Radical Green – Page 30

The unthinkable

Sunday I actually put myself at risk for mercury contamination. No, I didn’t go out and buy a mess of fish to eat (since ribs don’t have mercury I think I’m safe); instead I actually bought CFL light bulbs. I figured since Giant was doing a buy one get two free sale I may as well get some – so now I’m expecting a $5 a month electric bill next winter. I just haven’t figured out where to put them yet.

The problem I have is that I spend the predominant part of my awake time at work, but when I’m not there I’m generally in here typing away and the lamp in this room has a 3-way bulb. Same goes for my living room lamp. So I suppose those two rooms are out.

I could put one of the bulbs in my bedroom lamp, but it brings up another question. Since I have a lamp there that doesn’t recommend using a bulb that’s over 60 watts, can I put a 100-watt CFL there? Supposedly it gives the 100 watts of light on just 26 watts but would that be an issue because of heat? I figured for the price I may as well get the highest watts of light I could, since they were all the same cost.

There are a couple other places I could put the bulbs, one being the laundry closet. I have a bad habit sometimes of forgetting the dryer is running or that my washer is finished with its cycle so I usually leave that light on full-time when I do laundry as a reminder to myself to check (I notice the light shining through the louvered door into the hallway.) But if I somehow manage to break the bulb how would I ventilate the room since there’s no window? And would it contaminate any clothes which happen to be in there?

So I have these bulbs but I’m not sure just what to do with them, besides eat the discount I could have received had I bought the bulbs at other outlets (courtesy of Delmarva Power and paid for as part of my electric bill each month.) I’m not sure if I can put them in my bathroom fixtures because of moisture and I’m pretty sure they can’t go outside because of the vagaries of Delmarva weather so scratch that thought.

I guess they’ll just have to look interesting in my closet until I figure all of this out, or unless someone wants to buy some CFL bulbs cheap. Given that Giant still had a whole bunch of them still in stock that may be a long shot, at least until next week. I’m still expecting that $5 a month electric bill though.

Continuing indoctrination

As a registered architect here in Maryland and member of the American Institute of Architects, one thing I have to accomplish on a yearly or bi-yearly basis is acquiring a certain number of continuing education credits. As an AIA member, I’m required to have 18 learning hours per year while as I recall the state requires 24 learning hours per registration term (mine is two years and I have until the end of April, 2009 to complete that number.) Either way, I’ve never been a fan of mandatory continuing education but unfortunately the AIA tends to push this in every state’s legislature because, quite frankly, it’s a pretty good cash cow for them. Ohio was one of the last holdouts who didn’t require this non-billable crap but the main reason I opted not to maintain my Ohio registration was their adoption of CEU requirements in 2005.

I can see the requirements for continuing education in certain professions like medicine, law, or education. Doctors and nurses need to keep up with the latest techniques and pharmaceuticals, attorneys have to be aware of changes in law and regulation, and teachers hopefully can learn the latest in educational techniques and dealing with more and more types of problem children, but with the exception of the latter case these folks pull in a lot more coin than architects do and their professions change at a much more rapid pace.

While I’m certainly not against architects keeping up with the latest in technology and (in particular) building codes, to me this is simply something a good architect does as part of his or her overall task and the important stuff can be covered in just a few hours of reading per year. They only put out an edition of the International Building Code every three years and yearly supplements are relatively brief. Meanwhile, brick, stone, concrete, steel studs, and 2×4’s don’t change a whole lot over time.

Unfortunately, the organization I belong to sees things differently and they sure didn’t ask my opinion on this recent directive I received:

During the March 2008 AIA National Board of Directors meeting, it was approved that beginning January 1, 2009 the AIA would require all members to complete four (4) hours of sustainable design. These 4 Sustainable Design (SD) hours would be included as part of the current 8 hour/HSW requirement. They are not additional hours to the 18/8 LU hours that the AIA already requires. This requirement would run until 2012, at which time it will be evaluated.

The AIA is currently finalizing the rules of Sustainable Design (SD) Learning Units. During the course of this summer the AIA/CES will be establishing the infrastructure for CES providers to determine, register, and report their future continuing education courses to qualify for Sustainable Design (SD) learning units. These rules will be based upon the following definition.

Sustainable Design (SD) Learning Units
Sustainable design is achieved through an integrated design and delivery process that enhances the natural and built environment by using energy sensibly with a goal toward carbon neutrality, improves air and water quality, protects and preserves water and other resources, and creates environments, communities and buildings that are livable, comfortable, productive, diverse, safe, and provide enduring value to our community and society as a whole.

To qualify as Sustainable Design learning units, the content must meet 4 thresholds:

It must address the AIA definition of sustainability.

It must be a structured (third-party) program (i.e. no self-study).

At least 75% of program content must qualify as HSW.

Its primary purpose must address at least one of the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top Measures of Sustainable Design and Performance Metrics:

Design & Innovation; Regional/Community Design; Land Use & Site Ecology; Bioclimatic Design; Light & Air; Water Cycle; Energy Flows & Energy Future; and Materials & Construction to reduce product-cycle environmental impacts and optimize occupant health and comfort.

