Well, the average person can do a great deal just by keeping his or her eyes open. One doesn't have to be a genius like Amory Lovins to surpass the energy/material savings that he promises.  

It's not a new idea:

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

My Quaker grandmother was our role model. She looked upon the purchase of a new product as a sign of lack of imagination and spunk.

There's nothing wrong with efficiency. For society as a whole, the ideas of Lovins, etc. are absolutely necessary for creating a low-input infrastructure.  

What's left out though is a role for people - we need to be more than just passive consumers of green products and services.  

Bart
Energy Bulletin

Driving less doesn't have to mean less--it can mean more exercise, more fun on a bike, more health, more security, and definitely more wealth.  Or more time at home or with friends.

Less outdoor lighting doesn't have to mean less to see--it can mean more stars and much more beauty, as the darkness so often stolen from us is restored.

Etc.

The 5% Project

Or has he realized the folley of his ways?

-David Ahlport

Quaker meetinghouses, such as the classic old ones in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Nantucket, are extremely simple affairs.  Their architectural functions are few, and those functions do not include a need for any style other than of the plainest sort.  Many people find those buildings quite elegant; and while that is not an inaccurate judgment, it must be remembered that any elegance or beauty that we find in them is almost an inadvertent result of the intentions of their builders, who self-consciously eschewed aesthetics.

By contrast, the great Gothic cathedrals of northern France, such as Notre-Dame de Chartres and Notre-Dame de Paris, are endlessly complex and fascinating, and have many functions.  And among those functions, very self-consciously embraced by the builders, is creating beauty, both to honor God and God's saints, and to awe and delight the human worshipers.

In comparing these two classes of religious architecture, we should observe that while the Quakers did relatively "less," and the medieval Catholics did relatively "more," their building methods were presumably as efficient as possible.

The Quakers apparently were satisfied to use the methods and materials -- brick, wood, plaster, clear glass -- that were common to civic architecture of the English-speaking world in that period.  To construct the interior system of seats, essential to Quaker worship, evidently some specialized designing and specialized carpentry were required.  But I do not know that the Quakers, like the Shakers and some Mennonites, did much by way of creating unique designs of their own, in various art-forms.

The northern French inventors of Gothic architecture, on the other hand, are illustrious examples of people using "less" to make "more."  The earlier Romanesque style required thick walls to support a roof over a large space, leaving relatively little wall space available to open up as windows.  The Gothic invention of buttressing, especially flying buttresses, radically changed the conditions for putting that roof over that space.  The walls, no longer bearing all the weight, did not need to be so thick; and they could in places even be discarded, and replaced by glorious windows of colored glass.

So, in sum, the Quakers are our "conservationists"; they are saying, "We want to do the minimum, nothing to make us proud, in the course of doing not much."  The medieval French Catholics are our "efficientists" (?); they are saying, "We want to do all sorts of glorious things, but we want to do it as cheaply as possible."

Anyway, there it is, just a suggestion.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

And what is the ultimate purpose of this incredibly efficient enterprise? This all takes place so that the tree can each year jettison acorns in wanton, profligate, exuberant numbers so that perhaps, just perhaps, one or two of them can in turn become the next generation of the species. Nature's model of efficiency becomes nature's model of waste - but only if we look just at the tree and not at its total context. The acorn cannot become the tree in the shade of its parent, so the tree needs the squirrel to take the acorn to a new patch of sunlight. The squirrel needs a surfeit of acorns to be able to forget the one which germinates. Without the squirrel, even the oak tree's spendthrift output of seed stock is not efficacious in regeneration. The acorn needs to provide food for the squirrel as well as the germ of its own potential treeness.

I believe there is a lesson here about the need for efficiency at the detail level and efficacy at the systems level. They are not the same thing and we need both.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Make the world greener,
Larry

Larry Janson Eco-Friendly Distributors http://ecofuel.mpgproduct.com 1-800-609-7168

Efficiency is an entirely context-dependent measurement.  And if the context does not consider the actual desired outcome, then being efficient becomes counterproductive.

