Trim Tab v.9 - Spring 2011

CASCADIA’S MAGAZINE FOR TRANSFORMATIVE PEOPLE + DESIGN

TR ANSFORMATIONAL THOUGHT

Conflict and the Fight for PEACEFUL SUSTAINABILITY

R/EVOLUTION of Urban Parks

TR ANSFORMATIONAL DESIGN

CURBING STORMWATER AND CREATING COMMUNITIES

ANNIE LEONARD & THE STORY OF STUFF PROJECT

TR ANSFORMATIONAL ACTION

TR ANSFORMATIONAL PEOPLE

ISSUE 009CASCADIAGBC.ORG

SPRING 2011

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E D I T O R I N C H I E F Jason F. McLennan [email protected]

E D I T O R I A L D I R E C T O R Mike Berrisford [email protected]

S E N I O R E D I T O R Sarah Costello [email protected]

M A N A G I N G E D I T O R Joanna Gangi [email protected]

C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R Erin Gehle [email protected]

C O P Y E D I T O R Katy Garlington [email protected]

A D V E R T I S I N G Joanna Gangi [email protected]

C O N T R I B U T O R S Carolyn Aguilar-Dubose, Paul Werder, Bill Walsh, Mona Lemoine, Lisa Stiffler, Debra Guenther, Gabriela Denise Frank, Craig Skipton, Kelley Beamer, Regina Hauser, Paul Kilpatrick, Jason F. McLennan, Mike Berrisford

For editorial inquiries, freelance or photography

submissions and advertising, contact Joanna Gangi at

[email protected]

Back issues or reprints, contact [email protected]

SPRING 2011, IS SUE 9

Trim Tab is a quarterly publication of the Cascadia

Green Building Council, a nonprofit, tax-exempt

organization. Office locations: 721 NW 9th Ave

Suite 195, Portland, OR 97209; 410 Occidental Ave

South, Seattle, WA 98104; 1100-111 Dunsmuir Street,

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06TR A NSFORM ATION A L DE SIGNBY GABRIEL A DENISE FR ANK, DEBR A GUENTHER AND CR AIG SKIPTON

TR ANSFORMATIONAL DESIGN:

The R/Evolution of Urban ParksBY GABRIEL A DENISE FR ANK, DEBR A GUENTHER AND CR AIG SKIPTON

TR ANSFORMATIONAL PEOPLE:

Annie Leonard: The Story of Stuff ProjectBY MICHAEL BERRISFORD

TR ANSFORMATIONAL THOUGHT:

Conflict and the Fight for Peaceful SustainabilityBY JA SON F. MCLENNAN AND MARY ADAM THOMA S

TR ANSFORMATIONAL ACTION:

Curbing Stormwater and CreatingCommunities: The Case for Low-Impact DevelopmentBY LIS A S TIFFLER

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TR A NSFORM ATION A L AC TIONBY LIS A S TIFFLER

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62VANCOU VER: HOST OF LIVING FUTURE 2011

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TR A NSFORM ATION A L PEOPLEBY MICH A EL BERRISFORD

TR A NSFORM ATION A L THOUGHTBY JA SON F. MCLENN A N A NDM A RY A DA M THOM A S

SPRING QUA R TER 2 011

contents

FEATURES18

NUTS & BOLTSMoving Upstream: Progress in

the Bioregion and Beyond!

FWD: Read This!

Event Calendar

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Towards A Restorative CivilizationBY BILL WA L SH

Restorative Leadership:For the Sake of Our ChildrenBY PAUL W ERDER

Evolving toward Sustainability: Cascadia Green Building Council, ILBIand The Natural Step Network MergeBY REGIN A H AUSER

Vancouver: Canada’s Greenest Cityto Host Living Future 2011BY MON A LEMOINE

Defending LEEDBY JA SON F. MCLENN A N

Book Review: A Short History of ProgressBY PAUL K ILPATRICK

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www.cascadiagbc.org/living-future/11

See our website for full details on the dynamic program:

Living Future: where green building visionaries get down to brass tacks.

Get your ticket before it sells out!

REGISTER NOW.

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JASON F. MCLENNANCEO, Cascadia Green Building CouncilThursday, April 28, 2011Morning Plenary

SARAH HARMERCanadian singer-songwriter and co-founder of PERLThursday, April 28, 2011Evening keynote / performer

MAJORA CARTERPresident, Majora Carter GroupWednesday, April 27, 2011 Opening Keynote

MARGARET J. WHEATLEY, ED.D.Writer, speaker and teacherFriday, April 29, 2011Morning Plenary

OPENING KEYNOTE ALSO AVAILABLE AS

SEPARATETICKET

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BY GABRIEL A DENISE FR ANK, DEBR A GUENTHER AND CR AIG SKIPTON

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The R/Evolution of Urban Parks

In New Orleans’ City Park, children will play in the batture, native landscapes that are resilient to changing water levels. Floating mats of vegetation called bio-islands provide habitat and allow for maximum flood water storage.

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Picture Boston’s Emerald Necklace, a sev-en-mile-long open space system and half of the city’s park space, infusing a very urban environment with significant and meaningful connections to nature. These

spaces have become so integral to the identity and in-ter-workings of city life, that it is difficult to imagine Boston without the collective resource of those spac-es. Without the quality and performance of places like the Emerald Necklace, Boston would suffer from ex-pensive and less effective technologies to filter water, manage f looding, and attract wildlife—and residents would lack a way to mentally recharge in the city.

Consider what the 22nd Century version of the Emer-ald Necklace infrastructure could be: parks integrated with cogeneration power plants, solar collectors, mini-wind farms, or urban agriculture farms and gardens. Is this the future of urban parks and open space? The role that urban parks play now and in future generations is likely to be different—and surprising.

Corresponding with the onset of the Industrial Revo-lution, Frederick Law Olmsted established in the foun-dation of contemporary park design the ability to meet multiple needs, such as with Boston’s Emerald Neck-lace or New York’s Central Park. However, in response to the decentralization of utilities, increased popula-tion in cities, and the rise of health issues such as child-hood obesity and food deserts, today’s performance demand on urban parks reaches far beyond those early aspirations, begging the question: how can parks adapt to today’s complex urban environment, and how are they evolving to promote quality of life, reconnection to nature, and economic growth for future generations?

The answers rest in the way that parks are changing before our eyes today, in multi-layered responses to in-tricate challenges with inspired design solutions that address public health matters, fiscal limitations, and the need for high performance.

REDEFINING PARKSIn the fashion of New York City’s High Line Park, the next century of urban parks will likely be found in un-

expected places: under bridges, f loating on water, in-tegrated with streets, at serial locations on vacant land, located atop reservoirs and tree canopies, on trails or former military bases. Perhaps they will even be in im-probable locations: perched on top of billboards, f low-ing within tidelands or waxing and waning in tempo-rary installations throughout a community.

Today, parks are facing even greater financial challenges than ever before, but there are also new opportunities for parks to generate revenue when they are incorpo-rated into an eco-district strategy for producing energy, capturing and filtering water, processing waste or creat-ing biodiversity. In this paradigm, parks can retain tra-ditional character, services, and functions but redefine their inherent value by supplying renewable energy, combating the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, fil-tering stormwater, and supporting biodiversity.

For example, Phinney Neighborhood Association in north Seattle is considering the redevelopment of their community center in the context of the Living Building Challengesm. In evaluating the site for renewable energy potential, the solar panels provide a covered walkway between buildings and covered parking to reduce the ur-ban heat island. If the panels provide more energy than is used on site, the energy will be sold back to the utility, providing a new revenue stream. The community cen-ter is the heart of this lively and engaged neighborhood and the solar panels send a clear message to the center’s multi-generational users, including the numerous young families who live there.

AESTHETICS AND PERFORMANCEToday, the bar for design excellence is higher than ever before. It is no longer enough to design beautiful, durable parks on-time and on-budget. To meet the needs of future generations, park design must also take many forms and perform in ways we have not previously imagined. As cit-ies and states begin to grapple with the implications of climate change, parks and open space will become not only beloved iconic spaces but also capital investments in green infrastructure: platforms for managing floodwa-ters, reducing heat island effect, sustainably producing lo-cal food, and mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases.

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One example is Mithun’s design for the streetscape of Taylor 28, a multi-family housing development in Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighborhood, which sets a new precedent for high performance urban streetscape design. The street was transformed into usable public open space through a collaborative process between the design team, city departments and the owner. The team coordinated a unique rainwater approach to the streetscape design by incorporating infiltration plant-ing areas throughout, achieving the goal of zero-dis-charge for a 25-year storm event. The results are a stun-ning linear park that sets the standard for the next five blocks of redevelopment, providing a much-needed oasis for the many families who live in the building and employees who work nearby.1

Just as LEED® requirements for using FSC-certified wood or calculating the energy performance and the recycled content of materials slowly became our stan-dard operating procedure, best practices for sustain-able sites are gathering steam and inf luencing the mar-ket. These best practices, which address issues such as levels of biomass, soil volume per tree, and pesticide

1. Details about Taylor 28’s performance and other case study examples can be found at www.lafoundation.org

free maintenance, are available for use and currently being piloted as a certification system that is likely to be managed by the same organization as LEED®. The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITEStm) has devised a rating tool to outline these best practices, which have been vetted by national experts and public input over the last five years.2

Washington State is home to eleven SITES pilot proj-ects, including two parks and several public spaces. KCTS 9, a public television station, is one of those pilot projects located at the edge of Seattle Center, one of Se-attle’s largest urban public spaces. The project received a Kresge grant to explore how the site can expand on the station’s commitment to the community through its programs supporting local food and Puget Sound water quality. A rooftop organic garden will serve as a back-drop for cooking shows and interviews that overlook the new Gates Foundation Campus and the Space Needle.

RESPONDING TO HEALTH NEEDSApart from environmental and fiscal performance, parks are evolving into local foodsheds, as communi-ties seek to mitigate the combined effect of fast food and soft drinks with increasing time spent by children doing sedentary activities. Type II diabetes3, over-whelming numbers of obesity4, and hours of daily “screen time”5 are becoming the nation’s top health issues, with children and teens making up the largest affected demographic. In response to these growing health issues, cities are partnering with social pioneers like Gary Nabhan, Richard Louv, and Robin Moore to enact local programs such as “Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights” and the “No Child Left Inside” movement to encourage exercise and social cohesion while revers-ing the trend of disconnection with the outdoors and declining health.

Parks not only serve a direct role in the fight to increase children’s level of exercise—they also help to mitigate urban food deserts, a threat that occurs most often in

2. www.sustainablesites.org 3. www.cdc.gov/diabetes/projects/cda2.htm4. www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/obesity5. www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/news-events/matte4.htm

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On the Seattle Center campus, which sees five million visitors each year, KCTS 9 will amplify its community-based mission with a site design that demonstrates best practices for urban agriculture, water, waste and energy systems.

EXISTING CONDITIONS

PV NEEDS USING CURRENT ENERGY USAGE TO ACHIEVE NET ZERO ENERGY

Striving to meet the Living Building Challenge, the Phinney Neighborhood Association in north Seattle is evaluating photovoltaic (PV) performance options for its urban community center campus. Goals include additional shaded space and cover from the rain, as well as reducing the urban heat island effect. Mithun tested three energy improvement scenarios for each building with graduated levels of intervention—small, medium, large—to achieve Net Zero Energy. (The largest energy reduction scenario requires the least amount of PV offset.) The PV panel illustrations show the total square footage required to meet individual building needs.

Renderings © Mithun

Solar Potential:Phinney Neighborhood Association

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HIGHEST LEVEL OF ENERGY REDUCTION WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT OF PV OFFSET

A BALANCE OF ENERGY REDUCTION AND PV OFFSET

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Wide travel lanes and angled parking on both sides defined predevelopment conditions along Taylor Avenue as a psychologically uncomfortable place with an excess of pavement relative to low traffic volumes.

Site design for Taylor 28, an urban multi-family housing development near Seattle’s Space Needle, reorganized the street into a linear park. This park design is setting the standard for pedestrian environmental quality and stormwater infiltration for the next five blocks of redevelopment.

Taylor 28 Street

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low-income neighborhoods where fresh food is scarce6. Through partnerships with food banks and communi-ty gardening organizations, parks are becoming venues for urban agriculture and sources of education about nutrition, such as the partnership between Seattle Tilth and Solid Ground. These programs teach children about where food comes from, how to grow their own, how to select healthy food, and how to prepare meals, providing them with valuable life skills—and opportu-nities to develop relationships with their neighbors.

Hybrid parks that provide opportunities to grow food and work with the soil, as well as places to people-watch, toss a ball, or sit in the sun, are a result of partnerships between Seattle Parks and Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch program. As demand for public gardening space continues to expand, new models are being tested, such as Seven Hills Park in Capitol Hill, Se-attle’s most populated neighborhood. Mithun designed a newly opened park that includes a community garden where neighbors work collaboratively to plant, maintain and manage the garden. Nearby, neighbors have been busy at work at Summit Slope Park, which opens May 1, 2011. In a growing trend of neighborhood collaboration, residents gather to install soil and plantings into the P-patch framework where twenty-four plots provide spac-es for people to grow food and flowers. Interspersed are patches of lawn, a skate spot and an oversized communal table, which bring a wide range of users to the park.

