RE: [GBlist] Truly Sustainable

["David Wagner" <dwagner@sa.kevric.com>]

Tom Thomas replied:
> Intriguing question.  I don't think it is possible to come up with a
> single (even theoretically right) answer.  There will have to
> be a host of
> assumptions.  For example, what is the trade off between a
> board foot of
> lumber and an hour of carpenter labor.  What is the effect of
> scarcity on
> price; if we have gobs now but it won't last long, is that
> cheaper than a
> renewable but temporarily less plentiful resource.  There is no
> theoretical or philosophical underpinning for this that I
> know of.  The
> only crutches we have (maybe pun intended) are the market system and
> administratively dictated prices.  Good luck and I'll be watching
for
> better answers.  I just know there is a Nobel prize in
> Economics in this
> somewhere.

I don't know about the prize, but I am hoping to find a forum to
address these things.  I have found many groups and organizations
centered around various technologies, and I thank those who have
responded offlist with more avenues to explore.  There is tons of
information on how to solve each small problem and fine-tune the
greenness of individual solutions, but though there is widespread
belief what we need is a broader change, I cannot even find a
perspective wide enough to compare, say, straw bale, pumicecrete,
papercrete, cob, and rammed earth as the best solution for the
exterior wall cavity of a structure on a specific site.

If this forum does not exist, who will prevent the American Concrete
Institute and Dow Chemical from converting green builders to the
concrete/Styrofoam structural insulating panel as the Greenest Thing
since Moldy Bread (TM)?  I attended a meeting of the San Antonio
Sustainable Building Coalition where an architectural consultant
pitched this and "inorganic glass mats embedded with a water-resistant
gypsum core and a gold colored bond-enhancing primer coating" made by
Georgia-Pacific as components of the new green way to build that will,
"change everything."  That these manufacturers are further profiting
from defective buildings constructed since about twenty-five years ago
from components they themselves made and specified how to install is
somehow missed or forgiven.  (It was, as explained, President Carter's
fault for demanding better thermal insulation and the resulting
smaller HVAC loads.  This round is the fault of insurance companies
and their trial lawyers causing public hysteria about mold.)  I
suppose by 2020 they will have another, 'greener' round of products we
may purchase from them to rebuild our homes, workplaces, and public
buildings once again while we send these to the landfill, or rather,
seafill by then.

I have designed a database to work with total life-cycle monetary and
nonmonetary costs and benefits assigned to resources in such a way the
assumptions are all stated and can be varied as those using it see
fit.  (This is the kind of thing I currently do for a living, though I
had to invent a way to represent nonmonetary transactions.)  I don't
know if such a tool available online will help anyone, and frankly do
not have the time right now for much beyond my full-time job and
demolishing and rebuilding my fifty-year old stick home.  But before I
can even start to fill this database, I need to compile assumptions
and tradeoffs such as the ones you mention, Tom, and the process, I
think, is likely to converge quickly on a few broad and generally
acceptable guidelines, enough for me to start field trials with my own
home.

Is this the place for such a discussion?  If not, please point me to
the right group.

Sincerely
-David


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