Catherine Mohr is a robotics scientist and she spoke at TED recently about what makes the bigger difference and what doesn’t.
She makes good points. I’ll follow up by saying this: we all have an impact on the earth and a footprint. If we’re going to do something, like building a house, it’s better that we maximize energy efficiency and use sustainably-produced materials as responsibly as possible. But we’re not going to achieve perfection. You have no negative impact only if you are a plant, and if you want to count water usage, you could argue that even that’s not true. So while we ought to base our decisions on actual measurable goals and back up those decisions with sound science, I don’t believe we ought to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. It’s preferable to do better and to improve than to scrap it all because we’ll never be perfectly green.
By the way, a short presentation such as the one at TED allows only for a simplified version of events. To see more about the process of building Catherine and Paul Mohr’s house, check out their blog at 301monroe.com.