The future will also likely bring shifting attitudes to-ward park design. “We need to get back to Victory Gar-den aesthetics, when food production was not only an important role that parks could play, it was a national security issue,” notes Richard Dolesh, National Recre-ation and Park Association Chief of Public Policy. The seeds of such ideas are beginning to sprout. In Seattle, 2010 was officially the Year of Urban Agriculture, dur-

6. Beaulac J, Kristjansson E, Cummins S. A systematic review of food deserts, 1966-2007. Prev Chronic Dis 2009;6(3). www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2009/jul/08_0163.htm. Accessed February 11, 2011. Michele Ver Ploeg, Vince Breneman, Tracey Farrigan, Karen Hamrick, David Hopkins, Phil Kaufman, Biing-Hwan Lin, Mark Nord, Travis Smith, Ryan Williams, Kelly Kinnison, Carol Olander, Anita Singh, and Elizabeth Tuckermanty (2009) “Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences,” USDA Administrative Publication No. (AP-036) June 2009. Accessed February 11, 2011

ing which many new gardens and P-patches were built on public lands across the city. Mayors and city coun-cils around the country—in New York City, San Fran-cisco, and Seattle to name a few—have directed their staff to find available land for food production and to create plans to put them into cultivation.

THE EXPECTATIONS OF USERS ARE CHANGINGUncovering community needs and the ways that dif-ferent groups might use a neighborhood park—for growing food, recreation, meetings, exercise, passive and active play—is key to providing public space that the public will actually use. This multi-use aspect is es-pecially true in intergenerational communities such as Seattle’s Northgate community where park users range from toddlers and school children to teens, working adults, and seniors. Often, important input is missed during the community involvement process when park programming is determined because these individuals may not be able to attend public meetings, or feel un-comfortable sharing their opinions publicly, which can often be the case with immigrant families.

By integrating a rich tapestry of perspectives through a CulturalAuditTM engagement process, designers at Mithun captured concerns and interests of seniors, grade schoolers, and after-hours service employees for specific park program elements at Seattle’s Hubbard Homestead Park. Through this process, the team dis-covered that seniors didn’t just want clearer, safe cross-ings into the park—they wanted places where they could safely watch youth, specifically local skateboard-ers. The team also met with after-hours employees from a regional mall, who desired a safe, quiet place to meet family members, and grade-school children who sought the ability to interact with water and nature in both structured and unstructured play.

By delivering outdoor environments shaped by the communities they serve, the two Capitol Hill hybrid parks and the Hubbard Homestead Park now play a part in promoting physical health, mental wellbeing, and a sense of community where before there were only park-ing lots. “What is most amazing is to see the bonds that are forming between neighbors as they come together

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to build their P-patch in the park. It’s really inspiring to witness this hybrid park [a park and P-patch] as a com-munity catalyst—rising from a parking lot, establishing functioning urban agriculture, and growing lasting re-lationships,” notes Craig Skipton, associate at Mithun and project landscape architect for Summit Slope Park.

Proactive community involvement is even more impor-tant today as budgets continue to wane. City planners in Portland, Oregon, are attempting to head off budget frustrations by enlisting public feedback to prioritize the community’s needs. “Right after roads and bridges, parks and open space are at the top of the needs list,” notes Janet Bebb, Principal Regional Planner at Metro. She describes the power of people working together to create positive change: “In communities where citi-

zens are being involved, we are seeing tough decisions being made and strong consensus building, whereas in communities where the verdict of cuts is presented from above, we are seeing resentment and in-fighting.”

HOW PARKS CAN “COMPETE”In as much as parks have diversified in form and function over the past 150 years, the real question is how they will evolve next. “Parks need to compete with the technology and games that kids are inundated with—and they need to be fun,” notes Peter Harnik, the Trust for Public Land Director of the Center for City Park Excellence.

As cities implement comprehensive planning exercis-es, parks should be considered part of the future vision, not after-thoughts, especially at the edges where cur-

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Site design for Taylor 28 includes fixed and movable seating and integral LED lighting to activate this linear park space day and night. Laser-cut metal seatwalls represent the concept of multiple ‘flows’—people, light, wind and water—within the space.

DEBRA GUENTHER, ASLA, LEED® AP, a partner at Mithun, is a Cascadia fellow and a frequent speaker on innovative sustainable site design in the public realm.

CRAIG SKIPTON, ASLA, LEED® AP, an associate at Mithun, is the project manager for three of Seattle’s newest parks, including Hubbard Homestead Park, Seven Hills Park, and Summit Slope Park.

GABRIELA DENISE FRANK, LEED® AP, an associate at Mithun, is a Seattle writer and author of the upcoming book, CivitaVeritas: An Italian Fellowship Journey.

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rent population levels are lower now but are projected to rise in the future. Dolesh suggests that, “We need to work with developers and planners to ensure that there will be quality parks and green spaces near areas of high housing density and population.”

Another means of overcoming slashed budgets is pub-lic/private partnerships, which provide an inf lux of private capital to support park maintenance, programs, and design. However, the challenge with these fund-ing structures is public fear that private funding will create opportunities for corporate agendas to control programming and design; neighbors worry that their parks may be shaped in spite of—not in partnership with—the actual needs of the community.

Challenges like these call for better communication about the value of parks in the future. Parks that feature interac-tive art or monitoring systems for energy and water will do a better job at communicating their usefulness in pro-moting community health or conserving resources—as well as generating them. Sharing these metrics, as well as information about programs and activities, can also be ac-complished through social media, which some parks de-partments are beginning to employ today7.

In City Park, New Orleans, the oldest park in the coun-try and the site of the largest collection of live oaks in the world, the value of parks is being highlighted by a new Early Learning Village Center, which was inten-tionally located where the families are: the park. After Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Children’s Museum focused its energy on building partnerships to provide greater resources for families and creating a new place in the park that will connect children with nature. Since the park is a natural f loodwater site on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain, this SITES pilot project has been de-signed to provide the same amount of f loodwater stor-age as it currently has, thereby reintroducing the “bat-ture”—the estuary ecology that adapts to the ebb and f low of water. The character of these performance-driv-en landscapes provides the interpretive opportunities and biophilic environment that will inspire and support the next generation in their connection to nature.

7. www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nrpa/201002/index.php?startid=48#/54

In addition to food, infrastructure, children’s access to nature, changing users, and shrinking budgets, the greatest factor that will affect the future of parks is our own ability to change and accept non-traditional design elements—from wind turbines and solar farms to native landscapes that often depart from the tradi-tional manicured lawns, trees, and edges that many people associate with urban parks. These aesthetic changes to public open space will likely be at the heart of public discourse as we shift from our current active/passive park models into a generation of parks and a holistic approach to public space that is more integrated—nature that functions technologically, and technology that is based on natural systems.

Parks are a crucible for challenges between public and private uses, conservation issues, and the so-cial fabric of urban residents. Now more than ever preparing for the needs of future generations means we must shift our notions of what parks are and how they function.

Are you ready?

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers.

The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently...

you can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.

But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things…

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the

world, are the ones who do.

—Jack Kerouac

Morel is proud to support Cascadia Green Building Council and all who

are on the fore front of green building policy and action.

503 736 0111 • www.morelinc.com

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BY MICHAEL BERRISFORD

Annie LeonardThe sustainability movement is blessed with nu-merous talented, articulate leaders who are dedi-cated to righting social justice issues while ad-vocating for sustainability and environmental protection and restoration. Everyday, impassioned advocates, authors, researchers, designers, edu-cators, activists, policy-makers, and others care-fully hone the content and delivery of their mes-sage – believing, hoping and sometimes praying that the universal importance of their particular call-to-action will resonate with the intended audi-ence. Success in the form of invoking real change

is always hard-won and reaching new audiences never comes easily.

Well, almost never. In December 2007, Ameri-can-born activist and filmmaker Annie Leonard’s film about the lifecycle of material goods went viral. The 20-minute animated The Story of Stuff video became an online phenomenon. Her tar-get of fifty thousand views was exceeded in the first day. To date, the film has been viewed well over 12 million times and translated into dozens of languages.

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Part of the secret behind the astonishing distribu-tion success of the film was its Creative Commons License status. Aside from changing or selling the film, organizations were essentially free do any-thing they wanted with it – and they did! Within a very short period of time, groups of all kinds were posting the video on their websites and screening it at schools and at all sorts of public gatherings. Leonard’s common sense portrayal of the effects of excessive consumerism was unmistakable and so was her strategy for stoking the collective con-versation. Her message – the related credo of her

eco-colleagues – was clear… “You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet.” The back story lesson to other advocacy organizations was also clear – if you want something done on a larger scale, the key is to utilize networks. And it was this network-centric model that led to the worldwide circulation of The Story of Stuff and the relative celebrity of Annie Leonard.

Thankfully, Leonard continues to diversify her quest and turn up the volume of the conversation on planetary health. Building on the success of

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The Story of Stuff, her work has evolved into The Story of Stuff Project, which has allowed her to ex-plore more topics, produce more films and associ-ated educational tools, and release a book based on her work. Annie Leonard is passionate, intelli-gent and genuine. With her unquenchable thirst for the truth and her knack for using simple but pow-erful narratives to explain complex subjects, it is no wonder that her work has touched so many people. Read on to learn more about what you already sus-pected – that there is a great deal more behind this green warrior than the animated black-line draw-ings and the cartoon characters of her clever films.

Trim Tab: It turns out you are a Cascadian! Please tell us where you are from and how growing up in the Pacific Northwest influenced who you are today?

Annie Leonard: I am so proud to say that I am a Seattle native. I grew up in the Montlake neigh-borhood – my mother is still there – and, although

I haven’t lived there for twenty years, I will always consider it home. After all this time, I occasion-ally look up while walking in random cities and expect to see Mt. Rainer in the distance. Had I not grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I may never have made The Story of Stuff. My curiosity about how we use stuff started as a youth camping in the Cascades. I remember looking out of the window of our car as we drove to the trailheads, wondering about the huge swatches of clear-cut land and the logging trucks barreling down the other side of the road with towering trees, just recently cut. I was too young to know about car-bon sequestration and hydrological cycles and all the other ways that trees help sustain life on this planet. I just thought something was wrong and wanted to figure it out. That started me on a life passion of looking at how materials – or stuff – moves through our economy. I summarized all that I had learned over the years in an online film, The Story of Stuff.

“Our mental and physical landscapes are cluttered with commercial messages relentlessly telling us of our inadequacy, and promising greater love, professional success and joy if we buy something new.”

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TT: How did your interest in consumerism evolve into The Story of Stuff?

AL: I was fortunate enough to be able to spend nearly two decades traveling the world, visiting the factories where our stuff is made and the dumps where it is disposed of. From the clear cuts of the Northwest to belching chemical fac-tories in India to hazardous waste dump sites in South Africa, I got to see, firsthand, the hidden environmental, social and health impacts of the way we make, use, and throw away stuff. Back at home, I saw that we, in the over-consuming parts of the world, are also paying the price for our overconsumption; it is not just the poor villagers and factory workers overseas who are suffering. Our obsession with stuff is adding to our stress levels, undermining our health and family well-be-ing and even eroding communities. Yes, we have more and cooler stuff than previous generations could have even dreamed of, but to what end? We work longer hours than our parents’ genera-tion, take fewer vacations, have more credit card debt, spend more time alone in front of screens and spend less time with our children. We have more material possessions, but fewer friends. That’s not progress.

TT: What is The Story of Stuff Project?

AL: The Story of Stuff Project is a small non-prof-it project that I set up to harness the incredible momentum The Story of Stuff film generated to make some real change. I am thrilled at the suc-cess of the film – it has been viewed over 12 mil-lion times in more than 200 countries around the world since its launch in December 2007. That’s great, but my goal isn’t to make popular films – it is to make the world a better place. So, real success will be harnessing the enthusiasm the film tapped into to make real change. Towards this end, The Story of Stuff Project is partnering with activist organizations to make more films on critical issues, with a call to action accompanying each one. All the films, plus lots of additional edu-

cational and organizing material, are available for free on our website. Help yourself!

TT: Your common sense thesis, “You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely,” is well-founded yet rampant consumerism contin-ues to fuel conventional markets. Why do we con-tinue this reckless consumerism even in light of its harmful consequences?

AL: You know, there are so many reasons our consumerism is out of control. There’s a cul-tural piece: our mental and physical landscapes are cluttered with commercial messages relent-lessly telling us of our inadequacy, and promis-ing greater love, professional success and joy if we buy something new. There’s a design piece:

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companies routinely make products – like kitchen appliances and electronics – designed to be short lived, impossible to upgrade and challenging to repair or recycle so we will discard them and buy another when something goes wrong. There’s a structural piece: our neighborhoods and work schedules are increasingly structured in ways that prevent community building. If we don’t know our neighbors, we can not nurture habits of sharing, so we end up with each oversized house having its own lawn mower, bundt pan, power drill, bar-beque and dozens of other things that we only need a few days a month, or less.

