragmatic, and useful ideas. So, what is my problem you ask?
- Regarding global climate change, not everyone believes the debate is over, which it’s not, nor does everyone believe we are past the point of no return. Google the April 28, 1975 edition of Newsweek and read page 64. Was the debate over then? Was science right or wrong?
- It’s the single focused agenda and the social hysteria that I am having problems accepting and, much closer to home, the obsession that the architectural profession has with all things GREEN.
- As the architectural profession slowly slides toward irrelevance, GREEN is now challenging DESIGN for the pedestal of the most sacred (held for many years) in the minds of architects, the AIA, and schools of architecture, all at the exclusion of advancing a better technical understanding of the anatomy of architecture. I am curious however just when the noble and deeply rewarding profession of architecture changed from the art and science of buildings, to being solely responsible for the survival of the planet?
- CSI is struggling to remain a viable provider of technical knowledge about buildings, a role long since abandoned by the AIA, yet the youth of the profession are not interested because organizations and efforts like USGBC and LEED suck all the air out of the room, and CSI can’t catch a breath.
- I find it immoral that the GREEN movement relies on a foundation of instilling personal fear, social anxiety, and political hysteria to further its cause.
- I find the constant focus on GREEN to be exhausting. There is much, much more out there about the design and construction of buildings.
- GREEN promotes massive reduction of the use of electrical power, but GREEN will not permit the use of cleaner nuclear generated power. Lots of electricity goes into buildings, not because of bad design, but because owners and users leave the lights on all night for heaven’s sake! Heat moves through the walls, not because we don’t have the creativity to slow it down, but because the owner doesn’t want to pay that much to slow it down.
- Enormously significant improvements have been made in the automobile and manufacturing industries in the last several decades for the explicit purpose of being environmentally responsible, but yet it’s not enough. Apparently all the recent efforts are for naught – we are still being told that we are destroying the Earth.
- I find it vastly hypocritical and incredibly naïve to believe that our society will continue unaffected if we just stop buying oil from other nations without drilling for it ourselves. The civilizational dependence on oil is infinitely more complicated than anyone comes close to understanding, and it is inseparably intertwined with each of our respective lifestyles. It is the environmental movement of past decades that helped create our current geo-political situation of vulnerability.
And finally as I end this pontification, I believe environmental responsibility is very important but not to the point of excluding other things of importance, nor to the point that we should all join hands and devote our full attention to saving the planet as we walk into the sunset, singing Kum-By-Ya, thinking that it is the sunset of eternity.
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