You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The first real step of my project to replace our falling down garage with a studio, workshop, or any sort of structure that I can step foot in without fearing for my life, I've been trying to actually design the replacement structure (to replace the structure, I need to have the plans approved. To have the plans approved, I need to draw plans [or spend US$manythousand to have an architect do the same thing. I'm too cheap for that.] To draw plans, I need a design) and as a result there's a steady slow flow of various earthy-crunchy design book and plans flowing through the house. This last weekend, I picked up a magazine called Oregon Home's Green Living based on an article where a couple bought a Portland two-flat and converted it into a three-flat (or possibly a 2 floor apartment and an attic flat -- the plans look like it's a three-flat, but they don't show the second story plan so I'm not positive) in a fairly nice modern/craftsman style.
One thing about this magazine that became painfully apparent is that the "Green" in the title is about as green as the magazine gets. In particular, some of the houseplans are so not green that they'd look right in place in something like This Old House magazine, which is a magazine that whole-heartedly embraces the "clearcut a rainforest to get one perfect 2x4" philosophy. There's one house in particular that irritates me; someone decided to build an "eco-friendly" house in North Portland, which seems like an admirable goal until you start looking at the details.
This house is ~2000 square feet. It's got three bedrooms. And the article goes on at great length about how green the owner is because the kitchen doesn't have a garbage disposal, and how the owner wanted to make the house work with the environment because he visited Africa and was impressed about how the peasants there made the best use of limited resources. All fine and good, I'm sure, and I'm sure that a 2000 square foot house would sit as lightly on the earth as a 200-400 square foot hut if you had a large enough family to take advantage of it.
You might ask "so, just how many people are going to live in this house?"
Good question. You'll love the answer:
Whoooee! That's certainly sitting lightly on the earth, isn't it? That's sitting almost as lightly on the earth as the house that the best and I bought 10 years ago (it's assessed at 2000 square feet, but we've got a full attic and basement so it's actually about 3600 square feet. There are 4 of us living here, and we use almost 2600 feet of the house.
Yes, yes, it's lovely that this house collects water off the roof. But you need to collect a lot of water off your roof to get over the tiny detail that you've built 2000 square feet for one person.
That's not green. It's greener than a 50,000 square foot mansion, but it's still a screaming lot of resources being shovelled into a single-person residence. I'm sure it's a lovely house and all, but it's the sort of embarrassing consumption pornography that is constantly trying to pass itself off as ecologically sound design.
If you want to live green, live in a 400 square foot structure. Tiny houses are easier to heat, easier to keep cool, and don't gobble up the sort of resources a larger structure consumes. You can't just toss e-buzzwords on a huge house and expect that will make up for the energy it will use.