And there’s also an ideological piece: our econ-omy is built around a deep belief that unlimited economic growth is both desirable and pos-sible. However, the data does not back up this belief. Once a country gets to a certain point in its industrial development (safe houses, secure

food, access to medicine, and so on), increased economic growth does not necessarily add to happiness and well-being and, in many cases, can undermine these things. Unfortunately, our political and economic leaders got off track in this country by thinking that economic growth is the goal, and they are willing to sacrifice good schools, clean environmental and public health for these things. It should be the other way around: health and happiness should be the goal and economic growth is one tool, among many, that are useful as long as they are still contribut-ing to that goal.

TT: How do you respond to detractors who ac-cuse you of being “anti-capitalism”?

AL: Capitalism is an economic model – that’s all. Just one model among many. It’s crazy how ta-boo it is to even mention the C-word, let alone point out that not everything about the economy is working well these days and that there are some other models. Capitalism is like the Economic-System-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named. Our societal refusal to talk about it especially baffles me, hav-ing spent time in other countries where people do talk about it. In most other places, it is not a huge taboo to discuss the pros and cons of various eco-nomic models. It just isn’t that big a deal.

Capitalism was invented hundreds of years ago, around the same time that leeches and bloodlet-ting were considered the height of medical prow-ess. You know how medicine advanced? By trying new things and evaluating results, then making adjustments and sharing notes; continuously striving for improvement. Can you imagine what today’s medicine would be like if people were not encouraged to critically examine procedures and suggest improvements? All I am saying is that I would like to see the same rigor applied to trying to improve our economic system as I see applied to so many other fields. It doesn’t serve us to re-fuse to acknowledge that some pretty big things just are not working well today.

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TT: You have been known to refer to the Gross Do-mestic Product as “a big dumb number”. What’s the story on the GDP?

AL: GDP is a big dumb number because it doesn’t really tell us anything about how our so-ciety is doing. It measures money that changes hands, which is often accompanied by resource use. But it does not differentiate between those transactions that make society happier, healthi-er, and safer and those that undermine all those things. So, every new case of cancer boosts the GDP. Every new prison, every new garbage incinerator, and every hazardous waste or oil spill all raise the GDP. And many things that do contribute to a better life are not quantified in the GDP – things such as neighbors sharing, volunteer activity, and a standing forest which absorbs carbon and prevents flooding down-stream. Evaluating our progress with the GDP alone is like a storekeeper who adds up all the money she spent on running her business and all the money she took in into one big number. That number simply can’t give a good picture of how the business is doing.

Yet, we pay attention to what we measure. So we need to get some alternative metrics on the table.

We need to measure our children’s academic prog-ress, public health, quality of our air and water, level of satisfaction and sense of security in our commu-nities. These are the things that make life good, not economic transactions for their own sake.

TT: What metrics are more suitable to track our progress?

AL: There are a number of different metrics that capture broader life-quality measures than just GDP. These metrics include the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), the Happy Planet Index, the Hu-man Development Index and, of course, Bhutan’s pioneering work in Gross National Happiness. Re-cently, Sustainable Seattle launched the Seattle Area Happiness Initiative (SAHI) to promote al-ternative metrics to the GDP locally. My recom-mendation: get involved!

TT: There is an ever-growing commitment in the green building industry to replace harmful build-ing materials with healthy alternatives. How do we turn this commitment into a sustainable model for eliminating the use of toxic products in the built environment?

AL: The explosion of environmental awareness in the green building industry is one of the many things that fuels my hope. (One of my favorite resources on the environmental health impacts of building materials is the Pharos database. Check it out at www.pharosproject.net. Build-ings are a great place to start since they use so many resources and we all use the buildings. So, greening buildings helps to shift markets, by let-ting manufacturers know people want safe and healthy materials. It also protects workers and building residents from toxic exposure. And it is a great educational opportunity to show people that another way really is possible. We don’t have to trash the planet just to have a roof over our heads. I love it when buildings have signs ex-plaining their green features and inspiring others to follow suit.

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TT: How do we increase public awareness of per-sistent bioaccumulative toxins?

AL: We need to address this awareness on three fronts. First, educate ourselves and our communi-ties so we can make safer choices. Online resourc-es like the Skin Deep database and GoodGuide are making it easier for shoppers to avoid some toxic-containing products. Groups like the Washington Toxics Coalition are doing a great job in the re-gion. Second, we need to pressure manufactures to stop using these persistent bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs). This pressure includes market cam-paigns like boycotts, campaigns targeting spe-

cific manufacturers or retailers and other tactics that take place within the marketplace. Third, and most important, as citizens, we need to engage in the democratic process. We will never be able to inform every member of the public of the dan-gers of PBTs and, even if we could, often products don’t mention them on the label and alternatives may not be available, or they are prohibitively expensive. And, while some business leaders are already onboard with getting rid of these super toxics – either because they honestly care about the planet and people or they see the regulatory writing on the wall – others are dragging their feet and are never going to be convinced. We can’t wait for every company to get on board. So, the best way to protect our communities and future children is to get strong regulations in place which prohibit the use of chemicals linked to cancer, re-productive disorders, neurological problems and other health issues. Such chemicals have no place in a healthy society, especially when so many saf-er alternatives exist.

TT: Why do you consider recycling “an admission of defeat”?

AL: There’s a reason that recycling is last in the mantra: “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Recycling is the last thing we should do with a product, once we have exhausted every opportunity to design it out of use, to share it with others, to repair or reuse it. Recycling is an admission of defeat because do-ing so admits that you could not find any better option. Of course, it is still better than landfilling or worse, incinerating, but recycling is an energy-intensive, polluting, industrial process too. Just because it is called “recycling” doesn’t mean it is green. And much of the municipal waste – includ-ing super toxic e-waste – collected in the Pacific Northwest is actually sent to Asia for reprocess-ing. I have visited factories in Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and China which import our plastic waste for recycling. I assure you, the conditions there are not what we green-minded, eco-living Cascadia folks have in mind when we toss the

“‘Recycling’ is an admission of defeat because doing so ad-mits that you could not find any better option. Recycling is an energy-intensive, pollut-ing, industrial process too. Just because it is called “recycling” doesn’t mean it is green.”

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plastic into the recycling bin. We need to focus more energy on the upstream interventions: de-sign for durability, as well as modular design for re-use and repair, sharing and, most importantly, avoiding using the stuff in the first place.

TT: Are there any connections between our gar-bage and global social issues?

AL: There are connections between our garbage and everything! Garbage is a fascinating lens into lots of things about a society; that is why I love visiting dumps and looking in garbage cans whenever I visit a new city – I can learn so much

about what is going on – it’s like reading that town’s secret diary.

But specifically, our garbage is related to global social issues because it is far-off countries, often developing countries, from which we get most of our stuff and to which we send some of the gar-bage. So the waste from making our stuff ends up in China or India or Guatemala or wherever our stuff is made and, too often, when we are done with our stuff, the waste is sent overseas. This trend is especially true for e-waste; about 75 percent of e-waste which is collected for recycling is shipped to developing countries. A Seattle-based organi-

“The Cap and Trade proposal on the table does not meet what the science says is needed to curb global warming, disproportionately benefits polluters and ignores serious international equity issues.”

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zation, Basel Action Network (BAN.org) monitors and works to stop this abhorrent practice.

We need to make sure that our environmental victories do not translate into increased environ-mental burdens for our global neighbors. Too of-ten, environmental hazards (like dirty factories or shiploads of hazardous waste) follow the path of least resistance; they seek places with weaker en-vironmental laws and enforcement, looser worker health and safety standards and less public in-volvement in decision making. That is not okay. If something is too dangerous for our children, then it is too dangerous for children everywhere. We need to turn NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) to NOPE (Not On Planet Earth).

“Too often, environmentalists are caught in the myth that the truth will set us free. Obviously it won’t, or we would be free! What will set us free is building relation-ships with diverse communities, organizing, dreaming together of a better world and then figuring out how to get there.”

TT: The Story of Cap and Trade brings to light the incongruence between political reality and physi-cal reality. How can we reconcile the two?

AL: We made a film on Cap and Trade because we were concerned that a deeply flawed false so-lution was progressing at the national and inter-national policy level. The Cap and Trade proposal on the table does not meet what the science says is needed to curb global warming, disproportion-ately benefits polluters, and ignores serious inter-national equity issues. Yet many environmental groups supported it because they believed “it was the best we can get.” I fear they are confus-ing political reality and physical reality. They felt we could not get a more effective solution past the coal and oil industries.

Excuse me, but whose democracy is this? We, the people? Or We, the corporations? Corpora-tions have been exerting pressure and increas-ing influence in our democracy in so many ways, for so long, that it is pretty much impossible to get legislation passed that prioritizes pub-lic and planetary well-being over corporate in-terest. This problem was heightened last year when the US Supreme Court determined that corporations are entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protection. The result of this case, called Citizens United v FEC, is that corpo-rations can now spend as much money as they want, from their corporate coffers, to influence election outcomes. This decision risks turning our elections into auctions in which public of-fices are available only to those people whom corporations support and unavailable to those who prioritize public well-being over corporate interests. This is the topic of our latest film, The Story of Citizens United v FEC: Why Democracy Only Works when People Are in Charge. It, and all of our films, is available free on our website, Storyofstuff.org.

TT: You have a special talent for transforming complicated and serious issues into powerful sto-

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MICHAEL BERRISFORD is the Director

of Ecotone for Cascadia Green Building

Council and the Editorial Director of

Trim Tab Magazine.

ries that inspire people to action. This is a talent that really benefits the environmental/social jus-tice movement. Do you have any advice for other concerned individuals on crafting stories that will move people and inspire them to action?

AL: Speak from the heart, not just the head. Lis-ten to people to hear what is important to them and offer varied doors into the conversation so that many different people feel welcome to join. Save the super wonky, technical, information-laden talks for when people are on board. Lead-ing with too much technical information, plus guilt and fear – all three common tactics of envi-ronmentalists – are not really all that welcoming or effective.

Too often, environmentalists are caught in the myth that the truth will set us free. Obviously it won’t, or we would be free! What will set us free is building relationships with diverse communities, organizing, dreaming together of a better world and then figuring out how to get there.

TT: Is there any special message or call to ac-tion that you would like to share with Trim Tab readers?

AL: Thanks so much for your good work in keep-ing my home region green and healthy! And thanks for spreading the word about The Story of Stuff. My goal was to turn up the volume on the conversation about how we make, use and throw away stuff, and thanks to a vibrant community of people who care – it’s working! Please stay tuned for more films and keep spreading the word. All of our films – plus educational materials for teach-ers, faith communities and reading groups – are available for free on our website. Help yourself and have fun!

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Visit our website for details: www.cascadiagbc.org/living-future/11

Come early and stay late for

Check out our roster of pre and post-conference events:

Find out what it takes to create a Living Building:• Tour of SFU’s UniverCity Childcare Centre• Tour or UBC’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability• Tour of the VanDusen Botanical Gardens’ Visitors’ Centre

Set your sights on the future of the built environment at our Understanding the Living Building Challenge workshop.

See Sustainability (and The Natural Step) in Action at our tour of Whistler.

Learn how to “Ask Nature” with the Backyard Biomimicry Workshop.

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Pre- and post- conference events available

as separate tickets!

register now.

SOME FUn fOr thE kidS!FUN Society, BC’s award-winning environmental education organization, has created a unique program to capture kids’ imagination and fuel their inspiration. Register your kids (ages 5 - 16) for this hands-on and interactive conference experience that will last a lifetime!

Runs parallel to Living Future. Discounted rates available to conference goers.

RegiSteR Now FoR FUN CamPS

Spring 201130

BY JASON F. MCLENNANAND MARY ADAM THOMAS

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Conflict and the Fight for Peaceful SustainabilityEMBRACING CONFLICT FOR TRUE GROWTH

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Just prior to periods of great migration, cer-tain species display agitation and restlessness – a phenomenon referred to by scientists as zu-gunruhe. McLennan identifies a similar pattern emerging among people yearning for a sustain-able future. In this book, he explores a deeper, more meaningful connection to the environmen-tal movement.

EMBRACING AND ENGAGING CONFLICTThis much is true: change and conflict go hand in hand. Profound change relies on conflict, so if we are committed to the first, we must embrace the second.

But conflict, for many people, has only a negative con-notation. By its very definition, it requires two parties to “come into collision” or to “clash.” How, then, can

“Those who practice the Art of Peace must protect the domain of Mother Nature, the divine reflection of creation, and keep it lovely and fresh. Warriorship gives birth to natural beauty. The subtle techniques of a warrior arise as naturally as the appearance of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Warriorship is none other than the vitality that sustains all life.”

MORIHEI UESHIBA, INVENTOR OF AIKIDO

This article is excerpted from from Zugunruhe: The Inner Migration to Profound Environmental Change by Jason F. McLennan with Mary Adam Thomas.

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we balance our commitments to peace and sustainabil-ity with a willingness to engage in conflict?

Creating profound change in other people, systems and cultures requires that we first take a long, hard look at what we think we know and understand. Zugunruhe be-gins when we ask ourselves what we have become too comfortable with and what feels safe to us yet lies in conflict with the change we wish to seek and the person we wish to become. Only by manifesting profound in-ner change and beginning our own migration towards greater effectiveness and peace can we create positive outer change that is durable and beautiful. In essence, it is essential that we stir up conflict within ourselves as we begin the journey down the change-making path. Viewed this way, conflict can be seen as a vital and healthy part of any change – inward or outward.

