Who Dat Dat Foiling My Green Intentions?

Unfortunately, good intentions are not enough when it comes to going green. Sometimes it seems as though there are outside forces conspiring to prevent us from doing what we know is the right thing. It's particularly easy to find a villain when it comes to energy saving measures.

• Tenants can blame their landlords, who won't make building improvements that could result in energy savings.

• Building owners can blame their tenants, who use inefficient lighting and equipment in their individual spaces and then leave them turned on night.

• Anyone undertaking a construction project can blame various state, local and federal entities for not making funding for sustainable initiatives easier.

• Anyone who needs a loan can blame the banks, not only because loans for green initiatives are difficult to get, but because borrowing money for building improvements can trigger mortgage defaults.

• The banks can blame the government, because allowing mortgagees to assume additional debt for a properties that are already worth less than when the mortgages were written could violate banking regulations.

• The government can blame the financial institutions, who were largely responsible for the insane inflation and subsequent meltdown of the real estate market.
  

It appears that to find out "Who Dat dat foiling my green intentions?" we should all be looking in the mirror. There are steps that we can each take to make things better, whether or not we get the cooperation and support that we would like from others.