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Green Building Discussion

What Is Green ?

Discussion Participants:

All postings are the opinion of the writer, and BuildingGreen can take no responsibility for their accuracy or appropriateness.

Bruce Sullivan asks the question

From: Bruce Sullivan

Hal--

We had a discussion about appropriate posts a couple of months ago. The list sponsors (I am one) developed simple guidelines which were added to the message received by all new list subscribers. The guidelines include: writing a subject line that clearly communicates the commercial nature of the message and not being "overly commercial."

List members clearly have many different opinions on this issue. We heard from many people that _like_ to hear of new products.

I think you did us all a good service by laying out your thoughts on this system. It's a good illustration of the thought process behind evaluating the environmental impact of a product. At present, there is no common definition of what is "green" let alone a universal certifying agency. We all need skills to do our own evaluation. Had this message been screened out, we never would have learned from your response. With watchdogs like you (and others on this list) I believe companies will think twice before trying to post erroneous information. They may think it's free advertising, but they open their products to scrutiny from some intelligent and committed people. Thanks for being one of those.

Free speech is a little messy, but I think we should keep it around.

Bruce Sullivan

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Hal Levin

From: Hal Levin

Thanks for your message and kind words. I understand your perspective. I just feel like such a curmudgeon all the time, criticizing all the unfounded claims of "green" or "sustainable" that seem to be such popular marketing tools. Somehow I just can't help myself when I see all that crap.

How about a dialogue on what green or sustainable building might actual mean/involve? I would be happy to submit some ideas to kick around. I don't know if it goes on this listserver or a new one, but it sure would be nice to see if anyone wants to talk seriously about criteria for evaluating building environmental performance. I will attach my Green Buildings Conference paper to stimulate your thinking. Bear in mind, I was asked to talk about IAQ and wanted to talk about what a sustainability-based building environmental performance evaluation might be. So, the paper is long and incomplete on both topics. Your feedback would be welcome.

Hal Levin

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Bion Howard on ASTM

From: Bion D. Howard

The ASTM Task groups in E-50 working on "green buildings" (whatever they are, right...?) has put some time in on this because industry is concerned about the perception and reality of "green-wash" -- when an entity says something is "green" / "sustainable" or environmentally friendly without having any real data to back it up. This activity is one reason why I think consensus standards development is important. It worked for energy efficiency codes, why not for something even more involved and potentially contentious such as "green building?"

We took a stab at defining and working this problem in the appendix to E50-06-03 residential standard guide to green building. It is available by writing to ASTM, Manager of Standards, 100 Barr Harbor Dr., West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2929 (610) 832-9500. Ask for the second draft ballot review edition of the ASTM Standard Guide for Residential Green Buildings (short title). I will also soon be making another request to post it on my web-site, but no guarantees.

Contact Information: ---------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Bion D. Howard bhoward2@sprynet.com (business) Building Environmental ZowWatt@aol.com (fall-back) Science & Technology Voice:(301)627-2780 FAX:(301)627-4735

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John Bunzick on cities

From: JBunzick
Sent: Monday, November 11, 1996 9:42 AM

Habib John Gonzalez writes, in part: ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with Mr. Soleri and suggest that cities are a perversion of Nature ... and at best, can only engage in damage control; not "save the environment".

I don't think that a model which depends on a parasitic relationship with the surrounding countryside (and beyond) is, as Mr. Soleri suggests, the "salvation" of the planet either. -----------------------------------------------------------

This illustrates a problem that the green-building movement occasionally has. That is the perception by many (including myself, sometimes, when I read comments like his) that green-building requires wholesale repudiation of various societal trends. While those trends (such as over-reliance on cars, sprawling development, etc.) may arguably deserve change, linking all of this together too implicitly can make the issue seem too large to solve, and can cause many to associate the concept with something that is "on the fringe".

As a result, we run the risk of having clients say (like the story someone else told here) that they don't want to be involved with "green". It also creates a diversion from the efforts and improvements in construction and design that can take place within our current situation. Things like improved paints, reduced formaldehyde in wood panels and the like can take place within fairly conventional projects, and DO have an important place. EVERY change we can make, even if they seem small, will contribute to an improvement in our built environment, as well as continue to build momentum for larger-scale change.

