[imc-st.louis] When Building Green Ain't so Green

[Fitzdon at aol.com]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=56&ItemID=13220

 

When Building Green Ain't so Green

by Don Fitz 

July 06, 2007 

Look at the web site for the next green builder you see on TV or in the daily 
paper.  Does the site show plans for a home with trees and no parking 
garage?  Or, is it another house plan that tells you how many cars the garage will 
hold and says nothing about trees?  

Many green architects and builders are doing their best to create 
environmentally friendly homes.  But most have a narrow focus on eco-techniques.  They 
rarely understand that current construction is actually making environmental 
problems worse.

Politicians who promote green building are not helping.  Their bandwagon 
jumping indicates they are not seriously concerned with global warming.  US 
building practices in the early 21st century will probably increase CO2 emissions 
rather than reduce them.

Wasted energy in homes deserves far more than the shallow attention it is 
receiving.  An estimated 43% of US energy goes to buildings. [1]  The average US 
homes devotes 51% of its energy to heating and 4% to cooling. [2]  Over 90% of 
energy is produced in nasty ways (coal, oil, gas and nukes) that attack human 
health, lay waste to ecosystems, and release greenhouse gases.

Here's 10 ways that the green building fad is not improving the environment.

1. It ain't green to ignore perfectly good homes.

Many (if not most) US municipalities have a law prohibiting more than three 
unrelated people from living in the same house.  The single most important 
green building practice would be to eliminate those laws.

Producing a ton of cement results in the creation of a ton of CO2.  New homes 
take a lot of cement, which means emitting a lot of CO2.  What's the point of 
building new homes and apartments when so many homes have empty space from 
grown children moving out or from a spouse dying?

It wasn't that many decades ago that Americans dealt with issues of isolation 
and finances by renting out empty space.  Or some people got a bigger house 
for the purpose of renting rooms.  Now, that could get you a citation.  

This is just one way our grandparents were environmentally friendly without 
thinking about it.  During a recent eco-house tour, I asked if it had an attic 
fan, and the builder replied that, no, it would not be energy efficient to 
circulate hot air through the house.  I explained that you should use an attic 
fan to pull cool air through the downstairs early in the morning and close the 
windows so it stays 65 to 75 degrees throughout the day.  He looked at me like 
he wasn't' quite sure if such a strange idea would work.

There's something terribly wrong with "green" building practices that have no 
memory of traditions like renting bedroom space, designing cross-ventilation, 
and using fans instead of costly gadgets.

2. It ain't green to build massive homes.

Alex Wilson wrote that the size of US homes more than doubled between the 
1950s and 2003. [3].  At the same time, the number of people living in homes 
decreased, meaning that the average space per person had grown three-fold by the 
beginning of this century.  

Wilson shows that eco-practices don't solve the size problem.  Poorly 
insulated homes of 1500 square feet use less energy than well insulated homes of 3000 
square feet.  Economies of scale do not make larger homes more efficient per 
square foot.  Bigger homes use proportionally more lumber and other materials 
due to higher walls and they lose efficiency from longer runs for ducts and 
pipes.  

Stan Cox discovered that many home owners associations actually require this 
huge waste by dictating minimum square footage for homes and garages with 
space for two or more cars. [4].  One reason for increased space is that middle 
class American buy (or receive as presents) more and more crap that they use one 
or zero times and then store until they die and their relatives clean out 
their home.

There is considerable psychological research showing that increasing the 
quantity of possessions only leads  to big increases in happiness when it helps 
move people out of poverty  After that, there is diminishing returns, with large 
increases in possessions doing nothing for life satisfaction. [5]

It's similar with quantity of living space per person.  Most Americans grew 
up in a home where boys shared one room and girls shared another.  The trend 
towards a private bedroom for every child probably has no effect on happiness 
while harming kids' ability to share.  Excessive space in homes damages the 
environment and encourages the anti-social value of lavish greed. 

