Time to Eat the Dog?
With so much emphasis on techno-fix & business as usual, Architects Brenda & Robert Vale believe that sustainability begins at home. They say;
"The focus of much current thinking about sustainability is flawed. There is a belief that we can have our cake and eat it — that we can all continue to have more in a sustainable future; we just have to buy “green” products.
Secondly there is the idea that the only behaviour change we have to make is to take a cloth bag when we drive to the supermarket, and all will be well with the world.
In architecture there is an exaggerated focus on details, such as materials choices, and a loss of focus on the big issues, such as energy demand and size of houses. At the same time there is altogether too much focus on buildings. Although it is often forgotten in architecture, buildings are for people, and over the years we came to realise through analysis that it is much more effective to reduce greenhouse gases or ecological footprint through how we use buildings rather than through how we design them."
The Vales’ new book highlights the huge ecological footprint of keeping a dog as a pet.
Image by Brenda
