Is everything green?

Just leaving the International Builders Show in Las Vegas, and even though attendance was down, it is as overwhelming an experience as ever. First, let’s get rid of the formalities. Las Vegas has to be the most surreal place on the face of the earth. The scale is not even close to being human - everything is huge – the buildings, the roads (typically 8 lanes wide), casinos, hotel rooms, and this trade show. Everything is designed to make sure you are completely disoriented all the time – walking through a hotel is an endurance test and a psychological puzzle – you feel like a rat in a maze, only the rat is smarter because you can’t figure out how to get out.

As to the show – green is definitely the color. Everyone and everything is, or wants to be seen as green. People are throwing around phrases like greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint, sustainability, and the like as if their lives depended on it. I’m not quite sure where this trend is headed, and while I am glad that there is finally some serious attention being paid to green building, I am very afraid that the general public, as well as much of the industry, is going to end up giving it a lot of lip service and we will see more and more greenwashing and flat out misrepresentation (read: LYING) about materials and methods and how green they are. I wade through literature and websites and I will share the best (or worst) examples of obfuscation that I can find.

Stepping back into some semblance of reality, I attended a news conference today which presented the results of a study of the efficiency of homes in California. Accompanied by some pie charts that very clearly spelled out the study’s results, it was pointed out that while homes account for about 14% of the energy usage in CA only – 0.12% of the energy is consumed by new homes. This is very telling data that states the case all too clearly that if we avoid addressing efficiency in existing homes, we are seriously missing the boat. It sounds like the new administration has gotten this message, let’s hope that they get the ball rolling on existing housing improvements and do it right.
Graphic courtesy www.consol.ws