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This NESEA is no monster
comments (0) March 14th, 2008 in Blogs
Kevin Ireton, editor-at-large
no recommendations
For the first time in 20-plus years
of living in Connecticut, I took a train to Boston. It cost $11 for
parking, $63 for the actual fare, and another $2 for the MBTA
Silver Line to my hotel. The trip took about five hours, counting my drive
to New Haven,
where I caught the train. I could have driven to Boston in three hours for about $15 worth of
gas. I was inspired to complicate my trip because I was attending the 33rd
annual conference of the Northeast
Sustainable Energy Association, otherwise known as NESEA.
This group was green long before green was cool, and being around NESEA members
for a few days is an exhilarating, inspirational experience. They are friendly,
smart, and passionately committed to high-quality buildings, systems thinking,
and responsible energy use. The seminars at this conference are high caliber, and
in the ones I attended, I had the sense that half the people in the room could
just as easily be teaching as listening.
Although it’s difficult not to be depressed by the unwavering focus these folks
bring to bear on everything from global warming and peak oil to
impending water shortages, the threat of doom is offset by the inspiration of
their message. None of these people thinks we need a breakthrough in technology
to solve our problems. They believe we already have the solutions. The only
question is, as Alex Wilson suggested in his keynote address, whether we
have the guts to use them.
Alex spoke for an hour Wednesday morning and did an excellent job of scaring the crap out of me with his litany. For example:
- The world consumes 1000 barrels of oil per second.
- 94% of the world’s oil supply has
been consumed since 1955 (the year Alex was
born). - Some experts predict that in coming decades, water is going to be a bigger problem than energy.
- One woman in six has enough mercury in her body to affect a fetus.
- The oceans’ dead zones have grown 34% in the past two years.
He went on, but I won’t. I know this
stuff is hard to hear. Fortunately, Alex also offered a 10-point plan for how
to fix things.
1. Advance social and economic justice worldwide.
2. Eliminate damaging subsidies, and institute tax shifting.
3. Create an Environmental Service Corps (modeled after the Civilian
Conservation Corps of
the 1930s) to superinsulate our 85
million existing houses.
4. Incorporate passive survivability into our building
codes. (The idea here is that you should
be able to survive in your home even
if the power goes out.)
5. Adopt better energy policies.
6. Invest in new technologies.
7. Focus on land use and transportation.
8. Conserve water.
9. Adopt stricter policies regulating the use of chemicals.
10. Embrace partnerships, collaboration, and personal action.
Part of the reason I can’t elaborate on these points is that I really don’t
have space here to do so, but the other part is that I don’t understand them
all because Alex didn’t get a chance to elaborate himself. The governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, was scheduled to speak after Alex, but he
showed up early, which for some reason meant that Alex had to finish early. It
was a little annoying to be left with such a clear picture of the problems and
only a hint of the solutions. But I got over it as soon as Gov. Patrick started
speaking.
The night before, I attended a forum on energy use and heard a British woman
named Solitaire
Townsend bemoan the fact that all the national and international speakers
on global warming, energy use, and the environment are giving what she called
“the nightmare speech.” She wanted to know who was going to stand up and give
the “I have a dream” speech on these issues.
Deval Patrick did not give that speech. And having listened to him for only 10
minutes, I can’t say that he ever will. But I can’t rule him out, either. It
was incredibly heartening to listen to this man talk about what’s already
happening in Massachusetts
and to hear him announce the formation of a state task force on Zero Energy buildings and homes. He
wants a plan for how Massachusetts
can get there over the next 20 years, and he wants that plan by next year’s
NESEA conference. So stay tuned.
As for my experience of traveling by train, I can report several observations.
The hour I spent in Boston’s
South Station waiting for the train home was more pleasant than any I have ever
spent in an airport. The people I saw were more interesting and less harried.
The Amtrak employees were funny and courteous. And on the ride back, I managed
both to enjoy a nap and to write this
post, neither of which I could have done while driving. Assuming that I find my
car where I left it, I’m well pleased with this little reduction of my carbon
footprint.
To view a photo gallery from the conference, go to Greening the home, New England style.
posted in: Blogs
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About this blog
As the editor of Fine Homebuilding, I spend my weekdays trying to produce a magazine that will satisfy 300,000 of the most demanding builders, both professional and amateur. As the owner of a 200-year old Cape in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, I spend weekends working on my house.
Each activity invariably informs, and complicates, the other. In this blog, I’ll offer observations from both worlds -- publishing and building -- with the hope of providing some useful or at least entertaining insights.
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