Conflict, like failure, is necessary. Unfortunately, we tend to have an equally unhealthy and dysfunctional relationship with conflict just as we do with failure.

There are, unfortunately, always significant numbers of angry and hurt individuals who embrace conflict for extremely unhealthy reasons – as an outlet for their ag-gression, pain and confusion. Conflict in this setting is violent, intended to hurt and is pursued almost as a means to its own ends. This modus operandi is not what is meant by truly embracing conflict. Other peo-ple shy away from conflict at almost any cost, usually for one of the following two critical reasons:

FEAR. When we stay in situations that make us un-happy, it is usually because we are afraid of change and of the conflict change creates. Instead, we internalize it, trying to avoid the outer manifestation of conflict, which is somehow believed to be too scary or intense to deal with. Yet the “conflict” does not go away; it merely eats inward and builds. There are many people who, instead of engaging and speaking up for what is right or asking for something that they need, bottle up their emotions, internalize negative energy and end up sacrificing their own well-being and effectiveness. By not expressing ourselves when we disagree with a boss, co-worker, client, friend or lover, we actually own the

opposing view as surely as if we had agreed with it in the first place. And then we resent ourselves and the other for our weakness.

Ironically, this fear of conflict ends up being dramati-cally self-fulfilling as, at some point, the internal con-f lict comes to the surface in destructive ways – inappro-priate anger, yelling and sometimes violence. However, when we stand up for ourselves and our convictions in a respectful and positive manner – embracing the vari-ous forms of resulting conflict – we allow ourselves to grow and ultimately challenge others to do so as well.

INSECURITY. Many of us equate conf lict with rage, and view all forms of conf lict as personal attacks. People with deep insecurities feel hurt and wounded with every interaction where an issue or idea is chal-lenged, as they too closely associate the notion of con-f lict with a feeling that they are personally defective or bad. They then feel victimized as any conf lict per-sists and they reply only with pain and anger to defend what now feels like a personal attack. They have not learned that conf lict is something that happens “out there” and has no internal purchase if it is not grant-ed and that conf lict can be healthy and isolated to a particular issue that needs to be aired, separate from personal feelings. By making conf lict personal it only shuts down rather than opens-up discussion. By learn-ing to clearly separate who we are, and our own value from whatever conf lict that arises, we greatly increase our effectiveness.

Our goal, then, is to understand that conflict is neces-sary, important and healthy and find peace in conflict even when it is initially difficult and uncomfortable to do so.

CONFLICT VERSUS COMPETITIONI have learned that using conflict as a tool for change takes practice. The goal should never be simply to over-power an opponent; instead, conflict is put to most ef-fective use when it is used to elevate the potential of those on all sides of an issue. In order to illustrate this point, I recall a literal experience from my childhood that serves as a good parable.

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Growing up, I was a very skinny kid, a fact that led some of my peers to tease me and assume that they could push me around because of my slight build. I was encouraged by my father to take judo, so I could learn to defend myself if push came to shove, so to speak. Strictly translated, judo means “the gentle way”. In judo, the objective is to use an opponent’s energy and inertia against him. One achieves this end by throw-ing and pinning, not by striking or intentionally caus-ing physical pain. A highly skilled practitioner marks success by preventing both injury and damage to the attacker, while stopping his or her opponent from hurting them.

I took to judo with great interest, joining two oth-er friends in a local dojo and practicing hard each week. I studied regularly over the course of several years and actually developed decent skills; the sport came naturally to me and I enjoyed participating in tournaments that my father took me to all over northern Ontario. Looking back, I think I was good at judo because I could anticipate the moves other children were preparing to make1, which allowed me to beat them even when they were stronger and fast-er than I. I had success beating other judoists who had higher belts and better technique. I understood how to win.

Unfortunately, in retrospect I was not necessarily learning the discipline I should have been. Like some others, I did not study and memorize Japanese termi-nology for the throws I was learning – and I did not spend sufficient time practicing proper technique. I was concerned only if a move worked. I think my Sen-sei understood this, but because I was doing well in tournaments against higher-ranked opponents, I think he felt compelled to promote me when he should not have. Perhaps he should have insisted on more disci-pline, since the goal is never simply to win.

I learned this lesson painfully one winter afternoon in Timmins, Ontario when I faced a young boy ap-

1. I was always surprised at how so many essentially “telegraphed” their intended moves and tried to rely only on their strength or some sort of practiced sequence to fight.

proximately my age from a neighboring town. He was one degree higher than I was in rank and a worthy op-ponent. But I had a trick up my sleeve. I had been ob-serving older, considerably more advanced students and had studied a particular “counter”2 that looked extremely interesting. I had seen it used in a recent match that resulted in an immediate “ippon” (full point) and figured that I should try it as well. It was not a throw that I had ever practiced or been properly taught – but I knew I could win with it. My clever-ness, I thought, would make up for my lack of higher belt mastery.

In the early moments of the match, I worked hard to mislead my opponent with fake attempts at throws (a technique I often used). The goal was to make it seem like I was vulnerable and to reveal how he approached his throws. I quickly learned that if I pulled him a bit to the right after tugging him extremely hard downwards, he was prone to try a particular type of leg sweep in response. I simply had to watch for his sweeping right leg; if I was not careful, that leg would throw me to the ground and he would gain a point. After a few minutes of us sparring in this way, I was ready to try my experi-ment. I planned to put myself in the position of the vic-tim and at the last minute when he was about to throw me, I would hook his leg and f lip him back over me as I had seen the black-belts do.

The right moment came, and I tugged hard down-wards to the left, then pulled him back up to the right, feigning a lack of balance. He swept his leg forward with confidence and using all his strength. And then I did almost exactly what I had seen the older students do: I sent him soaring over me in a complete somer-sault. He landed f lat on his back in an instant full-point victory for me. “Ippon!” But what I had not done, what I had not known how to do, was to protect him at the same time. He was not my adversary, but my collabo-rator whom I let down. And as he came down on his back, he did so with his leg bent completely downward in the wrong direction. Upon impact, his leg snapped in two places.

2. A counter is a move designed specifically to be used to stop or turn the tables on your opponent’s move.

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As I stood up, he started screaming and crying and thrashing about on the f loor and I was horrified. The ceremonial rules of the sport meant that I had to sit on the mat with my back to him listening to him scream until he could be removed from the mat by the ambu-lance. It was a long few minutes and gave me a new per-spective that I will never forget. I wanted to win the conflict instead of using the conflict to better my own development. The cost of this victory was too high.

The experience took most of the fun out of the sport for me from that point on. The injured boy never re-turned to judo, and I learned a hard but extremely im-portant lesson about conf lict. The match taught me that conf lict in any form – physical, mental, spiritual – is an art that requires practice to master. Just as I was unwilling to practice in order to win that impor-tant contest, our society has become lazy and unwill-ing to engage in productive conf lict because it often seems too difficult. Either we avoid conf lict or we

take shortcuts to try to get the result we want. In true conf lict, we have partners with whom we collaborate rather than spar. Together, both sides of a conf lict can redirect energy in productive ways to the satisfaction of all concerned.

CONFLICT AND THE GREEN WARRIORSome people have asked me why I use the term “war-rior” when I describe individuals who quest for pro-found change. Many feel that the term brings a negative and violent connotation. And, while I understand this to be the modern western view of the term, I believe the reverse is actually historically true. In many past cultures, a true “warrior” was someone who possessed great discipline; a warrior considered bloodshed and violence to be unnecessary in almost any situation and always undesirable, never cold-blooded and pre-emp-tive. Restraint and diplomacy were the hallmarks of a great warrior. A warrior was willing and able to fight to be sure, but as a measure of last resort.

“By learning to clearly separate who we are, and our own value from whatever conflict that arises, we greatly increase our effectiveness.”

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“As green warriors, we do not seek to destroy those who stand in the way of progress, but instead use their negative energy and convert it to positive change and a new paradigm, including for those that we are up against. Warriors use dialogue, imagery and vision to convert others’ negative worldviews to more holistic, encompassing and sustainable perspectives.”

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I now use the term “green warrior” as a metaphor. In Zen and the Art of Making a Living, author Laurence G. Boldt describes a warrior as “anyone who uses their ag-gressive energy in a disciplined, focused way.” He re-minds us that even Gandhi understood the power of focused aggressive energy:

“I have learned through bitter experience

the one supreme lesson to conserve my

anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted

into energy, even so anger controlled can

be transmuted into an energy which can

move the world.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

The environmental issues we face today should make us angry. They should make us unsettled and outraged, and should drive us to true warriorship – not cowardly acts of ecoterrorism, but profound and sustained lifelong dedication to transformation. The question, when anger rises, is not whether the feeling is legitimate – it probably is – but what is the most effective way to deal with these feelings and how one can channel such energy towards conf lict that is productive.

The green warrior takes responsibility by controlling her outrage and channeling it into effective action. As green warriors, we do not seek to destroy those who stand in the way of progress, but instead use their nega-tive energy and convert it to positive change and a new paradigm, including for those that we are up against. Warriors use dialogue, imagery and vision to convert others’ negative worldviews to more holistic, encom-passing and sustainable perspectives. To use judo again, we are willing to “throw” people and make them submit…but we refuse to break bones and win at a cost that is too high.

David Bohm3 distinguishes the word “discussion” from “dialogue,” masterfully illustrating the differ-ence between effective and ineffective conf lict:

3. From his book On Dialogue

It has to do with the words “dialogue” and “discussion.” The word “dialogue” comes from the Greek “dia-logos”. “Logos” means meaning or word. “Dia” means through. The original meaning of the word “dia-logos” was mean-ing moves through or flow of meaning. When a group of people talk with one another so that there is a flow of meaning, this is a very special kind of conversation. We become unconcerned about who says what, about whose view prevails or who saves face. We enter the domain of truly thinking together. By contrast, the word “discus-sion” comes from the same roots as “percussion” and “concussion”. It literally means, “to break apart.” A dis-cussion involves heaving one’s views at one another. Who wins and who loses is often all that matters.

Serving as a true green warrior requires that one em-brace and accept conflict, and approach it as a neces-sary tool for change.

Toward this end, the practice that we need is the following:

• The willingness to risk getting hurt or risk being wrong.

• The courage to potentially upset and provoke peo-ple we care about.

• The patience to listen to what others are saying.

• The humility to accept when we are wrong.

• The clarity to convey how we truly feel.

• The wisdom to explore new points of view and accept other positions.

• The love to see each conflict through to a higher resolution.4

In the current green building movement, there is a small but growing number of extremely dedicated and passionate green warriors, each willing and prepared to engage in productive conf lict. Unfor-

4. There is that wonderful and well-known prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr that is filled with meaning: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

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C O N F L I C T L E S S O N 1Embrace conflict as a necessary and valuable part of change.

Do not avoid it, hide from it or seek it recklessly, but step into it when necessary.

Use conflict as inertia in which to move from one paradigm to another.

C O N F L I C T L E S S O N 2Do not view conflict as an opportunity to win or defeat an opponent.

Instead, view it as an opportunity to test mutual assumptions, ideas and policies,

Arriving at a place that is healthier, more profound and more true.

tunately, this number is just not enough. In order to make real and effective change on the necessary scale, we need a massive army of well-trained, highly skilled green warriors who are driven by positive-focused motivations. The environmental movement has produced a substantial number of advocates, but many are misguided, uneducated and ineffective, in spite of their intelligence. Some are simply pissed off and unpleasant.

The green warrior must be ready before going into ac-tion. Too many of us are ill prepared; we do not under-stand the idea of treating those we conflict with as a “partner.” When dealing with institutions or individu-als we seek to change, we lack a clear strategy and we have not suitably honed our skills to have a hope of suc-ceeding beyond further polarizations.

PEARLS OF WISDOMIn any conf lict, we must think of the person or po-sition we attempt to change as a partner rather than

an enemy. Armed with knowledge, passion and a willingness to engage, we move debates forward con-structively. I have always admired the teachings of Thomas Crum, John Denver’s old bodyguard and a skilled black belt in aikido (a martial art similar in form and philosophy to judo). In aikido, the Uke and Nage5 work together as peaceful opponents to master technique. In Crum’s work, he often uses aikido as a metaphor for change and for accepting and embrac-ing conf lict as an essential part of that change.

In his book The Magic of Conflict, Crum reminds us that the goal of conflict is not to bring people to your side, but to bring them to something larger than either side. He explores the notion of conflict as being neither posi-tive nor negative; it is nothing more than an interface pattern of natural energies. Crum cites beaches, can-

5. Uke is the receiver who initially starts an “attack.” The Nage defends and gracefully performs the throw or move on the attacker. Both Uke and Nage take turns and help each other with form and movement.

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JASON F. MCLENNAN is the CEO of the Cas-cadia Green Building Council, the Interna-tional Living Building Institute and The Natu-ral Step USA. He is the creator of the Living Building Challenge, as well as the author of four books, including his latest: Zugunruhe.

MARY ADAM THOMAS is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in numerous regional and national publications over her 25-year career. Working closely with Jason on Zugunruhe, she helped to bring structure and polish to the book.

yons, mountains and pearls as perfect examples of how nature uses conflict as its primary motivator for change.

Further jewels from Crum’s work, which summarize the potential power of conflict:

• We all have conflict in our lives; it is unavoidable. It is what you do with that conflict that makes a difference.

