Government Housing for All ?

The H.R. 2454, "Establishes a rebate program to assist low-income households residing in pre-1976 manufactured homes in purchasing new Energy Star qualified manufactured homes." This quote was found on http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454&tab=summary. I own a home that was build in 1952 and this statement just made me feel uneasy the first time I read it. I was initially feeling upset about the bills push for so many electric cars, as if that would eliminate the carbon waste associate with creating the energy and the volatile chemicals in the batteries. I just couldn't get the idea of the government telling me that I could move into a "manufactured home" to save the environment. Where does my old home go? Do all of the wood beams and cement blocks get turned to scrap and fill a landfill? The Energy Star website describes how each house gets processed in factories approved by a third-party EPA employee. It states how their homes are far more advanced than the homes built under the 2004 environmentally minded building codes. But, where do they get their materials? The website reads like talking to a used car salesman or a real estate agent. For every question I had about the process I was pushed to another page describing how these manufactured homes benefited the world and my monthly energy bills. This was only one line in the whole bill and it is easily read over and forgotten. I am worried about the fact that the government, in its reach for sustainability is building more factories, taking up more land and creating more waste rather than supporting the homes that already exist and saving so much energy in the process.

Energy Star is a government backed organization that provides ratings for various household appliances and their energy usage information. If something is labeled as an Energy Star approved product it is considered more efficient for the household. However, when I had to buy a new washing machine this summer I looked first at the Energy Star products and found that they would over 300 hundred dollars more expensive than the machines I could afford. I worry that if this Energy Star distinction carries such a high price tag, how much would the government be paying to subsidize their manufactured housing work? While the government offers the public money to go into a government backed program who determines market value for these products? Each community is not given the opportunity to use the government money for manufactured homes to put into restoring their existing town they have only the opportunity to move out of potentially fine homes and move into a house trucked in with a wide load sign on the back.

While the bill does not mention an amount of money provided to individuals for a move to one of these super homes I am sure that it is in the few thousands. For a few thousand dollars I would be able to replace my leaky doors, but all Energy Star rated appliances. Currently everything I have is for the 70's or earlier. I could buy the supplies I've been dying to get to really till and expand my garden as well as compost area. With a little money Essex could get single stream recycling and then my stodgy old neighbors would use it. Our cars could get regular service to maintain their optimum operating potential. The services we would use for all of these things would come from Essex or Whitemarsh. My garage is right down the street run by good ol' local boys. The Energy Star website talks about how it would benefit communities with work. It would only benefit those able to work in the factories or the agents out to sell the houses after they've been put in bulldozed fields. This concepts has no consideration for the real communities and how people exist day to day. If everyone was able to improve their house with government money there is a potential to have construction guys working for years, let alone carpet, plumbing, carpenters, furniture salesmen, appliance people the list goes on and on..

Obviously this hit a nerve. I love my house and I love my neighborhood. I am terribly offended that the government would find it "sustainable" to give up on true quality craftsmanship that didn't come off of an assembly line. For that reason alone I do not support this bill because I feel that is misdirected in so many ways. Environmental change does not come from building more factories, but respecting and understanding the potential that already exists within our world.

Ah Ha!

Since I started at Goucher in 2007 I have been struggling with the beauraucrats in SAS and the CDO for various rights that should have been granted to me based on my status as an independent. I have argued with the Dean of Students to assist me with notifying Professors last Spring when I had a flare up of my chronic illness. I am currently fighting with the administration to be recognized as a Goucher II student so I may graduate on time. I have evidence and proof that I have been wronged and lied to. I have the testimonies of others that have gotten the same treatment. I have cried, threatened, begged and insisted that those in charge take my situations seriously.

This morning as I contemplated what this class means to me in my last semester at Goucher I realized how relevant it is. I have considered my struggles the past four years as frustrations and set backs but what I am really doing is fighting internal Goucher policies that are set to fit the average student, but not satisfactory for any student that may exist on the fringes. Kraft and Mazmanian talk about the same problems when it comes to environmental policy. They are emphasizing the struggle to affect changes when administrations have no vision or ability to budge from the norm. Slowly but surely I am getting what I want because I have never let down my persistence and that is how this class has presented the successful environmental policies. Policy and beauraucracy are the same no matter what the cause.

I wonder if my struggle for equal treatment at Goucher will have any impact on the administrators I see. Will they react in the same cold and calculated way when another non-traditional student asks for help? Have my stress and tears and migraines done anything to break policies and rules that discriminate? I'm sure these type of questions emerge when a non-profit gets a big break with the government regarding a valuable piece of environmental legislation. The little organization faces daunting tasks and huge insecurities as well. Will their lobbying stay relevant? Will the law make the right changes? etc. etc. etc...