Oh, and Canis, flying buttresses aren't really all that load-bearing. They abut the arches far too low to actually brace in a way that would carry weight to the ground.  It turns out, when one does thermal-image modeling of the typical High Gothic form, that what the buttresses are doing, mostly, is resisting wind shear that would otherwise demolish those huge, thin walls, and stiffening them laterally.  See, art history majors do learn some things that are useful in unexpected ways... :)

But medieval churches and 17th-19th century Quaker meetinghouses do both satisfy the version of efficiency in which lasting long enough becomes the definition of efficiency.  It's too bad, but the fact is that the vast majority of buildings do not live out their entire useful lives; if we took better care of our buildings, we'd be able to afford to build higher-quality ones when the time finally came for replacement or addition, but since we waste so much knocking things down and building new, we are stuck in the present crappy cycle of crap.  Sigh.

Thirty years ago, as a poor student, I built a small hovel in a forest with thin 3/8 plywood.  The carpenter ants loved it.  This month it collapsed with a bang like a big tree falling in the forest.  The replacement building was designed to survive many centuries and was constructed 300 feet above sea level.

I should add, though, regarding whatever we may suppose we mean by increased efficiency of Gothic methods over Romanesque methods, that because the Gothic builders built larger and taller churches than their predecessors -- because they could -- , there was not likely to have been a net saving in stone.

Building to last, as a principle of efficiency, makes excellent sense.

By "crap," you are presumably referring to vernacular architecture with little or no aesthetic pretension.  But even among "fine art" buildings, maintenance problems can be embarrassing.  E.g., the cantilevered sections of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house in western PA, Falling Water, are a mess.  And I have grave doubts about the long-term stability of the celebrated buildings of Frank Gehry, which eschew the merely vertical.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

One exception might be medium lifespan houses using low intensity material. Straw bale homes with load bearing straw bale walls are among the lowest input homes homes you can build. (Assuming to you do roof and the rest of home low input too, and make sure not to compromise operating efficiency.) A straw home can easily last a hundred years. It probably can't last 500 years the way a well designed concrete structure can. But a concrete structure emits so many greenhouse gases during cement manufacture, that a straw bale house still has a lower input per year of service.  Plus the number of concrete structures that will actually last more than one hundred years is low.

And before you say it, there are good reasons for most buildings not to be straw bale. But they make sense in some cases, and in those cases are really really appropriate. And again like everything else, it is not a question of abstract straw bales buildings being a good idea; it is a question of their being appropriate solutions in particular cases, and being executed properly.

There are low intensity ways of making cement of course - geopolymeric cement is one example. Substituting rice ash for some of the portland cement is another.

Stawbale house are not the only alternative (and a damn good thing, since they are and will remain a niche). But Strawbale homes remain a very low intensity alternative, used in the right applications, and built properly. Cement can be a good alternative - used thriftily. It is all a matter of context. My next post deals with an earth building method that does use small amounts of cement, steel, and plastic - in an earth construction technique that is very sparing of inputs.

Concrete mix is mostly rock and sand, and has excellent load bearing and thermal mass values.  Insulated dry concrete is immortal.

I did look into ferro cement tech, galvanized chicken wire and less than one inch heavy mix, labor intensive and good to go goo.

Discounting the future is a capital invention.  The value of sustainable shelter is priceless.

Cement emissions are 1.5% of total emissions.  I hope for new tech.   Should we consider cement above our 90% emissions reduction due to value of low-energy long-life shelters?

A straw home can easily last a hundred years. It probably can't last 500 years the way a well designed concrete structure can.

This comment of Gar's reflects a common misperception that the "stronger" a building material is the longer it will last. There's no intrinsic reason a straw house can't last 500 years, provided that, like cob and adobe, it is equipped with "a good hat and shoes" - a properly-maintained roof and well-drained foundation. And while it is true that the core structure of a concrete building will probably survive neglect better, its secondary components - windows, doors, roof finish, mechanicals etc. - are as much subject to decay as those of any other structure.

This is not to say I am a big fan of straw bale construction - like Gar I think there are appropriate uses for the technology but there are many situations where other materials will be a better choice.

Of course how long a building lasts in our culture is far more determined by how long it continues to be useful/profitable than how soundly it is built.  Structurally sound commercial buildings are bulldozed almost daily because a more profitable structure could use the space. The amortization can be as little as six years to break even and turn a profit - then the cycle may repeat. On the other hand severely under-built structures (e.g. the early 20th century frame cottages of a southern mill town) may continue to be cherished for many generations. Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn" is valuable reading in this respect.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

We can always count on you for something to stretch the mind!

