mark handler
SAWHORSE
Hope all goes well for you.
Mark:\ said:Average additional construction cost:• LEED “Certified”: less than 1%
• LEED “Silver”: 1‐2%
• LEED “Gold”: 3‐4%
• LEED “Platinum”: 4‐8%
No it's about both, it's also about the freedom to do what you want and not have to do what commercial, political, and religious "stakeholders" think you should want. It's also about building a healthy home in line with the Healthy Building Standards of the Global Health and Safety Initiative. It's not about what the world's most renowned scientist calls "a secular religion" . It's also about rebelling against a totalitarian state and their Green Police.\ said:So it's not about Sick building syndrome, It's about money
And:"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."
-Source Unknown (Most people believe it's Alexander Tytler)
"You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept Communism outright; but we'll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you will finally wake up and find that you already have Communism. We won't have to fight you; we'll so weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands." Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 17, 1894 – September 11, 1971)
The world is Darwinian world, full of winners and losers, we can't change that, we should remain a meritocracy and not seek a Utopian egalitarian society and destroy what Abraham Lincoln described as "The last best hope on earth" for freedom, social engineering should be ended as public policy, we need fewer laws limiting freedom not more, the Audi Superbowl commercial shows the public perception of "Green", and I'm sure that the creators of the commercial didn't even know that the word had come to be synonymous with "toxic".No civilization can exist without social stability. The need for stability is why we create government. We are a county of laws. If you want to eliminate laws, you get Anarchy. No enforced authority.
To start with dump the USGBC and it's LEED program, it was born of a fraudulent scheme and continues to be nothing but profiteering, it's been a failure on all counts at this point, the ICC and California have come up with their own green codes, ironically Big Eco is suing to block California's program because it doesn't go far enough, but the lawsuit is an opportunity to redesign the entire scheme, even through Amicus Curiae pleadings in support of the Sierra Club, as much as I despise that Socialist organization. In a positive vein, I like what has been done in the Portola Valley Town Center, Portola Valley was my old college drinking grounds at Rossotti's Beer Garden, it was horse farms and ranches in my day, now it is the home of billionaires who can well afford "Green" in this videoIf LEED Is Broken; Let's Fix It.Addressing LEED elements is like solving a Rubik’s Cube. It takes the right combination of elements to complete a building.
¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GaianismGaianism is a the environmentalist religion described by late author Michael Crichton. It is rooted in an effort to scam taxpayers and quartz crystal buyers out of billions of dollars by pretending to hold intuitive knowledge of humanity's intrinsic connection with our Home World, the Earth, also known as Gaia and then claiming "global warming". Gaia was originally a minor Greek goddess of little importance. Approaching our Home World as Gaia, a name derived from ancient Greek Polytheism, offers us a modern Earth-centered and mostly Pantheist spirituality based on a belief in the intrinsic personality of the Earth as a Living Organism that has passed through billions of years of Evolutionary expression. The modern emergence of this Earth-centered philosophy stems out of the accepted Gaia Theory which conveys the science behind the Earth as an ancient, living and self-regulating system within systems. Gaians are individuals who use the Gaia Theory of debunked global warming hoaxer James Lovelock spiritually. These people hold a strong belief that the Earth is, in its ancient legacy and self-regulating expression of life, an entity that we are defined through as a species of the planet. It is a Gaian's endeavor to maintain a close relationship with the planet in order to strive toward world peace, maintain global homeostasis and find inner fulfillment.
Often referred to as Gaianism, or the Gaian Religion, this spiritual aspect of the philosophy is very broad and inclusive, making it adaptable to other religions: Humanism, Taoism, Neo-Paganism, Pantheism, Judeo-Christian Religions, and others.
The beliefs of Gaianism are fairly open-ended:
1. Honor the Earth, who is often approached as Gaia. (Gaia, sometimes spelled Gaea). Gaia is a historically-rooted name which in its modern approach represents the co-dependent "Web of Life" that includes all physical forms of existence from plants to humans; sometimes this is expanded to include stars and other planets, or the Universe itself. Some Gaians say Gaia is Earth's authentic name as "She" is therefore personalized in order for us as humans to have a better relationship with Her. This is in the same sense that Mars (or Nigel) are names of the planet Mars.
2. Endeavor to Soften or Reduce the Human Impact on Gaia. (Essentially, this means being mindful of one's actions and to be moderate with natural resources. Environmentalism and Environmental Education is strongly encouraged.)
3. Be Respectful of Life in All Its Forms. (Be respectful and courteous not only of human life, but also animal and to an extent plant life. Many Gaians often become vegetarians and vegans, however this is not a requirement.)
4. Capture control of the State and raise taxes as a form of tithing.
More religious aspects of Gaianism (such as the nature of the Divine, afterlife, etc.) are left up to the individual's personal belief system, however there is a general consensus on the preservation of consciousness following the death of a body. This preservation applies to all life forms and not just the human condition. Gaianism is simply a spiritual philosophy given in an effort to understand the unity of the universe that binds us all and encourage environmental awareness.¹