by Stephanie Stubbs, Assoc. AIA
Managing Editor

Summary: A global Webcast, which supporters say reached a quarter of a million participants in 47 countries during its broadcast on February 20, urged architects and other building professionals, architecture educators, and students to take responsibility for reducing carbon emissions contributing to global warming that threatens to change climate and Planet Earth drastically if we do not take action within the next decade. Hosted in New York by the Academy of Sciences, the Webcast, now archived and available for viewing, featured presentations by NASA Scientist James Hansen, PhD, and architects Edward Mazria, AIA, and Chris Luebkeman, AIA, who joined forces to connect global warming, the built environment (which accounts for half of U.S. energy use), and how the 2030 Imperative can help us all make that crucial difference.

Why a teach-in?: Susan Szenazy, editor of Metropolis magazine and moderator for the teach-in, defined its purpose as “bringing design education into harmony with the Earth that gives us life.” The teach-in delivered her promise of giving students and educators access to useful information and a Web of connections to like-minded individuals, and professionals a network of shared information as they “take on the mantle of educating the next generation.”

“A Threat to the Planet”
Dr. James Hansen, director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in capsulizing the science of global warming and climatization, said, “if we don’t take action now, it may be too late” to preserve the planet as we know it. By studying climate change averaged over years, rather than individual seasons, there is no doubt that the Earth is heating up.

He offered two scenarios:

• “Business as Usual,” the current track we are on, in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow at their current rates, which would result in continued global warming of 3 degrees C by the end on the century
• The 2030 Challenge scenario, in which global warming is slowed to raise the temperature of the planet only one degree C by the end of the century.

Hansen presented the United Nations framework for stabilizing emissions, which offers three major measurements for dangerous climate change:

Animal and plant species: In the Business as Usual scenario, with 3 degrees C warming, there will be extinction of 50 percent of species; with 1 degree warming, there will be 10 percent extinction.

Ice sheet disintegration and resultant rise in global sea levels: The edges of ice sheets already are disappearing, witnessed clearly in Greenland and Antarctica. With an increase of 3 degrees C, the ocean level will rise 80 feet.

Regional climate change: In the Business as Usual scenario, we can expect super-drought and increased fires in the American West, and greatly increased precipitation in other areas.

Even a one degree rise risks a different planet from the one on which we now live, Hansen explained. Reducing the emission of greenhouse gases to achieve that one-degree level will require a concerted effort, but it can be done. Actions taken in response to the 1970s Energy Crisis resulted in a noticeable drop of CO2 emissions, which put us on the Business as Usual track we’re currently on. (Yes, it was worse 30 years ago). Further reductions can be achieved through:

• Building and vehicle efficiencies that stretch out our limited gas and oil supply and eventually rely solely on non-carbon energy
• Both standards and incentive
• U.S. leadership, as a model and an example.

There is still time, but a decade more of continuing on the Business as Usual path will eliminate the possibility of achieving the 1 degree C scenario. “The best hope we have is the younger generation becoming informed and involved,” Hansen concluded.

“Resuscitating a Dying World (2030 Challenge/2010 Imperative)”
Edward Mazria, AIA, founder, Architecture 2030, explained the leading role that building professionals have to play in reducing carbon emissions. In the U.S., 25 percent of energy use is for industry, 27 percent for transportation, and 48 percent for buildings (40 for operations and 8 for construction). “If we don’t get a handle on the building sector, we just don’t make it,” Mazria explains. One area ripe with opportunity is reducing electricity use, 76 percent of which, in the U.S., currently is used for building operations. By 2035, three-fourths of the built environment will be new or renovated, so there are numerous opportunities for architects and other building team professionals to make a difference.

But how?

Adopt and implement the 2030 challenge, Mazria says. It calls for:

• 50 percent reduction in fossil fuel energy consumption—over that of an average building of the same type in the same area—by 2010
• 0 percent carbon emissions in buildings—by 2030.

The U.S, Conference of Mayors already has adopted this challenge, Mazria pointed out.

Architects. To meet the challenge, building design professionals can:

• First employ the low-tech solutions tied to design and planning for site, communities, and transit-oriented development
• Add technologies, such as photovoltaics
• Purchase green energy credits.

Government. For its part, the federal government can:

• Extend the Energy Policy Act and increase credits (from $1.80 per square foot to $2.75 per square foot)
• Extend BEES 3.0 to be applicable for thousands of projects
• Partner with industry to create product rating systems
• Design tools. Computer programs need “a box in the corner” that will enable them to plug in values and know if they have reached their energy targets.

Additionally, local governments can provide additional incentives and modify locally adopted codes to establish a 50 percent energy reduction target.

Schools: Schools also must transform, Mazria said. “Beginning in 2007, all projects must be designed to engage the environment in a way that dramatically reduces or eliminates the need for fossil fuels.” Specifically, we need to:

• Achieve complete ecological literacy in professional design education by 2010
• Achieve carbon-neutral school campuses through implementing sustainable design strategies, generating on-site renewable power, and purchasing green energy or credits.

“We need to take action,” Mazria concluded. “And there’s plenty of action to take.”

“Doing is believing”
Chris Luebkeman, AIA, director, Global Foresight and Innovation Initiative, ARUP, echoed that we are at a tipping point for slowing global warming, that we just can’t wait any longer. “I hope we take away a desire to teach each other,” he said. “Just pledge that you will make a difference.”

Luebkeman offered the audience a set of working assumptions:

• Change is constant, context is variable. “What story do you believe?” he asked.
• Assessments must be made with “gut + heart + head.”
• The power of the Web means that a lot of the information we need to make decisions and act already is accessible.
• We all must share the planet.
• Only humans make boxes, “so get out of the box.”
• No one person has the key, but we all do. “Create the parade that unlocks the box.”

Luebkeman then presented a number of noteworthy projects with which ARUP has been involved that illustrate use of integrated sustainable design principles, including:

• DongTan, China, a development of new villages that aims for 0 carbon emissions through interior agricultural production, a low eco-footprint, reduction of light pollution, reduction of particulates
• Beddington Zero Energy Development, London, a new low-energy-footprint mixed-use development
• Gap Headquarters, San Bruno, Calif., which incorporates “normal things,” such as lots of daylight, user control of the building’s systems, operable windows, and flexible space.

More about the projects can be found on ARUP’s Web site.

Buildings are 50 percent of the problem, Luebkeman reminded the audience, so decide how you can make a difference. Set a target for yourself and “reduce, reduce, reduce.” He said that we need to think about how we are going to use energy. For instance, we need to understand that “personal mobility does not equal freedom” and also that “you vote by what you buy.” And remember, he concluded, that “waste is just nothing less than a misallocated resource.”