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ALBION DISTRICT LIBRARY BY PERKINS + WILL IS A 2018 COTE TOP TEN RECIPIENT. IMAGE: DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Committee on the Environment (COTE®) is an AIA Knowledge Community working for architects, allied professionals, and the public to achieve climate action and climate justice through design. We believe that design excellence is the foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. Our work promotes design strategies that empower all AIA members to realize the best social and environmental outcomes with the clients and the communities they serve.

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Premier sponsors: Sherwin-Williams
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  • 1.  "AN America First Energy Plan"

    Posted 02-01-2017 11:23 AM
    Obviously, I am appalled by the Trump Administration’s deceitful statement. There are so many gross distortions and falsehoods here that it is difficult to know how to comment.

    The article says they are for “energy policies. . . freeing us from dependence on foreign oil”. But we’ve already done so and are producing a surfeit of oil which may be why President Trump is so keen on building new pipelines to make it easier to export more oil.

    The unsubstantiated claim that eliminating some anti pollution regulations will increase wages of American workers $30 billion over the next 7 years is as believable as the President’s assertion that 3 million illegal votes were cast for Mrs. Clinton.

    In recent years, American job growth has been spectacular in solar and wind energy and will probably continue to be even with little help from the Trump administration. Expanding the production of fossil fuel is a recipe for planetary disaster. I suspect even the Trump administration knows this but it doesn’t square with their opportunistic attitudes. America’s coal industry has declined because of technology, not excessive regulation. Underground mining has been replaced by giant earthmoving machines that require only a fraction of the workers formerly employed underground. “Clean Coal” is a ridiculous oxymoron that would be laughable were it not accepted by so many people who should know better. Capturing and compressing CO2 effluent from power plant smokestacks and pumping it underground, even if somehow made financially feasible, is a terrible idea; there’s nowhere near enough room in the ground and most places it might be pumped ground water pollution (from carbonic acid and worse) will likely result and probably serious earthquakes as well.

    While “An America First Energy Plan” makes a pro forma endorsement of “. . . responsible stewardship of the environment”, everything the new administration has done indicates that this will not be the case. Their collective plans for managing our environment will result in a strong case for future prosecution of the President and many of his subordinates at the World Court for crimes against humanity.

    G. Mackenzie Gordon, A.I.A.


  • 2.  RE: "AN America First Energy Plan"

    Posted 02-03-2017 08:50 AM

    Thank you, G. Mackenzie Gordon!  There cannot be many, if any, of us in the architectural design community who are not actively engaged in responsible and conscientious work to create a sustainable future for generations to come.  This future must reduce fossil fuel consumption and use natural resources more wisely.  The "brighter energy future" of this re-published energy plan from the fact-free, illegitimate current administration would make the future of the earth much dimmer.

     

    What will it take to wake people up to the corporate dominance of thought in the discourse on energy policies?  The "burdensome regulations" they decry are statutes to protect clean water and air.  Are they negotiable?  The "untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves" they covet come at the expense of wild, unspoiled lands owned by 'we, the people,' and populated by threatened and endangered species who share this earth with us.  Are they expendable? The giant global fossil fuel corporations are part and parcel of the "OPEC cartel and (m)any nations hostile to our interests," as well as recipients of billions of dollars in subsidies from us, the taxpayers, every year.

     

    Regardless of the amount of oil and gas we squeeze, drill, frack, and drag from despoiled and polluted lands in our country, prices will not go down, because all of the oil goes directly into the global market. Prices rise and fall with global demand and global crises between and within nations.  The Keystone pipeline for the dirtiest oil on the planet gouged out of former forests in Canada has to cross our country to Gulf Coast refineries on its way to China because Canadians refuse to allow the pipeline to cross their land to refineries on the west coast.  Really?!  That is what our country is good for?  Supporting fossil fuel industry greed by risking the health of our lakes, rivers, and aquifers?

     

    The ending plea for "responsible stewardship of the environment," completed the full circle of hypocrisy, because this will never be a priority for this crowd.  And promising to "refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water," would be downright laudable if EPA scientists and staff had not just been told by the writers of this "energy plan" not to release any scientific information to the public, especially fact sheets, until further notice.  You remember the EPA, the one now headed by a climate-science denier.  We have our work cut out for us. Soundly rejecting this misguided Orwellian corporate doublespeak should be near the top of the list.

     

    Timothy Gideon Carlson, AIA

    Associate Vice President

    HGA   Architects and Engineers
    420 North 5th Street, Suite 100, Minneapolis, MN 55401
    Direct 612.758.4347  |  Fax 612.758.9347
    tcarlson@hga.com  | 

     






  • 3.  RE: "AN America First Energy Plan"

    Posted 02-07-2017 12:05 PM
    Did you happen to see this? So now we've gone from annoyance to "threat".
    Green movement 'greatest threat to freedom', says Trump adviser
    the Guardian remove preview
    Green movement 'greatest threat to freedom', says Trump adviser
    The environmental movement is "the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world", according to an adviser to the US president Donald Trump's administration.
    View this on the Guardian >
     

    ------------------------------
    Gary Moshier AIA
    Principal
    Moshier Studio
    Pittsburgh PA
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: "AN America First Energy Plan"

    Posted 02-10-2017 11:03 AM
    Thanks Gary - we did. As well as the FL Rep.'s bill HR.861 "To Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency." Fortunately neither effort has progressed since they were announced last week. That's hopeful but we can't rely on hope; we need action. The COTE AG met last week to discuss these and the many other unbelievable and pressing topics. We'll be posting more about that and looking for participation in upcoming days. Right now, we're planning on acting and advocating at all levels: national, regional and local. And don't forget corporate leverage. As with their lawsuit against Trump's immigration ban, they will bring a powerful voice to upholding our commitment to the Paris Agreement and pressing forward to address climate change with or without (or around) our federal government.

    Our 12,000 COTE members who participate in this group are smart, energized and ready to take on the work that our government is apparently unwilling to do. I'm hopeful because of that.

    Best regards,

    ------------------------------
    Paula McEvoy, FAIA, LEED Fellow
    2016 COTE AG Chair
    Atlanta GA
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: "AN America First Energy Plan"

    Posted 02-10-2017 11:04 AM

    The effects of perhaps all of Trump's policies can eventually be reversed with future legislation if our legislators are so inclined.   The one, most critical area where the adverse effects cannot be reversed is in climate change.  That's why our primary focus should be there.  Legislators that don't recognize that, should be voted out.

     

    Respectfully, Russ Ver Ploeg,  AIA,  LEED AP

    Ver Ploeg Architecture

    Des Moines, IA