[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Offshore', 'Y')ou guys don't even want solutions. It's hilarious.

I post about a solar powered luxury home and instead of focusing on the solar power solution you say it's a luxury home therefore it's too expensive. I can see the Doomer slogan now: "Saving the Earth; it's too expensive." But what will the environmentalists say? LMAO.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grifter', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Setite', 'I')ts the age old "technology wont save us" argument. Even tho technology has been "saving" us ever since humans invented the spear and the axe to hunt with. Without technology, we would have died out milennia ago. The idea of dieoff and armageddon is too sexy to let go, even tho we are at least 2 years past peak and none of this has happened yet....

[mkwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Offshore', 'Y')ou guys don't even want solutions. It's hilarious.

I post about a solar powered luxury home and instead of focusing on the solar power solution you say it's a luxury home therefore it's too expensive. I can see the Doomer slogan now: "Saving the Earth; it's too expensive." But what will the environmentalists say? LMAO.

I post about a hydrogen car that works and you say it's too dangerous, but driving a gas powered car on the road is totally safe and without risk right? The engine takes up too much trunk space and it's an inconvenience: the horror!!! LMAO

[Boris555]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Boris555', '$')300,000 is the actual cost of materials and labor anywhere else in the country.

[Offshore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mkwin', 'A')re you beginning to understand the pessimism?

[Omnitir]

You guys are quick to point out how useless this kind of thing is, and how it's not nearly enough.

But stop and think for a second;

would you rather see the yuppies attempting to be green,

or would you rather see this demographic have no interest what-so-ever in the environment?

Perhaps you would be happier if they kept on buying inefficient Mcmansion's, and perhaps a Hummer in every driveway?

Yeah it's not enough. Of course it's not enough. But it's a step in the right direction. And it's the people with the wealth that most need to make this step.

Better they start buying solar powered homes and hopeless attempts at renewable transport, rather than go the other way, right?

Or would some of you be happier if the trend was for everyone to upgrade the Hummers into Mac Trucks? Would you be happier if the people with all the money did not have any interest in investing into renewables?

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'W')ow. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I didn't know that technology saved so many people! Now I can go home and skin a saber tooth with my bare teeth and fix everything

[gg3]

Clearly any step forward is a good thing; all other factors equal, solar homes and non-fossil-fueled vehicles are a plus. However the more you look into the population/resource equation, the more you have to conclude that what is needed is an effort on a scale that would dwarf WW2.

As well, the built-in systemic lags, even under optimistic assumptions (3 years to build a nuclear reactor and 5 years to turn over the vehicle fleet), are such that by the time the impacts are recognized incontrovertibly, it will be too late to turn it around. The titanic is heading for the iceberg and the best that can be hoped for is to reduce speed by the time of impact.

---

Pstarr, cut the ad-hominems, they don't do any good. See below for a more productive alternative.

---

Offshore, during six years of single-party Republican rule, we spent enough money in Iraq to have built:

150 nuclear reactors
and
100,000 utility-scale wind farms
and
five million solar roofs.

And at present, Bush is asking for another $200 B-as-in-Big billion, which would have been another 100 nuclear plants, 50,000 wind farms, and five million more solar roofs.

At the same time our military is stretched so thin that General Schoomaker (Joint Chiefs) has said "we are in danger of breaking the active component," which is traditionally-understated military language for "you f---ing fools are destroying the Army."

Meanwhile we suffered the first full-scale loss of a major metropolitan area in US history.

Can you honestly tell me that this administration is even remotely competent?

---

Back to architecture for a moment:

My God that place is Ugly! It resembles nothing so much as a rectangular aquarium tank where all the fishies can be seen swimming around.

A flat roof is an oxymoron, and flat roofs are a plague in California. Water does not run off of flat surfaces, instead it pools up and seeks any way out including down through imperfections in the surface, and into the structural members.

And the modern fetish for vast expanses of plate glass is downright gross. Welcome to the Age of the Panopticon, where privacy is a thing of the past and your every move is visible to your nosy neighbors. Just like Eugene Zamyatin's novel We, which was the inspiration for Orwell's 1984. In Zamyatin's socialistic dystopia, people lived in glass apartments where all was visible except during the designated "sexual hours" when curtains could be pulled closed. And now we seem to be creating it and putting a high price tag on it to make it attractive, "open" floorplans included.

There are plenty of high-efficiency solar designs that are a hell of a lot more liveable than that. Interestingly enough, the Bush house in Crawford is a great example, including the interior space being partitioned into specific rooms for specific purposes so that heating and cooling can be concentrated on rooms that are occupied, rather than heating or cooling an entire "open" floorplan while the occupants cluster in a corner to read a story or watch a movie. Now if only Bush had applied a similar degree of common sense to our energy policies, we would have by now built enough nuclear, wind, and solar capacity to tell the Arabs to go pound sand.

[The_Setite]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Offshore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mkwin', 'A')re you beginning to understand the pessimism?

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '
')
Technology is a good slave but a VERY poor master. Unless we realise that the machine that created all these golden eggs, can ONLY create golden eggs (without a complete rebuild) then we really have a problem. Ongoing, I would say.

Any solution has to involve initial recognition of this fact. If that happens, we can move on. But not until...

JP

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'Y')ou guys are quick to point out how useless this kind of thing is, and how it's not nearly enough.

But stop and think for a second;

would you rather see the yuppies attempting to be green,

[skyemoor]

I agree that both the house and the car are not sustainable. However, aspects of the house solution might be helpful; for example, if shabby rowhouses in a city were refurnished with more insulation, highly energy efficient appliances, and solar panels, then that would be an eventual positive step. Ditch the car; walk, bike, take mass transit and carshare (e.g., Flexcar, Zipcar, etc) when you really need to.

If one wants to build something new, do it in a brownfield in this manner.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'I')n my opinion, it's not even being green. The price tag alone indicates the level of resource investment required.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'I')n my opinion, it's not even being green. The price tag alone indicates the level of resource investment required.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'u')nfortunately the economy as currently structured does not work that way.

Your $200 Nike shoes labor and materials likely amount to less than 5% of the final cost.

[Offshore]

Solar is getting much cheaper.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')olar costs about 25 cents a kilowatt hour. That's compared to about 9 cents a kilowatt hour for natural gas and 5 cents a kilowatt hour for modern coal-burning plants, as well as 6 cents a kilowatt hour for wind energy if tax considerations are included. The good news is that the cost of solar power is falling all the time. It once stood at $1 a kilowatt hour and advocates say that it could soon cost 12-16 cents a kilowatt hour.

[mkwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Offshore', '[')url=http://www.energycentral.com/centers/energybiz/ebi_detail.cfm?id=377]Solar is getting much cheaper.[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')olar costs about 25 cents a kilowatt hour. That's compared to about 9 cents a kilowatt hour for natural gas and 5 cents a kilowatt hour for modern coal-burning plants, as well as 6 cents a kilowatt hour for wind energy if tax considerations are included. The good news is that the cost of solar power is falling all the time. It once stood at $1 a kilowatt hour and advocates say that it could soon cost 12-16 cents a kilowatt hour.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'u')nfortunately the economy as currently structured does not work that way.

Your $200 Nike shoes labor and materials likely amount to less than 5% of the final cost.

[Offshore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mkwin', 'I') believe solar will be a part of our future energy system but it won't stop peak oil and it most likely won't stop peak gas.