3. It ain't green to encourage urban sprawl.  

Builders love to advertise that a home can be designed green for any income 
range in any location.  Really?  This thinking reflects a profound disconnect 
between designing homes and planning urban areas.  How can a home possibly be 
green if its location requires long distance commuting for work, school, 
shopping and recreation?  

To its credit, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards 
give credit if a new home is built on an existing lot, which encourages use 
of vacant urban space.  This is a positive band aide, as band aides go.  But 
aren't we long past recognizing the huge environmental destructiveness of 
replacing farms and parks with pavement?  Wouldn't a government seriously concerned 
with global warming figure out a way to halt it?

4. It ain't green to build as if space for homes has nothing to do with 
transportation.

Detroit and St. Louis are some of the worst examples of US cities which have 
huge vacant areas in the center which are surrounded by vast suburbs.  This 
damages the ability to have an efficient mass transportation system, which 
requires high density to (a) make sure bus and train cars are full and (b) enable 
people to walk and bike for most trips.

Oblivious to issues of density, green builders typically advertise how many 
cars fit into their eco-friendly garages.  The vision of neighborhoods without 
cars, without driveways and without parking spaces does not make it into many 
design plans.

5. It ain't green to ignore advantages of multi-family homes.

A few green apartments, condos, co-ops and co-housing units are being 
constructed.  They should be commended.  Multi-family homes are clearly the best way 
to mesh green building with green transportation.  They cut land space usage 
by at least a half - more for taller buildings.  This creates more density 
and/or more green space.  Since many people rarely venture into their yards, 
multi-family homes are likely to have smaller average yard space, but space that is 
actually used rather than merely serving to sprawl people apart.

Multi-family homes are much more efficient, both during construction and 
use.  There is more sharing of mechanical systems, less building material used, 
and less heat loss because there is less surface area.  Architect Bryan Bowan 
estimates that just sharing walls "can reduce energy consumption by 20-30%." [6]

However, some of the most notorious public housing projects were touted as 
building up to preserve green spaces.  It is just as important to ensure that 
the amount of space per person is not too low as it is to prevent it from going 
too high.  One approach would be requiring condos, apartments, co-housing and 
co-ops to make 20-30% of their units available to low income families and 
making sure federal dollars finance it.

6. It ain't green to pretend that there is no advantage to building 
underground.

Sometimes it is necessary to build a single family home - especially if there 
is an empty lot too small for a multi-family unit.  But why not take 
advantage of the more constant temperatures underground?  If you've ever been in a 
cave, you know they are naturally "air conditioned" in the summer and naturally 
warmed in the winter. 

Rob Roy uses the groundbreaking ideas of architect Malcolm Wells to describe 
how to construct "earth-sheltered" homes.  By building a house 6 to 8 feet 
below grade level (for a single story home, a few feet more for two stories), Roy 
says it "is like moving 1000 miles to the south."  In northern New York, 
where he lives, earth temperature varies from 40 degrees to 60 degrees. [7]

When I walk around St. Louis, I see new homes going up which universally 
ignore the benefits of building partially underground.  By far, the most typical 
design for both single-family and multi-family homes is to build the garage as 
part of the basement.  The most earth-comforted member of the family is the 
family car.

7. It ain't green to not know what the word "green" means.

You might think that every green builder realizes that "green" means plants 
and that trees would be an inherent part of the design.  Not so.  If you tour a 
green building, notice if the tour guide points out where some trees are 
placed for summer shading and other trees are placed to break the chilling winds 
of winter.  

This actually happens for some green homes; but as the fad catches on, most 
builders focus on the latest energy efficiency gadgets.  Like attic fans and 
cross ventilation, the traditional knowledge of trees seems to be fading from 
architectural memory.

