[Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Reuben Deumling]

David,
I look forward to following your blog. It seems like a very worthwhile
project.
On your blog you wrote:
*"It’s not enough to say there are solutions (though it’s a good start). We
need solutions that are desirable; not solutions that are adopted only
because they are necessary. I firmly believe there are futures that
simultaneously save the environment that nurtures us while allowing, indeed
helping, us to flourish as individuals and as the species homo sapiens."*

I agree in general, but I suspect you'd concur that the definition of
desirable is going to have to be divorced from the framework of fossil
fuels. Many of the things currently understood as *convenient* in our
society are drenched in fossil fuels. We're going to have to figure out
ways to redefine convenience in new ways. Right now a reigning
interpretation of how to make solutions desirable is Energy Star: pick
categories of appliances known to flatter middle class tastes (side by side
refrigerator with through the door ice and water) and tweak the parameters
so that they qualify for an Energy Star. Rather than discourage the
category as a whole as energy authorities did through about 1990, now the
majority of Energy Star refrigerators are side by sides with TTD ice and
water. I think this is an unpromising way forward. As it stands, the
underlying goal of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels has taken a back
step to encouraging early replacement and trading up.

I signed up for your blog but suspect maybe that comments aren't enabled
there yet.

Reuben

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 8:25 PM, David Bergman <bergman at cyberg.com> wrote:

>  At 11:05 PM 7/22/2012, Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn wrote:
>
> I think that forward thinking people discover better ways to do things.
> The rest of society only follows when they are forced to.
>
>
> I think there's more to it than that. People also tend to follow when:
>
> they like what they see
> they want to be cool like other (forward thinking) people
> they see personal advantage (health, $, etc.)
>
> These "carrot" methods, arguably, work much better than the stick of
> requiring people to change.
>
> BTW, this is a significant part of what I'm going to be writing about in
> my new blog, EcoOptimism ( www.Ecooptimism.com<http://www.ecooptimism.com/>).
>
>
> **
>
> ** David Bergman  RA   LEED AP
> *DAVID BERGMAN* ARCHITECT / *FIRE & WATER* LIGHTING + FURNITURE
> architecture . interiors . ecodesign . lighting . furniture
> bergman at cyberg.com    *www.cyberg.com* <http://www.cyberg.com/>
> 241 Eldridge Street #3R, New York, NY 10002
> t 212 475 3106    f 212 677 7291
>
> author - Sustainable Design: A Critical Guide
> blog - * www.EcoOptimism.com* <http://www.ecooptimism.com/>
> adjunct faculty - Parsons The New School for Design
>
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