I think the metaphor holds up in this respect. An efficient infrastructure, like the cathedral, is a social project. It's something visible. It represents a vast investment of resources towards a certain end.

You've chosen the cathedral, something spiritual and beautiful, for the metaphor. That's stacking the cards somewhat, since we could also have chosen projects like the Maginot Line, the Egyptian pyramids, the U.S. highway system.

The key question is whether the project itself is worthwhile. What values does it embody?

In this respect, both the Quaker and medieval Catholic visions had much more in common than with modern efficiency. Both Quaker and Catholic peasant lived much more simple lives than we do at present.  They did not believe that acquiring more and more material goods was the purpose of existence. Their religions taught them to be wary of greed and over-indulgence.

In contrast, modern culture - including much environmentalism - celebrates consumption. Efficiency is merely a tool that enables us to continue the party. There is nothing spiritual about it.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

Building to last, of course, is all well and good but is only as good as the society's desire to care for and continue to use old buildings.  Demolishing perfectly usable structures needs to be stopped, I say as I stack my preservation-grad-student hat atop my environmentalist hat.  People, however, have a way of wanting exactly what they want, and feeling that it's easier to get that by starting over and build new than by restoring something old.  This has ever been the case--in 19th-century Boston, for instance, there were at least a few people who regarded the inevitability of that era's great fires as an opportunity for regrowth, rather than any kind of tragic loss! (and so Boston lost almost every single one of its pre-19th-c. houses and shops, preserving only things like Faneuil Hall and Old South Meetinghouse, and those only by the skin of their teeth).

Stewart Brand is indeed an interesting fellow, and I highly recommend How Buildings Learn. Be forewarned, though--most people find themselves very angry at him at least once in the course of reading it! :)  I personally found it eloquent and enlightening, except the bit where he called a drippingly Italianate house (that had been converted to a McDonald's, of all things) "Georgian" (the Georgian style came more than a century earlier than that house was built, and was for a the most part a fairly austere style, though it shared with Italianate a certain fondness for classical detailing).  Not that that's anything to do with the environment, natch.

Besides, who is talking about efficiency "by itself". Low cost efficiency is a way the economy can buy energy from high cost renewable sources without having to increase the percent of total GDP spent on energy. So even if energy consumption increases with increased efficiency it still allows the economy to become greener, because that increased consumption can come from sun and wind and such.

So, Bart, do you feel trapped, in that sort of way, even as I do?

I agree with you that just because a lot of complication goes into the design of a project, and a lot of work goes into carrying it out, that does not at all make the project "good," in and of itself.  As I said, your reference to your Quaker grandmother got me thinking about meetinghouses, and the next step was to think about places of worship as a category, buildings with ostensibly comparable functions but with various methods of manifestation.  Since the northern French Gothic cathedrals are considered by many the most sublime examples of architecture ever built, or just about, I allow as how my example looks like "stacking the cards"!

You understand exactly what I was getting at, when you speak of the "social project" involved in these sets of buildings.  Do you know the illustrated books on world architecture by David Macaulay?, e.g. "Castle," "Pyramid," and the one on the newly founded Roman city which may be called "City."  My favorite (no surprise!) is "Cathedral," about the construction of a Gothic cathedral in a northern French town.  There is a deeply poignant two-page view of the town, early on, showing how the townsfolk (whom it is perhaps not accurate to call "peasants") had torn down their beloved old Romanesque cathedral, to clear a space for the grand new construction.  But of course all of those people would be dead, by the time the new cathedral was even in a condition to be dedicated and used, let alone completed.  I do not mind admitting that that page always makes me weep a little.

Presumably Macaulay did his research, and it is to be believed that medieval people did that sort of thing.  In which case, the tear-down-and-replace practice of US city-dwellers is nothing new.

On Catholic materialism: It is an interesting phenomenon, which you seem not to observe, Bart, that in a number of societies and cultures, Catholics (and Orthodox Christians too) like to clutter their churches with more and more stuff.  Sometimes that is done tastefully, sometimes not.

It is especially interesting that the wealth of a community is often in large part dedicated to the decoration of its church.  I remember seeing a book of photographs of an ornately decorated church in a town in Mexico, inhabited mostly by "peasants" truly so-called, i.e. "campesinos," poor farmers.  In his foreword, the author said that he overheard the comment of some liberal gringo, to the effect of, "How disgraceful!, that the priests steal the money of these poor people, just to put more gold on the walls of this building!"  In fact -- the author went on -- , it was precisely the will, the free will, of those poor people that the church should look just as it looked.

