http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/business/energy-environment/26smart.html?pagewanted=4&ref=earth
Monday, October 4, 2010
Douglas McNiel Apes in the News
This article is from the New York Times, it was written by Tom Zeller and published on September 25 2010. This article is about building environmental friendly houses, “passive” homes, as they are called. In the United States it is fifteen percent more expensive to build these houses, while in Europe it is usually below five percent. These houses are seen more in Europe, because of this fact. Supporters of these houses, claim the costs in energy savings make up for the higher building costs. This article shows some bias towards the opposite from the “passive” homes because the author is a supporter of the movement. It continually states that it is practical, because it will cut down on the energy costs. The money that is saved from the energy is said to be enough to cover the extra building costs. The article states that it is definitely worth all the extra costs and hassled. This is applicable to Roman Numeral 3, letter 3, and part 3- impacts of population growth. As the population increases it will only become more important to be more energy efficient. It also deals with Roman numeral 5 part F- Energy Conservation. The whole article is about being more ecological efficient. The “passive” homes are suppose to help save energy.
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I think that the US should build more energy efficient homes, even if they are a little more expensive. The money saved will be worth the effort, and is one more step to establishing energy efficient homes and other buildings in more locations.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it's not the greatest time economically to be building these energy efficient homes in the US, I think we should build them. People will get their money's worth out of building these houses because they will have them for longer periods of time, and they help our environment, which longer term is better than paying less for a house that is not very efficient. And just as the supporters said in the article it will cost less for energy, so long term it is better economically for the people because they aren't spending as much on energy they use everyday.
ReplyDeleteTheir should be some sort of attempt to make this a more affordable and cost-efficient practice. Even though it is more expensive, hopefully if enough of the houses are constructed, they could at least partially cover the energy cost that it took to build the homes. After all, the second law of thermodynamics says that energy used will always be less useful energy the second time through.
ReplyDeleteThis is similar to the argument about buying hybrid cars. Yes they are more expensive, but how long will it take to regain the lost cost from saving on gas. Also, if it benefits the environment, everyone will win. Buy building a more environmentally friendly house, we are infact allowing us to live in a functioning world for longer. So, there should be a push to have less expensive, green housing.
ReplyDeleteThis current economy has seen a record number of house foreclosures. While creating environmentally friendly buildings sounds great, it really isn't competitive enough to compete fully on the real-estate market yet, especially in a poor economic climate such as this. A house is a considerable investment as it is, and while people may think that they'll be living there for many years to come and the finances will balance out, life never goes as planned. People often move and may find they have difficulty trying to sell a house marked up by many thousands of dollars over what it would be priced because its "environmentally friendly." Until green buildings are able to truly compete economically with their normal counterparts, they will remain a luxury.
ReplyDeleteWith our economy the way it is right now it is unlikely that people will spend the extra money to have a "passive home". People would rather save money and potentially, hurt the environment in the long run, then spend the extra money up front to help the earth.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the European attitude. There is nothing but beneficial effects that could come of this change. If America were to adopt this idea of using "passive" homes to house all of it's people, the environment would surely benefit massively. It simply ridiculous to fear the short term expenses when the benefits of this change could drastically help the world's environment, even considering the economic struggles of our time, they changes would eventually pay for themselves.
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