Originally posted: here

An open letter to the President, the 535 members of Congress and thousands of local politicians across the country

Dear Legislators:

Tell us the truth. We can handle it.

I’m willing to overlook your past ridiculous stunts like the Birther Bill or claims of Death Panels. After all, that’s just the game of politics. I would like to believe you don’t really believe some of these things you say. Politics is, after all, a form of theater, and in the world of a 24-hour news cycle, we need an endless supply of theater.

But lately there have been a series of sorely missed opportunities in regard to our survival. And your actions just don’t add up. So this leads me to think there must be something else at work, something you’re not telling us, and so I am asking for the truth. Honestly, we Americans can take it.

For example, take a look at the UN Climate Change Conference that took place this past December in Copenhagen, Denmark. When it was first announced the U.S. was going to participate, some of us optimistically referred to it as HOPEenhagen. This was a real chance at a global, comprehensive policy toward controlling climate change. But the lack of an adopted accord by the conference quickly had many referring to it instead as NOPEnhagen.

Or the continued drive for more natural gas at the expense of our health and safety. Gas companies control the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by pushing out the tired, old (and proven untrue) threat that regulations stifle competition and will eliminate jobs—so you better not hold us to any. Eighteen members of the Colorado State Legislature sent a letter (PDF) to the EPA demanding they ignore their own two-year study and stop regulating the hazardous drilling practice of “fracking.” I suggest you watch a new documentary entitled, Gasland, currently on HBO. One of the more vivid scenes in the film shows tap water lighting on fire due to poorly regulated nearby drilling. How do you think your constituents will feel about reelecting you if this happened to them?

Or the way Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) publicly apologized to BP (you know the company that dumped 5 millions barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico?).

This came as no surprise. Barton is the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and one of the chief authors of the Cheney Oil Act that gave BP the exemptions to drill Deepwater Horizon without the required impact reports. Barton himself has received $14.4 million from oil and gas companies over his career. That’s why his committee is referred to as the “Honey Pot” on Capitol Hill, receiving $42 million in the 2010 Election Cycle alone.

Barton’s apology was echoing the real loyalties and feelings of Congress. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) labeled it a “shakedown” and a “redistribution-of-wealth fund,” with 100+ other House members just the day before.

Unfortunately, there is always a loser in these games you are playing. We cannot wait any longer for a substantive bill combating climate change.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), our planet has just finished the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months and the April, May and June on record.

In response to this horrific news, the U.S. Senate decided… to do nothing. Seriously. They preserved 30 years of bipartisan inaction on what the Defense Department referred to as the “greatest threat facing our country.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) decided not to even bother to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions. Both Democrats and Republicans continue to play these games while the American people are headed off a cliff. Some of you even invented a fun, new derogatory term to describe anyone who dare want to do something about climate change: “carbon taxer.”

Last month, the NOAA called climate change “unmistakable.” The IPCC issued their judgement back in 2007, calling climate change “undeniable” and “unequivocal.”

Even some of the politicians themselves are getting sick of the partisan games, as seen last week with a passionate Anthony Weiner (D-NY) venting his frustration over a partisan vote on a bill that would provide healthcare to 9/11 workers. “If there was ever a bill that I thought would be above partisan politics,” he said, “that was it.”

The explosion and subsequent oil spill aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig should be a wake up call. The thousands of miles of decimated shoreline and millions of destroyed families should shake you into action. Historically, disasters have always driven sweeping legislation.

The BP oil spill should have done for Climate Legislation what the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill did for the EPA; what the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland did for the Clean Water Act and what the 1979 Ixstock Gulf Oil Spill did for drilling regulations. This is a critical turning point and we are missing it.

President Obama’s address from the Oval Office on June 15th was another missed opportunity. He did not once mention the words “carbon,” “emissions” or “greenhouse.” This was his first speech from the Oval Office and he failed to provide one tangible idea on how to solve this problem. George Will called the speech “magnificently awful.” This is more confounding given the progress his administration has made in having the EPA regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act.

(Side note: For an incredible version of what Obama’s speech should have and could have been, watch Rachel Maddow’s take on it here.)

