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Scott Adams On the Difficulty of Building a 'Green' Home
An anonymous reader writes "Scott Adams built himself a new house with the goal of making it as 'green' as possible, and detailed his experience for those interested in following in his missteps. Quoting: '... So the architect — and later your building engineer, too — each asks you to sign a document saying you won't sue them when beavers eat a load-bearing wall and your entire family is crushed by forest debris. You make the mistake of mentioning this arrangement to your family, and they leave you. But you are not deterred because you're saving the planet, damn it. You'll get a new family. A greener one. Your next hurdle is the local planning commission. They like to approve things that are similar to things they've approved before. To do otherwise is to risk unemployment. And the neighbors don't want to live next to a house that looks like a compost pile. But let's say, for the sake of this fascinating story, that everyone in the planning commission is heavily medicated with medical marijuana and they approve your project over the objections of all of your neighbors, except for the beavers, who are suspiciously flexible. Now you need a contractor who is willing to risk his career to build this cutting-edge structure. Good luck with that.'"
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares?"
Intents and.
"Oh no... he found the
The Republicans spent way too much money but I don't really remember many unsound environmental policies.
It was under Obama's watch that oversight of oil wells was allowed to diminish to the point of catastrophe. GW would have been sucking every drop of oil from the ocean with a straw if he had to, but he would not have let the whole regulatory and review structure become so shoddy and corrupt in the first place. And Obama took far more money from BP (who has by far a worse safety record than any other oil company) than any Republican...
And even if it did reach that point Bush would have let foreign oil skimmers come to help right away instead of being a stickler for federal regulation for months on end.
So I wouldn't be casting stones from your oily platform sir.
Furthermore, the current government policies that are keeping the recession in full bloom are also damaging the environment - because people who are poorer take less care of the environment. I've travelled all over the world and without except, a poor populace means real environmental issues will abound.
The truth is that in the end the only really long term environmental platform is one that supports strong economic growth in the private industry, and encouragement of alternative energy development (like nuclear and solar). A happy prosperous people are easy to talk into funding important long-term research.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
you're claiming that Obama set up the regulatory structure that lead to (I presume) the disaster in the Gulf?
No. I'm saying that he let the regulatory structure that was there wither, and coincidentally happened to take in a huge amount of money in donations from an oil company that has had far more safety issues than any other.
What regulations did he dismantle that were in place when Bush was in office?
It's as much about what you don't do as what you do. Which is really the story of the oil spill, on so many levels...
In any case, we weren't even talking about this--we were talking about green building!
Well take it up with the person I was responding to, since he was the one that started talking about unsound policy. You do realize that on the internet every discussion invariably veers off course, right?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To believe 0.5% of the alarmist anti-Gore propaganda, you'd have to have zero education in the sciences, or be so completely partisan as to turn a blind eye to the most blatant Machiavellian politics.
The sad thing is, your cult has to constantly be corrected at every turn. It's not enough to simply fabricate data about global warming, but your vapid cult insists that all against them must be ignorant because, well, they are against what he Group thinks!
The truth is there are Many Scientists who are outspoken about the religion of global warming. Far too many issues these days are attempted to being advanced through fear, intimidation, and as we see in your case outright dismissal of facts that do not fit a particular world-view you are trying to impose.
The earth may indeed be warming, but we simply lack the understanding to say it's us responsible if so - and the really sad thing is that in your haste to prove something you "know" is true without solid science to back it up, you and people like you horribly trod on the reputation of science with the general public just like the boy that cried wolf. If there is a wolf we may never know because who would believe you now?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley