Unreservedly, one of the voices I respect most on issues of sustainability as it regards buildings is Marc Rosenbaum, a curious mix of wonk and Luddite. (When he announced that he'd started a blog, he assured his correspondents that he still didn't have a cell phone.)

But he does now have a blog, detailing his move to Martha's Vineyard and new housing, and how he is approaching the retrofit. These are adventures I'm eager to follow — and how I wish I could include Thriving On Low Carbon in my blog reader, but he appears not to be set up for that.

So here's the address.

It is emblematic of a larger condition that I've not reported before now on one of the most thought-provoking and valuable presentations from Building Energy '09, the annual conference of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association held earlier this month in Boston — the keynote by Marc Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum's comments were literate and far-reaching, on one of this century's most vital issues — how do we maintain life as we know it as traditional fuels decline and the climate changes?

But I chose instead to focus first on the contentious LEED public forum of the night, and the release of recommendations by the state's Zero Net Energy Task Force just before he spoke. There's some argument to be made for the latter — actual news — but I judged both to be shinier that Rosenbaum's topic, deep-energy retrofitting.

I have my reasons, but still, you could say my actions reflect the general outlook: people are more attracted to the glitz and gadgets around energy issues than they are to the real best solutions — conservation and efficiency. I'm totally sold on them, without reservation, and still, I'm getting to that portion of the conference three weeks later.