Earth-sheltered homes take "green" to a higher level by growing plants in 
dirt on the roof.  Though earth by itself is not a good insulator, plants do 
insulate.  And earth holds snow, which is a very good insulator.  In the summer, 
rooftop plants offer shade and moisture evaporation cools the roof.  The dirt 
helps protect the home from fire and noise.

8. It ain't green to protect the environment with one hand while destroying 
it with the other.

Virtually everyone involved in green building promotes it as the new growth 
industry.  Huh?  There will be huge single-family houses built on expansive 
lots with energy efficient devices which are constructed and transported using 
fossil fuels.  And there will be more each year to help fuel the gross domestic 
product (GDP) and serve as an extravagant growth model for the rest of the 
world.  If this is how you protect the environment, how would you destroy it?

When you tour a green home, see if there is a sign next to the washing 
machine connection which says "Since clothes dryers are the greatest energy hogs and 
clothes lines work just as well, there is no space for a dryer."  You might 
look a long time for that sign.  Green homes tend to encourage the owner to use 
as many electricity-based appliances as possible.  Though individual gadgets 
in green homes are more energy efficient, they are part of an overall dynamic 
which increases the use of electricity each year.

9. It ain't green to build homes that will not outlast our grandchildren.

The biggest problem with building a green home is that it is a new building.  
At a recent Green Party forum, I asked if anyone lived in an old home.  A few 
people said they live in a 100- or 110-year-old home.  A refugee from the 
Green Party of Germany then pointed out that an "old" home in Europe was 300, 400 
or 500 years old.

Buildings in the US have a life expectancy of 50 years. [8]   The Sierra Club 
wants to reduce energy consumption by 60-80% by 2050. [9]  The fact that 
current construction assumes that homes will last an average of 50 years means 
that when 2050 is reached, it will be about time to begin replacing the energy 
efficient homes that are currently being constructed.  That's not energy 
efficient.

One green home I toured had casement windows which were guaranteed for 10 
years.  10 years?  If the manufacturer cannot guarantee that windows will endure, 
how many other parts of the home are designed to fall apart and require 
energy and resources for replacement?  (Maybe we're supposed to appreciate that 
replacing the planned obsolescence will be done with great energy efficiency.)

10. Voluntary green ain't green.

No one who wants to reduce highway deaths advocates that drinking while 
driving should be voluntary or that everyone should choose whether they drive on 
the left or right side of the road.  The most pathetic aspect of the 
environmental movement is people parading their lifestyle choices as if individual 
decisions could ever make the GDP go down instead of up.  

If politicians actually believed that there were crises in peak oil and 
global warming they would spend less time getting their picture in the paper every 
time a green home is built.  Instead, they would be drafting legislation 
requiring not only energy efficient devices but a whole range of changes in the way 
space is used for living and transportation.

What would deep green building be?

The first step in deep green building would be rejecting the absurd idea that 
you can do it one home at a time.  The architects and builders I have met 
seem to be sincere people who are trying to do the best they can.  But most jump 
to expensive green gadgets or efficiency systems before looking for low-tech 
solutions.  A more basic problem is seeing the issue as home design rather than 
city redesign.  

Urban structure hamstrings the creation of truly green homes.  The clearest 
example is transportation.  The absence of efficient mass transportation 
compels the construction of garages and driveways.  It makes no sense to build homes 
without garages if there is no way to get around without a car.  

Cars destroy neighborhoods, which should be the building blocks of city 
living.  Urban space should have workplaces, stores, schools, parks and churches 
located so that most can be reached by bicycling or walking and all can be 
reached by train or bus.  A good goal would be for the average city person to 
complete 80% of trips by walking or bicycling and 80% of the remaining trips should 
be reachable by train or bus.  This would mean that cars would only be 
necessary for 4% of trips.  (If the figures for most trips were 90% and 90%, cars 
would only be necessary for 1% of trips.)  

