The Ellington and Sustainabilty
Last week our City Council voted 6-1 in favor of allowing the Ellington to be built downtown. Possible LEED certification, other “green building” practices, and the allocation of some monies to affordable housing were used to justify the use of the word sustainability for this project.
If politics is the art of compromise, then “sustainability” promises to be the new grease into our slide into ecological suicide.
Let’s reflect a little. If Western North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Province of the Southern Appalachian Bioregion is to become “sustainable”, then we must limit economic growth and so-called development- period!
The health of the earth, its ability to replenish and restore itself, is the final bottom line for sustainability.
The elements the make the Ellington relatively a “good” design are insufficient to make it good for the health of our community. The minimum requirement would be for any new structure, especially one with such a large ecological footprint and is designed to last for a mimimum of 100 years would for it to be a net-zero energy consumer, i.e. - to produce 100% of its internal energy needs. Of course, zero waste would be a bonus too!
Somehow, “sustainability” itself is becoming a “value” in some abstract economics. But the earth’s economy is not abstract. All elements of earth’s living ecosystems are in steep decline - topsoil loss, forest degradation, water and air pollution, species extinction, and catastrophic climate change are making each choice that much more important.
Hippocrates, the father of Western medicne said “Illnesses do not come out of the blue, they come from the small daily sins against nature. When enough daily sins are accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear.” The Ellington is another sin against nature.
Our bioregion needs restoration of its health. Luxury hotels and condos aren’t part of the perscription, they are more of the disease. The 20th century idea of progress as economic growth is killing us. When will we learn?
I’ll close with a quote that serves as an introduction to Wendell Berry’s recent book of essays The Way of Ignorance. The author of the quote is David Cayley, from his The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich.
“The good, as he came to understand it, is what is uniquely and incomparably appropriate to a given setting. It observes a certain scale, displays a certain proportion. It fits, and the senses can recognize this fit…Values, on the other hand, are a universal coin without a proper place or an inherent limit…Values undermine the sense of proportion and substitute an economic calculus. What is good is what is always good; a value prevails only when it outranks a competing value.”
When we bring “sustainability” to the table we need to bring the good, the beautiful, and the truth!