bechtelgreenbuilders

** Director: ** PBS ** Release year: ** 2009   The central argument of the film is that we should make buildings greener. As the source of 48% of all carbon emissions, buildings have a large impact on climate change. Energy efficiency isn’t the only problem, however. The resources that we use in buildings today typically aren’t sustainable either. We obviously can’t do without buildings completely, nor can we keep building them the way we have. According to the film, what we need is new innovation. This doesn’t mean we need to completely forget about the ways we have built structures before; but in fact, many of the greener building techniques used are from back before we had limitless energy. What needs to happen is a revitalization of many of these old building techniques and integration with our modern lives. The very first step in this process is education. Most people are blind to the effects of their lives on everyone around them, but once we realize what we are doing it seems like common sense to make these kinds of changes. There are numerous benefits from building greener buildings: it makes business sense, it saves money in the long run, it increase building performance, and it promotes healthier lifestyles. No one will argue that we all want these things, but we must make some fundamental changes in our ways of thinking before it can become reality.  ** Who are the key social actors and stakeholders in the film? **  Nearly every single human being and most ecosystems hold stake in this film. There are two main reasons for this: 1) every human needs shelter of some sort and 2) the effects of global warming impact everything on this planet. Our buildings clearly have impacts on both. This documentary, however, focuses more on upper class Americans. The most of the homes considered unsustainable are large, energy consumptive suburban residences and most of the solutions have sizeable costs as well. There virtually no reference to the lower classes who both contribute to the problem and see most of its impacts. Also, even though animals and other parts of the ecosystem are not specifically referenced in the film, they presumed to be impacted by global warming also.  ** What does the film convey about the matrix of factors that contribute to our dependence on oil? **  The film really doesn’t look at any of the factors that contribute to our dependence on oil except for buildings and even here it does not go into any historical detail about why things are like this today. It really takes more of a “here’s where we are and here’s where we need to go” kind of approach. It is obvious that every human being needs some form of shelter (a.k.a. building) for survival and it is assumed that the better this shelter is the better quality of life the individuals will have. There certainly aren’t many people who have lots of money and choose to live in poor quality homes. It is also assumed in the film that since the 18th century, the easiest way to have nice living conditions is to expend a huge amount of energy and use the most convenient materials and methods of building. This often means throwing together cookie cutter houses built out of new lumber or stone that require large heating and cooling systems. Therefore, it is our undying belief in cheap energy that contributes most to our dependence on oil.  ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What does the film convey about the matrix of problems caused by our dependence on oil? ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The film does not go into much depth about what problems are caused by our dependence on oil, but it does mention a few points. Most importantly, buildings have an enormous consumption. One expert in the film mentions that “the early numbers were 40, 40, and 40” for buildings. That is, buildings require roughly 40% of the world’s resources for construction, they consume 40% of the world’s energy, and they create 40% of the world’s waste. These numbers are staggering and were one of the first red flags that something had to change. Another problem, that is not as obvious, but still important, is that by relying on cheap oil and other fuels, we have become largely disconnected from nature. Our buildings are mostly not integrated with nature at all, primarily because they don’t have to be. Instead they stand alone, providing a clear division between nature and our built environment. Most people spend their entire days inside of buildings, completely separated from nature. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What does the film convey about the matrix of affects that would be mobilized by a shift away from oil? ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">A shift away from oil would likely increase the cost of energy and render our current buildings and building techniques archaic. Thus green buildings would be a necessity. This film goes into a deep analysis of the effects of making the switch to green buildings. The obvious benefit is that they are more energy efficient and would make a shift away from oil much easier, but there are numerous challenges we must face beforehand. The biggest challenge is that there is very little understanding of green buildings. As stated before, most people don’t understand what impact their lives are having on the planet or why they should make an effort to live green. This can be very difficult to teach to people and there is no perfect way to do it. One of the best examples one of the speakers used in the film to explain the concept of green buildings was the Teletubys’ house. If someone was trying to tell me to build my house like this I would think they were crazy too. But there is more of a problem than just this general lack of understanding; most people don’t know what they