To Willa: Thanks for that insight into Boston architectural history.  My husband, born and raised in southern California, considers Boston his true home-town, having lived there for many years.  He likes to mention that in Boston real-estate discourse, "pre-war" means before the Civil War.

FWIW: We spent a couple of days in Salem last summer, in a dog-friendly B&B in I believe an 18th-century building.  There were many houses of that age, apparently, in that vicinity, toward the SW, I think, of the town center.  They had a kind of official plaque stuck outside, certifying their age, but I do not remember if the issuing authority was the city or the state.

And of course there are the National Historical Monument houses down by the waterfront, and the fascinating House of Seven Gables.

The ethos of NYC is to tear down anything and everything, when something more profitable is proposed.  Here on the Upper West Side, where I have lived off-and-on since the early 1970s, the metamorphoses are constant, and radical.  It pains me that I cannot remember what used to be at a particular location just a few years ago.

Once upon a time, there was a large brick side of a tall building, high up, unobstructed, looming over Broadway, on which was painted, most surprisingly, in large Gothic letters, Saint Paul to the Romans, 6.23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  Well, that has disappeared, somehow, for a number of years now, but I cannot figure out what exactly went: just the painted inscription?; the unobstructed view?; the entire building?

A kind of original sin for New Yorkers was the destruction of the old Pennsylvania Station, back in the 60s.  The new architectural morality declares, "Never Again!," though that sometimes places unfair burdens on the owners of landmark-status buildings.

Not my favorite NYC building by far, but still definitely worth preserving, is that 60s white-faced Venetian Gothic thing on Columbus Circle, across from the remarkably uninteresting new Time-Warner Building.  The Venetian Gothic thing was actually, unbelievably, going to be torn down, but I think Donald Trump came to the rescue -- in an unusual role for him as hero.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I mention French peasants because it was the labor of the peasants that ultimately made possible the  cathedrals. Medieval society was based on peasant farming, and the whole culture, including the Church, reflects that.

The cathedrals were a glorious expression of a communal spirit, in which most parts of society could participate.  But consider the less positive ways that medieval society invested its wealth: wars, fortresses (castles), and luxury for the elite.  Just ... like ... today.

Quakerism and related religious movements (including some inside the Catholic Church like the Jansenists) questioned the values behind those choices. Instead they preached equality, simplicity and often pacifism.

The reaction against pomp and luxury has to be seen in that light. Quakers like John Woolman saw that buying colored clothes supported the slave trade, and so he opted for plain dress. Rather than expressing their faith by erecting edifices, they strove to express it in their everyday lives. So early Quakers eschewed art, but were usually model citizens, good business people and occasionally social reformers.  

For real innovation, one has to turn to the Shakers - a small group with unbelieveable creativity: their songs ("'Tis the gift to be simple), dances, architecture, living arrangments, inventions and in particular their furniture.

Why bother old sects and musty cathedrals? I think because they show us the multiplicity of choices we have.  

• Communal projects as represented by cathedrals
• Uprightness and sobriety represented by the Quakers
• An explosion of folk creativity as with the Shakers
• and many more

Bart
(1/2 Quaker, 1/2 Catholic, 1/2 Atheist, 1/2 Protestant, 1/2 Buddhist).

Bart
Energy Bulletin

But even among "fine art" buildings, maintenance problems can be embarrassing.  E.g., the cantilevered sections of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house in western PA, Falling Water, are a mess.

FWIW, the cantilever at Fallingwater was not built as Wright designed it, and its failure was a consequence of interference by a pusillanimous builder and an inept consulting engineer. FLW's engineering was daring and generally impeccable, as at the Johnson Wax building in Racine: the roof leaked but the extraordinary lily-pad columns never failed.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Our houses can be lighter and use less energy.   We won't need as much heating or insulation.

Global Warming saves the day -- again!!

A horrible exception is the hideous synagogue in Elkins Park, PA, very close to where I grew up and to where my parents now live, uglier than any "Original Series" Star Trek Klingon out-post.  I do not believe it is an actually "dangerous" building, in the sense that one of those flame-things is likely to break off, roll down the slope and knock somebody (presumably a sinner -- but who is not?) on the head.  (Perhaps Willa can say more about the judgment of Jewish buildings...)  But really, if you wanted to construct an auditorium within a structure that supposedly recalled Mount Sinai and the Burning Bush, well, my guess is, this was not the only option.

