Another Bit of News (Good this time)
I just saw that the Smithsonian plans to build a National Museum of African American History and Culture (about time). AND, according to dcist.com, it will be a green building. Tra la! The FCNL office, with its low energy costs and guilt-free conscience, will no longer be lonely in this part of town.
posted by Caroline at
2:15 PM
4 Comments:
I believe the green building craze is overrated. While global warming is undoubtedly a pressing issue, it's far from clear that constructing green buildings is where we should be focusing our efforts. We need to address the problem through the lens of economics: how can we eliminate the greatest amount of emissions for the smallest possible cost? In other words, where do we get the most bang for our buck? In this case, for example, if we took the extra money necessary to turn a regular constuction project into a green project and applied it instead to switching from regular lightbulbs to low energy lightbulbs in existing buildings, it would have a greater positive impact. Lowering emissions while maintaining economic growth requires first grabbing the low-hanging fruit, and until we have done so expensive endeavors such as green construction will be inefficient.
Uh.... last time I checked we didn't live in Ceauşescu's Romania. The government isn't allowed to break into our homes and replace all the light bulbs. It tires me when newly-minted economists apply the idealistic theories they learned in Macro 101 to a society made up of individuals.
If an individual, organization or even government wants to construct a green building, why would you stop them? Also, you're ignoring the basic fact (or perhaps are not aware) that green buildings don't cost that much more to construct than regular buildings, and get even more "bang for your buck" in the long run.
If you don't have a lot of money replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs is a great idea. If you're the U.S. government and have finally decided to spend your money on something other than the Department of Defense, it makes sense to go big and design a green building.
yes, the government can't break into our homes. they could, however, change the lightbulbs in all *government* buildings, which would be a more important (though admittedly less showy) move...
Good point, but why can't they do both? (And how do you know that they haven't already??)
The attention that a new green building draws, however, pays dividends on the attention it can draw to the issue. FCNL would have never gotten members of Congress to come and all talk about the importance of green buildings and climate change legislation if we had just changed our light bulbs. One green building is worth the thousands of light bulbs that are changed as a result of people getting educated about energy conservation.
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