Headline August, 5th, 2012 / Regulation

Regulation

''A Government License To Dispense 'Destruction-Death' 

At An Acceptable Rate!'' 

It was a very strange world. As recently as the antediluvian 90s, 'I used to get called loopy,. Says McDonough, adding, ''but I was used to it'' As a Yale Architecture student in the mid-70s, he used to fit solar panels into his projects.

 'One of my teachers kept coming to my desk to give me criticism, and he would say, 'Bill you've got to understand, solar energy has nothing to do with architecture!'' Today, design-school Professors no longer view solar-energy systems as part of the plumbing. 

In fairness to all modernist Masters, they had no way of knowing that the kid he was talking to would become the harbinger of a movement to redesign design itself. 

Many of the radical players in the ecology and sustainability movements who have made their voices heard have done so through protests. Think of the vigilante style work of Greenpeace in the 70s. 

For most environmental activists, communal sacrifice and curbs on industry in order to create greater eco-efficiency that is, the reduction of environmental impact and resource consumption on global scale --are the prescriptions of choice. 

McDonough sees the matter through a very different lens. To him it's a design problem. Shrill broadsides against industry are misdirected. Dire predictions of heatless winters and a car-less future are missing the point. 

Perhaps the most compelling part of McDonough's plan is its repudiation of the Judeo-Christian guilt that has long defined the green movement. He rejects what he calls the 'dour face of eco-efficiency.'

 McDonough asks, 'How many environmentalists do you know who say growth is good?' 'We celebrate growth. Abundance is something we want. Our idea is to make production so clean that there's nothing left to regulate.' 

This, he notes, is extremely appealing to people of political persuasions, from those who love the environment to those who want commerce free of regulation.

The metaphor he employs to make his point is the cheery tree. 'Think of the abundance of a cheery tree's blossoms in the spring. We celebrate its abundance of blossoms. You don't look at a cheery tree in the spring and go, 'oh, my goodness! How many blossoms does it take? 

 It''s not very efficient. But it is highly effective. And effective, rather than efficient, is what we want. Think about efficiency versus effectiveness in another way. You don't listen to Mozart and think, How many notes does it take? 

He could have hit the piano with a two-by-four and got them all at once. Very efficient, but would we love it?' So, one of the points he makes in Cradle to Cradle is that being less bad is not being good -it's being bad, just less so. 

To be efficient is the same as being less bad. We need a change in direction. What we really need is an eco-effective strategy, to go along with our eco-efficient, where we look at the idea of actually inventing new things that will take us all the way up to our desired goals.' Masterly work!

Good night & God bless!

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