So lets not conclude that cities are inherently "not-green". Unfortunately, most of the clients of my employer are urban-based corporations, and if I can get them to use a few improved products, its partial success. John Bunzick Dean Packard Rafuse jbunzick@dprarchitects.cchub.com

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Mike O'Brien's Ramble

From: Mike O'Brien
Sent: Friday, November 08, 1996 4:55 PM

Just thinking out loud--I call this "brainsqualling" because there's not enough there to qualify as a storm. ;<)

It's pretty clear what "green" is--it's nature. Nature doesn't waste anything, nature is efficient, nature operates on really loooooooooooooooong timelines, nature doesn't care about indivdual survival, only sets of genes; nature is both beautiful and brutal, nature is complex and interdependent--etc. etc.--but nature is the model for what you get to after billions of years of design and manufacturing experience. No human model can compete.

Humans think we can beat nature, because we are smart enough to get our hands on massive amounts of energy and use it to shape our environment to suit our social and personal preferences without the usual constraints operating in nature (like, use up all your body fat too soon and you won't live through the winter--we pick up the phone and dial for more oil).

People in the green building movement recognize that, before TPF (Terminal Planetary Failure) occurs, we have an opportunity to adapt to nature's model--long-term survival, instead of suiting our preferences.

Sure enough, the most immediate and obvious things are the hardest to do--like convincing people that they could live in smaller houses that use less energy and materials, let alone that they could become self-suffient in creating their own energy, minimizing and reusing waste, using local materials, and cutting down on toxics that are just used for convenience--becoming more like an eco-system.

To me, that means first and foremost, "green" = "attitude". It's no use sweating the details of what kind of siding is greener if it's going onto a 5,000 square foot house with 5 boilers--2 for the house and 3 to melt the snow off the driveway--for a retired doctor and his wife.

In running our environmental building program, I find that attitude is the hardest thing to affect--houses can't be smaller or have smaller garages, because that's "not what the market wants". But the market never really decided what it wants, it's just a set of common denominators--lenders feel secure loaning on what already sells, appraisers know how to determine market value for what's selling, buyers are secure that they can live in their savings account and then recoup its value at resale because it will sell, designers know how to create pseudo-traditional style that sells-- everyone knows the system and it works, so why change it to be "green"?

And what do you tell the developer/ designer/ general contractor/ subcontractor/ supplier/ manufacturer/ code official/ mortgage lender/ real estate agent/ buyer--not to mention the zoning administrator and the public works department--that "green" is? On what authority? In our case, we shoot for a goal that Steve Loken suggested--get 90% of the industry to change 10%--so our program promotes what is easiest and least expensive to change: more efficient use of energy, water, materials--especially wood; less toxic materials, hardy plants, protecting soils, job site recycling, recycled content products etc. etc.; in hopes that at some point the light bulbs will go on that being green is just as desireable as a nice entry chandelier or a fireplace.

Because there are as yet no ASTM standards as to what "green" building is (though Bion Howard is working hard on it), we try to offer people a slew of options, mainly--imagine red letters here--to find the ones that appeal to them. Everybody has a bank vault with a heavy steel door where they keep their attitudes, yet there's always a little side window left open for some fresh air to get in. Some aspect of "green" appeals to each person, even if the term "green" makes them wanna gag. For example, we had a conversation about participating in our program with a house designer who flatly asserted, you can't sell environment to people; what they buy is style. A few minutes later she observed that she was going to have to find a different carpet for the houses she and her husband were building, because there had been complaints about the odor. Starting from that point, she ended up deciding that green was OK because it actually meant healthier, more comfortable, with satisfied buyers. She and her husband are now building a subdivision of 60 "green" homes. Similar discussion with an electrician about the foolishness of our upgraded exhaust fans (for better ventilation) and air-lock recessed lights (for tighter envelope), until we got on the subject of his 6-year old who has nearly died of asthma--then we could connect on how materials, VOC's, dust mites, humidity, molds, etc. all related to his son's ability to breathe--then he thought the idea of green building made sense because it was really about family safety and survival.

I really don't know if a better bath fan is "green", let alone the whole package we call "Earth Smart", by any quantifiable standard--but if we can get people to translate the word into their own understanding and acceptance of it, we have achieved a critical change. When all the developers/ designers/ general contractors/ subcontractors/ suppliers/ manufacturers/ code officials/ mortgage lenders/ real estate agents/ buyers WANT green buildings, it'll happen real fast. The mighty engines of commerce and government will blow smoke and steam, and wheels may slip, but then they will begin to pull a long trainload of change.

End of ramble, Mike

O'Brien & Associates Environmental Building Consultants Portland General Electric Earth Smart program Earth-Wise Builders Association obrien@hevanet.com

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Marc Rosenbaum on a simplified life

From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Friday, November 08, 1996 6:26 PM

Good ramble - my epipany in the past year happened at the Gila Cliff dwellings. Most viewers asked the question, why are the rooms so small? (although one bright soul wanted to know why they "built so far from everything" - read the Interstate Highway).

