Hello, can you spare five minutes for the environment? Me either. And when those judgmental, guilt-mongering, sidewalk-prowling little twits corner me with their clipboards and ask me to do so, I want to flail my arms around and sputter through a foaming mouth, “I devote my entire god damn life to the environment!”

But then, of course, I remind myself that such actions would be childish, melodramatic, and perhaps a tad hyperbolic, and I manage to restrain my inner zealot. Indeed, I am passionate about sustainability, and I have made a strong personal and professional dedication to the cause. Still, I do not, in fact, devote my entire god damn life to the environment, and making a scene about it on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge would not be particularly effective in achieving my goals, environmental or otherwise.

And, well, effectiveness is paramount. Arm flailing and mouth foaming are just a (gasp) waste of energy if they effect no impact. Even worse, such public displays of affectation do considerable damage in distracting society’s limited collective attention away from legitimate endeavors with real results.

Indeed, an unfortunate consequence of the current public interest in sustainability is that much of our attention surely is distracted from substance by its sparkly, jazz-handing cousin: hype. More than ever, politicians, advertisers, and advocacy groups are cluing in to the rapidly increasing community of people concerned about the degradation of the earth. I will dare to cynically suggest, however, that these overeager salespeople view this phenomenon more as a potential marketing trend to be exploited than as a genuine problem to be tackled.

Clorox, for example, recently bought the beloved Burt’s Bees company, maker of my preferred peppermint flavored (and yes, overpriced) lip balm as well as many other ridiculous items, such as lemon poppy seed facial cleanser. As Burt’s Bees is seen as an industry leader in sustainability, the Clorox people are now happily tooting their horns about their own upcoming greenification.

I’m probably not alone, however, in assuming that this will primarily entail slapping some stock images of bamboo onto plastic bottles and typesetting product names like “Juniper Blossom Stain Stick” in a soothing green scrawl. Sadly, however, I suspect that I am also not alone in my ardent animal attraction to objects packaged in such bamboo imagery and identified in such verdant scribbles. (“But Caitlin, it’s just marketing!” “Don’t be silly! These pretty pictures of plants guarantee that this product is endorsed by Mother Nature herself!”)

Alas, I face this problem of enviro-hype in my professional and academic life as well. Constituting 40 to 50 percent of the overall energy consumption pie, buildings are actually our nation’s greediest gas-guzzlers (as compared to transportation and industry). Therefore, architects and civil engineers have a great responsibility and opportunity to reduce this harmful impact. In recognition of this urgent need, the “green building” business has exploded into the public sphere. Especially with the recent introduction of LEED, a set of industry standards for environmentally responsible design, there is a palpable frenzy ripping through the profession to catch up with this new apparent trend.

Unfortunately, designing buildings with sustainability in mind is not something we can afford to treat as a trend, nor in a state of frenzy. Like my would-be rabid sidewalk gesticulations, this kind of attitude is not only ineffective, but also harmful through its power of distraction.

Luckily, we do have the technical prowess to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Enhancing wall and window insulation to improve thermal performance, implementing natural day-lighting and ventilation to reduce electricity loads, and selecting more efficient permanent appliances to conserve energy and water — these are all reasonable, achievable interventions.

However, both the architecture community and the public often seem to overlook practical solutions like these. Many tend to assume that green architecture consists mainly of grass-planted roofs and bamboo floors. Yep, there’s that bamboo again — and while it’s more meaningful as a flooring material because it’s a renewable resource, it’s nevertheless still overhyped — it often requires an impractical amount of fuel to be shipped from places like Vietnam. In architecture, in clothing detergent, and in debate on the street alike, it’s valuable to be passionate about being green, but without clear-headedness and critical reason, the truly inconvenient truth is that our enthusiasm will be in vain.