Luxury Real Estate

By Robert Lockard

I recently finished writing an interesting article for the winter 2009 issue of LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine. The article is on “green” homes, and it was a challenge to write, mainly because I have a number of concerns about the current global-warming scare. I was able to find a lot of good in “green” homes, especially their energy savings and positive health effects on residents. I shied away from discussing their environmental effects, since I am unconvinced that they will have any real ones, and saying that they will might give people a false sense of security.

To be sure, I am all for conservation and avoiding the waste or misuse of our resources. But something is very wrong with the current debate, or lack thereof, on global warming. I bring this up, not only because of my magazine article, but also because I read a very informative article entitled “Hot air over global warming” by Jerome Delvin in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning. I highly recommend checking it out.

As I noted in the Editor’s Note of a July 31, 2008 post to the Luxury Real Estate Blog by Jean-Yves Piton entitled “Green luxury real estate,” many climatologists and other scientists are speaking out about the fallacy of manmade global warming. You can find a great deal of accurate information from top scientists who spoke at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. It is clear that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, but there is actually little evidence to suggest that human activity is the main cause.

The data simply does not support the idea that the Earth’s temperature has increased at a steady pace along with the increase in carbon emissions during the past century or so. In fact, in the 1970s global cooling was touted as a major problem facing the world, not global warming. The fact that there was cooling going on during a period of steadily increasing carbon emissions seems to point to the fact that the relationship between manmade greenhouse gases and the temperature of the atmosphere is much more complex than we’re being told.

I believe that regular people can make a difference in the world, often by raising strong families and focusing on the most important things in life. However, it seems to me like this good idea (one person being able to have a positive effect on the world) has been twisted and used inappropriately when it comes to global warming in order to take advantage of well-intentioned people.

I often feel barraged with messages saying that I need to be more responsible and consume less in order to lessen my “carbon footprint” on the environment. I am wary of the rationale behind this argument for a number of reasons. There is little evidence that paying money to plant trees or somehow offset our emissions has a significant effect on the environment. In fact, an interesting study in Reportonbusiness.com found that our return on investment from putting money into the fight against global warming is so low that it’s really not even worth it. The fact is that, despite good intentions, one person, or even 6 billion people, can’t make much of a difference when it comes to global warming.

Returning to the “green” article I wrote, I tried to focus on “green” homes from the perspective of why a person would choose to purchase one. After all, they are more expensive to build, so there must be a promise of future rewards rather than a vague promise of being better for the environment. “Green” homes appear to be very sound investments because they cost less to maintain, contain fewer toxic materials and thus promote the financial and physical health of their inhabitants. I believe that “green” homes can be very good. But I do not think that they are good simply because they have some sort of positive effect on the environment that is, in reality, overrated and insignificant.

I have much more to say on this topic, but I’m afraid I just don’t have time to cover everything. I apologize if I have offended you. I am very passionate when I see injustice, and I wish to put an end to it. I think we need much more information before making changes that might have little or no effect on the problem we think we’re solving.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with Luxury Real Estate. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. If you disagree with me, I encourage you to look closely at the data before posting comments. I enjoy healthy discussions in search of truth, but I do not approve of name calling or unkindness. I just posted a blog entry by Simon Turner on Google Maps and “green” luxury homes. I don’t mean any disrespect to him by posting this blog entry. As I mentioned above, I think that there is a lot of good in “green” homes, but I just don’t think that they will make any difference on the environment. Update: This blog entry has been updated to remove two paragraphs.