Speed Kills

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Doug King

A roadside information sign exhorting me to slow down because ‘Speed Kills’ made me think today about how we communicate issues that perhaps people don’t want to confront, such as climate change and peak oil. We see exhortations such as this all the time, yet they don’t seem to be affecting people’s behaviour. Maybe this is because the message isn’t just wrong, it is patently so: speed evidently does not kill. There have been no recorded cases of motorists suddenly expiring as they pass the speed limit. No, it is suddenly stopping that kills most motorists.

I think it is the same with peak oil. It’s no use telling people to reduce their energy consumption, which they’re quite comfortable with, because of a possible future problem. It isn’t the present condition, but the change, that’s going to knobble us. The issue is that it will be so much worse if we don’t start preparing for the inevitable now. Like speeding in a car, it’s not the present rate of economic progress that is the problem, but what will happen when that progress is suddenly halted and we hadn’t prepared for it by slowing down.

When we are communicating messages about future risks we must avoid over-simplification and blatant fallacies or we will just be totally ignored.

I’m going to think about this and write more when I have made some connections.

Eco-Bling Rules

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Doug King

I should just briefly explain the name of this blog.

I started using the term eco-bling back in 2002 to describe the antithesis of my approach to low energy building design. Eco-bling is small scale renewable energy visibly attached to poorly designed, energy hungry, commercial buildings. It’s a zero sum approach as the benefit of the renewable generation is swamped by the energy demands of conventional building design. I advocate designing buildings that can achieve 50-80% carbon reductions through passive design and investing in de-carbonising the electricity supply at a national scale.

Well, over the last 5 years or so we have seen the proliferation of eco-bling rather than any real effort to improve our built environment. In my opinion this has largely been driven by eco-correctness amongst local politicians setting planning rules for totally in-appropriate on-site renewable generation at the expense of energy conservative design and large scale off-site renewables, which could actually make a real difference.

In a moment of frustration I voiced these opinions. I just happened to be in a press conference at the time and the rest as they say is history…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6994439.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/eco-bling-retrofitting-carbon-emissions

EcoBuild – EcoPuff

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Doug King

My current state of disillusionment has been brought on largely by a visit to Ecobuild last week. I haven’t been to Ecobuild for several years because I find it too depressing. Someone in my office asked me what Ecobuild was and off the cuff I responded:

“It’s a platform for the barely educated to sell their ‘expertise’ to the ignorant”.

After visiting the show again I am afraid I was not wrong.

Advertised as the world’s biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment, Ecobuild is little more than a construction products trade show with a lot of eco-puff tacked on. Suddenly everyone who has ever eaten an organic vegetable is an expert on sustainability; an extract fan that has always been an extract fan becomes an ‘eco-extract fan’ and building with timber is the latest thing since, well, building with timber.

What is really interesting about events like Ecobuild is watching how manufacturers try to establish themselves in the ecosphere. There are a few manufacturers of really worthwhile products whose show stands are basically the same as they were 3 years ago – their products are the genuine article and they have no need to change. On the other hand we have the mass market suppliers desperately trying to find some form of green branding for their products, who are so intent on keeping up with the zeitgeist that they re-brand every few months.

My tip – buy products that that don’t include ‘eco’ in their title.

Hello World

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Doug King

I have reached the point in life, somewhere between angry young man and grumpy old man, which is probably best described as middle aged disillusionment. Having advocated and researched sustainable development since I started designing buildings as a graduate (20 years ago) I cannot believe that we are still talking around the issues rather than doing anything about them. Eco-Bling still rules. It seems that people would prefer to show off their eco-awareness rather than actually do anything substantial about resolving the issues.

Maybe the problem is just too large and too scary for people to handle. In order to develop a sustainable society we will have to change EVERYTHING. We will have to take action at every level from our individual behaviour to the way we plan the delivery of public services. We need to refurbish virtually every home in the country and get used to the idea of wind turbines throughout the countryside. And this will only be the start of what we must do to live with reduced fossil fuel availability.

So I have finally succumbed to blogging as a means of capturing thoughts and information about sustainable development. After the first flood of pent up thoughts I can’t promise very frequent updates, but I hope that that the information might be of some use to others wrestling with the issues.