You can forget local control

Take a look at the proposed "green codes" of the building trades, and note they are to be "international." When I see the struggle we have here at tiny Lakeside with issues of private (but poor) taste, preservation, dues, taxes, and costs, I really wonder what you can do with an international building code for sustainability, except keep the 3rd world from developing, and the developed world in complete chaos.

When passed by the International Code Council (ICC) through its consensus process and adopted by code jurisdictions, such a code would make sustainable design a mandatory practice, not a suggested alternative. . .

Through the working document, the Sustainable Building Technology Committee (SBTC) and participants have been looking at codes and rating systems in Europe, Australia, and the United States. “The strength of the finished code will be in its unity,” Green says. “It will give architects, states, and municipalities one single tool in the I-Codes they need to guide sustainable development.”

The National Association of Governors (NGA), as part of its comprehensive national Energy Conservation and Improved Energy Efficiency policy, adopted in July the promotion of carbon neutral new and renovated buildings by 2030, a commitment proposed by the American Institute of Architects. Maybe ALA should follow. That's a lot of hot air. Or AMA. Or AARP.

Once we get all these oldsters to stop breathing (not really, even greenies know that is carbon neutral), eating meat and burning fossil fuel or using plastic or modern technology, maybe then we can reach the carbon neutral state so longed for by people whose religion believes Mother Nature has too much flatulence.