The article series begins on a Saturday , with the front page of the economics section of the NRC national newspaper featuring the ticker: “believe in growth or shrinkage.” With that, I was immediately on the fence. Because it’s not… Continue Reading
During my time as a professor I was regularly at odds with the Academy of Architecture’. I feel affiliated with ‘the art of building’, but not with architecture or construction as art. That was more or less the reason for… Continue Reading
Last week, two interesting reports were published analysing how regulations can better support ‘sustainable’ material use. Very esteemed colleagues, united in a Dutch ‘Gideons tribe’ to make the buildings sector move faster, have been working on this. [1] I can… Continue Reading
There are actually only two options (‘scenario’s’): Either we go into CO2 lockdown, or we party on until the whole thing collapses…. The latest IPCC report makes that perfectly clear again. What we are doing now is a case of… Continue Reading
With vegetables, we’ve been doing it for years: most current vegetables never existed, in an autonomous evolutionary process. We as humans have slowly transformed them so that they grow the way we appreciate them, and want them on our plates.… Continue Reading
There are many ways you can start “accounting” for CO2 (as comments on the previous article also showed), but at the end of the day what matters are absolute CO2 emissions, from whatever activity. And cutting down a tree and… Continue Reading
Storage (binding) of CO2 in wood/timber is a hot issue at the moment*. But how should that be calculated really? Before I go into more detail, a few preliminary remarks: (the part on ‘calculating’ has been later added, and ‘CO2’… Continue Reading
Everything used to be better, in former times, the older generations think. The Youngsters don’t know the old days so think it’s all better now, that’s their standard. It’s always a bit more nuanced, of course. But let’s turn it… Continue Reading
For a new book, I explore the space-time relationship of many human activities, as a measure of our system impact, and to see if there are alternatives that can do with less. Space time in the sense that the conversion… Continue Reading
It’s about time to face the hard truth here in the Netherlands: building below sea level isn’t handy, to say the least, to say modestly it’s destroying capital, and to say it hard: it’s endangering people. The soil is sinking,… Continue Reading