Ecofantastic: A product/method/ideology so absurdly priced/developed/formulated that its irrationality transcends any purposeful usage and/or implementation into the present-day green movement, to the point of almost becoming fantasy.
Ecofantastic: The notion that green buildings are inherently good for the environment...
Normally, I would try to sum this up in my own words, but Geoff Manaugh at bldgblog has written a much better article than I could ever pen. So here's an infographic summary of the article instead:
Some highlights from their article:
Unless a "green" building actively remediates its local environment – for instance, scrubbing toxins from the air or absorbing carbon dioxide – that building is not "good" for the environment (see: Kunstler's eyeysore of the month, see: 9800 sf house). It's simply not as bad as it could have been...
If the U.S. military had solar-powered Abrams tanks, or hydrogen fuel-cell-powered long-range bombers, or wind-powered bases in the Middle East, would the sustainable design community be encouraging them to build more and more of the things? Probably not. But when a multimillionaire developer puts up a skyscraper in the center of London, or Paris, or New York, full of space devoted to, say, investment banking, with a few arbitrary wind turbines on top, the sustainable design community actually gives that person free publicity and encourages him or her to build more. There seems to be a moral issue here.
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