• Conflict is not a contest. The goal is not to win or lose; it is to learn, grow and cooperate.

• Conflict can be seen as a gift of energy, in which nei-ther side loses and a new dance is created.

• Resolving conflict is rarely about who is right. It is about acknowledging and appreciating differences.

• Conflict begins within. As we unhitch the burden of belief systems and heighten our perceptions, we love more fully and freely.

• Understand and embrace conflict and aggression.

• Conflict starts with knowledge.

• We must know our opponent’s opinions in order to engage her with skill and empathy.

It is necessary to work directly with the conflict in our environment, not ignore it, submerge it, give up on it or try to deny its existence. However profound our in-dividual wisdom, it will not survive unless it is joined with some kind of power.

Buy yours today at ecotonedesign.com.

“Zugunruhe is a work of creative genius that draws us into an engaging journey of self-discovery.”

— David Korten Co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine

Are you ready to change?Zugunruhe, a bold and personal look

at the environmental movement.

Spring 201140

BY L IS A S T IFFL ER

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Curbing Stormwater and Creating Communities: The Case for Low-Impact Development

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Spring 201142

A woman drowns when the basement of her Seattle, Washington home suddenly fills with a torrent of filthy water. An overf low of millions of gallons of sewage and stormwater fouls the shoreline of pictur-esque Port Angeles, putting the waterfront off limits to the residents and visitors of the Olympic Peninsula town due to health concerns. Portlanders are socked with some of the nation’s highest water utility rates in order to pay for the city’s $1.4 billion “Big Pipe” proj-ects. Northwest scientists document coho salmon dying in urban streams with their bellies full of eggs, perishing before they can spawn.

The culprit in each of these stories is the most mun-dane of villains: the rain. As rainwater streams off roofs and over roadways and landscaped yards, it mixes a massive toxic cocktail. It scoops up oil, grease, anti-freeze and heavy metals from cars; pesticides that poi-son aquatic insects and fish; fertilizers that stoke algal blooms; and bacteria from pet and farm-animal waste. A heavy rainfall delivers this potent shot of pollutants straight into streams, lakes and bays—threatening ev-erything from tiny herring to the region’s beloved or-cas to human health.

Stormwater does not match the traditional im-age of pollution. There are no factory smokestacks belching waste, no pipes with a steady trickle of noxious industrial eff luent. Despite appearances, stormwater packs a wallop. Polluted runoff long ago surpassed traditional industry as the number one source for petroleum and other toxic chemicals that wash into the water bodies of the Pacific North-west. Each year, the Puget Sound alone is sullied by fourteen million pounds of toxic chemicals, oil and grease—and that’s a conservative estimate. The amount of petroleum waste is so vast, imagine if half a million cars emptied their tanks straight into the sound each year.

Polluted runoff threatens to make water from Lake Whatcom – the sole source of drinking water for the city of Bellingham, Washington – undrinkable, and has helped put shellfish harvesting off limits for beachgoers from north of Everett all the way to south of Tacoma.

How has the Northwest’s iconic rain been transformed into such a menace? A century of building pipes, gut-ters and impervious surfaces is to blame. Our goal has been to shunt water away from buildings and pavement as quickly as possible. So when the rain hits hard sur-faces, it collects dirt and pollution and f lushes it into drains that often lead directly into sensitive waterways without any kind of treatment. In some cases, the run-off merges with sewer waste, resulting in overf lows of raw sewage during heavy storms.

However, there is a solution for Cascadia’s flood waves of runoff. It’s an affordable fix that curbs environmental damage while making our neighborhoods and commu-nities more walkable, sustainable and inviting. It’s called low-impact development, or LID. The approach utilizes a suite of conservation and engineering tools to make de-veloped areas behave more like natural ecosystems.

LID is starting to catch on across the Northwest, but be-fore exploring these green-building strategies, let’s dig a little deeper into the challenges posed by stormwater.

Rivers of costly runoffTen bathtubs full of water. That’s how much rain pours off one average-size house during a good-sized drenching. In a typical year in Portland or Seattle, approximately 26,600 gallons of stormwater rush into the gutters and streams from a single home. And there are more than 2.6 million houses in Oregon and Washington, as well as countless more apart-ments, condominiums, warehouses, offices, stores and other buildings.

When the rain runs off the roof of a building—and its driveway, sidewalk and lawn—it f lows into a labyrinth of stormwater infrastructure. Even relatively arid cit-ies such as Spokane, in Eastern Washington, must maintain more than three hundred miles of stormwa-ter sewers. Traditional approaches to handling storm-water have been costly to governments as well as to home and business owners. Cities and counties in Washington alone spend more than a quarter billion dollars per year trying to control and clean contami-nated runoff.

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For nearly two decades, Portland has been working on its “Big Pipe” projects to prevent billions of gallons of raw sewage and stormwater from fouling the Columbia Slough and Willamette River. The $1.4 billion projects should be completed this year. Victoria and Vancouver in British Columbia, Port Angeles, Spokane and Coquille (near the Oregon Coast) are among the many Northwest cities and towns now facing expensive infrastructure up-grades to avert overflows of sewage and polluted runoff.

And there are the untold millions spent repairing stormwater-related damage from flooding, landslides and sinkholes. Over the course of one particularly wet weekend in Washington this past December, Seattle Public Utilities reported more than seven hundred calls about f looding and dispatched crews to 332 locations.

Putting a LID on stormwaterA stroll down a stretch of 2nd Avenue Northwest in Seattle is almost a walk in the park. The slightly me-andering residential street is lined with wide strips of native grasses, small shrubs and trees. Along the shoul-der, interspersed among parking spots, are swales—or gentle depressions—that fill with rainwater during a downpour. You will not find sludgy gutters brimming with muddy water and trash or deserts of black asphalt that foster shoe-soaking puddles.

The street was one of the Northwest’s first experiments in natural drainage systems, or low-impact development. A decade ago, workers jackhammered up the block and re-en-gineered it to catch and clean stormwater the way it’s done in nature. In a forest, rainwater falls on branches and leaves and slowly evaporates, or it soaks into the ground and gets sucked up by plants. The project—called SEA Street—has been wildly successful, nearly eliminating stormwater run-off, even during heavy rains. The slightly narrowed street is also safer for kids and pedestrians, and creates natural spaces that are inviting to wildlife and people.

“LID systems really do have the ability to filter water naturally and create much nicer, softer, greener storm-water facilities that really engage the public” said Tim Bailey, a geotechnical engineer and experienced prac-titioner of LID with GeoEngineers, Inc., in Seattle.

The philosophy of LID is to try to replicate nature’s way of managing rainfall. It means taking surfaces that normally repel water—roofs and pavement —and making them permeable.

LID can mean building green roofs covered in water-trapping soil and plants. It can mean hooking down-spouts to rain barrels or cisterns to store the water that runs off, or having downspouts f low into “rain

“A HEAVY RAINFALL DELIVERS A POTENT SHOT OF POLLUTANTS STRAIGHT INTO STREAMS, LAKES, AND BAYS – THREAT-ENING EVERYTHING FROM TINY HERRING TO THE REGION’S BELOVED ORCAS TO HUMAN HEALTH.”

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Seattle’s High Point neighborhood is a model for green urban construction, incorporating numerous low-impact development strategies in a compact, walkable community of eco-friendly homes. SvR Design provided the civil engineering and landscape architecture for the new street grid, undergrounding of utilities, site utility infrastructure system, and the natural drainage system for the 120-acre, 34-block area.

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IMAGE VIA SVR DESIGN COMPANY, WWW.SVRDESIGN.COM

Spring 201146

LID can mean hooking residential downspouts to rain barrels or cisterns to store rainwater or having downspouts flow into rain gardens featuring swales.

gardens” featuring swales. It can mean building drive-ways from a lattice of pavers that leave some of the soil exposed, or using a permeable concrete that lets water pass through to the soil below. It also means protect-ing, preserving and restoring native vegetation.

“There is no reason not to make every single residen-tial-scale property do something (to reduce stormwa-ter),” said Peg Staeheli, a principal with Seattle’s SvR Design Co., a local leader in LID. “There are a lot of tools out there now that can be used.”

Shifting from gray to greenSeattle is far from alone in realizing that there are alter-natives to traditional gutter-and-storm-drain systems – also called “gray” infrastructure – that cost too much

and don’t work well. In recent years, LID projects have cropped up as smart investments across Cascadia. The following are some noteworthy examples:

BREMERTON, WA: A decidedly blue-collar city on the shores of Puget Sound, Bremerton is being per-meated with green stormwater infrastructure. A new 1,600-foot-long bridge and an industrial roadway proj-ect will both use LID to treat much of its stormwater runoff. In each case, state and local partners pushed for conventional stormwater treatment for the projects, but Bremerton officials successfully made the case for using LID because it was markedly cheaper.

PORTLAND, OR: The City of Roses has so many natural drainages that it has published a walking tour

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for visitors interested in viewing its rain gardens and swales. Portland has grown its green infrastructure in part through incentives. It pays residents to unhook their home downspouts from the city’s storm sewer system and redirect the water into rain gardens, and its green roof program offers rebates to residents and businesses installing ecoroofs. There are at least 350 ecoroofs in Portland, topping condominiums, the cen-tral library, government offices, and a university build-ing, covering about twenty-six acres in all.

PUYALLUP, WA: The once fertile farm town, and now a suburb of Tacoma, has embraced the use of swales and porous asphalt. Puyallup has helped its residents build twenty rain gardens in three different neighborhoods. The installations were done simultaneously within a neighborhood and city officials organized mini envi-ronmental fairs celebrating the events, which included guests such as gardening guru Ciscoe Morris.

“I’ve been seeing neighborhoods coalesce (around the projects),” said Mark Palmer, a stormwater engineer for the city and lead on the effort. “They become a close knit little community.”

VICTORIA, BC: There are a number of high pro-file green roof projects in British Columbia (Van-couver’s Convention Center and Olympic Village to name two), but the province has surprisingly fewer examples of rain gardens and swales. One exception is Victoria’s Trent Street rain gardens. The 2009 pilot project includes two roadside rain gardens that help soak up street runoff that would otherwise pollute nearby Bowker Creek.

PRINGLE CREEK COMMUNITY: Called “the na-tion’s first full-scale porous pavement project” by the Asphalt Pavement Association of Oregon, the 32-acre sustainable community near Salem boasts 7,000 linear feet of porous asphalt roadways and 2,000 linear feet of porous alleys. Pringle Creek also features swales and narrower roads to create fewer hard surfaces. And it’s a leader in tree conservation: 80 percent of the develop-ment’s trees were protected and one-third of the com-munity is green or open space.

GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER

• Low-impact development training opportunities and instruction are available around Cascadia.

• Washington State University and the Puget Sound Partnership are offering a series of two-day work-shops on LID technologies from May until June.

• University of Washington and Se-attle Public Utilities have in the past offered contractor training, and the presentations are available online.

• Oregon Environmental Council, the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council, and Oregon State Univer-sity Extension/Oregon Sea Grant are partnering to hold Stormwater Solutions workshops in Central Or-egon this spring. A member of the local Green Building Council will also be participating.

• OSU Extension/Oregon Sea Grant is organizing a ‘LID Acad-emy’ beginning this spring in the Willamette Valley. The training will help smaller cities develop stormwater plans and manu-als. Contact Megan Kleibacker at [email protected].

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In these examples and others, LID has been shown to be less expensive and more effective at cleaning stormwater than the traditional gutter-and-storm-drain systems. A study by the US Environmental Protection Agency compared the cost of stormwater projects that were built using LID techniques to what they would have cost using conventional strategies. In 11 of 12 cases examined across North America, the LID option was more economical by anywhere from 15 to 80 percent.

A study by ECONorthwest, an economic consulting firm, also found that LID cost less for both residen-tial and commercial projects in Cascadia and beyond. The researchers concluded that LID would fare even better in comparisons that considered more than just construction costs. In many instances, LID treats larger volumes of water than traditional approaches, is cheaper to maintain, boosts property values, cre-ates wildlife habitat and reduces air pollution and greenhouse gases by planting and protecting trees and other vegetation.

Death by a thousand rainstormsAiling Northwest rivers and lakes face death not so much by a thousand cuts as by a thousand rainstorms, each f lushing filthy stormwater into environmentally and economically important waterways.

While low-impact development is gaining popularity, it is far from being standard practice. Developers, plan-ners and government agencies often are more comfort-able sticking with conventional systems. In many cas-es, regulations require traditional infrastructure, like mandating wider roads to accommodate parking for emergency vehicles, or prescribing stormwater pipes when a swale would work better and cost less.

However, work is underway to change this practice. In recent years, the Puget Sound Partnership helped thirty-six Washington municipalities upgrade their codes to encourage the use of LID. Now the Partner-ship is writing a local-code guidebook for governments that want to incorporate LID requirements into their codes and regulations that is scheduled to be complete in July, 2011.

There are stormwater training programs for landscap-ers and other contractors as well as city and county planners, and permit writers. Local universities, utili-ties and nonprofit organizations are teaming up to of-fer seminars and workshops.

It is important to improve the level of expertise of those doing LID. While green infrastructure offers a great stormwater fix, trained practitioners are also needed – particularly for large projects.

