"Sustainable Development"

As an architect, I am compelled to listen to my colleagues blather on endlessly about "sustainability." It's annoying and elitist, because the implication is that the way we practiced architecture before 1990 or so was somehow wrong. Worse, there is a kind of vibe about the whole thing "sustainable" architecture is in some way morally superior.

Here's an excellent blog post by Willis Eschenbach that takes down the myth of sustainability:

Here’s the ugly truth. It’s simple, blunt, and bitter. Nothing is sustainable. Oh, like the sailors say, the wind is free. As is the sunshine. But everything else we mine or extract to make everything from shovels to cell phones will run out. The only question is, will it run out sooner, or later? Because nothing is sustainable. “Sustainable Development” is just an airy-fairy moonbeam fantasy, a New Age oxymoron. In the real world, it can’t happen.

As they say, read the whole thing.