Secrets of the City

Our Green Governor is cited in this AP story in the Washington Post on global warming. Sorry, this darn laptop I am using short term won’t let me link!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091201651.html

“To meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, that sounds like the practice of every responsible parent and corporation. It sounds like good business as well as sound environmental policy, and it serves as a most useful touchstone for judging our activities at home and in the marketplace.“

I can’t tell if she thinks this is true now, or if it’s an aspirational kind of statement. In a pure free-market sense, it’s not good business right now, because we have no real mechanism in place that internalizes those “next generation” costs to the entity that causes them.

The governor (I think) was in DC today leading the National Governors Association in a something about green. I saw something this morning at the corner on Portland and Franklin about a green house being built.

I like this Green Grandma – feels like a Minnesota voice, and if you can work down the weird blog arrangement on this website, there are a lot of things from Granny Green besides the business blog that’s most recent.

I think GG is suggesting that a mechanism be put in place that internalises those “next generation” costs to the entity that causes them – and I think she is going to sic the kids on us if we don’t pull up our socks and get some reasonable policy in place. Aspirational, as bobby_b says.

The Governor is green?? Boy, I hope nobody tells his monied builder/developer/banking supporters or Phil Krinkie. When this governor starts to sound like he’s pro-green, you can be sure it’s an unavoidable position and start buying hybrid cars. He’s hardly been a visionary, has he? Maybe he and Norm can start listening to the Minnesotans who object to their wells and air being polluted by feedlots and 3M chemicals…

They oughta go look at the Green Grandma’s Sustainable House project, that’s elsewhere on this pretty but hard to navigate website – talk about green! And he oughta green up the Capitol campus, it’s a mess.

When I led the American Lung Association Health House program, one of our builders was DR Horton, the largest builder in the USA. Today, virtually all of the major residential builders has a “green” home offering or program.

So yes, it is good business, bobby. It may be a “niche market,” but it’s a big one, and it’s growing.

I understand that it only costs 5 to 15% more to build sustainably, which will easily make the air and water better inside the house and throughout the neighborhood, eventually. The recovery of costs with renewable energy like geothermal and photovoltaics and solar comes in about 3-5 years at current energy prices – but those prices won’t stay the same, and soon we will not be talking price, we’ll be talking availability. The Sustainable House at the site, http://www.livegreenlivesmart.org looks like a normal, traditional house, but it’s full of off-the-shelf technology and techniques that will make it’s impact less than the home prior to rehab – and the energy costs are expected to average $2.50 per day with, admittedly, a lot more redundancy than most homeowners will be able to deal with – three heating systems that back up one another, holy smoke (maybe no smoke: they have a sprinkler system).

Soon, it will be good business to be able to sell anything, and if we carry on as we have, we will have to mine the landfills for material.

“I understand that it only costs 5 to 15% more to build sustainably, “

And that price differential will likely drop as the technology moves even more into the mainstream, and production begins to benefit from economies of scale, and improvements in manufacturing technologies.