The only thing this all seems to sustain is cash flow into the AIA coffers, particularly since there’s not the self-study option that’s available for other areas – including the eight required health/safety/welfare credits. Since the organization is also heavily into pushing requirements for so-called “green” construction at the federal and state levels (thus attempting to artificially create a market by fiat where one doesn’t exist) it’s certainly making its effort to have all of their membership drink heavily from the goblet of green Kool-Aid. While it may be time for me to leave the organization, I’m certainly going to get some parting shots in before I go.

To that end, I have their 2012 evaluation already written here in 2008. How about working to get the government off our backs instead of trying to get them further into areas they don’t belong, and while you’re at it laying off this forced manmade global climate change propaganda?

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

The hype reaches a peak

If you’ve been hidden under a rock lately, chances are you might be the only American who doesn’t know Earth Day is coming Tuesday. Anyone else is going to have a hard time avoiding seeing anything that’s green-related, up to and including venerable items like Campbell’s soup cans (thanks to American Thinker) and even, as Michelle Malkin is one to point out, Time magazine. I saw those same soup cans a couple weeks ago at Wal-Mart myself but didn’t have my camera with me to scoop American Thinker. Oh well.

And if you flip on your TV, we all know that the Weather Channel has been in the tank on the side of pushing the Goreian view of so-called global warming for some time now, naturally they’re making a big deal of Earth Day. But Saturday night I saw that the Fox network was plugging a “Green it, Mean it” promotion of some sort. (Couldn’t tell you what the whole deal was since the only reason I noticed was because the TV set on Fox was directly behind one of the band stages.) Yes, that same Fox which has the news channel liberals love to hate pushing green awareness.

Looking through my grocery ads this week, they’re all featuring reuseable bags for Earth Day. Now I take my plastic bags down the road to get recycled when I collect enough of them so it’s not like they’re completely incompatible with the environment. Maybe they’re not as good as paper bags in that respect, but the reason paper bags fell out of favor was because they tear easily and are probably more expensive to buy for the grocer. On the other hand, cloth bags are really smart for the companies because they can sucker people into paying for their own bags rather than absorb the cost!

Maybe it’s a bad idea for companies to go green when they can’t pass the costs on to their consumers as readily but given the chance to cash in on a green fad that needs to come to an end soon before we do anything stupid – like ratify the Kyoto Protocol or put even more mandates in place like the Maryland General Assembly considered – that corporate green for Earth Day is simply an attempt to give themselves more green to spend. I’m not falling for it (okay, maybe a bit as I’ll discuss tomorrow) and hopefully you won’t either.

Altruism doesn’t pay, nor does going green

I usually like to do posts on the lighter side for the weekend, but this came across my desk the other day and it was too good to pass up on. It’s also going to serve as the introduction of a new category I called Radical Green, items that deal with the global warming and climate change hype overkill and what’s really happening.

While I came across this on the Engineering News-Record site thanks to a weekly e-mail update I receive at work, the original study results were published in The Dartmouth, a website and newspaper from the Ivy League college of the same name. In Turia Lahlou’s article called “Eco-friendly companies face financial decline” it was noted that a pair of researchers, one from Dartmouth and one from the Tuck School of Business, were surprised to find that companies they thought would profit from going green experienced the opposite result, at least as far as their share prices.

The 46 companies studied by Professors Karen Fisher-Vanden of Dartmouth and Karin Thorburn of the Tuck School lost all told $16 billion of market share after joining an EPA government-industry partnership called Climate Leaders. The two professors were most surprised that the initial outlays to promote energy efficiency weren’t made up in energy savings. But for my money, I believe Professor Thorburn did a great job succinctly summing the idea of going green this way:

Because eco-friendly policies may be detrimental to companies, Thorburn said she believes most companies will be hesitant to alter their current practices regarding greenhouse gasses. For this reason, she believes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is reliant on government legislation.

“The costs to individual companies far out weigh the benefits for society,” Thorburn said. “A corporate manager’s fiduciary duty is to maximize shareholder wealth. This is a conflict of interest.” (Emphasis mine.)

And it’s because of that conflict that Thorburn comes to the conclusion that legislation is required to reduce greenhouse gases. Of course, my argument refuses to accept the premise that a reduction is even necessary and may be counterproductive if we are moving into a period of global cooling as theorized by Canadian scientists. Unfortunately, government seems to be moving in the direction of inserting itself into the free market by drafting more and more restrictive laws and regulations that favor more expensive but (to them) desirable results when it comes to curtailing carbon emissions.

In turn, the Dartmouth/Tuck research can be viewed as some proof that even incentives from government and the potential energy savings will not help the corporate bottom line. And who loses? Anyone who invests in these companies will see a reduction in their net worth, and given the vast number of people who are invested in these companies whether directly or through mutual funds, the misery is spread among most of America. We all pay for this misguided policy in the end.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.