Yet another case that Warmists have to drag ‘climate change’ into everything, and everything into their scam
Philly’s plan to fight climate change has a glaring absence on demolitions and cultural heritage
Philadelphia released its citywide plan to tackle climate change in mid-January, but with a glaring absence: it doesn’t address the massive waste of materials and energy caused by building demolition.
If the City wants to take climate action seriously, it should adopt a demolition review period along with deconstruction requirements. Changing our approach to buildings up for demolition will stem the loss of cultural heritage and reduce environmental waste while moving the city closer to its sustainability goals.
Philadelphia’s current trajectory is unsustainable, both culturally and environmentally. We need policies that recognize the value of our cultural heritage and the embodied energy it contains. Implementing demolition review and deconstruction requirements would encourage adaptive reuse, reduce carbon emissions associated with demolition and construction, and encourage the salvage and reuse of valuable building materials, moving us closer to a circular economy.
Huh what? What does all this have to do together? Unless this really isn’t about science?
Recent cases, like the rowhouse at 1513 Christian, covered by Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron, illustrate the need for demo review. There is also the pending loss of two commercial properties: at 140 S. 11th Street the former Palamida’s Costume Shop, run by a well-known costumer and important to Philly’s LGBTQ history, and at 1105 Walnut Street the Augustin House and Catering Establishment, an antebellum-era African-American catering business. All can, and likely will be, demolished.
There is no question the three occupied, fully functional, structurally sound buildings mentioned above might qualify for historic designation. A review might also increase the possibility for a compromise, such as an overbuild (building atop the old structure) or façadectomy (preserving the building’s facade after demolishing the rest).
If the city doesn’t like it they can purchase the building from the private owner. Simple enough, right?
Salvage and recycling are critical because building materials contain significant amounts of “embodied carbon†or “embodied energy,†which refer to the amount of carbon emissions produced during their extraction, refinement, fabrication, and transportation. Existing buildings represent a massive, underappreciated store of embodied energy, often of materials that simply could not or would not be economically possible to produce today. Demolition itself requires immense amounts of energy, and new building materials also represent significant amounts of embodied carbon. The bottom line is, demolishing existing buildings simply to reconstruct another of a similar size is terribly unsustainable.
In other words, climate cultists want governmental control of Other People’s property. Go figure.
It appears that any building in Philly were a black person ever entered should be designated as an historical landmark and taken by the city as reparations, turned over to BLM and given a tax free assessment. Now they can work on private homes. Plus, if they can show (not prove mind you) that the properties were ever owned by a trump supporter or any member of any of Elwood’s imagined “White supremacy” groups, clubs or web sites they can be taken as “forfeiture” by the feds. It’s a win-win for Philly. Plus they can fill the basements with election ballots to be pulled out as needed in upcoming fake elections.
I told a black racist on another site today that when he uses English it’s cultural appropriation. He blocked me. Little dick.
“The bottom line is, demolishing existing buildings simply to reconstruct another of a similar size is terribly unsustainable.”
That’s pretty important. Someone should tell the developers that their plan is unsustainable. Heck, maybe their whole industry is unsustainable. Good thing writers for the enquirer never have to face being in an industry that is unsustainable.
While some of the buildings in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia do have some historic value, when it comes to
global warmingclimate change, it has to be remembered: these buildings have like zero insulation. They have draughty, single pane windows, and many are structurally suspect; adding the weight of solar panels to the tops, in ways which would be hidden from the streets, for historic preservation reasons, becomes problematic.I’m a supporter of historic preservation, but just because a building is old doesn’t mean it’s historic or in decent condition.
But, for laughs, I remember when Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of the Inquirer Stan Wischnowski
was firedresigned because the woke on the staff of the Inquirer were just sooo triggered when he used a headline “Buildings Matter, Too”, and the left thought it somehow denigrated the term “Black Lives Matter”.Black Lives Matter denigrated the term black lives matter.