I fully believe that the science suggesting that humans are killing the earth’s environment is right on. Even if all humanity suddenly started behaving in ways to protect the environment it would be many generations before real benefits would be seen. Some things, however, are changing. The water purity of many of the US’s lakes and rivers are substantially better than they were in the 1960s.

I also fully support the education of the masses to try to behave in a cogent and environmentally conscious way. But please let me emphasize the cogent part. There are several examples where some ill informed planner comes up will an unvalidated ‘green’ plan that completely backfires. Let me give a couple of examples, there is fantastic evidence that grass and green lawns are not a benefit to the environment. They often require fertilizer and mechanical maintenance to maintain that has a huge boost to their carbon footprint. Low maintenance trees or a rock garden is often better than a bright green, nicely trimmed lawn.

The so called green buildings where the lights and heat goes on and off based on the presence of people. That is a nightmare because I can supply the reader with numerous examples of times where the temperature in such buildings have produced frost on winders leading to cracking and structural failure. Also, where workers are at work stations and suddenly lights go out, sometimes disturbing power to computers and work is lost or heat goes off so frequently staff bring in portable heaters. Such heaters are fire hazard and have caused fires. So where is the green benefit?

Most workers that I know prefer to not work in a signature green building because it has been designed for form and press releases, and not function. Thus I can assure you there are green buildings where space and services need to be duplicated in functional space. Thus the green benefit is not only gone, but it is worse because traditional resources need to be duplicated. The administrators say the building is a success because it costs so little to run. Yes, if you have a big building with no one working in it, that is a cheap building to maintain. It may never wear out because there is no one producing ware.

Our government at the city, state and federal government has one method for tackling a problem. That is throw money at a problem and brag about all the money spent and or saved.

That is just sad.

What is needed is to throw smart people at a problem and to use resources smart and effectively. It has been less than one year since the big stimulus package has been launched and hundreds of billions of dollars has been documented as wasted. It will be touted as a success however, no matter what the real result because some of that huge pot of money will do some good. A 6 million dollar bonus to a bank executive will help that exec, but that same amount of money might also go to someone doing research to treat a disease that causes mental retardation and cure thousands of people. Why politicians with law degrees from Harvard cannot seem to see which choice for those millions are the smarter choices is beyond me. But history will always tell how the problem was solved by whoever was lucky enough to be in office when the job is done.