FeblMr L977 RAIN Page 17 Our building pattents generate externalized costs-freeuatts, p owerplants, c ommuting time, an d duplic ate d infrastruc ture. Ac c ounting of a building's effects on sucb costs can make a solid case for different building pattems offering surpising saoings. BUILDING VALUE Building Value: Energr Design Guidelines for State Buildings, Tom Bender and Lane deMoll, I97 6, $3.25 from, Office of ttre State Architect P.O. Box 1079 " Sacramento. CA 95805 Here's where the rest of our spare time went this fall in addition to doing'the RAINBOOK. I Policy gUidelines prepared for,the California State Architect, containing a guide to design resources for energywise design, energ.y conserving landscaping, dry toilets, and economic 'evaluation. Outlines valuation of buildings to include lifecycle costs, externalized costs, and institutional performance in addition to regular fiscal economics. The State Arctritect's guidelines for state bu:ildings include lowflush toilets, solar heating, accounting of unused solar energy es lost income to a building, source-stream energy anall'- sis, and landscaping for summer shading of streets and sidewalks. I ECONOMICS Prioities, donation requested, from, American Friends Service Committee 980 N. Fair Oaks Avenue Pasadena, CA 91103 A well-done newsletter documenting alternatives to a military econorny. Recent issues have focused on the unemployment caused by military spending because of its capital-intensity, legislation dealing with the conversion from a militarv-dominated economy to a civilian one. and the effects of the federal research and development program in commiting future expenditures on useless systems such as the B-1 bomber and the Trident missile submarines. Defense, space and atomic energy receive two-thirds of the federal research funds. hiorities presents the sound economics of alternatives. Tbe Defense Monitor Center for Defense Information 122 Maryland Avenue, N.E. Washington, DC 2OOO2 Our journalists should be seeking out these kinds of people in the Postal Service, academia, banking or agriculture -finding people who can'propose viable alternatives for public' cvaluation instcad of merely publishing the official policy preferences of rop bureaucrats. Legislators should require submission of alter-' native budgets and priorities by staff people as well as by administrators. This is an excellent model-a newsletter containing evaluation of alternative military priorities, programs and budgets by professional military people rvho support a strong defense but oppose excessive and ineffective expendirures or forces. Home, fzc., Scott Burns, 1975, $6.95 fromt Doubleday and Co. 245 Park Avenue New York, NY t00l7 Our whole wav of measuring economic aclivitv is skewed towards large-scale production and consumprion. If we do ,something verv efficiently for ourselves, it doesn't count in our GNP. If we have someone else do it, even at great expense, the GNP says "Yeh!-We're doing better." And, of course,'we only count what happens from 8 to 5, five days a week, in "the office." Never counted is the at-least equal amount of work done at home, by housewives or housebands. Buying labor-saving devices for the home so people are free to "go to work" so they cah pav foq the labbr-saving devices so they can . . . is only running on a treadmill that gives rhe illusion of progress because we ignore the value of homework. Burns explores the economics of the home and shows thar investment in the home in general and in such things as insulation in parricular, provide a much greater value and return than almost any industrial invesrment. A whole dimension of our economic system thqt has been qtudiously ignored. 'llntermediate Technology in Chinal' by Vaclav Smit, in The Eutletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 197 7, pp. 25-3t. Check youe library. A report on how a vast number of ' small-scale bioconversion, solar and hydro projects are strengthening the country's industiial base, especially in rural areas. Local energy self-reliance reduces the need for eneigy-intensive transportation ind transmission of primary energlr; reduces or even eliminates the need for using firewood, grasses or crop residues as fuel, which means they can be used for composting or as fodder or conserved. In the same way that the irrigation and flood control provided by small dams may be more economically vital than power, so also the improvement of hygienic conditions and reduction of infections and parasitic diseases provided by biogas generation may be more importint than the methane gas and fertilizer produced.
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