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Posts
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Please tell me this is a late April Fool’s joke.
NAHB issued a report yesterday that by 2010 50% of the houses build will use “Green build” as a guideline. Tom I believe you think “Green” means you have to change your shop to conform to some new standard. That is 100% WRONG. It is how a house is designed to save energy, use of materials that will help save energy (think E Glass). Doing what is right for the earth as our population grows towards 10,000,000,000 humans is not only necessary but smart. Im as far from a tree hugger as you will ever find, but I still want my grandkids to be able to see a star or two at night. As with anything, the extremes on both sides carry something too far. The left has done it, as has the right. There is no corner on stupid, well perhaps Washington, but Stupid is not limited to one party or one point of view. We can all point to extremes on most any subject, the truth is always someplace in the middle. When I started in this business we never worried about dust or noise… but it did make sense to use masks and ear plugs. One could say that is radical thinking, but to me, it just Makes Sense, as does being good to this earth. I made a minor change in using a mask and all of a sudden I wasn’t spitting out white spit all night.. imagine that. 🙂 .
Now I wthin the google toilet internet connection is really cool, now I can surf for crap while………ummm nevermind
The Google thingy is about as allegorical as it comes, that’s for sure.
I have accepted the fact that green is here to stay. I am starting the long road to understanding it so I have intelligent answers to legitimate questions. I think it is stupid to not take care of the space you live in.
But not criminally so. Just, you know, stupid.
As you say, there will always be goofballs on the extreme ends of the ideology scale. Very true, of course. And there is actually a third branch, Libertarianism, that has it’s kool aid drinkers as well. The biggest difference is, those who are on the progressive side in this debate are steamrolling the crap out of anyone or anything that even wants to discuss it. A Superior Court Judge actually cites “An Inconvenient Truth” as a resource in a ruling. The Supreme Court of the United States just ruled that an agency can overrule its superior on how laws were to be interpreted and reinforced but only as they are connected to environmental impact..
We have the hottest January day since 1927, and there are dozens of companion stories on Global Warming. We since then have had the coldest spring, on average, including the lowest high temperature since 1923, and there are no Global Warming skeptical stories to be found. Sure, there are wackos on all sides of this debate, but only one gets any focus. And they are also the ones calling the shots.
I know this is more anecdotal than significant, but it is illustrative of where I fear Green and LEED will end up.
I am very unconfortable with the fact that there seems to be a handful of agencies who are implementing procedures and certification. They charge good money to Companies who wish to get the certification, by filling the requirements that a different agency dreamed up by talking to other like-minded associates. I am very uncomfortable with businesses like Home Depot sponsoring studies, and advertising and promoting the use of Green products. Fox, meet henhouse.
So I ask again, is this an April Fool’s joke, or is this what might become the future of Green construction?
Please do not think that I am at all against Green. I am certainly against useless provisions that will hurt more than they will help, such as using helicopters to patrol backyards to discover barbeque scofflaws. Crticism does not equal disagreement.
If Green costs more than it will help, then we are fools. Ban incandescent Lamps by 2010, then we discover that flourescent lamps have mercury in them. 111 trichlorothane is out, monochlorothane comes in, and has it’s own problems.
Tom
Now your scaring me Tom, I …gulp… agree with you……….(just shoot me…please
)Funny you mention Helicopters.. Sherriff Joe (im sure you have heard of him) was actually checking peoples pools for green goop growing. LOL… BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.
I love this country but don’t trust my government
Oh my god the ice bergs are melting!!!!!!!! Uhm…..this has been going on for millions of years, remember the ice age? When you see these large ice bergs falling into the oceans the “Global warming” folks don’t tell you that it is sometimes caused by another ice berg forming behind it and forcing the face to fall into the water. I just recently read an interesting article that showed that the flatulance from cattle is more harmful to the enviorment then all of our SUVs, I’m doing my part to eat as much beef as possible to save the world. To all the vegetarians: If god didn’t want us to eat meat then he wouldn’t have made it taste so good! I’m all for saving the world but scaring our kids and telling them they are all going to drown isn’t the way to do it. OK thats as political as I get, to much coffe this AM.
