Between the title of the article and the photo, it's clear what this article is about. While the knee-jerk reaction may be a resounding "not at all," it's worth a bit of thought...
Blogging The New York Times: How ‘Green’ Can a Huge House Be?
Passing laws would be the only way to keep people from building huge houses, and think of the problems: what do we do with the huge houses we already have? How would one advocate a law that literally scales down the American dream?
But houses, big or small, do have an impact on the environment, and getting more of them LEED certified means that there will be less impact. (Note that we said less impact -- less of a bad thing is still bad.)
The alternative we'd like to see pursued? A zero-net energy requirement for homes over a certain size. This is obtainable now, with current technology: ground-source heat pumps; lots of photovoltaic panels; solar hot water. It just takes money.
And if you've got the money to buy a huge, huge house, we don't see any harm in making it a little -- or a lot -- more expensive. Given the size of the 'green' homes profiled in the article, getting the energy usage down to zero would make the biggest long-term impact.
image Douglas Healey for The New York Times
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I have to admit that this is quite possibly the FUGLIEST house I have ever seen in my entire (long) life. I, I, I... I don't even know where to begin. Everything about it is just so wrong...
But aesthetics aside, I think people will not be motivated to undertake the still-enormous expense of building energy-generating/conserving elements into their homes. Why would someone spend $30,000 on solar panels when they can install an inground swimming pool instead? A geothermal HVAC system is not exactly something that will inspire envy among your friends. Sure, it's the right thing to do, but why suffer for the environment when you could have fabulous granite countertops instead? Given the almost prohibitively long payback period for these systems, I don't think people have been given enough of a financial incentive to take the plunge.
Rather than sending out these useless "stimulus checks" to jumpstart the economy, I think the money should have been used to create new green collar jobs and create incentives for homeowners and builders to install solar, wind and geothermal systems.
-The cost of the systems should be 100% tax deductible.
-The federal government should provide ultra low interest loans to homeowners, businesses and factories installing, developing and manufacturing solar, wind and goethermal systems.
-Green technology companies should receive huge tax incentives while oil companies should be levied a heavy carbon tax.
-The cost of the systems should be greatly subsidized and made more affordable.
-Local jurisdictions should provide significant property tax breaks to homes with solar, wind and geothermal systems, while NEW homes over, say, 3000sf would have very high property taxes.
-Local zoning should allow some types of zoning variations in exchange for carbon neutralizing systems.
Not only would we be jumpstarting the "green economy," the average American would actually save money by generating energy. It's a shame that our so-called "economic stimulus" is coming in the form of more flat panel TVs and iPods for Americans rather than something actually meaningful.
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i agree with hejiranyc, this house is an ugly monstrosity! I think we definitely need to legislate zero energy homes, (as well as most other actions to help slow global warming) otherwise most people will not make the personal choice to do the right thing. Small individual actions are helpful, but just a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to happen now (actually yesterday).
Post peak oil I bet that eyesore becomes barracks for suburban refugees who farm the once tidy lawns.
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