You may think that by doing nothing, you are playing it safe, but your inaction is having consequences. Private sector companies are stalled in their decisions by an uncertain future for the price of carbon. As Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund,
recently wrote, “U.S. utility companies today are sitting on billions of dollars in job-creating capital—but they will not invest in new energy projects until they have certainty on what their future carbon obligations will be…” Jobs, investments and private stimulus are waiting for you to do something.

This is why my fellow environmentalists are taking matters into their own hands. This is why the West Coast Green Conference, one of the largest green building conferences in the country, has changed its theme this year to “Innovation & Convergence.” Thousands of the most respected leaders in sustainability, planning, public policy and design will meet for three days in San Francisco to share ideas and determine the next course of action.

So, please, Legislators, please explain these crazy actions of yours. I am hoping you have a good reason. I am hoping it is more than mere ego and hubris and that you wouldn’t dare play a game of chicken with our future in the balance. Take advantage of this Gulf Oil Spill by leveraging it into some tangible and effective policies. We can’t wait any longer.

It’s ironic that the first half of 2010, the same year we removed all hope of having a true climate change bill, turned out to be the hottest year on record. I propose we turn off the air conditioning in the Capitol Building until you emerge with some real legislation.

Sincerely Yours,

Eric Corey Freed
Author, “Green$ense for the Home: Rating the Real Payoff from 50 Green Home Projects”

——————————-

MORE INFORMATION:

Fracking:
In The New York Times
In the Huffington Post

Gasland Documentary:
The website: http://gaslandthemovie.com/
Coverage in the Huffington Post

West Coast Green Conference
September 30 – October 1, 2010
www.westcoastgreen.com

Originally posted at: KBB Collective

How our dependence on oil has negatively affected our built environment

As the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig nears its three-month anniversary (on July 20th), the public is still waiting to see how the story will end. More importantly, the world is waiting to see how the worst environmental catastrophe in history is going to change America’s self-admitted addiction to oil.

SOURCE: NASA

The date July 20th shares the day with another anniversary. Just 41 years earlier, Man first set foot on the Moon in an impressive display of how technology can propel humanity to reach our highest achievements. The exploded rig, located just 41 miles off the coast, reminds us how technology can demonstrate the limits of humanity.

In light of the facts that have emerged over the last few months, it’s almost surprising an accident of this scale hadn’t occurred sooner. You’ve no doubt heard about the corrupt regulators at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the horrific and shocking safety track record of BP, and the cost-cutting risks taken in the construction of the well itself.

The disaster at the Deepwater Horizon that left 11 men dead and continues to pour millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is the final act in the story of our adolescence. This could be the ultimate sign that our way of life has to change if we are to survive. If any good can come out of the irreparable damage done to the water, the Gulf Coast economy, or the wildlife itself, we must change our relationship with oil.

SOURCE: Things Are Fine

In January 1969, a similar blowout occurred on a Union Oil platform six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara. For 11 days, oil leaked into the sea, affecting some 800 square miles of ocean and 35 miles of precious coastline. Prompted to action, then President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency, which in turn led to the first Earth Day in 1970. In addition, Nixon issued a moratorium on offshore drilling in California. At the time, Nixon said, “It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people…The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.”

How did we get to a place like this? It could be the control corporations have over our policymakers. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, oil & gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates of both parties since 1990 (though 75% of that goes to Republicans). During this same period, the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy Act of 2005 ushered in an unprecedented era of deregulation and sheer disregard for the environment. Deepwater Horizon is a testament to what happens when corporate malfeasance meets regulatory failure.

The drive for cheaper and larger amounts of oil have led to some questionable decisions. These factors have added up to have an adverse effect on our built environment for the past century.




SOURCE: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Our national energy system is divided into two camps: combustion (oil and gas) or electricity. The chart above shows how oil is used in this country, with the majority going to transportation (52% for cars, trucks and planes). The rest is broken into heating (30% from various sources) and materials (15% for plastics & 3% for asphalt). You’ll notice that virtually no oil is used to produce electricity, but oil is a necessary evil to maintain our current lifestyle.

If nearly a third of our oil is used to heat our buildings, we can easily cut that figure in half by retrofitting them to be more energy-efficient. If you’re interested, there are a number of wonderful sources for information, such as Green$ense for the Home, GreenHomeGuide and EERE. We can’t afford not to do this. But for this discussion, let’s focus on transportation.

