This article is part of a package brushing off the gloom and doom with good green news. Also included are:
Tomorrowland: An eco-smart urban design competition turns “what ifs” into “what is”
Hiring Mother Earth To Do Her Thing: Are capitalists the new conservationists?
Green All the Lawyers: Legal expert Mary Wood on how Lady Justice could tip the scales
In Praise Of Economic Pain: The threat of recession could lead to an environmental boon
Special Online Project: Mother Earth’s Big Comeback

Green Building: Back to Basics

“Green building” is a media darling—it’s chic, sleek, and upwardly mobile. Depending on the scale and spirit of the coverage, says the Walrus (May 2008), it can also be a false promise: “In the interest of looking sufficiently slick for the photo shoots,” the magazines opines, high-end consumer periodicals often gloss over decades of humble experimentation in affordable, small-scale sustainable housing.

New Mexico architect Michael Reynolds, for example, uses recycled automobile tires to build homes completely off the grid. Other buildings are made from straw bales, adobe, compressed earth, cordwood, and cob.

While these techniques won’t make the cover of Vanity Fair’s next “green” issue, they share commendable qualities. They are time-tested (adobe and other types of earth building are among the oldest known); they are labor-intensive and low-tech, consuming less energy in the building phase; and they are relatively simple to construct, which, by shifting the workload to homeowners, increases affordability.

Structures that are dependent on concrete and steel will never solve the energy crisis, no matter how many solar panels or gray-water recycling plants are attached to them. Like biofuels, fixing up what already exists is simply a transitional step toward truly sustainable living. Fortunately, now that the building industry is moving forward, the technology exists to keep them on a righteous path—with or without the sexy cover spread.