All of a sudden I realized, after spending a week backpacking in the Gila Wilderness, that humans themselves don't require much space at all for basic tasks - sleeping, grinding corn and cooking food, telling stories, etc. What we need space for is all of our stuff, crapola, material possessions, detritus. When we fulfill our longings with other than material acquisition then we will only need tiny homes, and we will then have a far wider range of options of building techniques because materials and labor will be so much reduced from even a small dwelling nowadays. And we'll have plenty of time on our hands because we won't be paying the mortgage or the big utlility bills or the insurance bills.

Am I in la-la land? I'm getting weary of 4000 ft2 "eco-homes" and I'm not too excited about electric cars either since cars are dumb things to have when what we want is transportation. What we might want to take a crack at collectively is a thorough list of what we really and fundamentally WANT without saying what the solution concepts are first. Here's a first cut for me: * rich and rewarding relationships with other humans, and the natural world, and the time to develop them * adequate supply of nourishing chow * shelter which keeps me warm and dry and by its form and materials and design supports the growth of my spirit * occasional travel to see different places and cultures * clean water and fresh air

I find that I am becoming, in some way I don't fully understand, more and more open to the Earth's pain at what we are doing to her. I feel that pain. Living in an energy efficient house and driving a 50 mpg car aren't feeling too significant compared with what I am guessing is the way we need to live in order to avoid TPF.

I could go on and in more detail, but first I want to make certain that others think that this is an appropriate discussion to have here!

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Dona Stankus on the green journey

From: NMBlues@aol.com
Sent: Friday, November 08, 1996 10:21 AM

First, Sullivan the curmudgeon said:

"How about a dialogue on what green or sustainable building might actual mean/involve?"

Then Allen the lurker said:

"how on earth can we ever come to any conclusions as to what is green???"

That is as far as I read before I decided to give up my lurking status. So this is my take on "green".

As a word, I feel "green" is being used as a trying, not a being---the continuous exploration of how we get to "sustainable" (it sure will be easier to get there once we can define where it is we are going). Once we get become are "sustainable", "green" may go back to being a color or an emotionally descriptive word for "wanting to acquire that which is not yours".

Flip side. Sometimes, the journey's the thing.

Dona Stankus Sustainable Architect wannabe NMBlues@aol.com

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Tim Mellor on the Waltons

From: TIMOTHY ANDREW MELLOR
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 1996 12:07 AM

dear all

"green" is what YOU know is right in a sort of pirsig zen type fashion. the word green became used by us all I think slowly because we associated it rightly or wrongly with a lost perfected balanced system of nature. perhaps im leading it here but perhaps it stems from the germanic notion of the forest being or representing the mythic original spirit of the people represented by the cradling landscape,that supports us physicallly and spiritually. just get out of the city and hit the deepglades of a forest with rock pools & rushing water,butterflies & birds singing on a weekend,you know what i mean? this the last statement is stereo typical but it does the job doesnt it,it sends the right visual imagery, advertisers know this very well! but ask yourself why? this is so powerful.i think because it hits us where it hurts most!right in the chest, right in the stomach,right in the throat,something spinning a web of calm in the head after the city,getting familiar? but green is used in other territory,social issues, ethical issues. another image the alternative local tribe gets a sunday picnic together,kids running about communally cooked food story telling singing,we know! we know!sounds like the waltons! but why do people watch the waltons, do you actually think that people actually believe life could be so rosy and it wasn't even in the waltons!will geer the grand dad was a red anyway!im sure he was quite well aware of the social conditions of the states at that time in the 30s and 40s. what it all boils down to is that some things strike a chord in the heart as being good or wholesome,positive,balanced,interconnected,etc and that is what i call "green"

typed quickly hope it makes sense

tim mellor

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Nadav Malin on talk at the Austin conference

From: Nadav Malin

Wow! Having just spent 3 hours last night in a roundtable discussion about ecological footprints here at the Austin Greenbuilder Conference, it was too rad to wake up this morning to the rants from Mike and Marc and Richard--like the gathering last night is still going right along (which, of course, it should be).

Marc's comments about housing for stuff came up last night, embodied by Yanta Evans with his tiny cob cottage, and then by a woman who remained anonymous but was wearing nearly all her possessions. Having raised 3 kids pretty conventionally, she has spent the last 11 years on the road, largely joining gatherings of young people and affirming their rejection of what society seems to be expecting of them.