For most of my career as an architect, educator and lecturer, I avoided talking about cars. I felt it wasn’t my place to talk about transportation. I feared some heckler in the audience might yell out, “Stick to buildings, Architect!” So I eschewed any true, in-depth discussions about cars, trucks or transportation. But over the last decade of lecturing around the world, I found the topic of cars creeping back in.

The design of our cities and suburbs is dictated by the automobile. From the width of the street, location of driveways, distance between buildings and the drop-off location for the front door, the automobile has irrevocably changed our cities from human scale to vehicle scale. Often the entire structure of the building is based on the spacing of the column locations in the parking garage, spaced to allow enough space to fit three parked cars. People are corralled onto narrow sidewalks to make room for the car. Elevated freeways slice through neighborhoods, disconnecting the pedestrians from the other side.

For most cities, there is no alternative to the car. It is a requirement of daily life. Unless you live in a place like New York or San Francisco, it is nearly impossible to survive without one. Last year, National Geographic‘s “Consumer Greendex” found that Americans had the lowest percentage of people who use public transit on a daily basis and the highest percentage of people who never take it. A third of all of the public transit users in the entire U.S. are in New York City, which explains why more than half of the households don’t need to own a car. But other cities weren’t so lucky.

Public transit was not always seen as the last resort to getting around. Back in the 1920s, nearly every city had a convenient and cheap trolley system. At the time, most of these were privately owned companies that generated their own electricity. Soon the trolly companies became small, local utility providers, until the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 forced them to sell off their less lucrative trolley businesses.

In order to expand their burgeoning car business, General Motors (GM), Firestone Tire, Phillips Petroleum and Standard Oil banded together to form a company to buy up these trolley companies. Their new entity, National City Lines, purchased the streetcar systems in 45 major cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis and Los Angeles. Between 1936 and 1950, they systematically dismantled the trolley lines to increase the demand for the automobile. They removed the tracks to make room for cars and ensure no new systems could return easily. Known as the “Great Streetcar Scandal,” it hobbled our public transit systems. In the 1920s, only one in 10 Americans owned a car. By the end of their efforts in 1955, that figure jumped to eight in 10.

Pro-car lobbyists worked side-by-side with lawmakers to draft legislation to further change our cities. In 1953, GM President Charles Wilson was appointed Secretary of Defense under President Eisenhower and created the Interstate Highway Act of 1956. The cost was sold to the American people for reasons of National Defense. The new roads would be designed to carry our tanks to fend off an invasion by the Russians. The systematic dependency on the car was now complete.

Since the 1950s, practically every planning decision has been centered around access by private cars. The unintended consequences of this network of roads was never really considered. Faster roads enabled people to move from the cities and into the newly created suburbs. Having less city residents put more strain on the remaining public transit systems and city businesses became to close. With more driving came more air pollution, and the vicious cycle of our oil dependency was created.

Throughout all of this, we have been told that driving is less costly that public transportation. Planners argue the cost of creating new roads and parking spaces as “investments in our infrastructure.” But public transit is perceived as being “subsidized.” You’ll hear people say that public transit “loses money” while roads are “free.” But the true cost is anything but free.

The annual cost to maintain our network of 26 million roads is over $131 billion dollars a year. That translates to about $1100 per household and enough to buy everyone a really nice bike to use instead. While the trolley and rail companies had to pay to install and maintain their tracks, the car and oil companies managed to get the taxpayers to cover the costs and maintenance of their roads. Roads are not free, and we cannot afford to keep viewing them as such.

SOURCE: Hats in the Garment District by Margaret Bourke-White, Time Life

Local planning codes will require a certain number of parking spaces to build a new building. What if they instead required the business to be within walking distance of public transit?

Some companies provide free parking in their office buildings as a perk to their employees. What if they instead used the cost to build the parking structure to subsidize bikes or bus passes for every employee?

Most cities provide cheap parking along sidewalks at meters. What if they instead allowed hybrid and electric vehicles to park for free and charged more for gas guzzling SUVs?

Our addiction to oil is more than the gasoline we put into our car. It permeates into countless design decisions that prevent us from building truly sustainable cities.

If you wish to help correct the Oil Spill in the Gulf Coast, please make a donation to Healthy Gulf.

—Eric Corey Freed is an architect and author of four books, including Green$ense for the Home.