Bart, tu et moi, mon cher, we will be playing Edith Piaf, this balmiest of balmy summers, and "Soave sia il vento," und "Rosenkavalier," und so fort; and Willa will chime in with her New Englander Moby-Dick-ish anthems.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

It is perlescent thinks this dog, abed
here, distant daughter of a boggling Beast,
clamb'ring with eyes now Westward, now to East,
with twenty toes, an emerald in her head;

God surely thinks upon this lowly bed,
remembering fondly that Devonian feast,
how all of life rose up, from great to least,
with hearts of kindness full, and faith, and said:

O God, O kind Creator of all the Earth,
whose justice creature is and shall now be,
bless wondrous strong the heart of this bright pup
who 'f broken heart found here her mother's cup;
she is our child, you know, so save her birth;
our death is ever here, our eggs, our sea.


Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

They overcame the odds to even get as much done as they have.  These guys actually got real capital invested in art.  Not all of it as functional as it could have been. Wealthy patrons like the Johnson family or the Kaufmanns (of Falling Water)demand iconic designs.

People who really need innovation just to survive rising food, energy, and transportation costs with real wages dropping precipitously cannot afford art.

What is needed now is life as art and art as life.  Quality over quantity.  Symbiotic design that blends human life back into natural life.

That is their legacy, just what Gar started this thread with.  The whole different set of values that Wright tried to feature in his imperfect career.  His emulators are carrying on.

Imperfectly and not on as grand a stage, but they keep on trying.  The organic majic is still there though.  Will it ever reach the level of mass production?   Will that squeeze the vision right out of it?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Fascinating, that so much thought and work should be dedicated to memorializing the Johnson Wax people, way out in Racine, including a nearly explicit reference to one of the greatest buildings ever built, in one of the greatest artistic capitals, the Pantheon in Rome.
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"What is architecture anyway? Is it the vast collection of the various buildings which have been built to please the varying taste of the various lords of mankind? I think not. No, I know that architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived. So architecture I know to be a Great Spirit....Architecture is that great living creative spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man, and his circumstances as they change. That is really architecture."
>>

Thus far, Frank Lloyd Wright.

I would desire to see a domestic, Wisconsin vision of FLW, filtered through a lens of Amazing and Arnie.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Canis,
Gee, thanks for perpetuating one of the main myths responsible for the ongoing tragic loss of historic buildings...not only does preservation not need to be a burden to a building's owner, but it can actually be of financial benefit, thanks both to grant money available for certain types of restoration and to the long-term high value of well-preserved historic properties.  you do have to take the long view, but when you do, historic buildings nearly always turn out to be the hands-down winners financially as well as aesthetically etc.  Sadly, thanks to the fact that most of the public still believes, as you do, that preservation is a burden, Penn Station didn't really work as a "never again" turning point, though...

The Boston area has numerous pre-1800 Federal- and Georgian-style ("Colonial"--often imitated, never equalled...) structures, from the ca.-1636 Fairbanks House in Dedham (supposedly the oldest timber-frame house in the nation) to the ca.-1730 house down the street from me.  Boston proper has virtually none.  The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now renamed "Historic New England" b/c SPNEA was too big a mouthful), founded in 1910, has done a lot of great work preserving the very most special old houses in rural and suburban settings, and local historic districts etc have worked well in many towns around the Boston area to preserve far greater numbers of more ordinary houses.  The Boston Landmarks Commission now ensures that the city's wealth of well-preserved 19th-century structures isn't lost, but turnover in cities is more rapid than in surrounding suburbs, so there's not as long a history preserved in the most densely urban areas.

Oh, and as far as sin punished by death-by-falling-flame-thing-while-leaving-synagogue... I got nothin'.  Then again, I only knew Passover was happening this year because I saw K-for-P matzos for sale, so I'm a really, really Bad Jew. :)  Ask someone who's less of a heathen, or more of a smart ass (yes, it's possible).

