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Before you consider buying one of the “eco-friendly” homes featured in the Rocky Mountain News’ Home Front section (“The eco effect,” July 21), consider this: Those homes are not only part of the “green living movement,” they are also part of the urban sprawl movement. There is nothing “green” about urban sprawl.
If you own a 6,200 square-foot home, whether or not the square footage is contained within a 3,800 footprint, your footprint upon the Earth is still several times larger than a family who lives in a 1,500 square-foot home within the Denver city limits.
The article doesn’t say anything about the lot size of these homes. Also, if the people living in these homes commute into Denver for work, they are using more fossil fuels and producing more CO2 and other pollution than someone who lives closer to their job.
Green living is important, and I am hopeful to see that the general population in this country seems to be more aware of environmental issues. I’m just keeping it real.

Laura Lubbers Evans, Colorado Springs

READER COMMENTS

laura the answer is simple, just by carbon credits like the hollywood type and algore.
there problem solved one is now carbon neutral.

Posted by on July 24, 2007 05:21 AM:

"...the answer is simple, just by carbon credits like the hollywood (sic) type and algore (sic). there problem solved one is now carbon neutral."

I have a feeling you don't even know what "carbon credits" are. Could you please explain how they work?

Charles B Ask AL Gore how they work if you don't know. Don't pick on someone else. The point is, THEY DO NOT WORK. They allow people like Gore to wallow in effitism and feel-good drival.

AF

Just as Hybrid drivers do not know of the environmental costs of the fuel cells they need to replace every five to seven years. People need to feel good, not know what their actual carbon footprint actually is.

chas b carbon credits are the snake oil of the 2000's. you go to a company to buy carbon credits and they say they will plant trees to make you feel good. now it only takes 50 years for the tree to actually do anything but who cares if you feel good about it. also the government is looking into these so called do gooders as to what if anything they actually do.

Support al-queda - buy an SUV and gun it every chance you get. Consume as much fossil fuel as possible, in every possible form (yes, even coal helps). Ridicule all efforts to gain US energy independence. Mock Al Gore (remember - he is a hypocrite but you certainly are not). Al-queda is counting on you!!!! Fill 'er up!!!

I completely agree with this letter-writer. Also, I really advocate buying existing homes, instead of new ones, to minimize negative environmental impacts. I think if there was a massive shift to doing so, we'd see far more environmental good done.

Of course, I realize that a lot of older homes are far more expensive, as they generally are of higher quality and possess more charm and character than today's plywood boxes. That's the Catch-22.

MTS Yes agree should look at existing homes and agree on the prices. But will add 1 other point. Try looking at the cheaper existing homes. The ones that are kept up are listed above value due to current market, but those that are not kept up and are former rentals can be downright scary. We are looking now and there are homes that I will refuse to walk into as you can see the bugs jumping from the doorway and the stench knocks you off your feet. Causes a person to seriously think of new when that is encountered multiple times a day in a search. Still looking for the old home and will wait for it, but do understand why others do not.

I've got carbon credits for sale....cheap!

BWR, you noted: "Still looking for the old home and will wait for it, but do understand why others do not."

Agree, the pyschological "pull" to own a home is pretty strong, and it's certainly one of the defining factors of achieving the American dream.

The problem is that today, it's getting harder for folks to do so and then be able to hold on to that house.

In my opinion, these interest only, no payment down schemes are best to be avoided. People should try to save as much as possible to put down so they can carry a reasonable mortgage instead. Of course, that leads to yet another Catch 22...it's getting harder and harder to save up for a 20% down payment on today's housing prices.

I'm hoping more people get wise to the fact that housing is seriously overpriced and make a massive decision to not buy until prices settle back down to the realm of reality.

But then I see people plunking down $350K for a modest two, three bedroom bungalow in the Highlands district simply because it's a trendy place to live now. That's great for them they have the money to do so...but I think they're stupid for doing it. They're basically working and paying twice as much for half of what people were getting just a short decade ago.

Funny, none of these head in the sanders really know how carbon credits work...

Now Charles just because your question was not answered does not mean people do not know. Hell there are many questions you have not answered of mine. Never assumed you did not know nor could find the answer. What do you want to know about carbon credits?

I'll be your huckleberry

bwr,

I know what carbon credits are. I just want to hear from these people who imply the idea is ridiculous or ineffective that they actually know how they work.

I'm pretty sure they don't.

Do you think they are useful?

Potentially can be a good thing if used right. But what I see is a further differentiation between the haves and the have nots. For an individual it can be an excuse to justify the fact that they are not conserving and do not intend to. Paying off Conservation Guilt. Would prefer they put their efforts into real conservation myself.

Turning something important into a Commodity trading excercise. Will it help? Maybe

bwr,

While I'm not quite as skeptical as you about the personal carbon credits, I understand your point. I look at it as a voluntary luxury tax, and even though the real conservation payoff is downstream and in many cases unverifiable. Ultimately I think/hope that there is an effect beyond the psychological repercussions felt by the purchaser. Ultimately at least it can do no harm.

There is much more to be gained by the enterprise of corporate carbon credits. If a company in Chili can lower it's carbon emissions for $10.00 per pound, whereas a company in the US that is already running pretty clean would have to pay $100.00 per pound to decrease it's emissions, then it makes sense to allow them to go the cheaper route to greater effect.

The location of the reductions are not important. The net gain is the bottom line.

Carbon Credits 101

Someone, somewhere wants to buy wind energy, but his or her utility only offers coal-fired generation or the utility is "sold out" of wind. Every MW hour that the customer uses produces about a ton of CO2. The average homeowner uses about 7 MWhr / year that produce (coal) 7 tons of CO2 per year. That homeowner can voluntarily, (for now) purchase 7 tons of CO2 credits from a wind farm that has no actual connection to the customer, say in North Dakota. The wind farm would need to produce 7MWhrs of energy to meet that buyers needs to offset their CO2. The wind generator gets to sell the energy and the credits as two separate products. This promotes the building of new wind energy. They can only sell the 7 tons of credits and the 7 MWhrs once. This allows a person to directly support the building of CO2 neutral projects outside of the buyer’s geographical area.

It encourages the development of renewables by providing an extra revenue stream to more expensive technologies.

DWP

agreed Charles that there can be great good done with the credits. There is discussion in different forums that this could be a very large or if not the largest commodity item of the near future.

Hell there is tons of$$$$$$$ that will be exchanged with a lot of different areas of Conservation and Pollution reduction. I am not against it by any means, and actually looking for areas of opportunity to open my own business. So I guess we will see how this all pans out

bwr,

Guess which companies are leading the pack as far as making money from green power. Wrong! GE, Shell, Conaco Phillips, BP and Halliburton. I'm sure none of these groups are in it for the money, they just want to do what is right. Don't forget about the full time total employment plan for each and every environmental lawyer in the world. If you are going to try to make money off of the green sheep, you better hurry. The sharks ar ein the water.

Hey
Posted by on July 25, 2007 02:14 PM

Hey there is plenty of money out there. Just have to go get it. If the companies dont then we will end up paying in taxes......

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