If people could get to where they needed to go without a car, they would be 
vastly more interested in living in a co-op or co-housing unit which had no 
individual parking spaces and relied on motor pool vehicles that could be 
reserved for that 4% (or 1%) of trips.  The rebirth of neighborhoods based on the 
drastic reduction in use of cars would fundamentally alter the way homes are 
designed. 

In order to make most trips accessible by walking or bicycling, urban space 
requires the high density of multi-family homes.  People need enough space to 
be comfortable, but they do not need the gargantuan space of current suburban 
homes.  Society needs to minimize energy utilized in the construction of homes, 
living in them, and getting around from home to other places.  

Integrating ideas of ecology and neighborhood development would mean using 
the following principles in deep green housing: existing homes should maximize 
traditional practices such as renting rooms to boarders, attic fans and trees 
for heating/cooling; parking spaces should be reduced by 95% and replaced with 
parks or new homes or buildings; new homes should be multi-family or 
earth-sheltered single-family; and, no new building plan should be approved until its 
design documents that it should last 300 to 500 years.

The very last step of deep green building would be utilizing the many types 
of eco-stuff that have been introduced in recent years.  Just a few of what are 
available include heating/cooling systems that use 50% less energy; 
geothermal systems that utilize temperatures beneath a home; insulating glass; solar 
panels; solatubes that can provide light to basements from the second floor; and 
earth building with natural materials or salvage materials.  

The problem is when the eco-gadget tail wags the urban dog.  Thinking of 
green homes as nothing but a sum of eco-gadgets leads to viewing cities as nothing 
but a sum of eco-homes.  The inability to design green neighborhoods means 
eco-homes actually help perpetuate urban sprawl.

The "shallow green" approach to buildings may look like it is a step in the 
right direction, but it is not.  By failing to come to grips with the economics 
of growth, current green building practices are increasing the efficiency of 
components of houses at the same time they contribute to the overall expansion 
of energy usage, thereby increasing toxic wastes and greenhouse gas 
emissions.  

Building practices that ain't green have a gadget fetish that is blind to the 
big picture.  Deep green building would focus on low-tech and no-tech 
solutions.  Deep green building would integrate transportation into home design.  
Deep green building would aim to improve living space while decreasing the gross 
domestic product, a concept which is anathema to shallow green economics.



Don Fitz is editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social 
Thought, which is sent to members of The Greens/Green Party USA.  He would like to 
receive data estimating the total percentage of energy savings on 
multi-family homes compared to single-family homes of the same size.  He can be contacted 
at fitzdon at aol.com

Notes

1. Brown, M., Stovall, T., & Hughes, P. Potential carbon emissions reductions 
in the buildings sector, in Kutscher, C.F. (Ed.) Tackling climate change in 
the U.S.  American Solar Energy Society, 2007. 51-68.  www.ases.org/climate 
change
2. Heinberg, R. The party's over. New Society Publishers, 2003, 148.  The 
rest of home energy goes to water heating, lights and appliances.  
3. Wilson, A. Small is beautiful: US house size, resource use, and the 
environment. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2005,Vol 9, Nos 1-2, 277-287.
4. Cox, S. The property cops: Homeowner associations ban eco-friendly 
practices, April 26, 2007. http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/51001/
5 Jackson, T. Live better by consuming less? Journal of Industrial Ecology, 
2005,Vol 9, Nos 1-2, 19-36.
6. Bowan, B. e-mail of June 6, 2007
7. Roy, R. Earth-sheltered homes. Mother Earth News, October/November 2006, 
No. 218 
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Home-Building/2006-10-01/Earth-sheltered-Homes.aspx
8. Swisher, J.N. Potential carbon emissions reductions from energy efficiency 
by 2030, in Kutscher, 39-49.
9. Sierra Club, Renewable energy experts unveil report. Sierra club press 
release, January 31, 2007. Contact Josh Dorner, josh.dorner at sierraclub.org








**************************************
 See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-stlouis/attachments/20070705/3322c09c/attachment.htm