I've never read Moby Dick, heathen that I am, so I'm not sure whether to be offended or not. :)

And while I love cathedrals (I majored in art history mainly so I could take a seminar on them), I'm in the stupid-gringo camp that thinks it's a crying shame when barefoot children and starving, constantly-reproducing dogs surround churches inlaid with precious stones.  I'm not stupid enough to think all the priests purposefully steal from their congregations (though surely some do), but I have a really hard time fully embracing the beauty of a structure whose brilliance depends on brainwashing the poor and the suffering into becoming poorer and suffering more in service to art.

FWIW, a friend of mine who was an engineering major did her thesis on Fallingwater, and, well, it may be true that the concrete used wasn't what FLW had intended...but it is also beyond doubt that there would have been problems anyway, and that he didn't truly understand what he was doing, even given the state of the art at the time (that is, not expecting him to know things about concrete that weren't discovered until later).  but to each his own, I suppose

Not so. What is actually beyond doubt is that the consulting engineer changed the balance of steel and concrete in Wright's design, the cantilever was built to the engineer's specification, and the cantilever promptly sagged. Engineers (and engineering students) have tried ever since to cover their colleague's embarrassment by claiming that Wright's version of the design was also insufficient and are fond of producing all kinds of calculations in support of this contention but as we should all know, engineers are fallible too.

Truly beyond doubt and well exemplified in numerous projects is the unusual skill with reinforced concrete of Wright and his engineer associates, especially Wes Peters and Mendel Glickman who designed the Fallingwater cantilever. The mushroom columns in Racine I mentioned previously were similarly declared inadequate in design (by the city engineer, natch): to prove their stability a sample column was successfully tested to five times its design load. The walkway canopy which leads up the hill to the guest house at Fallingwater is another most elegant example. Only 4" thick, cantilevered in both directions from a series of slender steel posts, curved and stepped as it climbs the hillside, the canopy is a phenomenon of organic design which was not considered important enough for the consulting engineer to meddle with. To the best of my knowledge the canopy was built exactly to Wright's specification and has never suffered from structural problems.

There are certainly some failures amongst the many buildings in Wright's oeuvre but despite the daring structural quality of much of his work lack of firmness was seldom one of them. His arrogance and conceit were legendary, but he had much to be conceited about.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

The war mongers tend to get more people killed.

If Wright had only listened to engineering students, his creations would have been more in line with conventional wisdom.  Damn troublemaker!  

A few concrete posts under that cantiliever?  Sure why not.  They could have been painted to resemble surrounding vegetation or had bushes planted around them, or both.  Hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Cement is made by heating limestone. Even if that heat comes from solar energy, you have major greenhouse gas emissions.

A great target for CO2 sequestration with algae grown in solar collectors.  The limestone used to make cement was made by marine organisms that entrap CO2.

Coral reefs are in trouble now and concrete can help seed new ones in more suitable locations.  Another great way to help absorb CO2.

Wood inside a structure, protected by concrete, can store a lot of carbon.  Wood exposed to the elements will need to be replaced frequently.  Using up more trees.

I know, you are going to claim as long as the trees come from areas that are covered with snow a few months per year, cutting them down reduces global warming.  Of course I will counter claim that trees throw a lot of water vapor into the atmosphere that create clouds that reflect sunlight, even in areas covered with snow a third of the year.

Overall I still think concrete makes a greener exterior and structural element than wood.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Yes concrete is an amazing material. As presently made, and in the quantities it is presently used it is also responsible for around six percent of greenhouse forcing. As I pointed out in post on green building there are many ways to reduce these emissions, and the emissions from tree cutting both.  There are sustainable ways of making concrete. (Substitute Geopolymeric cement for Portland cement. Substitute pozzolanos for portland cement. In smaller buildings, use earth construction, straw bale construction and bamboo. Or use wood, but wood that is harvested without contributing to emissions--either recycled wood, or wood that is thinned from forests where it would otherwise fall to fire or disease.

(Note on carbon neutrality of harvesting wood that would not other succumb to fire or disease: even if the wood is used in construction, a lot of carbon stored by wood is in the soil, and is released when the tree is harvested. A fair amount of the carbon in the wood is expended in energy used to harvest and process the wood. Even if that energy comes from the wood or wood waste (and the forestry industry still does use external energy) that is still carbon that took hundreds of years to sequestrate. )

And yet it pains me that poor Willa is vexed that suggestions have been irresponsibly flying around, and getting tangled in her own admirable agenda.

