Deep vs. shallow green building.

• Author: Fitz, Don
• Position: Report

Deep green building would look at how construction contributes to the root causes of ecological collapse, toxic degradation, global warming and peak oil. Then it would design communities so that people could live comfortably and securely while having the least impact on the environment. The construction of homes would flow from the redesign of communities.

In contrast, shallow green building ignores communities. It views homes as stand-alone objects having no connection to work, shopping, recreation and the many other facets of human life. Shallow green thinking accepts houses pretty much as they are and makes them "green" by adding eco-fads to them.

Many green architects and builders are doing their best to create environmentally friendly homes. But most have a shallow green focus on eco-techniques. They rarely understand that current construction is actually making environmental problems worse.

Look at the web site for the next green builder you see on TV or in the daily paper. Does the site show plans for a home with trees and no parking garage? Or, is it another house plan that tells you how many cars the garage will hold and says nothing about trees?

Wasted energy in homes deserves far more than the scant attention it is receiving. An estimated 43% of US energy goes to buildings. (1) The average US home devotes 51% of its energy to heating and 4% to cooling. (2) Over 90% of energy is produced in nasty ways (coal, oil, gas and nukes) that attack human health, lay waste to ecosystems, and release greenhouse gases.

US building practices in the early 21st century will probably increase [CO.sub.2] emissions rather than reduce them. In 2007, two things happened simultaneously: (a) there was a glut in the housing market; and (b) the US saw more hype for green homes than ever before. The media blitz on eco-houses never grasped the profound absurdity of claiming to benefit the environment by building new "green" homes while thousands of existing homes stood empty.

This brings up the first of 10 ways that the green building fad fails to improve the environment.

1. It ain't green to ignore perfectly good homes.

   Many (if not most) US municipalities have a law prohibiting more than three unrelated people from living in the same house. The single most important green building practice would be to eliminate those laws.

   Producing a ton of cement results in the creation of a ton of [CO.sub.2]. New homes take a lot of cement, which means emitting a lot of [CO.sub.2]. What's the point of building new homes and apartments when so many homes have empty space from grown children moving out or from a spouse dying?

   It wasn't that many decades ago that Americans dealt with issues of isolation and finances by renting out empty space. Or some people got a bigger house for the purpose of renting rooms. Now, that could get you a citation.

   This is just one way our grandparents were environmentally friendly without thinking about it. During an eco-house tour, I asked if it had an attic fan, and the builder replied that, no, it would not be energy efficient to circulate hot air through the house. I explained that you should use an attic fan to pull cool air through the downstairs early in the morning and close the windows so it stays 65 to 75 degrees throughout the day. He looked at me like he wasn't quite sure if such a strange idea would work.

   There's something terribly wrong with "green" building practices that have no memory of traditions like renting bedroom space, designing cross-ventilation, and using fans instead of costly gadgets.

2. It ain't green to build massive homes.

   Alex Wilson wrote that the size of US homes more than doubled between the 1950s and 2003. (3) At the same time, the number of people living in each home decreased, meaning that the average space per person had grown three-fold by the beginning of this century.

   Wilson shows that eco-practices don't solve the size problem...