The scent of damp cedar and the sharp, metallic tang of cold dust always find a way to mingle in the Northwest, especially in a house that is trying too hard to be something it isn’t.

I was standing in a kitchen in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, holding a glass of something expensive and listening to a man named Marcus explain his carbon footprint. The kitchen was beautiful-all soapstone counters and recessed lighting that dimmed with the soft, deliberate grace of a theater curtain. Marcus was talking about his new windows. He spoke about them as if they were holy relics, triple-paned and Argon-filled, capable of stopping a stray bullet or a stray BTU with equal indifference.

Seven inches away from where he stood, a subtle vibration hummed through the floorboards. It was the rhythmic, low-frequency pulse of a brand-new exterior compressor working overtime. Marcus nodded toward the window, his voice carrying that specific tone of moral achievement people use when they’ve recently spent forty thousand dollars on an upgrade they can’t actually explain. “It’s a very efficient house now,” he said.

Everyone else in the room nodded. It was a social reflex. In the modern lexicon, calling your house “efficient” has become a shorthand for “I am a responsible person who cares about the