Also relevant at this phsycho-eco level was question put by Rudolpho Ramina of Curitiba, Brazil, who asked: "What is it we fear, that we have this need to create such fortresses when simple shelter might be sufficient?"

On a more practical level, there was a useful discussion about the relative merits of choosing to live in a city, versus in a rural ecohome. While the concensus was that by most measures the city choice is preffered, it was acknowledged that most important is for each person to find what really works for themselves, in order to fulfill their highest potential. It was also noted that many appropriate technology pioneers live rurally in part so they can experiment with construction methods that are too radical for locations with restrictive codes.

I can't begin to share all the interesting ideas that were bounced around among the 100+ people there, but you guys (Mike and Marc) were obviously, in some cosmic way, among the participants.

Nadav

Environmental Building News: http://www.buildinggreen.com Return address: nadav@buildinggreen.com

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Steve McGrath quotes Paolo Soleri

From: Steve McGrath

Paolo Soleri was interviewed for Build America on April 19 '96, and had this to say about cities:

"There is only one thing that can save the environment - the city: because it is self contained, it tends to put boundaries to its own size and it's where mind and spirit seem to be merging with great power and great ability to create, to generate, to invent and to produce what we have now"

I then asked about the efforts of us builders and designers who are trying to approach 'sustainability' in our professions, specifically as those efforts relate to the SFR

"When you take a road that tends to be the wrong road, no matter how well and more beautiful that road becomes, it is still the road to perdition."

For those of you who have heard him speak, you know all this is delivered very gently in a wonderful Italian accent.

Check out Paolo Soleri at http://www.arcosanti.org

We hope to be adding audio archives to our site for Build America (http://www.buildamerica.com) soon, and we'll then start loading past interviews, and you'll be able to listen to the interview (also conversations with John Picard, Alex and Nadav, and other 'luminaries' along with other stuff about materials and systems, planning etc). I'll let you all know when

Steve McGrath Build America Radio News Magazine (805) 544-5457

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David Aguirre on Paolo's City

From: David Aguirre

It seems that Mr. Soleri's view and the represented above hinge on the word "city".

I would suggest that Mr. Soleri's view is more akin to "city" as a village.

And the above stated view use the word "city" akin to Tokyo.

Same word. Different use.

David Aguirre

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Marc Rosenbaum on Paris

From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Monday, November 11, 1996 5:50 PM

My recollection is that Leandre Poisson of French Intensive gardening fame told me once long ago that before the railroads, the city of Paris was a net EXPORTER of food, from gardens within the city. Cities had better be sustainable or there won't be any open space left!

Marc

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Martin Thompson calls it Sustainability

From: Martin Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 1996 11:03 AM

I prefer to avoid the term "green technology" because it fails to convey a more global perspective required to get acceptable solutions. From an ecological perspective, "sustainable" evokes a better vision. Along with this are coupled the concepts of conservation and renewability.

In a culture that seems to assume and demand "bigger is better" you can see the problem. Small energy-efficient houses would consume fewer building materials as well as less energy for space heating, water heating, lighting and appliances.

Many renewable energy sources are available: direct solar (space heating & water heating). Indirect sources include hydropower, earth coupling (to reduce heat loss), electric heat pumps, etc.

In all, an exceptionally high quality thermal envelope, small size of building, sun tempered space heating, hydro-generated electric space and water heating combined with conservation result in low 30-year life-cycle designs.

Most other techniques will follow from this perspective. Could provide more details if interested, but I think you should be able to get the idea.

Best of luck, Martin E. Thompson

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Lenard Hart on Deep vs Shallow ecology

From: Hart&Vasilodimitrakis
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 1996 12:02 PM

Hello everyone,

Sorry for being a bit slow in picking up on this string, but since it seems to mirror other debates I have encountered in the environmental field, I would like to sustain the discussion, even belatedly.

Firstly let me introduce myself to the list. I am an ex-environmental studies academic and a nascent green home renovator. I studied environmental thought and politics, especially the role of utopian thinking therein.

My first impressions of this lists were that I was impressed with the scope and depth of knowledge presented, but kind of put-off by how technophilic it all seemed. To give you an example of my own mind set, as a green renovator I tend to travel on my bike and have material delivered in large quantities. Basically I lean toward a luddite shade of green.

