platinum certified consumption

It was on the news last night. Two Oakland homes, within mile from one another are vying for the title of most green house in the nation. They are Platinum LEED certified homes and that means they have the bragging rights for being the most environmentally friendly consumers.

Wait a minute? Did I say consumer? Something is clearly wrong with this picture.

One house, the newly built 4,600 sq ft "Margarido House" is a case in point. It is attempting to achieve the first LEED-H Platinum certification. The other house is older but extensively remodeled and quite a bit smaller.

First the good news: Margarido does some things well. It uses locally sourced products, recycled concrete and glass countertops and reclaimed ground water. It has underground storage for rain water. It has drought tolerant landscaping and plants. It also uses LED lights (nothing said about leaving them on all night though!).

Margarido also has the key token of environmentalism: it uses solar panels. However, even with all its solar panels it is not energy neutral. And that had the owner worried. According to the newscast he was planning to buy more solar panels. Buy, buy, buy baby. Buy your way to green!

What about the other bad news? I doubt that Margarido, for all its certification and hoopla can beat our energy use of around $500 a year for gas and electric. You can see our bills in earlier postings. Or our water use of around 35 gallons per day, including a vegetable garden that actually produces food instead of decorative cacti.

To say nothing of the wasteful 4,600 square feet, or the extensive remodeling that its main competitor underwent. What happened to all the materials they ripped out?

What Margarido and other Platinum certified houses are, is examples of a new breed of consumerism. Green consumerism. It may help the "economy" but I doubt it is good for our environment and it certainly won't solve our pollution problem. Better would be not to build Margarido and live in a small house. Better would be to grow veggies in the yard. But who gets platinum plaques for that?