“AILING NORTHWEST RIVERS AND LAKES FACE DEATH NOT SO MUCH BY A THOUSAND CUTS AS BY A THOUSAND RAINSTORMS, EACH FLUSHING FILTHY STORMWATER INTO ENVIRONMENTALLY AND ECONOMICALLY IMPORTANT WATERWAYS.”

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Start the year off on the right path.

BECOME ACASCADIA MEMBER!Stand with the bioregion’s leading green building thinkers and practioners. Make an investment in your green building community and join Cascadia today.

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**Branches will receive 50% of net revenue from all annually renewable memberships. Lifetime memberships are not included in this policy. LISA STIFFLER is a researcher and edi-

tor at Sightline Institute. Previously, she worked as an environmental reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where her work included award-winning investiga-tions into the health of Puget Sound

SIGHTLINE INSTITUTE is a not-for-profit research and communication center — a think tank — based in Seattle. Sightline’s mission is to bring about sustainability, a healthy, lasting prosperity grounded in place. Our focus is Cascadia, or the Pacific Northwest.

“LID is something you have to look at with the willingness to be flexible and use the most appropriate systems for a given site,” Bailey said. “It requires a lot more creativity.”

“For small scale (projects) you can come up with some-thing that works most of the time, in most places.”

There are additional opportunities for making LID more widespread. In 2010, Washington legislators pledged $50 million for stormwater improvements. This year, a partnership of Washington’s city and coun-ty leaders, labor representatives and environmental ad-vocates are working with the Legislature to establish a long-term funding source to pay for more low-impact development. For now, however, the proposal appears to be a long shot.

There is an urgency to act. The Washington Depart-ment of Ecology is working on rules that will require more use of LID, and final regulations should be completed by summer 2012. The US Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening national storm-water regulations that should take effect in less than two years and will encompass more towns and cit-ies than ever before. And the stormwater problem is only likely to worsen if the population of Wash-ington, Oregon and Idaho swells to an expected 14.5 million residents by 2030 – roughly a 20 percent in-crease from today.

“Time is not on our side,” said Tom Holz, a stormwater and LID expert from Olympia. “We may lose the battle just simply through dallying.”

Spring 201150

TOWARDS A RESTORATIVE

CIVILIZATION

BY BIL L WA L SH

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R ecent studies have shown that babies were be-ing born in Washington and Oregon dosed with an array of chemicals routinely used in

the products we specify for the walls, f loors, ceilings and furnishing in many of today’s “green” buildings.1 Scientists are only beginning to understand how these chemicals – f lame retardants, stain repellants, plasti-cizers – impact life because they operate in subtle ways at very low concentrations. When tested in animals, these chemicals are found to cause a wide array of health problems including cancer, thyroid disorders, endocrine disruption, or birth defects, even at very low doses. Some of these impacts, such as sterility and developmental impairment, attack the very essence of human behavior. That’s about as far from a restorative civilization as we can get.

It is well known that chemical emissions from interior finish products can cause physical discomfort and re-duced productivity for building occupants. It is also understood that chemicals from building products ac-cumulate in the ambient air, in household dust, and in the human body.2 For example, studies show that all over the world, human breast milk contains high concentrations of chemical f lame-retardants that are routinely added to building products and furnishings, released into the built environment from building materials, into the general environment and the food chain from manufacturing processes.3 Toddlers have been shown to have higher chemical body burdens than their mothers.4

Less well known or understood is a growing body of scientific evidence documenting the serious, long-term health impacts from chemicals that are now ubiquitous in f looring and carpet, wall coverings, upholstery and furniture. In addition to f lame-retardants, other com-mon materials widely used in building products such as

1. See, Earliest Exposures: A Research Project by the Washington Toxics Coalition. This study can be downloaded at watoxics.org/earliestexposures.2. See Costner, et al, Sick of Dust, March 2005 documenting the presence of toxic chemical f lame retardants, stain repellants and plasticizers in random samples of household dust. Study available at: www.cleanproduction.org/library/Dust%20Report.pdf3. Source, US EPA: ww.epa.gov/opptintr/pbde4. Source, Environmental Working Group: www.ewg.org/reports/pbdesintoddlers

water and stain repellants, plasticizers in vinyl, and ep-oxy-based paints, contain endocrine-disrupting chem-icals. Many green building professionals acknowledge that they are familiar with the hazards that endocrine disrupting chemicals pose in consumer products such as baby bottles, water bottles, food container liners and cosmetics. Yet too few are aware that ordinary building materials – many of which earn LEED credits and have “low-VOC” certifications – contain large quantities of these chemicals.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advises that the most effective way to improve indoor air quality is to eliminate individual sources of pollution,5 and the Living Building Challenge6 pro-scribes “Red List” chemicals and materials, architects, designers and builders rarely have the information they need to eliminate chemical hazards inherent in many building materials. Indeed many Living Build-ing Challenge projects report that product manufac-turers themselves may lack essential information about the chemical make-up of their products.

Product labels rarely provide information about haz-ardous chemical ingredients. Fewer than 300 of the 80,000 chemicals EPA has registered have even been tested for human health impacts before being ap-proved for commercial use. With a regulatory system offering little oversight on what goes into the products they specify, designers are relying upon a patchwork of green building credits and green product certifica-tions to avoid health hazards to building occupants. Architects, designers and builders are often frustrated and discouraged by the confusing and growing array of “green” product labels and certifications.

A growing body of analysis shows that this frustration is warranted. A November 2011 guide published by Buil-dingGreen documents the intimidating array of over 100 green product certifications, many of which overlap product categories and impact categories,7 while a re-

5. See, www.epa.gov/iaq/is-imprv.html6. See, www.ilbi.org/lbc7. Green Building Product Certifications, Getting What You Need can be purchased at www.buildinggreen.com/ecommerce/certifications-report.cfm and is available to the Oak Hill Fund free of charge upon request.

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“Product labels rarely provide information

about hazardous chemical ingredients. Fewer

than 300 of the 80,000 chemicals EPA has

registered have even been tested for human

health impacts before being approved for

commercial use.”

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port by the Erb Institute of the University of Michigan released in October 2010 concluded “there is little hard evidence that eco-labels improve environmental and social performance.”8 In June 2010 a World Resources Institute analysis found that after more than a decade of refinement, eco-labeling and third party product certifications are not working well. They have become “fragmented and often confusing to institutional buy-ers as well as individual consumers…due to compet-ing claims on what makes a product ‘green,’ especially when there are two or more competing schemes for the same sector or product.”9 That same month, a team led by John Wargo, Ph.D., Professor of Risk Analysis and Environmental Policy at Yale University concluded, “[LEED] ‘platinum,’ ‘gold,’ and ‘silver’ status conveys the false impression of a healthy and safe building envi-ronment, even when well-recognized hazardous chemi-cals exist in building products,” and, “LEED standards are insufficient to protect human health.”10

Key problems with building product certifications identified by these reports are limited in transparency that undermines credibility, and single issue labels that can ignore and/or cause burden are shifting among health and environmental impacts.

The Living Building Challenge’s Red List, and the new LEED Pilot Credit for “Chemical Avoidance” in-troduced in November 2010 underscore the dilemma faced by designers and builders seeking healthy inte-rior finish products.11 Most of the chemicals covered by the Red List and Pilot Credit are not accounted for in the leading indoor air quality (IAQ ) certifications such as Greenguard or CRI’s Green Label.

Most IAQ programs only test for emissions of vola-tile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals which are

8. Informing Green Markets: The Roles of Industry, NGOs and Government, by Thomas P. Lyon and Julian Dautremont-Smith can be downloaded at www.erb.umich.edu/News-and-Events/news-events-docs/10-11/InformingGreenMarkets.pdf9. The Global Ecolabel Monitor can be downloaded at www.ecolabelindex.com/downloads/Global_Ecolabel_Monitor2010.pdf10. Wargo, et al, LEED Certification: Where Energy Efficiency Collides With Human Health, www.ehhi.org/leed11. For a more detailed discussion of the new LEED Chemical Avoidance credit see: www.healthybuilding.net/news/101028-new-leed-materials-credit-targets-phthalates-f lame-retardants.html

quickly released from products as a gas at ambient tem-peratures. Phthalates and f lame retardants, however, are semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) which offgas more slowly and may be as likely to expose oc-cupants by attaching to dust particles and releasing as inhalable gases. No IAQ programs have developed protocols for testing dust transmission or direct con-tact and there is major controversy over initial efforts to test SVOC gas emissions.12 Phthalates and halogenated f lame retardants have been listed as “Chemicals of Con-cern” by the US EPA along with several other classes of SVOCs, including the perf luorinated chemicals used to make many water and stain repellants in carpets and other building materials, bisphenol A (BPA) which is used to make a wide range of epoxy-based caulks, adhe-sives, grouts, high performance paints and f loor sealers as well as various polycarbonate plastic products such as glazing and wall protection. IAQ programs, however, do not provide protection or guidance for designers at-tempting to evaluate any of these chemicals.

In order to move toward a restorative civilization we must develop a low tolerance for this slipshod ap-proach to toxic chemical regulation, and zero tolerance for synthetic toxins in newborns and mothers’ milk. The transparency required by the Living Building Challenge Red List, and my own organization’s Phar-os Project will encourage restorative thinking. In the Pharos Project we ask product manufacturers to iden-tify the ingredients they use in their products. Today this identification helps us to make the link between the chemicals in our buildings and those in our babies and helps us to break the link and visualize a future when currently there is no link.

12. Greenguard Children & Schools is the only IAQ certification program that currently measures SVOC emissions but only for a limited number of phthalates and there is much controversy about whether the measurement techniques and thresholds they use are valid.

BILL WALSH is the Executive Director of the Healthy Building Network.

Spring 201154

We do a lot for ourselves. We do even more for a good cause. But we’ll put forward our very best effort for our children. If we are to restore our civilization and allow for the natural healing of our planet, we will most cer-tainly find our deepest inspiration when we look into the expectant eyes of our children.

Harboring anger and complaining about life’s chal-lenges is a total waste of time. Working hard will not be sufficient. Working smarter is still too small. We must step up to who we are and lead from our hearts like there is no tomorrow. It’s urgent, yet only a deeply rooted connection to spiritual principles will allow us to provide our children with the better future that each generation strives to offer the next. We must search our souls quickly so we can move into action in a powerful and timely way.

Is there much more to say on this topic? It is not overly complicated. I think it’s time we connect our vision for a restorative civilization with what we are doing for

and with our children today. Here are some questions to get you thinking:

1. Are you restoring yourself? All significant change in our external world begins within. If we want to be of utmost service to our children, we will get to work and face whatever bogeyman is holding us back from our most powerful contribution. Every spiritual discipline tells us that we all have unlimited potential for inspired cre-ativity and service. Yet every one of us, at times, feels too small to fulfill our potential. Take yourself on and find the teacher, coach or mentor who can help you bring the best out of yourself – not technically, but as a human being free from inhibition and limitation. Be-gin today because we’re running out of time.

2. Are you being present with your children? Our children learn much more from how we are with them than they do from what we tell them to do or not do. Your heartfelt presence and love is what your children re-ally need to become the change agents of the future.

Restorative Leadership:

For the Sake of Our Children

BY PAUL W ERDER

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When they feel loved, their relationship to infinite possibility soars. When listened to, their confidence to manifest the “impossible” glows with the most beauti-ful light we know. Give them a full dose of your heart every day. Watching my daughter care for our grand-son has profoundly taught me this lesson. I aspire to bring the best out of my adult children with the kind of constant and unconditional love she exhibits to her little one every day.

3. Are you teaching your children about paradox? While anything is possible in the heart of a child, we need to learn to be happy and satisfied with what we have, and not always be looking for fulfillment from what we don’t have. I believe most of us are just begin-ning to realize the depth of this lesson ourselves, but our children will best learn this lesson if we lead the way. The recession has offered us a great opportunity to cross-examine our expectations and entitlement mentality. We need to give up our trivial, and some of our not so trivial, attachments and find joy in the small things and

beauty all around us. When your children see you bring a sense of peace and emotional maturity to the lifestyle adjustments you are making, they will be far more pre-pared to live more self less lives themselves.

4. Are you creating a sense of family or community somewhere, with someone? Many of us are lone ranger types. Some of us have become estranged from our fam-ilies of origin or the communities we grew up in. It’s not enough to simply hang around with the parents of your children’s friends for awhile, until they outgrow those friendships. Intentional community is an important part of restoring our civilization. Perhaps it’s with your fam-ily of origin that your most important work is to be done. Or maybe it’s with a spiritual community that feeds your soul and nurtures strong values in your children. Or do-ing volunteer work with an environmental group may be more your cup of tea. Is the time for “needing our own space” coming to an end? Whether true or not, we would all do well to learn how to need one another, and become more comfortable with closer proximity.

Spring 201156

PAUL WERDER, CEO of LionHeart Con-sulting Inc, is the author of Mastering Effectiveness. You can reach him at [email protected].

5. Are you expanding your professional contribu-tion at every opportunity? Please notice that this is question #5 not #1. Many of us have compromised a bit on the first four questions while focusing on this question. If we are thinking long term and focusing on where the leverage is, we need to rethink our priorities. Doing what we can is critically important, but prepar-ing our children for their work is even more important. Their growing challenges will not allow for the option-al response our generation believes it has. If you are not a parent you might consider volunteering some of your time to help with educating and nurturing kids who need a positive inf luence. Your time invested guiding children will leverage your impact, and teach you a lot. It’s great preparation for what you believe your real work is – your professional contribution.

