[Greenbuilding] The Coolest Buildings Aren't Green

[Bob Waldrop]

Give up flying!

I used to fly a lot.  People were always wanting me to come and talk 
about the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, which was the first food coop in 
the US to only sell locally grown and made food and non-food items, and 
how they could replicate our success.   But I found myself questioning 
my assumptions.  Why did I think I was so important that it was worth 
the damage that flying causes to the biosphere for me to go somewhere 
and talk about the importance of growing a local food system?  So I just 
decided to quit flying.  I am not saying that I will never ever fly 
again, but it has been several years since my last flight, and i have 
nothing on the horizon.  If I can't get there by car, bus, or train, I'm 
not going.  Of all the sustainability-oriented developments in my life, 
giving up flying has been the easiest -- once I got over my sense of 
personal importance and entitlement.

As for rural versus urban, I think that in terms of per capita resource 
use, cities win the prize.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/greenest_place_in_the_us_its_not_where_you_think/2203/ 


Bob Waldrop
Oklahoma City


On 12/1/2014 11:56 AM, Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn wrote:
> I work full time to help clients live a greener life. And then I fly 
> from NYC to the Dominican Republic to holiday. Which basically blows 
> all my green credits to hell in jet fuel. What to do.
>
> On Monday, December 1, 2014, <conservationarchitect at rockbridge.net 
> <mailto:conservationarchitect at rockbridge.net>> wrote:
>
>     Very good points with regards to location. Another part of that is
>     the lifestyle of the occupants.  If you are in a rural location,
>     work at home and produce most your own food, that green field
>     location can indeed be green.  Also, that reduced density reduces
>     the problems of runoff, allows natural vegetation cooling and
>     allows the diverse natural ecology to manage the adjacent forest
>     from which we can harvest meat and forage food from.   However,
>     the same location where you are commuting, not so much. 
>     Reciprocally, if you are in an urban location such a Brooklyn, you
>     are in a setting that has no natural ecology. Therefore, all
>     products need to be brought to you.  Stability must be maintained
>     by human managed systems such as sewers, utility water, storm
>     drains (very rapid runoff), roads, police, et.  There is also the
>     heat island affect of concrete without vegetation.  These
>     footprints have to enter to equation.
>

-- 
http://www.ipermie.net How to permaculture your urban lifestyle and adapt to the realities of peak oil, economic irrationality, political criminality, and climate instability.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20141201/760d9609/attachment.html>