[GSBN] Fw: The Mechanical Ventilation Debate

[Feile Butler]

I'm forwarding this for Robert Riversong. 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Robert Riversong 
To: Feile Butler 
Cc: Graeme North ; John Straube 
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [GSBN] The Mechanical Ventilation Debate


      Feile, et al:




      Thank you for using my statements to continue this important dialogue. Feel free to forward this to the list as well (and I would accept an invitation to join this group if it were offered).



      The "divide" that John Straube describes is not necessarily between those who choose to offer the best solutions to the majority who are immersed in the current (and almost certainly unsustainable) paradigm of complexity, control and comfort – and those who seek to change the cultural paradigm (which is a near-impossible task). It is between those who, with the very best of intentions, support and encourage the current paradigm by offering "best practices" consistent with it – and those who understand that the current paradigm is very close to a global collapse which will force dramatic social and technological change (the only way fundamental change has ever occurred in evolutionary or cultural history).



      There is a long and noble history of the prophetic Luddite tradition which has challenged the "value-neutral" notion of technology, including such notables as Oswald Spengler, Aldous Huxley, Paul Goodman, Leopold Kohr, George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul, Lewis Mumford, Marshall McLuhan, E.F. Schumacher, Ivan Illich, Wendell Berry, Theodore Roszak, Edward René David Goldsmith, Joseph Tainter, Jerry Mander, Neil Postman, Kirkpatrick Sale, Ted Kaczynski, Morris Berman, Ronald Wright, Nicholas Carr, and Spencer Wells. 



      And the current crop of "the best and brightest" who are warning about the impending global crisis and inevitable Shift include Michael T. Klare (Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine, and on the boards of directors of Human Rights Watch and the Arms Control Association), Martin Rees (British cosmologist and astrophysicist, Astronomer Royal, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, past President of the Royal Society of London), Richard A. Posner (American jurist, legal theorist, and economist, Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, and the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century), James Howard Kunstler (American author, lecturer and social critic, former staff writer for Rolling Stone), Jared Diamond (American scientist and author, Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles), James Lovelock (British scientist, environmentalist and futurologist, best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis), Gus Speth (co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality for Jimmy Carter, Professor of environmental and constitutional law at Georgetown University; founder of the World Resources Institute, senior adviser to President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the United Nations Development Group, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University and Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy, now professor at Vermont Law School). 



      The natural building community has long been true pioneers in developing and demonstrating alternative "appropriate" technologies for such essentials as shelter. We don't change the paradigm by asking people to put on an extra sweater – that impropriety may have cost Jimmy Carter a second term – or do without conveniences that we have been conditioned to believe are necessary for our well-being. But we can make such a paradigm-shift possible by manifesting living examples of lower-tech lifestyles that demonstrably increase personal freedom and well-being. People change when alternatives become visible, and it is the role of the pioneer to create or provide such alternatives.



      As one who has been designing and building somewhat alternative shelters for the past 30 years (including the first state-approved indoor site-built composting toilet in Massachusetts in 1998, and some of the first rubble-trench and shallow frost-protected foundations under superinsulated homes built of local rough-sawn lumber since 1987 – all with some form of low-tech whole-house ventilation system), I would hate to see the even more pioneering natural building community devolve into the mainstream paradigm (as is already happening).



      If James Howard Kunstler is right (see his wonderfully prophetic novel: World Made by Hand), and I believe he is, then we will soon be forced to resort to the simpler and more hand-made technologies of our great-grandparents. If at least some of us don't begin to relearn and exemplify those technologies today, then we will have a much more difficult time adapting when the Shift hits the (ventilation) fan.



      - Robert





      --- On Fri, 3/22/13, Feile Butler <feile at mudandwood.com> wrote:


        From: Feile Butler <feile at mudandwood.com>
        Subject: [GSBN] The Mechanical Ventilation Debate
        To: "Global Straw Building Network" <GSBN at sustainablesources.com>
        Date: Friday, March 22, 2013, 9:14 AM


        Hi John

        I accept that you were "implicitly discussing the 99% of homes 1 billion people live in the western live in. There are literally billions more people lined up trying to build and get into this type of housing, so the conversation, and the understanding of different types of housing is really important for the environment."

        I also know the mechanical ventilation debate has opened up a much bigger discussion than the original posts intended. We are looking at this from different angles.

        The big wheel is turning. You say that 99% of people want/need passivehaus housing. The supposition is that this is the direction that the construction industry/public desire is going and it has gathered so much momentum that it cannot be stopped. 

        To borrow from Robert Riversong's email again -

        That we don't have much of a choice today in the necessity of mechanical ventilation in well-insulated homes is evidence of the cul-de-sac that our "progress" has driven us into.

        I suppose I am questioning (maybe naively and idealistically) whether there can be a shift in societal expectation? 

        I know when people started building with straw bales, the wider masses thought they were crazy. It was so simple and so cheap - it couldn't be possible!!! Now it is a well-established, well-researched method of building. Just because the "mad" 1% were doing it, didn't put them off. And with time it continues to gain a bigger and bigger foothold in the mainstream.

        A lot of our work is about bringing people back to simplicity - to start with the people - to change their perceptions - and then a different type of building becomes possible. This type of work may only be affecting the 1% at the moment (maybe even less), but there is potential for it to grow. I suppose I am trying to say that it is important that we do keep other options open - that there is not just one holy grail. (And I accept that this is not what the original thread was about).

        If we decide to hang on to the wheel and turn with it, then it is critically important that the best quality buildings are produced for this style of construction - which is what you are promoting. I suppose some of us are deciding to jump off the wheel (and hope it doesn't roll over us and squash us to pieces).

        Hmmmmm

        Feile


        Féile Butler
        MRIAI B.Arch Dip. Arch Conservation Grade III
        Mud and Wood
        Grange Beg, Skreen, Co. Sligo, Ireland

        T:  +353 (0) 71 930 0488 
        M: +353 (0) 86 806 8382
        E : feile at mudandwood.com
        W: www.mudandwood.com




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