I believe our natural environment will ultimately re-store itself if we plant the right seeds. The only seeds that are truly able to provide sustainable growth in a restorative civilization are spiritual seeds. I am speak-ing of a self less love that longs to do what is in the best interests of everyone. I am speaking of living within our means and not expecting to live what someone is selling as the American dream. I am speaking of trea-

suring our children’s future by treasuring our children now. It is never too late to turn our hearts back to what is good, and right, and just; not because we are sup-posed to, but because we find true peace and joy in dis-covering the Oneness at the core of our existence.

Restoring our civilization requires restoring ourselves. And we cannot restore ourselves without turning our-selves back over to divine guidance. Our minds will never figure this out or want to struggle with this idea, but our hearts already know it is true. Real leaders re-member this truth deep in their souls and act accord-ingly. Listen and you will hear. Hear and you will trust. Trust and you will act. Act and you will be fulfilled with a life worth living. Our world was sustainable when it was given to us. For the sake of our children, let’s be true to our spiritual selves.

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Steel Wood+It doesn’t get any

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To learn more about gaining the benefits of using sustainable structural steel on your next project contact our Northwest Regional Office at 206.226.7551 or email [email protected].

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Structural Steel Green Facts

Photos Nic Lehoux

Building a Greener Northwest Using Structural Steel

Spring 201158

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GOlD

Spring 201160

The Natural Step Network-USA has spent the last decade working with individuals and orga-nizations of all sorts, helping them to approach sustainability strategically. Our approach be-gins with an understanding that we’re working within multiple systems all the time: natural systems, social systems, economic systems and organizational systems. If sustainability’s highest goal is to meet human needs within the capacities of our natural systems, we need to learn how these systems work, and how they work together. At a basic level we all know that people will not thrive on a sick planet, but we sometimes fail to understand the connection between the workings of the planet’s natural systems, and all our other activities. There is much to learn from observing natural systems, and much that can inform what we do.

A few years ago I attended a Biomimicry work-shop with Janine Benyus and Dayna Baumeis-ter. During that week we spent many hours ob-serving nature, learning to listen, touching and even tasting the natural world around us. After

only a little practice it became easier to notice how plants, fungi, insects and animals were all at work. Even more interesting to me were instances when different organisms worked together to achieve their own goals. Take leaf cutter ants: the ants cut off large portions of leaves and carry them back to the colony, where the leaves are chewed up and integrat-ed into a fungus garden, which serves both as food and living space. There’s a third player in this mutually beneficial relationship – bacteria found on the ants’ bodies produce antibiotics that help maintain the health of the fungus. Over the years, these bacteria seem to have evolved new antibiotics to keep the fungus gar-dens healthy, and this co-evolution of multiple organisms is contributing to medial research on antibiotics for humans.

Biologist Lynn Margulis has suggested that co-operation, interaction and mutual dependence among organisms has driven evolution more so than competition – in effect, evolution might be more about survival of those that fit, than

Evolving toward Sustainability: Cascadia Green Building Council and The Natural Step Network Merge

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“Evolution might be more about survival of those that fit, than survival of the fittest.”

survival of the fittest. As the Natural Step has matured, we began to see that we might be more effective if we found better ways to fit, and work, with others, rather than try to get stronger alone. Our experience was teaching us that the journey toward sustainability re-quires many tools: frameworks, data, measur-ing tools, and most importantly, people with vision and passion to lead the way. But people need nurturing just like fungus gardens do, a sustainability community needs an influx of ideas to thrive, and energy expended needs to be renewed.

When board members from both organiza-tions suggested working together, it made immediate sense to us. Here we had two or-ganisms working toward the same goals from separate camps. Cascadia and The Natural Step were already great organizations on their own, but through cooperation and mutu-al dependence, we could grow into something stronger, better, even more effective. The idea of working together was good, and the com-

mitment to work together through merging was even better. Revolutionary? Maybe, but we think evolutionary.

Human beings can be our own biggest chal-lenge – both Cascadia and The Natural Step have recognized that human behaviors and attitudes are the most significant barriers to transformation. Nature in this instance isn’t always our ally, as our intellect and innova-tion seem to have taken a developmental path that veers away from our biological instincts. But we are also more than just instinct and intellect. Cascadia and The Natural Step are comprised of hopeful people, and we believe that inspiration and example, compassion and trust will speak more loudly than fear. We in-vite you to join with us, to travel with us as we forge a new path together, and be the inspi-ration and example to help us create a just, beautiful and restorative living future.

— Regina Hauser Director, The Natural Step Network – USA

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Canada’s Greenest City to Host Living Future 2011Family, food, culture, entertainment, art and architecture – something for everyone at Living Future!

VANCOUVER

Spring 201164

national Living Building Institute speaks on Thursday and Margaret Wheatley, author, speaker and organiza-tional consultant, presents on Friday. During morning and afternoon refreshment breaks, delegates will have time to visit our Red List Ready tradeshow and stop by the Ecotone Publishing Bookstore to network with the world’s leading minds in the green building move-ment. “Localicious” on Thursday will entice attendees to explore Vancouver’s eclectic dining establishments. Group lunch bookings at some wonderful restaurants in the area have already been arranged. Lunchtime on Friday will be the last opportunity for people to browse the tradeshow which showcases product manufacturers and service providers that are as forward thinking and serious about sustainability as unconference delegates. Friday evening will bring visionary singer, songwriter and environmental activist Sarah Harmer to the stage for inspiration and entertainment during the famed Big Bang Dinner and Awards Ceremony.

This year, Living Future is for people of all ages! Cas-cadia is working with the FUN (Friends Uniting for Nature) Society of Vancouver whose mission it is to create and deliver recreational programming that in-spires and empowers children to preserve and protect the environment through education, leadership and teamwork. FUN will host special FUN Camps for the kids that are especially designed for Living Future 2011. Check out Green Things about Vancouver to plan other extra-green, extra-curricular activities!

Vancouver has been described as one of the most spectacularly situated cities on earth. The city centre stands proudly on a peninsula that juts out into the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by beaches, marinas, parklands and pathways. The downtown core is only one mile across at its widest point making it an ideal city for walking and cycling. Local sightseeing op-tions include everything from whale watching tours, kayaking excursions, mountain biking on some of the best trails in the world, and a gondola trip up Grouse Mountain to see grizzly bears and other wildlife. In addition to these opportunities to discover Vancouver, Cascadia has organized three special tours to the fol-lowing registered Living Building Challenge projects:

Join Cascadia Green Building Council in beautiful Van-couver, British Columbia on April 27th to 29th for Living Future 2011 unConference! Nested between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountains, Vancouver is lively, so-phisticated and outdoorsy. The city is home to two mil-lion inhabitants who enjoy a mild climate, breathtaking scenery and a wealth of recreational activities. You are in-vited to enjoy the very best of this world-class destination, located in one of the most famous ecotones on the planet.

Vancouver’s temperate climate makes visiting the city a great idea year-round. The timing of Living Future 2011 is ideal as spring comes early to Vancouver, with f lowers and blossoms generally in bloom by March. Conference organizers plan to take delegates outdoors for the opening reception to make use of the Shera-ton Vancouver Wall Centre’s lovely grounds prior to the keynote address by renowned eco-entrepreneur Majora Carter. Ms. Carter will share her experiences on how proven, affordable, sustainability strategies have the power to transform a community’s self-image while rejuvenating the environment. Following her ad-dress, delegates are invited to a reception in the Van-couver Art Gallery, located in a turn-of-the century heritage building. Living Future participants will be given a special opportunity to view the Vancouver Art Gallery’s 2011 dynamic exhibitions that include WE: Vancouver – 12 Manifestos for the City and Ken Lum, an internationally acclaimed Vancouver artist.

The cosmopolitan city of Vancouver, celebrating its 125th anniversary, contains a mix of many ethnic groups. Among other things, the city’s multiculturalism gener-ates remarkable culinary diversity which, when com-bined with British Columbia’s extensive selection of local ingredients, produces a distinct regional f lavor. While attending Living Future, delegates will enjoy the fresh, local, organic, and sustainable food that Van-couver has to offer.

Full unconference registration includes Welcome Recep-tion & Keynote speech, inspiring plenary speakers, edu-cational sessions, tradeshow access, breakfast and lunch on both days and an awards dinner. Jason F. McLennan, CEO of Cascadia Green Building Council and the Inter-

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• UniverCity Community Trust Daycare on Bur-naby Mountain – a living building project located within a sustainable urban community designed for 10,000 people adjacent to Simon Fraser University.

• The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustain-ability (CIRS) at the University of British Colum-bia – only 30 minutes from downtown Vancouver, this campus with its spectacular natural backdrop of snow-capped mountains, ocean and breathtaking vistas is a “must-see” for any visitor to the city.

• VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitors Centre, lo-cated on a spectacular 22-hectare (55-acre) garden in the heart of Vancouver, has matured into a botanical garden of international stature. The mild Vancou-ver climate allows the cultivation of a remarkably diverse plant collection that is a delight year-round.

Cascadia is also collaborating with The Natural Step Sus-Sus-tainability Network to host a tour and workshop in Whist-to host a tour and workshop in Whist-ler BC, one of the most forward-thinking, sustainable

communities in North America. Whistler recently played host to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and has been the recipient of numerous sustainability planning awards, in-cluding the United Nations sponsored Livable Communi-ties Award and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Sustainable Community Planning Award. Beyond the incredible beauty of the Sunshine Coast, a trip to Whis-tler to learn about the community’s sustainability plan and resulting successes will inform and inspire all participants.

Vancouver, British Columbia entices visitors with its beauty, intrigues with its cosmopolitan charm and captivates with its profusion of unforgettable attrac-tions. Simply put, Vancouver is one of the world’s fin-est – and greenest – cities.

Join us in Vancouver

for Living Future 2011.

You’ll be glad you did!

IMAGE COURTESY OF TOURISM VANCOUVER

MONA LEMOINE is the Director of Education and Training for Cascadia Green Building Council.

Green things about

VANCOUVER

• Vancouver was named Canada’s greenest city by Corporate Knights magazine, the magazine for clean capitalism with a mission to humanize the marketplace. Learn more.

• Vancouver is situated in an exceptional natural environment and is often cited as one of the best cities in the world to live, work, visit or invest in.

• Vancouver has the smallest carbon footprint of any major city in North America and is considered a leader in green building, planning and technology.

• Vancouver has a bold new ambition: to be the greenest city in the world by 2020. Learn more.

• The Olympic and Paralympic Village in Vancouver was certified LEED ND Stage 2 Platinum certification by USGBC, confirming that the Olympic Village is the greenest in Olympic history.

• The City of Vancouver Green Building Audio Tour is a collection of three-minute audio recordings that take the listener on a virtual “tour” of Vancouver’s greenest buildings. Learn more.

• Sea-to-Sky Green Guide is an interactive online compendium where you can find, share, edit and add leading-edge information on “green” buildings, neighborhoods, infrastructure, open spaces, programs and technologies that are part of the evolving sustainability story of the Sea-to-Sky region in British Columbia. Learn more.

• Vancouver is an exhibition that examines the city from different approaches and disciplines in order to assemble a kaleidoscopic picture of Vancouver from the perspective of its inhabitants. Learn more.

• Rent a bike or a pair of rollerblades and marvel at Vancouver’s green, urban sanctuary by cruising around the seawall in Stanley Park.

• Check out the view of the city from the water by kayaking your way along the waters of False Creek. Learn more.

• Get a birds-eye-view from above by zip-lining at 80km/hr across mountain peaks. Learn more.

• Enjoy the vast choices in fresh, West Coast seafood responsibly by choosing a restaurant participating in the Ocean Wise program. Learn more.

• Book a tour with Edible BC and learn why Vancouverites “eat local”. Learn more.

• Take a guided tour of North Vancouver’s mountain, forest and seascape region in a green vehicle fueled by vegetable oil. Learn more.

• Take a walk on Vancouver’s new aerial trail system at the UBC Botanical Garden and learn about local ecology, nature, and conservation. Learn more.

• Get a day pass and bus, SkyTrain or SeaBus your way around Vancouver. Learn more.

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“Many of us stand on the shoulders of the LEED rating system and do what we do because that program created the “space” for other things to exist.”

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BY JASON F. MCLENNAN

DEFENDING LEED®

R ecently there has been a lot of atten-tion drawn towards the USGBC (Unit-ed States Green Building Council) and the LEED rating system that has

been less than flattering. A frivolous lawsuit1 about what LEED “falsely promises” to people and increased vitriol to the standard in general. Well, I am here to defend LEED – which might surprise some. I think people sometimes mis-takenly assume that I am anti-LEED because of my sometimes vocal criticism of elements of the program, as well as the fact that I created a program (the Living Building Challenge) that some consider to be in competition with LEED – which it most assuredly is not.2

Do I think that LEED is perfect? Absolutely not. No system is perfect. And yes, some criti-cism is deserved – and needed - to keep im-proving what has become the most dominant

1. Henry Gifford is suing the USGBC for misrepresenting the effectiveness of LEED relative to energy performance. It is my opinion that the case is little more than a stunt to get attention and put the USGBC in an unfavorable light.2. The Living Building Challenge is a very different program than LEED and it targets a different market. Many Challenge projects also pursue LEED Platinum at the same time. Also it should be mentioned that the USGBC endorses the Living Building Challenge, and in Canada it is an official program alongside LEED.

green building program in the world. But there is a big difference in criticism that is intend-ed to make the program stronger – so that it can continue to contribute to lowering envi-ronmental impact and changing the building culture – and criticism that is intended to tear down and destroy something that I believe has done a lot of good in the world. The former is essential – if not always appreciated – the lat-ter is destructive and typically self-serving of particular corporate or individual interests.

