Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How is "cheap" green?

[Tim Mensch (tim-coho-l]

Racheli Gai wrote:
> I don't get it: How is "cheapest" equal to "greenest", and how are old
> trailer parks green?
>   
Brian is repeating a controversial claim he made on the list back in 
June 2007, and that folks on the list already challenged. It's clearly a 
controversial claim, and while there's a grain of truth behind it in 
this case (reuse of existing materials is "greener" than using new 
materials), it doesn't really stand up under close scrutiny;  in 
particular it ignores the case where the cost in dollars doesn't reflect 
the real costs that are being extracted on the environment or through 
the mistreatment of workers involved with the creation of a product. If 
Brian wants to ignore these costs, that's fine, it's his prerogative, 
but I  feel one can't ignore those costs and be "green," not by the 
popular definition.

Let's not rehash it again: Several people on Cohousing-L posted eloquent 
rebuttals (IMHO) already why the claim wasn't correct, at least for most 
definitions of "green."

The original thread started out with a similar claim from Brian here:

http://lists.cohousing.org/pipermail/cohousing-l/msg26222.html

The archives note several of the responses directly on that page, though 
I think there may have been more responses and side threads than the 
archive is linking to from that page; in particular, this one from Lisa 
Poley sums it up nicely:

http://lists.cohousing.org/pipermail/cohousing-l/msg26261.html

Tim

--
Tim Mensch

Currently at Wild Sage (Boulder, CO): http://www.wildsagecohousing.org

Founding member of Tumblerock, a Boulder, CO area community in its forming 
stages: http://tumblerock.org