The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish County is a major sponsor and organizer of today’s Built Green Conference. Built Green is a part of the MBA-KS.

At the beginning of the morning the Mayor of the City of Bellevue spoke. David Kile talked proudly of the Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center, a great achievement. I happened to visit the center a couple of weeks ago and have some very nice picture intended for a separate post (stay tuned).

Mr. Kile introduced Deputy King County Executive Fred Jarrett, who also spoke of the green efforts of new King County Executive Dow Constantine. Next Aaron Adelstein, Executive Director of Built Green of King and Snohomish Counties spoke briefly and introduced our keynote speaker Mr. David W. Orr.

Read the Keynote Speaker bio of David W. Orr at the Built Green Conference web site.

From www.davidworr.com 

 

David Orr is a funny man. He admitted up front that PowerPoint presentations are wonderful except no one can read the data or see the graphics clearly on the screens (even though there are two here in the room), cracking "Cover your left eye and…,"

His presentation is titled "Down to the wire: Greenbuild in a hotter time"

David says we are at the end of the era of cheap fossil fuels. I think most of us will agree with that. He had some slides with some CO2 stats (carbon dioxide, that causes global warming).

Mr. Orr went on to say that last year David Archer said "The climate impacts of releasing fossil fuels will last longer than Stonehenge, nuclear waste, longer than time capsules, far longer than the age of human civilization so far. Each ton of coal that we burn leaves CO2 gas in the atmosphere. The CO2 coming from a quarter of that ton will still be affecting the climate one thousand years from now." (I could actually read this slide!)

The scientific consensus (about global warming) among those who study climate for a living is 100%. It’s coming faster than anyone expected and we need to act fast.

He told the builders in the room "You need to build a different kind of building, one that can last and survive in the new climate."

He presented a tale of two deficits. One is economic, which he believes is solvable in a few years. He said that it’s not possible for the laws of economics that are 234 years old can be made to work with those of evolution ~3.8M years in he making.

The second is a Climate Deficit. And then there were a ton of slides with stats that he chuckled about, saying "You can’t see it but it says…"

I thought this was a very cool quote:

A few solutions are to

1) Optimize systems, not components (ecology)
2) Focus on end-use efficiency before supply (physics)
3) Consider full-cost, not short term costs (economics)

There were about 4 more ideas on the this but he switched the slide too fast for me! He’s on the clock and trying to stay on time (I think we started late).

"Complex problems require system solutions."

"We are seeing an emergence of ecological design arts/sciences."

Can we take what we know, join it together, and make a new downtown?

In Oberlin, Ohio, Mr. Orr’s day job is to create a 13 acre "Green Arts District" to push downtown renewal. (Mr. Orr on Wikipedia). The "Oberlin Renaissance" is a partnership that is emerging to create an amazing post-fossil fuel city and economy.

"If you’re hopeful, you are required to do something about this problem. If you despair, you do nothing."

The audience at this morning’s Built Green Conference Keynote session.

 

Here’s the final upshot: Design for

1) Community & region (not just individual developments)
2) Integration across all sectors (not just buiding). Put together food, energy, transportation, economy, education
3) Resilience…security
4) Fairness.

"We have to figure out how to use our skill sets – yours and mine – to build economies as a part of green building."