USGBC 9th annual Green Building Conference in Syracuse

This past friday I attended the Green Building Conference in Syracuse.
Ourkeynote speaker, James Howard Kunstler, gave us his predictions and warnings.  The collapse of the oil based economy will cut back airlines, due to the higher cost of fuels.  Cars will become more expensive to drive.  There will not be a one-to-one replacement with electric cars or biodiesel.  Our neighborhoods as well as our houses need to become more green.  Neighborhoods need to go back to a previous age where markets, churches, stores are in walking distance.  There is a large amount of use of cars just for everyday shopping now, in the suburb based city.   Suburbs have had their time, but not many new ones will be built.  The trains need to be revitalized.  Not high speed trains, but the trains on the revitalized infrastructure that was once used to get from here to there.  Not just the main corridors, but branches.  The smaller cities are in a better position to move forward to this era of neighborhoods.  The larger cities of sprawling suburbs will have problems adjusting.  In general, this is an era of downscaling.

Certainly a blunt assessment of where we could be.

The first technical seminar I went to was about a deep energy retrofit pilot program in New York State, presented by by Gregory A Pedrick from NYSERDA.   Greg presented a program that took place in Utica, New York.  It was a retrofit of a number of buildings in an economically stressed neighborhood. The houses were insulated with a complete wrap around of the house, and generally, new siding was applied.  The insulation envelope included the roof.  The existing roof was removed, and insulation and a metal roof installed.
A second seminar I attended was Climate Change and Ground Source Heat Pumps, presented by John Manning.  John gave us a quick review of the workings and energy savings, and showed us some actual installations.
As a home owner we installed our own last year.  Though there are savings, the upfront cost is a lot, and the savings of money are not as much as the savings in energy, as we are now paying for the higher cost electricity, rather than the lower cost natural gas in our area.

Where are sweaters made?

Whats made in America has been featured on the news.  Some people took everything out of their house that was not made in the US.  And their house was empty.
So I looked at the sweater I was wearing(I am a regular sweater wearer in the winter).  It was made in Bulgaria.  The next day my sweater was made in El Salvador.  Today, my sweater was made in China.  An inventory of my sweaters shows:  3 made in China, 2 made in Korea, 1 in El Salvador, one in Bulgaria, and 5 that we made in USA.