Effects Of Sustainability Movement Extend Well Beyond Construction
By Scott Kriner, Green Metal Consulting
The sustainability frenzy has affected all aspects of our lives. It has brought us more efficient automobiles, trucks, trains, and airplanes. It has affected how we design, construct, operate and dispose of buildings. It has even changed our habits at home with regard to recycling, reducing, and re-using household products.
Those are all positive results of sustainable living. But like any market, there are extremes that are reported that were never considered when talk of sustainability first started.
Take the debate over the regulations banning incandescent light bulbs. The battle over citizens’ rights to purchase any type of light bulb they wanted has been waged in certain states and on Capitol Hill. But the legislation that will go into effect next year also created some innovation in products that rely on incandescent bulbs. Hasbro, the maker of the Easy Bake Oven for over 50 years, had been using a 100 watt light bulb as the heat source for many little girls’ first baked goodies. Now they needed to innovate. With the conventional light bulb being phased out, Hasbro designers and engineers had no choice but to replace the light bulb with a heating element. So ends the tradition of baking cupcakes with lightbulbs. But all is not lost. Engineers found that the heating element results in higher quality baking.
For the older male generation, sustainability is showing its impact on one of the more popular excuses to be out of the office – golf. Most golfers will admit that the worst day on the course is still better than the best day in the office. They enjoy the outdoors, the fresh air, the challenge of the sport and the vibrant green fairways, greens and rough that make them envious of the landscapers on the links. But in today’s world of looking at everything through the lens of sustainability, even golf courses are coming under fire. With the growing concern over water shortages and efficient use of water, many golf courses, especially those in desert settings, are under fire for their unsustainable practice of watering the course on a regular basis. The environmental and financial aspects of irrigation are causing some courses to consider “brown” the new “green”. Some courses are even suggesting that the natural brown conditions are better for true golfers. The descriptor that is most often used to describe these types of courses is “authentic”.
One example is the Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay on the northern California coast line. Over the past year this course has converted from the traditional all green look to a brown-green links. The owners claim that not only did this save them thousands of dollars in maintenance and reduced their water usage, but it made the playing conditions more firm and faster. Perhaps this same thinking will catch on to create more acceptable “authentic” lawns that don’t require watering or mowing.
One of the more bizarre stories that is related to sustainable thinking surfaced in a recent issue of Technology Review magazine. Following up to an essay written in 1966 by a Nobel Prize winning biologist who questioned what type of changes in evolution we should consider, two civil engineering professors at MIT wrote an essay inn 1967 suggesting that the proper human evolution to consider, through scientific means, was to make people smaller.
They wrote that smaller people would need less food and water, generate less waste, require smaller vehicles, smaller highways, and generate less pollution – in short- reduce the environmental and carbon footprint. As outrageous as this argument might seem, the authors did note that they were not advocating the idea of actually making people smaller, but they were just giving the idea some thought that it deserved.
When the world seems to be turning upside down and nothing makes sense, it is often best to turn to the world of comedy to find some sanity. And here again, thanks to Steve Martin and his crazy skits on Saturday Night Live, we should consider his suggestion to “let’s get small” tonight and have a laugh.
Scott Kriner is the president and founder of Green Metal Consulting Inc. He is a LEED Accredited Professional who began his career in the metal construction industry in 1981. His company is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, the California Association of Building Energy Consultants and the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET). Scott can be reached by email at skriner1@verizon.net or by phone at (610) 966-2430. You can also visit him on the web at www.greenmetalconsulting.com.
For more columns by Scott and a host of other contributors, click here.