[GBlist] Is This Relevant?

[Sarah Holland/David Foley <hollandfoley@acadia.net>]

(This is a comment on the "politics and censorship" issue, so if you think
this isn't relevant, please delete now.)

Is the following relevant to a discussion of environmental building?

http://commondreams.org/headlines01/1207-01.htm


My wife Judy works in environmental advocacy, legislation, politics, that
sort of thing.  I'm probably biased, but I think she's pretty smart.  I used
to tell her that I thought that politics was somehow a mistake, that it
seemed like an arena in which little can be done and in which it was just
about impossible to remain uncontaminated.  I told her that personal actions
count for more.  I liked her answer, and would like to share it:  she says
that the struggle to make this world a better place is like an ecosystem:
there are numerous niches, each vital, each contributing to the overall
health of the ecosystem.  To have everyone doing the same thing would be to
create a monoculture, and monocultures are notoriously unstable, unhealthy
and prone to attack by pests.

I hope that our discussions will remain within the bounds of environmental
building - but the longer I work on this, the less sure I am of where the
boundaries are.  A quick story:  a few years ago, we were working on a
commercial building for which we'd specified state-of-the-art, efficient
lighting.  We'd managed a lighting load about .75 watts per sq. ft (8.1
watts/sq. M) - that was pretty good in those days.  To get that result, we
specified a particular brand name of fixtures.  (These days, you could get
similar results from a number of manufacturers.)  The electrician kept
telling us that his supplier wanted to switch brands, and claimed that they
were "all the same."  Well, they weren't, and we kept insisting on what we
wanted.  When I talked to the supplier directly, eventually I learned that
if he sold enough of the brand he was pushing, he'd win a free trip to
Hawaii.

Is that political?  Heck, I don't know, but it affected our ability to build
"green".  The "policy" of a major electrical-products supplier was
influenced in ways that would have increased the energy load of our building
if we hadn't intervened.  "Politics" isn't always global or national.

All this "politics" jazz must be a major pain in the neck to folks on the
list who are looking mainly for technical fixes to personal or professional
problems.  And wow, there sure is a lot of talent within this group to solve
those problems!  But I keep thinking that environmental building isn't just
about materials and techniques.  I'm only marginally interested in
"politics", but I am a systems guy - I'm not just interested in stuff, I'm
interested in the patterns that connect stuff.  From time to time, there's
an obvious political or economic connection to our discussion topic - but
maybe the burden of proving that should be on the person who wants to
discuss the connection.

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who contributes to this list.  Let's not call
each other dopes, radicals, reactionaries or whatever.  It just wastes our
time, and there are plenty of much more interesting things to do.

- David Foley
-- 
Holland & Foley Building Design L.L.C.
232 Beech Hill Rd.
Northport, Maine 04849 USA
p: (207) 338-9869 f: (207) 338-9859 e: hollandfoley@acadia.net



-- 
Holland & Foley Building Design L.L.C.
232 Beech Hill Rd.
Northport, Maine 04849 USA
p: (207) 338-9869 f: (207) 338-9859 e: hollandfoley@acadia.net


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