The debate over what is green has seemed to replicate the "deep" vs. "shallow" ecology, ecocentric vs. anthropocentric, fundis vs. realos split, or I my own field between progressive and golden age utopian solutions to social dissatisfaction. Historically progressive utopianism tended to be progress oriented and technologically dependent . Counter to this was the golden age sort of utopia which looked to ideal, and idyllic, past of simple practices and low level technology. Within the Green political movement and the discipline of Environmental Thought, the golden age perspective tends to be the dominant utopia. Paulo Soleri (with his technological birth of God) or his ideological predecessor Le Corbusier are not in much favor in the Green/eco circles I have been involved in. More popular are nature writes like Thoreau or Barry Lopez , or feminist ecotopian authors like Marge Piercy who saves her scientific innovations for reproductive technologies.

This same split seems to present itself on this list, but the skew is toward the technological solutions: ie. advances in solar power, vapour barriers, and adhesives. Yet, along comes this string on what is green and many people start to talk about their relationship to the wild or their minimum basic needs.

I have found the schizophrenia of these contrasting streams in my own business endeavors to be hard to maintain, and the golden age/wild/ecocentric side always loses out. I work within the city of Toronto, and find that my options for "deep" ecological renovation work are nil, although there is a psychological, almost soothing role, that many clients want me to assume that may connect to this stream.

I am inviting comments from the learned illuminati of this list and would also like to get in contact with other renovators.

Lenard Hart and Maria Vasilodimitrakis Greenovations Philosophy Dept. York University (Ecological Home 128 Mavety St. Renovations) Toronto, Ontario Canada M6P 2L9 (416) 762-0835 maryv@yorku.ca

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Marc Rosenbaum on Just what IS sustainable?

From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 11:51 AM

I liked what you wrote, although i didn't understand it all. Perhaps in time you will expand it for us techno-non-historians. One of my own personal interests is, what level of material wealth is likely to be sustainable? Is it possible (from a resource perspective, assuming equity in distribution of resources, and some assumed number for population) that people will be able to live in 1800 ft2 eco-homes and drive hypercars, etc., or are we totally deluded and really need to be considering radical downsizing of material wealth to approach sustainablility? This is what I was getting at with my post on cliff dwellings and minimum basic human needs.

By the way: it almost goes without saying that even though the industrialized West has ample material wealth, people don't often have hardly any of the non-material aspects that I listed for myself as needs? True?

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Jim Newman on respect

From: Jim Newman
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 3:19 PM

I appreciate the "split" to which you refer. I also live the contradiction...and revel in it. But really, I revel in the information. It's pretty straight forward to work for a simpler, less aquisitive lifestyle....well it sounds easy anyway. It's much harder to deal with people on their own terms, in their own language, solving their problems. Contrary to popular belief, people are not dumb. They are very clever at finding ways to meet their needs and desires. The "technical" knowledge that is discussed here has, for me, the end result of allowing me to communicate ways for others to meet their needs while also meeting the needs of other species, other parts of the world and, yes, other people. Respect for the planet includes respect for people. Someone else's need for a whirlpool bath is as real as your or my need to feel connected to the wilderness. An heretical idea, I know.

With love Jim Newman, Construction Forum, Inc. jnewman@user1.channel1.com
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Chris Edwardson on population

From: Chris Edwardson
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 6:04 PM

Marc.J.Rosenbaum wrote what level of material wealth is likely to be sustainable? Is it possible (from a resource perspective, assuming equity in distribution of resources, and some assumed number for population) that people will be able to live in 1800 ft2 eco-homes and drive hypercars, etc., or are we totally deluded and really need to be considering radical dowdownsizing of material wealth to approach sustainablility?

We can live like we do as long as we don't care how the rest of the people on Earth live in the future.

Somewhere (when I get the source I will post it) I read that it takes ten acres of land to sustain one person in the U.S.; while in Africa, for example, a family of 6 subsists on less than 2 acres. Do the math and there is no way the Earth can sustain the current population level at a standard of living that even approaches ours.

Chris Edwardson cedwards@sage.nrri.umn.edu Natural Resources Research Institute (218)720-4257 (voice) University of Minnesota, Duluth

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Norbert Senf on US population

From: Norbert Senf
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 7:36 PM

For a good paper on the subject, see:

The Environmental Impact of US Babies ------------------------------------- by Charles A. S. Hall, Ph.D., R. Gil Pontius Jr., Lisa Coleman and Jae-Young Ko

"The US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to include a detailed statement of likely environmental impacts in proposals for major actions, such as the creation of new power plants. The initiating force behind any large project generally is the desire to service or to extract profit from a human population. Thus, we view the environmental impacts of specific facilities as the product of the number of consumers and their per-capita consumption rate.

