It can’t be done, eh? Fighting words.
If there is one thing I’ve learned during my continuing immersion in all things green and energy efficient it is that there is always someone who will tell you “that’s not energy efficient because…” or “that’s not truly sustainable because…” or “have you considered the impact on…”. Hole pickers. Apparently, for instance, a Range Rover is better for the environment than a Prius. Embodied energy, you see. Well, sometimes you just have to do what you think is right. What you do think may change from year to ten years but the fact that you’re thinking at all is a bloody good start. Such is true sustainability - assess first, think first.
It was my pleasure to recently attend a presentation on the future of the built environment. The speaker was the renowned structural engineer and collaborator, Tristram Carfrae of Arup. Carfrae has the most wonderful philosophy for his modern designs of “delightful efficiency”. By his own admittance he was once a stickler for structure; no waste, no extras. However, now amidst his astounding portfolio is the National Aquatic Centre in Beijing. The Water Cube, is possibly the most delightfully efficient building on the planet. Inspired by soap bubbles it appears fragile yet it’s designed to withstand earthquakes, 20% of the solar energy that falls upon its synthetic shell is captured to, among other things, help heat the swimming pools and the natural effect of hot air rising is harnessed in a heat recovery system to warm the intake of cold fresh air. This post cannot do it justice for it is truly amazing. This post does it no injustice, however, to highlight its simplicity. It reflects and adopts everyday things and basic principles and it achieves true and astounding beauty. Could the big box have been built with less steel and material? Sure, but must that always be the point?
There is a school of thought that advocates waiting to act, weighing and measuring the perfect solution.
And so it is with biomass as a source of energy. It is by now a well known argument that biofuels (and biomass generally) cannot be the answer to our climate change woes without exacerbating food shortages and famine by competing for arable farm-land. So, forget biomass. Move on. Next! But with this approach we risk ignoring all the glaringly obvious advantages and opportunities.
SciDev.net, last September reported that Kenyan farmers have begun to fell eucalyptus and pine trees planted near and as such depleting water resources. This, at the behest of a government directive. Foul! Deforestation! Well, it’s not necessarily so. For instance, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) advocates a strategy of planting less thirsty specimens in these arid areas - a systematic approach of replacing the evergreens with deciduous trees (bare of leaves for six months of the year and thus requiring significantly less liquid refreshment) such as Sudan Teak and Melia Volkensii, a cousin of mahogany. The benefits of this proposal may be many. The felled timber could be used as feedstock for biochar preparation and biomass energy generation. The resultant increase in useful water can only aid increasing crop yields and subsequent application of biochar to the land may in fact, should any number of peer reviewed studies be believed, multiply this effect.
My point (that which is threatening to elude me) is that nothing at this juncture should be ignored. Sustainability as life must be about balance. It must be about recognizing that there is indeed in the words of Mark Twain, ahem, “more than one way to skin a cat”. Efforts, especially, those of new, boundary changing research and development should be applauded and not picked upon for perceived weaknesses in the argument of their intent.
And as for Copenhagen and the great climate debate? I may be delusional but I see parallels here. Anthony Giddens, former Director of the London School of Economics, eminent sociologist and author of The Politics of Climate Change expressed a very simple fact in an opinion piece published in The Australian: the world is a diverse place. As such, how can we ever expect to have one solution, one binding agreement, one target? We must share a goal of continued, sustainable existence but to achieve this must we really believe there is only one way? Giddens says the maligned Copenhagen Accord may well prove a worthy foundation upon which to build bilateral and regional alliances and agreements and thus tackle climate change by acknowledging the strength of diversity as well as its weakness.
In a time when we take stock of what is important and grapple to our geo-cultural identities with hoops of steel, I’ll buy into that.
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