[Greenbuilding] Nansulate Insulation and our solution to the ecological problem

[Gennaro Brooks-Church]

Hi,
I think the concept of building so that it lasts a very long time is good.
But too many cultures use sacrificial materials for me to overlook that
option too. For example in Spain the traditional stone buildings are white
washed with lime that doesn't last very long. Once a year the family and a
couple friends come together for a weekend of exercise in the sun with a big
meal to paint the house.

It doesn't pay if you have to hire somebody once a year to do it. So this is
where green building becomes cultural. Our western culture for the most part
doesn't paint their own home. It is paid for. But if you turn it into a
social event for bonding with the family maybe painting the home isn't
actually the main point. Maybe being together with friends and family is.

For me green building is more about strengthening our community and our
social bonds with nature than any BTU counting. If you have a strong society
that is connected to nature the rest comes naturally.

This was the point I was trying to make before with my point of there being
two ways of looking at green building - techie or cultural - and
my opinion that most people on this list and in green building in general
are tackling it with a techie view point.

The techie approach in my opinion is what got us in our current ecological
problem in the first place. It makes a damn if we have Uber efficient homes
if the people in them are dysfunctional and allienated. Green builders for
the most part see their job as building efficient homes. That won't solve
our problem in my opinion. Building homes that connect us to our community
and nature has a much better chance.

For me that means focusing more closely at how the building process, the
sourcing, the materials used, the upkeep, and the relationship of buildings
to each other strengthen our love of community and nature. You may counter
that it is not either or - either techie or cultural - and that is
absolutely true. But right now it is pretty much only techie. If you stream
through our conversations it is mostly about efficient materials and BTUs.

I think our love of science destroyed our ecology. I conclude this because
most older non-scientific cultures have done significantly better than newer
scientific cultures in being custodians of our planet. And if Einstein is
right then science should not be the tool we use to get us out of our
ecological problems. We need a different tool.

I think we need to veer significantly more in the direction of cultural and
natural related issues to solve our ecological issues.
Gennaro Brooks-Church

Cell: 1 347 244 3016 USA
www.EcoBrooklyn.com
22 2nd St; Brooklyn, NY 11231



On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 8:06 AM, <bill.allen at verizon.net> wrote:

> John,
>
> I applaud your efforts.
>
> My uneducated question is: Why use paint at all? Don't well installed, bare
>  wood shingles last a pretty long time (as siding) if you use the right
> species?
>
> I am making these choices now for my own house and keep gravitating toward
> natural wood (shingles or siding). With the correct roof overhang (eves and
> gables), don't they last a while?  I just dismantled a 150+ year old barn in
> climate zone 6 with the original, naked hemlock siding (vertical). It's got
> plenty of life left.
>
> Would love any comments...
>
> Bill
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "JOHN SALMEN" <terrain at shaw.ca>
> Sender: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2011 12:36:32
> To: 'Green Building'<greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Reply-to: Green Building <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Nansulate Insulation
>
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