It follows that, given a nation's level of affluence and technology, the nation's population size is closely associated with its aggregate environmental impacts. For example, at the 1990 living standard, a US of 250 million people would cause roughly double the environmental impact of a US of 125 million people. In some sense, then, the ultimate environmental impact occurs with the birth of each new human being, because a whole suite of production and consumption activities commence with that birth."...

located at http://www.earthisland.org/ei/journal/babies.html

Best..........NOrbert SEnf -------------------------------------------------------- Norbert Senf email: mheat@mha-net.org Masonry Stove Builders mheat@hookup.net Shawville, Quebec website: http://mha-net.org/msb

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Steve McGrath on using too much

From: Steve McGrath
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 12:10 PM

>From Green Clips, which was quoting an article from YES!, The Journal for positive Futures,m Summer '96: The average North American needs at least 10 - 12 acres of productive land to support our consumer lifestyle.

Extrapolated, that means that, and here I quote a paper presented at USGBC Conference in San Diego, extension of the current US lifestyle to all the 5.7 billion people on earth would require the land and resources of two more earths - 'The Environmnetal Studies Center at Oberlin College', David Orr, William McDonough, John Lyle et al

Gosh, maybe someday I'll have an original thought!

Steve McGrath McGrath Associates Build America Radio News Magazine 665 Buchon St. San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 (805) 544-5457

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Marc Rosenbaum wonders how much we really have

From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 1996 10:47 AM

These stats are good for obtaining context but the 10 acres per person is at our current level of waste, etc., so it is really meaningless for answering my question. Assume equitable distribution and attainable levels of renewable energy and recycled materials and use of natural materials and systems to fulfill our needs - there still needs to be some finite level of affluence and population that will fit such a society.

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Dona Stankus asks her guts

From: Dona Stankus
Sent: Monday, November 25, 1996 3:56 PM

well, i feel very queasy doing this one, but here goes.

marc, what I sense from your posts is the overiding need to scientifically quantify, gather statistics, see real world confirmation etc. on whether an 1800 sf space and hypercars will work.

my questions to you are these---what does your gut tell you? mine says i don't think 1800 sf is small enough (live and work in that now and it seems huge to me) and hypercars, well truthfully, i do not know what they are, some wonderful techno device that does some type of destruction that its inventors probably do not know about yet.

do you think we could somehow get everyone to live this way if we could quantify it in some way?---@#$*, the usa (world?) hasn't gotten this tobacco issue (myself included until 3 years ago) despite being bombarded with it daily.

how does scientific quantification/research/statsitical analysis (that states if we all maxed everything out at this level) really help? The point to me seems to be how not to max out to the most nature can possibly withstand, how not to minimize human life (ie., the best probable solution for a complete return to nature at this point would be to annihilate mankind) but how can we moderate and have some of both...

what if we spend all this energy trying to quantify that optimum level and find that we should have just listened to our natural instincts and just stopped getting/making/building/producing/owning stuff. i view one of my primary goals as a sustainable architect wannabe is to put myself out of this business as we know it now. i am not there and the road looks long for now. but change, i embrace it, that's nature. my gut tells me so. you seem to have a great head and gut---trust what it tells you.

"We do doodley do what we must muddley must till we bust bodily bust" ...i feel fairly sure this is a kurt vonnegut misquote.

sense in philosophy science-as-much-as-makes-sense in construction drawings

Dona Stankus architect

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Marc R. ask for the right question

From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Monday, November 25, 1996 6:01 PM

Dear Dona -

Thanks so much for your thoughts. My need for quantification is perhaps the outcome of being an engineering nerd, but also my gut IS telling me that the stuff is the problem and all the solutions getting touted as sustainable are quite far off. So one can't get a good answer without the right question, and I want to know better where to aim and concentrate my efforts.

Marc

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Mike O'Brien - Utopia?

From: Mike O'Brien
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 8:47 PM

So, when exactly was this utopian golden age of idyllic simple practices and low level technology?

Perhaps there really isn't any progress, but at least we no longer have slavery, child labor, rampant infanticide, totalitarian police-state government and attendant nightmares, theocracy, human sacrifice, women as chattel, lynch mobs, plagues that wipe out half the population, or entire cities burning down. (OK, I'll give you war and genocide.) Personally, I would love to have lived in Florence in the 1420's--to check out Brunelleschi's high-tech ideas, such as the hot new "perspective" or Ghiberti's high-tech lightweight bronze castings for the Baptistry doors--as long as I wasn't a woman or a wool worker, and didn't get bubonic plague or malaria.

Discussing "what is green" is a luxury! Brought to us by material prosperity, health, safety, tolerance, basic social justice, self-government, progressive ethics, information exchange--and technology.

