What Is a Green Building?
Christine MacDonald began her editorial Who Decides What’s Sustainable? [May 13, 2010] reflecting on the expectation that many buildings nationally will be qualified as “green” in two years. Then she rhetorically asks, “What does that really mean? There is no single standard. Instead, a broad array of organizations has emerged to certify the ‘sustainability’ of everything…”
It is clear that what truly is sustainable is improving the energy efficiency of our existing building stock to benefit our energy future, our climate and our economy. Improved building performance is “green” no matter how you slice it.
You only have to go back a few days to see that there are game-changing developments in the world of “green building.” On the national level, Home Star passed the House. Home Star is a $6 billion federal incentive program that is structured to deliver significant residential energy savings by incentivizing improved building performance—the actual measured efficiency improvement of a building (as opposed to incentivizing building components, a limitation of LEED and similar labeling programs). Home Star will not only drive demand for advanced building techniques and make energy efficiency improvements more cost effective, but will create the demand to put our building contractors, currently suffering over 20 percent unemployment, back to work.
In Massachusetts, our ratepayer-funded utility energy efficiency program, commonly known as Mass Save, is being carefully restructured and expanded to deliver deeper savings in homes based on a house-as-a-system approach that focuses on actual energy savings (building performance). Furthermore, the Stretch Code, currently sweeping Western Mass. communities, mandates relatively aggressive building performance targets for new construction and major renovations.
As MacDonald implies, “green” building labeling programs can be tricky. Yet with government programs supporting performance-based energy efficiency, the path forward is clear. Focusing on labeling and logos in the vast world of “green buildings” is unfair to the progress that is afoot. It is undeniable that our energy future is dependent on buildings that perform better; it’s not what’s in them that is the most important factor, it’s how they work.
Adin Maynard
Cozy Home Performance, Northampton
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Logging at Quabbin
I recently read that logging is occurring at the Quabbin Reservoir in the Boston Globe’s “Clear-Cut Controversy” article from March 4th. While that article was written hours away from us by those who drink water from the Quabbin, they interviewed us (Western Mass. residents) about the issue, and these are still our trees that are being cut down, in our own back yard. As someone who, in my younger years, often ventured to the Quabbin to enjoy that piece of protected nature, I’m upset that I may be unable to take my younger cousins, nieces, nephews, and my own children to the beautiful landscape that I remember. Do we really want to jeopardize our future landscape? Our forested areas are what make Western Mass. beautiful!
Lisa R. Steventon
Amherst
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Gulf Damage Beyond Price
As the catastrophic amount of spilled oil spreads in the Gulf, so does the harm to the interconnected web of life that resides in and sustains that diverse environment.
With the prevailing winds and tides, the areas threatened by the spill include coastal marshes, sandy beaches, freshwater wetlands and the deep water areas of the Gulf. These differing environments are home to a very large diversity of fish and wildlife whose wellbeing, if not survival, is threatened. This is an especially critical time as many of the species are spawning or nesting.
Seventy percent of the nation’s waterfowl migrate through the area. It is used by 110 varieties of migrating songbirds. Four to five million ducks make it their home in the spring.
Whales, dolphins and turtles are poisoned by the contaminated water and chemical dispersants as they come to the surface to breathe. Their food, coated with oil, turns toxic. Oil that settles on the bottom becomes ingested by micro-organisms that are food for many larger species.
How can you possibly put a price tag on this kind of damage? The extent of present and future damage to wildlife caused by the toxic chemical dispersants is described by scientists as “unknown.”
This kind of destruction could have been avoided if oil companies were not in charge of energy policy, regulation and oversight. Let your representatives know that protecting and preserving the natural world is a priority for you. Insist that they advocate for an immediate move to safe, renewable energy sources. Let them know you plan to vote that way.
Amelia Shea
via email
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Kill Mild Abandon
Undoubtedly your new weekly cartoon Mild Abandon was selected as a cost-cutting move. If this is the best you are willing to pay for, then please save the money and stop running it. No one says you must publish a weekly cartoon, and this one is worth less than nothing.
Last week’s caption is typical: “By the way, what’s your stance on really bad smells?” Yes, I understand the intended joke; no, it’s not really funny. All of the cartoons to date have been lame. In fact, they are so bad that they are a reason not to read the Advocate. Please, spare us all the pain.
Jim Holdsworth
Amherst
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Why Maddow?
Liberals were, of course, ecstatic that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was the commencement speaker for Smith College’s class of 2010.
As the Church Lady would say, “Isn’t that convenient!”
What’s really funny is that the Fox News Channel is far more successful than MSNBC will ever be. Maddow, Olbermann and Matthews are constantly getting their butts kicked by O’ Reilly, Hannity and Beck. And best-selling authors Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter are seen by millions of viewers whenever they appear on Fox News.
What the bigwigs at Smith College should do is invite either Ingraham or Coulter to speak at next year’s graduation.
Now that would be fair and balanced.
Tim Grant
Bernardston
