"We should be pushing cement manufacturers to develop lower emissions processes (there is work on this) - but just cutting it out from the visible part of architecture is mere greenwashing"

Agreed.  My frustration as a forensic architect is watching roll-off after roll off of damaged materials leaving the site and flatbeds rolling in new materials every single day.  It isn't just the scrap and transport of all the repair scope either. It's multiple cars filled with workers, the other materials I have to demolish just to get to the damaged elements, etc.   In my head, the carbon emissions of replacing materials regularly exceeds the pollution created by materials which are tolerant of Mother Nature's weapons of choice; Climate.  And those events are becoming more frequent.

I and this side of the industry, knows we can track most storms and find damage... that is how it will work as long as the construction industry continues to use products and designs that simply can't handle volumes of moisture, hail, or snow.  And on the flip side, 'good-intention' codes to address Mother Nature tend to create a lot of other problems like condensation from the interior side because structures can't dryout anymore.

So I get frustrated knowing IF things were installed and specificied correctly, and IF durability had been a consideration... I wouldn't see what I see almost daily.  I don't see rotting concrete, masonry, or steel... It's not to say wood is bad... its just that it doesn't handle mother nature well at all and isn't going to tolerate many design / installation / specification errors.  

So I see this as two fights.  One is to reduce the impact in the manufacture and transport of construction products as well as the consumption.  The other is to design and select materials appropriate to handle the current and future climate so you don't become a large consumer just to keep the building from falling apart. (and you could add to those fights land planning stuff like sprawl, high density, transportation, etc.)... Out of this though, as architects, we can control the products that go into our designs and how well the building can perform both from a durability standpoint and consumption of energy/materials necessary for its lifespan.  It is all a balance and finding where that balance point is.  

I’ve been wanted to toss something into this all day but can’t pull myself apart for the dumpster fire(s) I’m actually paid to address. 

My quick 2¢ on this is that swapping on building material for another which on paper might be less harmful is not going to be a straight substitution. From Donna’s suggestion on TC, wood  just does not scale well past a reasonably small-medium project. 

I wonder what the CO2 output of that newfangled wood high rise stuff is and where does it rank vs concrete and steel on a material use equivalency chart. 

Focus on the small problems and ignore the big ones. That always works.

I’m running late for this morning ‘s Exhibit Columbus panel presentations but here is a concrete project I’ll see more of later this afternoon. Chris Battaglia of BSU has built a concrete shell using concrete that he says can be ground up and reused again because it doesn’t contain large aggregate. And by the way (he mentioned this during the panel discussion last night that I moderated) the earth is running out of sand, too. 

https://exhibitcolumbus.org/2019-exhibition/university-design-research-fellows/battaglia

Also per the response on TC that mass timber can’t be used for 50 story towers: who says we should necessarily be building 50 story towers in this anthropocenic time anyway?

If CO2 is so harmful why do Hillary, Al Gore, and Obama, not to mention the Democrat presidential candidates, practically live in their carbon spewing corporate jets? If you want to do something useful go plant a tree. I did (oak and maple).

Volunteer:

Volunteer: I see the absurdity of people flying private jets to climate conferences. I also see that it's not only right-wingers criticizing them, but left-wingers too. 

https://jezebel.com/look-at-all-these-celebrities-fighting-climate-change-w-1837279211

So are you saying that I should stop worrying about being frugal in my own energy consumption because nothing at all can ever be done to make anything in the world even a little bit better all because Leo DiCaprio flies a jet?

America has a history of using sanctimony and rigid adherence to arbitrary rules to deal with difficult problems (cf: prohibition, war on drugs, sanctions themselves) - none of which succeeded in their goals.

i worry once we get the ball rolling on developing a cultural concern for sustainability we will see a similar rigid approach to classifying individual behaviors as contributing to or undermining sustainability. which will lead to much fuss but not actually deal with the underlying problems of energy sourcing for electricity, industry, and transportation. That is all there is. Fix that single thing (energy) and everything else works out.

singling out the individual act isn't helpful. it's a cumulative impact of so many inconsequential acts, and many justifiable adaptations to involuntary circumstances that lead people to generate GHG emissions. we're not going to fix the problem by proscribing specific activities because everyone leads lives that generate excessive GHGE. You have no choice!

Consider: the richest family in Europe in 1700 generated less net emissions than a typical single individual living just above poverty in America today. The only fuel was wood, which is net zero since it grows back. So this shouldn't be confused as a class issue or moralistic issue - it's a technical and systematic problem.

i don't think we will see a clear solution in our lifetime. just progress and possibilities. the impact on human paradigms about society and civilization will be huge, comparable to the european enlightenment.

what we as architects will have the chance to do and really can help will be adaptation. warming is gradual, sea level rise even slower. plenty of time to rebuild and retrofit our cities to work.

perhaps there will be some developments in energy that make large scale desalination practical enough to fully irrigate major deserts. imagine growing massive temperate forests in the uninhabited interiors of australia and china - that could really shift the co2 balance back towards what we want.

we should be thinking on these scales and not lose ourselves in quibbles about the relative merits of various insulation systems or structural materials, which are just such small contributors with limited scalability.

i'm actually excited about it. there is so much to learn about how the world literally works.