The Revolution? #1

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Oct152009

Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 9:10AM

I follow lots of green and sustainable folks on twitter. I read lots of blogs and I check in on linkedin groups and attend conferences. I feel like I'm pretty well versed in the green building space and something keeps coming to me over and over again when I think about our culture and the "green" movement. As a whole we're not undergoing a revolution and we probably never will. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, a paradigm shift in thinking often doesn't lead to a revolution that can be televised. This is the first of a multi-part series of posts here at build2sustain, designed to outline our thinking on the culture of sustainability and how is folds neatly (and sometimes not so neatly) into American values and what we can do in the building and real estate development industries to make sustainable design and building part of our culture. Much of what you are about to read is an amalgamation of thoughts combined in my brain over the past few years of following the sustainable design movement. These thoughts owe as much to Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell and Andrew Bacevich as they do to William McDonough, Michael Braungart, and Janine Benyus. I don't think I've quoted any of them directly here, if I have, my sincere apologies. This isn't meant to be a book, a thesis or even a white paper. This is still our blog and discussion is always encouraged.

Part 1-How we got here, a history in (very) brief.

Here's the bottom line, our culture became unsustainable because political and economic conditions were created that allowed us to forget the true cost of the assets we were using. The obvious and glaring example is of course energy. From the boom after WWII thru to the present day, with the exception of the oil shocks of the 70's we lived in an age of unfettered access to cheap energy. That energy comes in the form of oil and coal mostly, and we are still to this day consuming these resources at rates that are growing...not shrinking. We built entire cultural and societal systems around commodities that could be accessed quickly and brought to market equally quickly. Cheap sources of energy and resources led to cheap consumer goods. Simple convienence coupled with lack of expense led us to a consumer culture where there was little to no consequence for using the earth's resources. It's not that people are greedy or don't care about the Earth. It's that as an economy and a system of wealth we assign value to resources by giving a resource, service, product, or commodity a market value. By essentially rigging the system, we artificially devalued energy, water and land, a culture locked in the short term thinking that these resources were limitless. We are beginning to understand not only that the use of these resources lead to extraordinary negative effects in the short, medium, and long terms but that the resources in question are actually quite limited when other major powers (yes, China and India) come online and compete for them.

Once you have created a paradigm around central commodities like water and energy, there are consequences across the culture. We use paper towels instead of cloth rags, disposable diapers instead of cloth ones, we wash our sidewalks with hoses instead of brooms, we mow our lawns with gas mowers instead push ones. We drive big SUVs we don't need.

The trouble is that this paradigm reached upwards into industries that are supposed to think long term. It reached into the building industry and into our real estate development industry. We forgot how to conserve resources, because we all drank the cultural koolaid and forgot that land, water, and energy are actually quite valuable. There was a time when the built environment actually attempted to conserve energy, retain heat in the winter and stay cool in the summer through passive design, not by simply burning energy to force artifically cooled and warmed air into every sprawling spaces.

I am of the firm belief that until our cultural institutions, both in the public and private sectors assign real value to the land, energy and water, we will not accomplish anything close to the paradigm shift necessary to achieve sustainability in the US. The thought that we aren't innovative enough, or disciplined enough to save energy is completely false. The reason we haven't made better choices for the planet and for each other is because the game we play every day isn't rigged for us to do so. The trouble is we are still, unfortunately locked into the same short term thinking that led us into this mess. Most of the players the "green" market don't want a paradigm shift. They want to play at the margins while someone else sacrifices. It's not that there aren't companies and individuals out there working to make a difference. It's that we haven't created a societal climate capable of instilling long term change.

My next post will delve into how the building industry can be an engine for change across the US culture.

James Bedell |

26 Comments |

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Reader Comments (26)

This is dead on. With the U.S. so large and able to get resources almost from anywhere on the planet, it never felt much like we were competing (except for oil, which was only occasionally inconvenient).

I hope I'm not tromping on your future topics, James, but our culture is in a self-defeating cycle: Our houses have been getting bigger since the 90s and so we need more stuff to fill them, which we cheerfully buy. Then we want a bigger house, maybe with a view, but it needs to be out farther so we can afford the land, which means we had to drive more to our schools and jobs and so we want a bigger car cause we practically live in it. Meanwhile urban centers are empty and decaying into a ruin only deep pockets can repair.

I'm not throwing blame. Most of us base decisions on what's good for our families, what improves the quality of life. It's only now that we realizing we are not getting the results we wanted. It's not about fault, it's about recognizing a wrong turn and changing course.

Whew! thanks for giving me a chance to say all that!

October 15, 2009 |

xarkgirl

Great start. I think that using words such as "movement" and "revolution" put people off more than bring them along. Most people want to be taught, not swept along, and will accept ideas more readily when presented as either necessary or logical instead of "revolutionary"

October 15, 2009 |

Christopher G. Hill

James, I was listening to a segment on NPR yesterday regarding the likelihood (or not) that we're due for a revolution. I'm of the opinion that our industry will not, in itself, have a revolution but believe if economic disparities continue to widen, we will see one - the poor and rich. THEN our industry will follow suit to create products that address the new society.

Unlike other industries, notably tech, the built environment evolves at a much slower pace but we have the opportunity to change that. Be it a movement or hype, I've personally never seen this much dialogue so consistently on issues that affect so many. I recall just a few short years ago that if you thought we were addicted to oil, you were considered "radical" or un-American...I believe the pendulum is slowing swinging to the other side...slowly.

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