One of the reasons that sustainability measures can be so easily sidelined in our efforts of prioritization is that value of the contributions of natural systems or the liabilities of their predicted absence never factor into the bottom lines of our society. In a culture of buying and selling products, natural capital rarely makes it to the balance sheet. The proposal of trying to effectively “price” the natural world offers an interesting solution to our unfettered assault on environmental assets, but even if it were ever enacted it is unlikely to have significant long term affects on how we live. Trying to commoditize the natural environment only tries to describe it within the confines of a limited language. The fact is that the natural environment has no finite value, but instead is uncompromisingly essential. Continue Reading…
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In a way, professional expertise can be a double-edged sword. When a focused group of people dedicate themselves to an industry niche they become able to unlock and extract potential due to their heightened knowledge and experience. We call them “experts,” and defer to their opinion and assessment for engaging with the field in the future. At the same time, “experts” can also wield their power for ends that are less innovative or progressive. The same aura of experience that can ignite enthusiasm in consumers or investors by saying, “Sure, there’s no reason we can’t do that” can also stifle revolutionary thinking by claiming that advances “simply can’t be done.” When we hear an expert say it’s impossible, most of us can’t really argue.
This barrier of plausibility ends up being an industry excuse that bars advancement and sustainability encounters it all the time. Why is our water not cleaner? Why is public transit not fiscally self-sufficient? Why can’t we survive on only renewable energy? Because it simply can’t be done, or at least so we are told. Continue Reading…
Though the era of McMansions and its resulting explosion of constructed square footage may have been abated in the aftermath of the recession, suburban American homes still suffer from bloated, inefficient floor plans. Even without architectural training, most of us can look at the high volume/low quality constructs of overnight, palatial residences as the hallmark of excess in our culture, but even many of our average homes suffer from a prolonged reversion to an antiquated formula of planning that no longer reflects how we live. High on the list of such traits are formal living rooms and dining rooms: amenities that people seldom use but routine tells us that we need. We need to begin the process of working these components out of the American archetype to save energy, materials and money. In the process we could open up home ownership to more people while taking an important stride to a more sustainable lifestyle. Continue Reading…
We have wound up with a culture that has fashioned itself in the image of disposal instead of retention. Almost everything that we own has a useful life that ends when something breaks because the cost to repair it is a vast percentage of the cost of simply buying a newer, cutting-edge replacement. A glance around my own apartment uncovered few exceptions: flat screen TV, iPod, cell phone, stove, microwave, speakers—once broken none of these things could be affordably repaired. But beyond affordability, we are perpetuating a number of massive waste streams laden with the worst kinds of materials—stuff that will sit in the ground indefinitely. We need to focus on ways for retooling our economy to one that runs off of reuse. Continue Reading…
Many developing countries look to our utility grid with envy. Our access to technology and capital allow us to stretch services to just about anybody, but there is a point where a locality’s dwindling population density no longer warrants connection to the greater grid. With the amount of unavoidable renovation on the horizon and our increasing goal of making a more sustainable system, our grid should be retooled by density-driven metrics. Those areas that fall below a certain density threshold should not only have to supply their own services on site, but do so with sustainable systems.
Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have been trying to convince the cadre of American’s wealthiest residents to give away 50% of their net worth before they die. They are calling it The Giving Pledge. Even for someone who lives in New York City, where multi-million dollar apartments are commonplace on street after street, it is easy to lose sight on just how much money is condensed into the uppermost financially solvent citizens in our country and what that money could do, for say sustainability, if the priorities of more of its members were closer to those of philanthropists like Warren Buffet. For this, we can turn to the famed “Forbes 400” that lists the 400 wealthiest Americans each year. As of 2010, those twenty-score people represent a collective $1.27 trillion dollars, more than most of us can even fathom. Sure that’s approaching twice the entire federal economic stimulus package, but it’s also more than the GDP of 94% of African countries combined.
Printed text is no longer the absolute that it was ten to twenty years ago with a growing percentage of what we read everyday coming to us in a digital format. Though numbers remain to be confirmed, Amazon has hinted at selling millions of Kindles so far. While the Nook (Barnes and Noble’s weapon of choice for eReaders) and the iPad have entered the market late, they are swiftly gaining ground with a new series of features to differentiate themselves. My friend and fellow architect Brandon Specketer has said, “some things are worth the paper they are printed on,” but that leaves us with a whole range of products that could, and should, transition into the realm of digital media. Textbooks may be one of the best examples in this category, especially when one looks at the full range of “costs” associated with printing educational texts. Continue Reading…
Pointing fingers is always easier than taking an introspective glance on how one contributes to a given problem, but it is something we all need to do more of, especially when it comes to sustainability. Throwing the spotlight on large offenses of environmental degradation is part of the discussion and pressing for their solutions is equally valuable, but there should be more conversations happening on a smaller scale that assess what we consider to be the mundane aspects of our daily lives. Despite growing verbal support for sustainability in polling numbers and cocktail conversations, Americans have countless ways to alter their own actions knowing full well that we control the marketplace for an economy that hangs on consumer spending. Continue Reading…
Use of the term is growing. As focusing on our effects on the environment becomes more publicly accepted/pertinent/politically correct, sustainability continues to be a label that is slapped on the side of another box and fit into another soundbyte with less and less of a care as to how it is defined and ultimately received by the public. While having more people become part of a larger discourse about sustainability is a good thing, if we do not take the time to step back and realize what values and concepts we are trying to instill in the word then we run the risk of confusing and ultimately deterring potential allies and supporters. I thought I would take a stab at a definition for what sustainability has come to mean to me as an architect and a writer thus far.
In efforts to try and parley with conservatives, President Obama recently announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for Southern Company to build two new nuclear power reactors. As the Democrats’ control of the Senate begins to unravel and the President’s term-long agenda follows a similar fall into uncertainty, the political footwork is not surprising. However, it may also not be not wise. Not only will it fail to produce any new Republican support on a trying to produce comprehensive climate legislation, but the President’s olive branch to nukes will do no more than set the taxpayers up for yet one more “loan” to corporate America–laced with risk.