Originally posted at: http://kbbcollective.com/the-case-for-non-toxic-buildings.html

The case for non-toxic buildings
Why we should stop using known cancer-causing chemicals now

I find it difficult to write about anything except the Gulf Oil Spill. In fact, I started writing about it only to find there was nothing hopeful to say. Obviously, the story is still unfolding, but it is clear this will be the worst environmental disaster in history. If any good comes from it, it will be a radical rethinking of how we view our relationship to oil, drilling and energy. And I am still not sure why the people who spilled the oil are in charge of the cleanup.

I do know that oil “spill” is too timid a word for such a disaster. I am currently leaning toward calling it an oil “transfusion.” For some wonderful coverage on the oil spill, I strongly encourage you to look at this incredible infographic on the spill.

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace

In addition, the Big Picture has an incredible archive of images from the spill.

This site allows you to compare the size of the oil spill to your city or state. You’ll notice how the spill is larger than the entire state of Connecticut.

While I will reserve my words about the spill for a few more weeks and once the full impact is known, it has gotten me thinking more and more about our toxicity on our environment. After all, the Earth itself is a self-contained system. We don’t make new water, new mass or new energy. Everything here on Earth has always been here. Speaking from a Physics standpoint, all we do is transform things from one state to another. Matter into energy, energy into matter.

The systems of Nature have evolved to a perfect balance. We call this balance “environmental equilibrium.” From this balance we get the services that Nature provides: filtering our air, cleaning our water and absorbing our waste. Unfortunately, mankind’s impact on the planet has overwhelmed these systems. The planet simply cannot keep up. If we “toxify” the planet, we have no other alternatives.

I used to think that Cigarette Manufacturers were evil. After all, they were selling things they knew to be dangerous and full of cancer-causing chemicals. For years, they denied it, dragged their feet and funded lobbyists to stall legislation.

But are architects, designers or builders any better?

We specify products that require you to wear gloves and a mask during installation. We line the floors, walls and ceilings with products we know contain nasty chemicals. In fact, the entire painting industry knows its products are bad for us. Paints contain chemicals called “Volatile Organic Compounds” or VOCs. Why do you think that every major paint manufacturer is now offering at least a “low-VOC” version of the product?

Where are the gloves and masks for the people who stay behind and have to live and work in these buildings? When I ask manufacturers about this, they defend their products. Unlike cigarettes, you cannot point to the formaldehyde in that one piece of furniture and say that was the cause of your cancer. But the collective exposure to thousands of chemicals in your home and office all contribute to your cancer risk. Although the death rate for cancer has dropped, thanks to early detection and treatment, the incidences of cancer continue to climb.

We spend 80-90 percent of our time indoors. We spend another five percent in our cars, and apparently, we hate going outside and hate fresh air. Asthma rates have tripled in adults since 1980. In children, whose developing lungs are not as strong, asthma has gone from the seventh leading chronic illness, to number one in less than 20 years. The poor quality of the indoor air is largely responsible for this staggering increase.

The quality of the indoor air in your home is likely to contain more than 10 times the number of toxic pollutants as the air outdoors. During a painting project, that number can increase to 1,000 times that of outdoor levels. By switching to healthy finishes containing low or zero VOCs, you can greatly improve indoor air quality and remove some major health risks for you and your family.

If you’re wondering where to start, target the two biggest sources of poor indoor air quality: VOCs and formaldehyde.

By choosing healthier finishes, unneeded chemicals and toxins are prevented from entering our air, land and water. Making the simple change to a healthy paint will reduce some of the 69 million gallons of harmful chemical paints that end up in our nation’s landfills each year.

People with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) or a severe sensitivity to chemicals will want to avoid placing formaldehyde in their home. Formaldehyde is used as a glue in most wood products. MCS sufferers will likely develop dizziness, headaches and sneezing from formaldehyde exposure.

The California Air Resources Board has reported that one in 10,000 Californians will develop cancer from exposure to formaldehyde. Since it is a “sensitizer,” exposure to formaldehyde can actually make you more sensitive to other chemicals. When buying any new wood cabinets or furniture, demand formaldehyde-free products. By not bringing new formaldehyde into your home, you’ll reduce the grave risks for you and your family.

Why specify toxic materials at all? Simply because they’re cheap? Doing so makes us as guilty as those cigarette manufacturers.