actually need to do to design a green building. There is no cookie cutter green building design that will always be effective, nor can we just throw a few new pieces of equipment onto an existing building to make it green. What really needs to happen to make a green building is a unique bottom up design that takes into account all of the effects which this building will have on its environment. The LEED program was a step in the right direction to figuring out how this should be done, but this is no perfect solution either. The challenge is that this kind of design requires a special skill set that is not very well understood or taught very much. Part of the reason is that there has been a large deskilling in the construction design industry over the past couple centuries and picking it up now is anything but easy. If we can pull it off, however, there will be huge benefits. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">I found most of this film very persuasive and compelling. There was a huge amount of information presented and there were several good examples as well. Furthermore, the film was well organized and fluid. I especially liked how it considered the wide range of impacts that these buildings could have. It was a very thorough documentary, but was not overly technical. Lastly, this film had a very hopeful outlook on the problems, making its solutions very encouraging. I definitely think this is important for a movie of this nature. ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why? ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Even though I liked most of the film, it had a fair share of problems. For one, it was a little too fast paced, especially in the beginning. I had some trouble initially keeping up with all of the information they were presenting. This wasn’t as big of a problem later on in the film. Another problem is that the experts in the film were not given enough references. The documentary only included the person’s name and the group (usually a company or school) they were with. It would have a lot more credibility if their experience had been included. Lastly, the biggest problem that I had with the film was that it simply left out some very important topics. Anything slightly controversial about the green building process was hardly mentioned. There was no mention of the actual cost or savings of any of these green buildings for example. Not a single figure was considered, but they still made the point that there would be money saving in the long run. I feel that in order to make a solid argument for something, both its problems and benefits must be weighed together. You can’t simply skip over one of these. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What kinds of corrective action are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective. ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Most of this film was about the solutions to the problems of green buildings, so there was an enormous amount of action suggested. The best thing we can do is improve education. Some companies are incorporating signage into their buildings so that they can be teaching models as well. Another solution is to better connect buildings with nature. This can mean using trees and other parts of nature for shade, orienting buildings properly for optimal lighting and heat from the sun, or including a green roof on a building. An additional solution would be to use renewable materials or at least reuse and recycle old materials. Also, integrating systems used by multiple buildings would be greener. Central heating systems, for example, can save energy. Including more insulation and improving appliance energy efficiency are other solutions. Lastly, we can make large scale improvements, such as more reliance on renewable energy (wind and solar are mentioned) to improve how green buildings are. No matter how efficient buildings are, if they need some energy from the power grid then they are constantly adding more to their carbon footprint. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (2 sources) ** <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">One piece of information that this film compelled me to seek out was the specifics behind one of the alternative green building materials mentioned. That is, what exactly is wheat board and is it really a good replacement for plywood? This material was only mentioned in the film in passing, but sounded very interesting to me. After looking further, I was not able to find a whole lot of information about it, but I did find a few useful things. The site [] includes some good basic facts about the material. Wheat board is composed of recycled wheat chaff and has several benefits over plywood. For one it can be grown more easily and is therefore more sustainable the products made from trees. Second, wheat board alternative is made with a binding process that uses no formaldehyde, creating and emission-free board. The site [] does a more thorough comparison of wheat board and similar board products and concludes that wheat board has a good screw strength hold similar to that of plywood, but weighs less. The weight is somewhere between that of plywood and particle board. The downfall to the material is that it isn’t quite as strong as plywood is, so even though it may not be the perfect replacement for all applications, it certainly is a good substitute for many. You would not likely want to build a floor with this board, but are other more sustainable alternatives for these applications, such as bamboo board. More information about other alternatives can be found here []. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Title: **<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Green Builders
 * What is the central argument or narrative of the film? **