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.
Read: Philly’s Demolition Plans Are A Problem For ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »