Some days are just better than others, I guess.

It's been a disappointing last few hours. Last night I observed a beautiful historic interior space that had just been refitted with an amazing concentration of compact fluorescent-equipped fixtures with every engineer's favorite blue-white, 5000+ degree Kelvin bulbs. I like to preserve things from the past, but CFL's are a 1930's, toxin-laced technology that needs to die a quick, ugly death. I have also recently witnessed a demonstration of new LED lighting that, to my eye, was indiscernible from halogen lighting, so there is hope for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps the bigger problem arose this morning. While I am convinced that sustainability and preservation have a great deal in common, practitioners of the two concerns don't always play well together. For energy conservation, pretty much all communities that I know have adopted the International Energy Conservation Code. This code, like most others, is really targeted at new construction and generally lacks recognition of the unique needs of historic building. Right in the front of this national code, however, is a provision that seems to recognize the tension between existing and new and specifically exempts certified historic buildings from compliance. Today I find that my hometown of Dallas, while adopting the IECC, has added amendments that strip away this exemption. What is left only exempts compliance when compliance would result in loss of that historic certification. That's a pretty high bar with lots of opportunity to degrade and obscure historic structures before actually threatening certification. That could very well be the primary factor behind the CFL extravaganza I mentioned at the beginning of this post.