Stuck in heavy traffic, the link was not easily written for retrieval, but the reaction was amusingly predictable:
The Sky Will Fall! Business Will Be Destroyed! Jobs will be lost! It's a Communist Plot....Blah! Blah! Blah!
One might wonder: How do you know? We can comfortably label those folks dinosaurs for their intransigence.
Elsewhere, reducing wasted energy has created more comfortable buildings, better lighting, more even heating/cooling, healthier buildings and actually made buildings less expensive to occupy - increasing their marketability.
Rocky Mountain Institute has been involved with efforts to increase energy efficiency in cost effective ways that make sense and what business doesn't want to save money? Sensible investment to reduce energy consumption is permanent and just common sense.
Anyone who has driven through Boston at night has observed buildings fully lighted against the night sky with no occupants.
Why?
Doesn't this define our waste and why it is imperative to amend it, dinosaurs or not ---
More than two-thirds of electric energy in the U.S. is wasted before it ever lights a bulb, or powers an appliance. And 50 to 80 percent of energy used to heat and cool buildings — homes, offices, factories, warehouses and store — is wasted, warming the surrounding atmosphere.
We don’t have a global energy supply problem. We have a massive energy waste problem.
At the Jordan Institute, where I work, we focus on energy conservation in buildings. Why? About 48 percent of the country’s energy — electric and thermal — is expended in buildings. Consider that percentage against the roughly 300 billion-square-feet of building stock currently in the U.S. Needless to say, that’s a lot of waste.
Climate Change Series: Energy Efficiency
- by Dick Henry and Douglas Foy
The cheapest, cleanest energy available is the energy you don't have to use: it's always available, it never varies in price, and it doesn't add to global warming. (ReillyButler/flickr)
The cheapest, cleanest energy available is the energy you don't have to use: it's always available, it never varies in price, and it doesn't add to global warming. (ReillyButler/flickr)
http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/02/14/climate-energy-efficiency-henry-foy
Boston City Council Considers Raising Energy Efficiency Requirements
BOSTON — The Boston City Council will consider a plan Friday to raise the energy efficiency requirements for all new buildings in the city. But the plan is catching flak from some area developers.
James Kirby, with Commercial Construction Consulting, says the plan will hurt business.
“It will only put a further burden in the short [term] on development — both commercial and residential — at a time when we desperately need things to get started and people to get back to work,” Kirby says.
The measure would raise city energy efficiency requirements by 20 percent.
http://www.wbur.org/2010/11/12/energy-efficiency
James Kirby, with Commercial Construction Consulting, says the plan will hurt business.
“It will only put a further burden in the short [term] on development — both commercial and residential — at a time when we desperately need things to get started and people to get back to work,” Kirby says.
The measure would raise city energy efficiency requirements by 20 percent.
http://www.wbur.org/2010/11/12/energy-efficiency
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