Discussing "what is green" is a necessity! Brought to us by rampant materialism, confusing identity with possessions, corporate and shareholder greed, toxic chemicals, overpopulation, species and ecosystem destruction, global climate change, new colonialism, automobiles--and technology.

Technology is bad! Technology is good! Cars are bad! Espresso machines are good! How can we sort it all out?

Thoreau could experience nature because there wasn't a railroad next to Walden Pond at the time, and he could walk over to the Emersons when he got hungry. In a complex urban society of millions of people, we can't live close to nature without going through a big paradigm shift. When I mention replacing lawn grass with meadow grass (short! green! lovely!) people look at me like I just said a voice from Mars told me so.

In Portland today, fewer people smoke, and they at least try to hide it if they do. Ten years ago, no one was embarrassed about smoking and blowing it right on you, then stubbing out their butts on their dinner plate! Why the change? Lots of news articles, sitcom jokes, celebrity quitters, ads, posters,labels, research reports, lying scumbag tobacco execs on TV--all added up to a sea change.

So green can be and should be eclectic--everything from a brick in the toilet tank to a clivus multrum is green! Everything from commuting by car to Bill Gates' 52,000 sq. ft. house is brown!

We need nature to heal our self-inflicted wounds--as a yardstick of what we've lost--as a model to progress towards--actual real pristine nature--but also more Sierra Club calendars, new age recordings of waterfalls, TV nature documentaries, whale jewelry, environmental bumper stickers, hemp totes, organically grown cigars--yes, all of it! It's all green! It's how we change!

Mike Wasn't "utopia" the name of an imaginary place?

O'Brien & Associates Environmental Building Consultants
Portland General Electric Earth Smart program
Earth-Wise Builders Association
obrien@hevanet.com

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Dave Warren on comparative green-ness

From: Dave Warren
Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 10:42 PM

I have resisted all these colorful commentaries on the various shades of chlorofil for this long. But let me see if I can add to the efforts of Lenard Hart and others to extend this conversation a bit:

Plant life has all shades of green. Some of it is on varigated leaves, some on pine needles, and some on hundreds of different options of the various species. I doubt plants sit around at night, with their petals folded, discussing which of them is really green ("Mine is greener than yours!"). Each just does, in its own way, what it does best to "do the right thing."

Plants just set out in a direction and grow. Those doing the right thing may eventually succeed.

Humans, at least those reading this, seem to be in agreement that we are not doing so well at "the right thing" -- when we see the rates of rainforests being bulldozed, oil being consumed, agricultural land being taken permanently out of production, toxics being produced, consumption being advocated, and waste being generated. We say we no longer want to be part of that problem -- we want to be greener. Not green as such, but greener. We know we can do better.

Marc's example question of whether an 1800 square foot eco-house is green cannot be answered, but whether it is greener is comparative to the alternatives. I agree that world mathematics suggests 1800 sf probably isn't green enough -- but maybe it is.

That "split" between greener goals and and other goals seems to be inherent to all human life in this urbanized age; and perhaps in pre-urban ages. I, too, write construction specifications which are slowly becoming greener -- not at the client's request, but at society's.

Slowly, I say, because Specification Green is a matrix of tough decisions offsetting resource consumption with life expectancy and intertwined with many other similar design matrices. Even the sum of all green parts _can_ be a very brown building.

So.......if this pretends to answer the question of "What direction we are going?" and if we agree we aren't going that direction nearly fast enough, go ahead and ask "How will we know if we're green yet?" Green? We'll just know we did the right thing.

Dave Warren

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Chip Shepard brings up The Natural Step

From: chip shepherd
Sent: Monday, December 02, 1996 4:01 AM

hello...i've been reading for the past several months and have found much of the discussion wonderful. many of you obviously know each other personally or by reputation or authorship. i do not know any of you except to the extent i've come to know you by the expression of your thoughts and feelings here. some of which i share at the core of my heart and soul. i am encouraged that so many people are so deeply concerned about our long term survival and recognize that the models for that survival already exist in nature. i just hope that we have enough time and enough people really "get it" before, in mike o'brien's words, terminal planetary failure. i think of it more in terms of terminal species failure but i think we are talking about the same thing. will it happen in my life time? maybe. will it happen in my children's lifetime? probably. no doubt there will be life on this planet for a long time to come and some of us may even survive tpf. i figure one way or another humankind will start living more like an eco-system. i'd rather do it voluntarily. the move from where we are today to where we must be to avoid tpf will require a transformation of our fundamental values. i could go on for a while but i'm not sure there would be any original thought so let me get to something more concrete. although i have not seen it mentioned, i assume many of you must know of The Natural Step? tns is a nonprofit organization originally founded in sweden. it's purpose is to develop and share a framework for thinking that can serve as a compass to guide us to a sustainable future. at it's core are four sytem conditions derived from the scientific principles of the natural world. for me, the beauty of tns is that it gives me a simple comprehensive vehicle to manifest my values in a practical way. rather than get into the details now, let's first see if anyone is interested or whether tns has come up before. i'll be happy to continue another day. peace,

chip.

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Victoria Schomer on grace of thought

From: Victoria Schomer
Sent: Monday, December 02, 1996 1:45 PM

Dear Chip,

I feel like I know you now...I love this kind of discussion so much. I have heard a wize man I am connected to say that awareness (meditation) is such an important part of our collective survival. So many years ago "saving the planet" took on the energy of so many causes - full of ego and self righteous knowing the only right way to do the "saving."

What I find so special about this round of environmental awakening is that so many peole that I share with really get that this is about us, about each of us individually, and is as much about how and with what awareness we do the "saving" as with what the results actually are. I mean, really, the statistics are not encouraging and I find incredible comfort in the day to day discouragement of those numbers and the news stories of what dilute and obliterate so much of what we are striving to do here, in coming back to me, awareness, mediation and that path through which I believe the wisdom and the courage and the "right way" to save me and, simultaneously and synchronistically, the planet - can happen in a graceous way.

Wow! Now you really get to know me!!

Now, what was this discussion group about again!!!

Warmly, Victoria

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Marc Rosenbaum agrees

From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Monday, December 02, 1996 6:08 PM

Victoria -

I appreciate what you have said regarding the individual awareness - so true and so painful! It's so much easier to project one's pain out into the world and blame "the bad guys". And so hard to look in the mirror and start to make the changes one by one. Yet there is joy hidden in the process...

Marc

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Nadav Malin points to a paper by Hal Levin

From: Nadav Malin
Sent: Sunday, November 17, 1996 4:13 AM

Greetings, folks.

Hal Levin's paper, mentioned here last week, was too long to distribute universally to the group. It is now posted at

http://www.buildinggreen.com/elists/halpaper.html (that's HERE, folks) for all to read. Hal's note accompanying the paper follows below.

Nadav __________________

Dear Nadav and Friends:

Attached is the paper I have submitted for the 1996 Green Buildings Conference. Apparently it never made it onto the listserver. Therefore, Nadav has offered to post it on the web site for access by those who have an interest. I hope to receive some feedback and start a dialogue regarding the criteria for weighting and the processes for scoring. I am also interested in people's thoughts on the translation from a complicated analysis to checklist guidance.

Please keep in mind that I was invited to talk about IAQ best practices in commercial buildings but received agreement from the one who invited me that I could lay out some of my thoughts on "green buildings." In essence, there are two incomplete papers there. The second half concerns sustainable design and tries to integrate some IAQ practices under sustainable design criteria discussion results. The SEABEP weighting and scoring of alternatives is far from complete and requires lots more work before the methodology is complete. Of course the data are lacking for full implementation, but by knowing how we will use them when they are available, and by weighting problems, we can priortize data gathering efforts.

The real conundrum is that we need to reduce a set of very complicated, even complex considerations into a relatively simple set of guidelines for application in the design and construction fields. I am uneasy with simplification of this sort, especially before the hard work is done. On the other hand, people are building every day and we should try to focus their efforts in the least environmentally harmful way. Any help you all can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Hal

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Andreas Blum with a perspective from Europe

From: Andreas Blum
Sent: Friday, November 15, 1996 7:48 AM

Hi! As a new member of this list I would like to start of with a request and some words about us:

These questions are likely the same that we would like to answer regarding the European discussion / state of the art. So the first Question is: Does the European discussion play any role at all within this list? However at present we are just starting of and were very pleased about some hints whome to contact, what to read ... (Thanks to Jim Newman). Some first information about our 'Institute for ecological spatial development", Weberplatz 1, D-01217 Dresden, Germany are to be found at http://www.tu-dresden.de/ioer/ioer.htm As a hint: Within our Dept. of "Building-Ecology" we tend to consider "Ecology" rather as a method or aproach than some "real data backed" physical habit of buildings (although of course we are working on some "hard" criteria as well) So the very important question is not only what are we doing, but as well how we are doing things. How to organize an ecological way of decissionmaking in the process of planning/constructing buildings were every expert tends to show different directions to better practice?

so far for today, thanks in advance

Andreas Blum



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