Make green tech, not green legislation

This may be a non sequitur for the Train Wreck blog, but this stuff drives me nuts, and I can't resist ranting about it.

Check out Title 24, Part 6, of the California Code of Regulations: California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings. On second thought, don't bother. Reading that garbage will fry your brain.

I don't know how many zillions of pages this building code is, but the latest hundred pages or so have strict requirements for new home lighting. Every room in the house, and outdoors as well, has been blessed with specific requirements for high-efficiency lighting and motion sensors.

That's not all, mind you. There are also requirements for HVAC (heating ventilating air conditioning), water heating, insulation, and believe it or not, how much window area a house can have.

And all this stuff adds cost. No big deal, right? It's not as if building a house in California is expensive or anything.

OK, fine, whatever. So legislatures and lawyers have to do something with their time, right? Well, it's not that simple. You know what really happens? Get this. The electrician installs this stuff, the inspector signs off on it, and then the electrician swaps it all out for the stuff the homeowner wanted to begin with.

As ludicrous as that sounds, it happens every day. And you know what? I don't blame anybody for doing it. Who wants to spend a fortune building a house and then have all this useless crap in it? Or worse still, try to sell it that way.

Still, this practice does raise several pointed questions:

Since when do we legislate how we live our lives in this country? (Sorry, I just couldn't let that one go.)

Who do you think makes money off these "green" devices that end up in the garbage?

Is the green movement really the greed movement in disguise?

And finally, are we going green or just faking it?

Of course these questions are rhetorical, not to mention cynical. And if you dwell on them long enough you'll go out of your mind. Knowing full well that the lawyers are somehow making money off this whole thing doesn't help, either.

Yes, we are overly dependent on foreign oil. But that's because the so-called environmentalist lobby stopped our nuclear energy program in its tracks I don't know how many decades ago. Again, the lawyers.

How about global warming? I don't know, how about global warming? Is there such a thing? Is it our fault? Can we or should we be doing anything about it?

I like to think I'm a rational man who believes in the scientific method. I've heard all the debates from both sides, and I can't get past all the polarized rhetoric to make heads or tails out of it.

All I know is polluting is bad and we shouldn't do it so much. Naive, I know, but that's all I've got.

So here we are, having worked and paid taxes our entire lives, just so politicians, lobbyists, environmentalists and lawyers (or maybe they're all the same thing) can tell us exactly how to live, work and drive. These radical environmentalists--or whoever it is that lobbies for all this crappy legislation--have us coming and going.

Well, here's what I'd like to see. I'd like to see all the legislation, the lobbies and the partisan politics taken out of the picture so we can let business be business. I'd like to see entrepreneurs invent green technology and VCs fund it. I'd like to see companies compete, build nuke plants, build alternative energy plants, do whatever the heck they want.

I'd like to drive any car I can afford. When prices at the pump skyrocket, oil companies make a bundle and we all go out and buy hybrids. When they go down, oil companies take it in the shorts and there's a Hummer in every garage.

I'd like to build and live in a house that has the lighting, heating and windows that suit me, and I'd like to do it without having to cheat the system because the legislation is overbearing and ridiculous. When new lighting, glass, solar power and any other kind of innovation becomes cool and cost effective, I'll buy it because I'll save money in the long run and I think efficiency is smart.

That's called market capitalism. It works fine just the way it is. And politicians, lobbyists, legislatures and lawyers do nothing but slow it down and screw it up.

[afterhours]

let's take your thinking to a logical end

Let's not regulate anything. Enron was GOOD for your state. That's the <br />analysis I get from your shortsightedness. California highways are made for <br />Hummers -- and let's consume as much as we can before the next generation <br />gets any. I like where you're going with this. In fact, a lot of 'personal <br />liability' has been stripped away by your reconning -- and there shouldn't be <br />restrictions on most things. 2x2s are perfectly good for roof trusses -- you <br />should be able to build in a mudslide zone (aka San Diego) -- hey, let's face <br />it, there's nothing wrong with child labor or thalidomide. Rail against the <br />environmentalists -- they saved your precious Yosemite, cleaned up your <br />smoggy L.A. air and polluted waters of the City by the Bay. The likes of you <br />never lifted a finger -- just whined.

[Chaku01]

We're all greedy humans...

You are missing one "little" point here, even though I do not support legislation that tells us to put diapers on, or to go at least twice a day to pee, humans are greedy by nature. Basically it means that if you solely rely on the market to develop a long term sustainable way of life, you will drive your hummer over the cliff before you see it... The market only represents the greedy personal desires of the people that do not take into account anything else than their own satisfaction. I consider myself aware of the waste and pollution I make every day, though it doesn't make me trade my brand new car for a "green hybrid" one, because I don't like it as much and I want to satisfy my greedy desire. If legislation did not impose car manufacturers to lower the vehicules pollution output, cars you're driving now would probably pollute 1000 times more... I think initiatives should be taken to promote energy efficiency and low polluting technology, and houses are big sources of energy spilling. Any initiative is good, but if as you say, it is proved that it doesn't work, it should be replaced for another one but not abandon this to the "invisible hand" of the money making centred economy...

[stobak]

It's all about balance

Of course, I presented a controversial viewpoint to make a point. I agree that balance is needed. But when legislation goes overboard, to the point where it insights wasteful behavior that thwarts its original purpose, it means we're out of balance.<br /><br />Steve Tobak

[tgdalton]

What an idiot...

Wait until that one child you and your wife are able to conceive has autism, and <br />then sit and wonder if that situation is related to unfettered markets and <br />companies like DuPont "just doing business."

[stobak]

What flavor Kool-Aid is it today?

EOM.<br /><br />Steve Tobak

[robertjsmithiii]

Applying California standards of legislation to affix blame to all different levels of green legislation [and all associated legislative actors] is not only presumptuous of you but it is also incorrect. Requirements in California always force a level of regulation that tends to keep citizens' pockets out of the equation. Heck, even corporations such as utilities companies suffer by regulation that imposes a mandate but does not offer an incentive. In fledgling green states such as Virginia, my home state, incentives are beginning to be offered for various levels of affirmative green change but mandatory regulation is not imposed. The result is simple. Look at the University of Mary Washington; their voluntary alignment with Noresco [Massachusetts-based energy solutions corporation] in achieving levels of green change has saved the school $400,000 per annum. The bottom line is that the Commonwealth of Virginia itself saves $400,000 per annum just from that one institute of higher education; whether Virginia wants to rescind the difference from education funding in its biennial budget is up to the General Assembly. The money can be forwarded to effect green change in other domains of the Commonwealth. The conclusion is simple: not all [or even most] green legislation is "crap". In fact, the only "crap" that I can think of is the insistence of maintaining or expanding nuclear energy, a format that requires enormous amounts of regulation [based on simple risk-assessment] and, consequently, a lot of state spending on management and other issues of regulation. California may be a different world but their test run on green energy is inspiring different frameworks of approach in other states that aren't so intent on regulation.<br /><br />My site is under construction but up if you would like to visit it. www.gogreenvirginia.org.<br /><br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Robert J. Smith, III<br />Richmond, Virginia<br />Advocate, 25