[Greenbuilding] Staggering 1/2 tonne per person per year cement production!

Tue Apr 21 18:25:52 CDT 2015

There could be another subset – ‘think they want to’ which could be the worst. I don’t really think the ‘gift economy’ can really be thought of as an economic thing. I live in a place where aspects of a longstanding gifting (potlatch) still exists. There is a big mind shift in this in that you have to think of the property or gift as something that doesn’t really exist as an object in itself with a pricetag (that is a market based economy that needs to create currency of things). In a gifting situation the object(s) are about the relationships and maintaining the relationship usually involves giving a gift back or simply maintaining a place in the community.  In this way in the local indigenous community that surrounds me money earned by one family member is shared in very odd ways that are hard to comprehend.

It gets very complex and lots of anthros have argued about how such cultures work.

I think one of the closest concepts is the idea of being in service to your community (or something) and bringing certain skills to that that can be seen as adding something ‘extra’. The building trades in some ways are a remnant of this in that we still have a concept of a ‘quality job’ done by a ‘master craftsperson’ or a ‘custom’ job.  In that way the ‘extra quality’ or attention provided by the ‘special skills’ becomes the gift.  I don’t think this is effectively in practice anymore but the myth remains and everyone still likes to point out the ‘special’ attention details in their house received.

If the market economy has achieved anything it is probably the erosion of servitude and that is probably a good thing.

From: Greenbuilding [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of sanjay jain
Sent: April-21-15 3:42 PM
To: Green Building
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Staggering 1/2 tonne per person per year cement production!

> There are plenty of steady-state economic economists out there but our linear growth system doesn’t operate on that premise. All the green buildings in the world won’t save us from the inevitable limits we’re already up against. 

Thanks Dan,

I had not heard of the term Steady State Economics - Found this: http://steadystate.org/ 

Will be reading more on this. I personally would love to see humanity move towards a Gift Economy, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy>  where people provide goods and services to each other because they want to, not because they have to (or think they have to).

~sanjay

  _____  

From: Antonioli Dan <solardan26 at gmail.com>
To: sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk>; Green Building <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Cc: "Greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org" <Greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2015 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Staggering 1/2 tonne per person per year cement production!

There are plenty of steady-state economic economists out there but our linear growth system doesn’t operate on that premise. All the green buildings in the world won’t save us from the inevitable limits we’re already up against. 

Dan

On Apr 19, 2015, at 8:28 AM, sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> can ( & will!!) add up to tipping the scales, if we just

> keep at it for the next few centuries.

Even under the most optimistic climate models we don't have 1 century let alone a few.  Technology is neither the problem or the solution to our current woes. Economics and culture are.

I recently attended Brooking's "Achieving strong economic growth <http://connect.brookings.edu/register-to-attend-achieving-economic-growth> "  there were a lot of smart people, not one asked why we need perpetual economic growth. The underlying assumption is that we need more and more goods and services to be happy.

We keep innovating to produce more and more food, saying that the poor are hungry, but there are now more obese people on the planet than hungry ones. The issue is distribution. Not to mention that 65 billion (10 billion in the US) land animals are tortured in factory farms each year... 35% water use in California <http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/7/cowspiracy_as_california_faces_drought_film>  is for animal agriculture.

I encourage folks on this list to promote "think green" as well as "buy green". 

~sanjay

  _____  

From: Frank Tettemer <frank at livingsol.com>
To: Greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org 
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Staggering 1/2 tonne per person per year cement production!

Getting back to the cement, it is simply staggering. It makes our 
individual efforts seem pointless.

/Could someone tell me who I need to contact to get my 1/2 tonne of 
cement?  :)/

~sanjay

I don't know, either san jay, to whom we must request, in order to 
receive our own half ton.

But I do know that the efforts are, and have been, point-full. These 
steady small developments,( in lightening the load on the Planet, in 
attempting the Living Building Challenge, in becoming responsible for 
your own energy production, repair, and consumption, ) can ( & will!!) 
add up to tipping the scales, if we just keep at it for the next few 
centuries.

Think back, how 20-30 years ago, solar energy had such a lethargy of 
marketing and slow sales, and high expense.  Yet now, the accumulated 
efforts, of proponents of solar energy as a viable alternative, are now 
being viewed as credible. Many people have kept at it, year after year, 
until the scales have been tipped, and we'll get to see more and more 
villages becoming electrically self sufficient, like in Europe.

I just really would like to view all our green building, natural 
building, efforts as that of the-glass-half-full;
quite point-full, well developed thinking, over the past three decades, 
and frankly, quite expectant of positive changes,;
rather than to consider our efforts as the-glass-half-empty, as being 
point-less.

Opti-Mist-Me,

-- 
Frank Tettemer
Living Sol ~ Building and Design
www.livingsol.com <http://www.livingsol.com/> 
613 756 3884

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