But no, I do not see how that is happening at all.  Far be it from me to "perpetuate" any false idea that might justify the destruction of a beautiful old building.  Obviously, the building must be preserved, that goes without saying.  But the NYC law as it is written is rather too broad-brushy.  There are owners, and there are owners.  And religious congregations, for example, with all the love and affection possible directed toward preserving their noteworthy structures, still need help in maintaining them.

On K-for-P, etc.: As much as I admire Jewish practice, I have a hard time believing that God is himself a very strict literalist.

And I would be very surprised if He were to communicate to us, by means of an angel, or IM, or however, that that FLW synagogue in Elkins Park is one of his favorite places of worship.

And by the same token, even in the absence of any communication from him, there can be no doubt -- there is already plenty of evidence from other sources -- that he always prefers that justice be done for the poor, the vulnerable, the hungry, the animals, to the construction of any church, however grand and brilliant.

Bart's mix of economic and other motives confuses me, however:
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The cathedrals were a glorious expression of a communal spirit, in which most parts of society could participate.  But consider the less positive ways that medieval society invested its wealth: wars, fortresses (castles), and luxury for the elite.  Just ... like ... today.

Quakerism and related religious movements (including some inside the Catholic Church like the Jansenists) questioned the values behind those choices. Instead they preached equality, simplicity and often pacifism.
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Cathedral-builders and castle-builders did not usually see eye-to-eye, and were often enough at each others' throats, so let us not too easily accept that sumptuous expenditures for religious purposes have always been just the flip side of a war-loving aristocracy-subsidizing system.

That said, of course it remains a huge moral disgrace of the Catholic hierarchy that they wholeheartedly gave their support to the powerful and the wealthy.  And for Pope Benedict XVI now to blame the religion-eschewing Europeans for a moral decline on that continent is simply crazy.  The attitudes and conduct of Catholic hierarchs and their lay supporters (usually the well-to-do), for centuries, in Europe and Latin America, have been detestable.  So it is no wonder that there should be a kind of withdrawal in disgust.  Really, the Pope should now be expressing humiliating abashment; and that should be the public face of the Catholic Church in Europe and Latin America for some decades to come.  If there is indeed something of worth in Catholicism -- as I believe there is -- , then in time, people will recognize it.

I am fascinated by Bart's reference to Jansenism as a Catholic cousin of Quakerism.  I sort of see where he is coming from.  Nevertheless, within the Catholic Church, we nowadays associate Jansenism with absurdly rigorous sexual purity, and hopelessly brutal liturgical starkness.  I.e., nothing good.

True, the original idealism is admirable, and also the warm appreciation of Saint Augustine's theology.  But that positive, more humane spirit was too little maintained by the first Jansenists' followers, most notably the Irish Catholic clergy in America.  (And in Ireland too, I guess.)

To Amazing, regarding concrete: Some of the most beautiful constructions of the Romans were made with concrete.  We generally associate its surface appearance with modern industrial sloppy ugliness, and with good reason.  But in fact, it can be worked with, and can produce some wonderful things, for example the dome of the Pantheon.

As for the "major GHG emissions" required by the creation of cement (whether the next step, making concrete, requires even more of the same, I do not know), we should balance against that the fact that concrete lasts a long long time.  And it has already been observed in this thread that durability should be reckoned an important environmental value.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I agree on replacing grasslands with trees or offsetting  ripping down a 100 year old tree by planting a seedling.  Very bad.   And the whole offest deal in general, it seems to be mainly a scam.

Different kinds of low impact cement are great.  The new plastic concrete with fibers in it can be much less massive with greater stregth and durability.  It bends instead of breaking.  

Where normally passive solar might use really thick concrete walls, it would be better to use sand, rock, or water enclosed by thiun layers of this new improved concrete.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Mitigation summary (part III of ARF, IPCC)

It said that changes in design standards and materials chosen for construction could trim about 30 percent of projected emissions of heat-trapping gases from buildings by 2020, with more than half of the cuts coming in developing countries. The improvements in buildings could come with a net savings to the economy from lower energy costs, it said.

Thermal mass is important for comfort and heat from passive solar architecture, but more important is the thermal mass cooling potential reducing power plant markets.  

Concrete is mostly sand and gravel and is only good for compression.  Steel (rebar) is required for tension, especially in earthquakes.  Material cost is very low and casual labor is high.  O&M near zero.