All:
The famous “hockey stick” of the 2001 IPCC report, puporting to show that the planet is warmer than at any time in the last thousand years, is missing from the latest one. Maybe that’s because they had to erase that inconvenient medieval warm period.
The new report also reduces the influence of human activity on warming by one third, which conveniently cuts the predicted sea level rise from Al Gore’s twenty to thirty feet to 17 inches.
We need good science, not the scare-mongering and economy wrecking of the environmentalist whack-o’s.
Joe
The good thing about global warming is it will create more real estate thereby having more land to build homes on and all those homes will need cabinets and countertops which will enrich us all.
I say, let it melt and they will build!!
Some one mentioned how could we be experiencing global warming its winter still in the north east? Just a little info to consider
Actually global warming could make the northeast colder it has to do with the Atlantic thermohaline circulation. This is a process that supplies warm water to the polar sea keeping the ice from over taking via the Gulf Stream. Global warming could warm the southern waters so much that the vent to the north could be disrupted. The result could be the sea ice grows making cold weather more persistent.
Global warming also doesn’t mean more storms just stronger storms.
So the sea ice is growing? I thought we were all going to drown because everything is melting, shwew! To many conflicting theories, I don’t need any more worries, so I’m going with the theory that the earth is continuing to slowly thaw like it has for millions of years since the Ice Age. That thaw created the Great Lakes here in Michigan, they are beatiful and the property is to damn expensive for me to afford. Hopefully this new thaw will create more lakefront property that will bring the market price down to something I can afford. Lake front homes also means more work for the fabricators which leads to more business for the manufactures. This global warming thing may end up being a good thing, I guess we can almost use the “glass half full or half empty” analogy, it all depends on what type of spin you put on the whole thing and what your motives are.
Just my 2 cents, not worth much.
Hello Gordon no at the moment the sea ice is not growing .The Gulf Stream is still intact. Do we really know there was an Ice Age? Wound not those theories come from scientist? Do we believe the science field or not? Or only when it fits our particular agenda?
Thats why I don’t get political. I believe in science, it just seems the scientists are split on this one. It seems the scientists are reporting whatever works in the favor of the guys funding their research. I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore, thats why I put the humor in my comments, every day another finding in one direction or the other. Who do we believe?
I’m going to let the politicians argue this one, I’m out!
The problem, Jon, is that the debate is one-sided, and only the pro warming/pro man’s fault is getting a fair shake. Frankly I am much more bothered by entire industries kissing *ss on the pro-warming side, because they don’t want to get skewered like the scientists who are skeptical. The mainstream media is solidly on the pro warming side and gives that so much play that you can’t even hear the opponents.
I could guess ther eason is that it is the more romantic, sensationalistic, therefore newsworthy side, so that’s where they fall, but I thjink it is more likely that therer is an agenda at work here. I see it with policy debates, The Iraq situation, the economy, the Hurricane Katrina response, etc. There are just too many areas where one side of the debate gets so much more play and assumed legitimacy than the other that I see an obvious pattern. When the gaurdians of truth only care about their truths, we are less than the sum of our parts.
My local afternoon talk show guy will no longer accept debate on
A.) the fact of global warming, and
B.)it is man influenced.
He says because there is a consensous amongst scientists, then the dabate is over. This is supposed to be the progressive side. The side that accepts diversity of thought. Hypocrites all.
Here is a reasonable conservative’s take on this debate. He isn’t even taking a no warming position, but does a fair job explaining the bias out there.
[edit] Key paragraph:
“As Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT, recently lamented in the Wall Street Journal: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.” “
Tom
Here is another take on how scared we need to be on this subject.
One key paragraph:
Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature goes down—not up—the more carbon accumulates in the atmosphere.
Another:
Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn’t account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record—an effort that is now generally discredited. The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Niño and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries.
And this article backs up my claims that this is so much more dangerous as scare-mongering than helpful social policy.
h/t Ace
Tom
Tom thanks the research. So what it really boils down too what do you want to believe ? All of us have to make a choice. I liked Gordon’s view . For me I think I’ll take the same stand. Not because I ‘am mad or anything like that . I just don’t know if I have the time to discuss on a regular basis. How about at the next Fab Net party?
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