Without thinking about it I have incorporated the values of this class and its readings into my own personal fight. It is evident by your tenacity surrounding the subject and the readings you share that there is hope in a cause bigger than all of us. If there is change happening in environmental policy through persistence and intelligence then any policy shift is possible. I am very thankful for my early morning epiphany and am super excited to continue learning about fighting the good fight..

Living With Nature.

I was really bummed I couldn't make class last Thursday. My welcome back to school migraine dominated that day. It always seems to happen when I have done my homework for class ahead of time and had lots of questions to ask. Well, I'll make up for it now...

Both chapter 3 and 4 of the Kraft book provided me with lots of very useful and practical information. Regardless of his dry and scientific writing type style I think his readings are the most enlightening for me because I like lots of detail and I have very little knowledge of the topic. Chapter 4 was super interesting for me because I live and breathe history. I had been very interested to know that there was the creation of Yellowstone Park in 1892. I would have figured that during the 1800's the West would still be so vast and barren that people would have little concern for creating public lands. Additionally, I never thought of the New Deal policies as "environmentalism." I always think of that time period as Roosevelt's desperate attempts to correct the Depression. His policies did support much great infrastructure improvements but I would be interested to find more information on his intentions to benefit the environment in a sustainable or preservation sense. Chapter 3 didn't leave me with as many thoughts. I think it was valuable to understand the intense fragmentation in the government. I never even thought of the House and Senate having different environmental agencies split among them. Kraft's reflections on the benefits of local governments I thought were very hopeful.

Lipschutz and his first discussion of bananas and other commodities and the thought that must go into considereing their environmental, social and economical worth was fascinating to me. I love understanding the paths that goods take to end up in my home. That is very powerful when I find that a common brand of food in my house is particualarly harmful. Unless I can't afford an alternative or live without I immediatly change the product. However, I felt like the author deviated from the strength of his intial discussions. As I mentioned above I like concrete information and his diatribes on power and society and culture etc. left me confused and frustrated with his philosophical rants.

The best piece of information I was able to gather from the Lipschutz reading was the sense that humans and nature were a team. Humanity has to recognize its place in nature. He also placed a good question about how to do that amidst hegemony is culture and politics. It made me think of an experience I had this weekend with my step son, Alex, and my husband Russ. Alex noticed the line of ants that we have living and working from the top of out window to the very edge of the kitchen cabinets. I love them because they only take what they need, don't leave a mess and provide me with a natural ant farm. I refuse to kill just as I refuse any living being. Alex comes from a very branded house filled with the latest in cleaners and gadgets. He lives with wonderful people that benefit this world with their kindness. But, his shock at the fact that I let these ants live with me was both hilarious and left me to wonder if maybe I wasn't a total weirdo. After all Russ and I are living with two awesome spiders in our bed room and he has a cute one that makes a home in his car. We intentionally do not move the items their webs are touching and watch them for fun before we go to bed. I like to think it is my way of allowing a little piece of nature in my otherwise clean and orderly home. Everyone else thinks it's just strange. Lipschutz offered me some hope.

Little Brush With Semantics

Sustainability. This is a word that I have never understood. It is marketed in so many ways. The government meets about it and hippies protest for it while car companies invent vehicles intended to be it. I feel like everyone has a stake in sustainability but there is no clear definition of the concept. The Mazmanian article spends a lot of time on the concept of implementing policy change for sustainability. It was there that I became even more convinced that this word needs to be eliminated. Both readings emphasized the causes and effects of environmental toxins as well as policies to mend the damages. Environmentalism is a much better word to describe the act of caring for and acting upon the desire to preserve the Earth. It is a word that can be used clearly in meetings and even in marketing. It has the word environment built right in. Sustainability is open to much greater abuse and misunderstanding. I'm the first one to argue semantics, but this is a change that literally carries the weight of the world.

My cousin Stephanie is a mud hut building sustainability major at Goddard College. She constructs sawdust toilets and composts the human waste as a way of making the world a more sustainable place. While these things may have little carbon footprints I am still under the idea that implementation of policy and change has always begun in a more palatable and accessible way. Kraft pointed out that nearly 95% of lead has been eliminated from our American environments with government and business interactions. I'm sure they used indoor plumbing at their meetings. Stephanie is now modeling for Jonano clothing. The marketer spotted her while she was riding her bike on the streets of Pittsburgh. They are now going to send Miss Sustainability to Vegas, Turkey and St. John to get her picture taken in their "sustainable" clothing. Last time I checked, Environmentalism involved staying close to your own environment and working for grassroots changes. I think Kraft said something very similar to that himself. This is another point and case for removing sustainability from our dialect. No one can hide behind the word Environmentalism while flying models to Sin City for an organic photo shoot.

I vow from this moment on to strike the word Sustainability from my vocabulary. As Kraft and Mazmanian both revealed so clearly in their words, compromise and change must come from points of mutual understanding. The people at the bottom must speak the same language as the people at the top.