So here I am – coming to LEED’s defense. To be clear, the USGBC did not ask me to write this ar-ticle. If they had I probably would have declined. I am nobody’s “yes” man and what should be clear by now is that Cascadia – as a chapter- does not “tow the line”. We are an independent voice and the conscience of the movement – USGBC chooses to put up with us and we choose to re-main a chapter, because together we are collec-tively stronger and we share the same mission.

For those who care about the environment and the huge role that the building industry plays in impacting it, there should be a strong sense of appreciation that the USGBC and

Spring 201170

“Simply put, the USGBC and LEED brought credibility to the movement and provided the structure upon which green building could become a mainstream idea – even if it is not yet mainstream in practice.”

LEED came along when they did and engen-dered many of the positive changes that have been realized. To be an effective and respon-sible critic, there needs to be a mature and nu-anced understanding of history and true im-pact. Most LEED critics are not. In particular, if you have been in the industry for less than ten years, here is what you need to understand:

Before LEED arrived on the scene, trying to practice “green building” was an ex-tremely difficult affair. No – not difficult like it can be now – really, really difficult. In many markets you risked being laughed at if you mentioned green building – and the further back into the 1990s or 1980s you went, the less serious you were taken. Green was not cool and not wanted by most people. There was very little agree-ment on what green even meant (if you think that is still the case then imagine it 100 times worse). There were no standards that were meaningful and no common lan-guage to discuss what success looked like. LEED introduced a structure and a rigor to thinking about the issues – and for the first time on a coherent basis shaped the “language” of what it means to be green.

This framework cannot be underestimated in its importance. The success of LEED is much less about all the dozens of buildings that are now certified, and more about the change that has been made to the building culture – the issues that are now discussed and the expectations that people have, not to mention the new industries that it has spawned. Simply put, the USGBC and LEED brought credibility to the movement and provided the structure upon which green building could become a mainstream idea – even if it is not yet mainstream in prac-tice. Many of us stand on the shoulders of the LEED rating system and do what we do because that program created the “space” for other things to exist. The Living Build-ing Challenge, for example, existed as an idea before LEED even existed. Bob Berke-bile and I tried to make the idea popular in the nineties – but the market was not ready for it then. It was not until LEED reached a particular point in the marketplace, some-time around 2005, that it was possible for the collective consciousness of the green building movement to accept an idea as radical as the Living Building Challenge. I am thankful to LEED for that.

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I have also seen what LEED has done to re-invigorate the design professions – by help-ing to provide meaning to the work we all do – and to remind us that there is a deep-er purpose to building shelter for our own species. The LEED system is not perfect, of course, and sometimes the “point system” can actually get in the way of some creative approaches as many designers know– but, nonetheless, it has been effective on the whole. Critics love to point out how with LEED you can “pursue the cheap points first” and game the system3 – and correct-ly point out that many LEED buildings are only marginally better than conventional building. But I think those folks should look into the mirror a little longer – LEED asks people to have integrity, but it is not their babysitter. It is a voluntary standard after all. Any system or protocol can and will be “gamed” and LEED is no exception. The fact that there are some energy-hog LEED buildings does not by itself condemn the system. There are also many, many LEED buildings that are truly exemplary and have made a real impact in their communities

3. How many times did the ‘bike racks for a point’ joke get told?

and have significantly lower environmental impact than conventional buildings.

Sometimes manufacturers complain be-cause their products are not benefiting as much as others in a “LEED” world. Most likely it is these same companies that are at fault for being slow to react to the changes in the building industry – or they are truly producing products that should not be used due to negative environmental impact. Take a look at which industries complain the most about LEED and you can bet there are some serious things wrong with that indus-try. Do not listen to them and stop specify-ing them until they clean up their act.

Many industries, on the other hand, have greatly benefited and, on a “net economic” basis, LEED has helped grow the construc-tion industry and strengthened American business. I truly believe this point. How many consultants and “experts” now make a living because of LEED? There are many examples of whole new product classes benefiting. For instance, remember how difficult it was to get low VOC paints prior to the rise of LEED? Look at how the paint

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“LEED asks people to have integrity, but it is not their babysitter. It is a voluntary standard after all.”

industry has changed and how this shift has improved indoor air quality for so many people. Then think about many other prod-uct types. On the energy front, how many people had heard of “commissioning” prior to 2000? Hardly anyone. I know this to be true because I gave many “green” lectures to architects, builders and engineers in the nineties and when I mentioned commis-sioning I would always have to define it for everyone in the audience – and make the case that it was important. Finding a com-missioning expert used to be difficult, while now commissioning is a service provided by dozens of companies. The energy ben-efits of commissioning have proven signifi-cant. Even FSC, despite the current battles around its exclusive place in the system, benefited greatly because of LEED.4 And our forests are healthier because of it.

The other thing that people need to re-member about the evolution of LEED and the USGBC is that it was most

4. Here’s constructive criticism – the USGBC needs to stop en-tertaining lowering the bar for forestry standards. It should be FSC or better – period. This dialogue has gone on too long. A Leadership standard like LEED needs to promote the best for-estry practices available and must never backslide. SFI simply is not up to the bar.

decidedly a grassroots effort, built by a huge community of experts from around the country helping to create a new vision for building. This was not some “top-down” initiative. It was cre-ated by a revolutionary collaboration between architects, engineers, devel-opers, builders, manufacturers, realtors, and other like-minded individuals. This uncommon collaboration should also be recognized and supported. LEED brought together the whole industry at a time when there were only silo efforts by the various professional groups.

LEED is a community standard we all have a stake in. Perhaps of late the US-GBC has moved too far from its his-torical past and, in the minds of some people, has become a quasi-govern-mental organization. And, to be fair, it

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JASON F. MCLENNAN is the CEO of the Cascadia Green Building Council, the International Living Building Insti-tute and The Natural Step USA. He is the creator of the Living Building Chal-lenge, as well as the author of four books, including his latest: Zugunruhe.

is not a simple grassroots organization anymore – but make that a constructive criticism rather than a destructive one. Get involved, run for the board, join a chapter and volunteer for a committee. If you think things should change, then become part of that change.

Armchair criticism or thinly veiled con-tempt due to self-interest is not pro-ductive in creating a better world. If you want to be a critic then realize you have an obligation to provide fair criticism and to see both sides – the good and bad – and, hopefully, to do something about it. Does the USGBC need to be pushed? Yes. Does LEED deserve some criticism? Yes. But what we need to understand and recognize, above all else, is that we need LEED and many other programs to succeed - not fail- if we truly care about the environment. The truth is that we are losing every major environmental bat-tle on the planet and we need to sup-port each other and look for innovative ways to quickly and effectively lower our carbon and environmental foot-

print. LEED can be an effective tool to do that in many cases.

So the next time you hear criticism and knee-jerk LEED bashing, please think it through. If it is unfair or unwarranted, then refute it when you hear it, or at least offer a nuanced, mature and bal-anced response while acknowledging any truths. If the criticism is completely warranted, then get involved to improve that which is being criticized and en-courage those who have complaints to do the same. Feedback in the right spir-it and in the right volume will be heard.

In the end, I do not have too much time for complaining and other non-productive activities. Let’s press on with the work we have to do – we have a battle to win!

The effort necessary to establish a culture that is Socially Just, Culturally Rich and Ecologically RestorativeSM is both fundamental and enormous. And since the built environment is human habitat, our actions have the potential to educate and motivate others to contribute to a Living Future. In this way,

WE ARE ALL AMBASSADORS.Now, the International Living Building Institute’s Ambassador Network has been redesigned and expanded to reinforce this truth.

The Ambassador Network serves as a trailhead for people with varying levels of familiarity with the Living Building ChallengeSM to volunteer:

• Share ideas and inspirations with fellow Ambassadors across multiple online social media platforms and in-person with others in your region.

• Create learning opportunities locally, and tap into formal Living Building Challenge workshops, conferences and other educational events.

• Increase your leadership role by starting or joining a local Collaborative, or by introducing the Living Building Challenge to new audiences as a trained volunteer presenter.

• Build a global network of likeminded and action-oriented individuals.

To take action through the Ambassador Network, visit www.ilbi.org/action/network or connect via the ILBI Facebook page.

Place yourself on the Ambassador world map to represent your neighborhood and make connections – both on your block and around the world.

SM

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BOOK REVIEW:

By Ronald WrightDa Capo Press, March 2005

A Short Historyof Progress

BY PAUL K IL PAT RICK

Spring 201176

“Like all creatures, humans have made their way in the world so far by trial and error; unlike other creatures, we have a presence so colossal that error is a luxury we can no longer afford. The world has grown too small to forgive us any mistakes,” writes historian and author Ronald Wright in A Short History of Progress. Published in 2004, Wright’s book examines past civilizations and identifies patterns of behavior that led to periods of rapid development and population growth followed by catastrophic collapse that left many civilizations in ruin. Wright reveals important lessons to be learned

from those collapses, illustrating the dangers that prog-ress from the over-exploitation of the environment and a lack of foresight can pose if left unchecked.

When considering the book title, A Short History of Progress, I found myself inclined to think of the word progress as a positive term with respect to the development of humankind, but of course not all progress has been for the betterment of humankind. Wright analyzes the meaning of the term progress and makes an important distinction between moral

prog·ress / n / 1. advance or development, especially towards a better state: the progress of civilization. — Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (4th ed.). (1990). Oxford, UK: Oxford Press.

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and material progress (noting that the idea of mate-rial progress is a relatively new, post-Victorian con-cept). The arms race provides an example of mate-rial versus moral progress, where advancements in weapons – culminating in the atomic bomb – repre-sents material progress, yet isn’t likely to be consid-ered moral progress.

The central question Wright ponders at the heart of A Short History of Progress is, “Where are we going?” In order to assess if one is progressing, it is neces-sary to know the destination, and Wright wonders about where our global civilization is headed. To address this question and determine how applicable the lessons from past societies are for society today, Wright first asks, “Where did we come from?” and “What are we?”

A Short History of Progress examines human history from Stone Age hominids dating back nearly 3 mil-lion years ago through to the dawn of civilization 5,000 years ago, and to the subsequent rise and fall of the Sumerian, Roman, Mayan, and Easter Island civi-lizations. Wright also assesses the ancient societies of Egypt and China to understand the environmental ad-vantages they had that helped them escape the ecologi-cal collapses that befell other civilizations.

Wright defines civilization as, “…a specific kind of culture: large, complex societies based on the do-mestication of plants, animals, and human beings. Civilizations vary in their makeup but typically have towns, cities, governments, social classes, and spe-cialized professions. All civilizations are cultures, or conglomerates of cultures, but not all cultures are civilizations”

Incredibly, civilization has only been around for roughly 5,000 years, representing a miniscule 0.02 percent of human existence. To put that in context, Wright notes that 5,000 years represents only 70 con-secutive lifetimes of 70 years each. Over 99 per cent of human existence has been in the Stone Age. The mas-sive, rapid changes to humankind in the past few mil-

lennia are all cultural and not physical; our last physi-cal change occurred long before civilization emerged, “To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.”

Fundamental to A Short History of Progress is the con-cept of a progress trap, whereby an advantage gained by continuing a course of action or behavior in the short term comes at a potentially disastrous cost in the long term, and yet society is either unable or

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PAUL KILPATRICK lives in Vancouver, B.C. where he works for Sustainability Television™.

unwilling to forego the short-term benefit to guard against future disaster (for example, burning hydro-carbons at the risk of climate instability). Wright con-tends that progress traps led to overpopulation and agrarian failure for several ancient civilizations. Ex-ceeding the carrying capacity of their environments was the key commonality between those societies, as Wright notes, “The short-lived Empire of Ur [Sum-er] exhibits the same behaviour as we saw on Easter Island: sticking to entrenched beliefs and practices, robbing the future to pay the present, spending the last reserves of natural capital on a reckless binge of excessive wealth and glory.”

Wright wonders whether civilization itself may be a progress trap. Today we have many potential prog-ress traps confronting us; biotechnology, genetically modified foods, nanotechnology, geoengineering and infinite economic growth, to name a few. Fossil fuel dependence and the associated carbon emissions may be the highest profile progress trap in the news today. It is not a coincidence that the rise of agricultural de-velopment and the astounding human development it fueled coincides with the past 10,000 year period of climate stability. Acting in a manner that threatens to de-stabilize the climate is folly, as Wright suggests: “Change is not in our interest. Our only rational pol-icy is not to risk provoking it. Yet we face abundant evidence that civilization itself, through fossil-fuel emissions and other disturbances, is upsetting the long calm in which it grew.”

Wright’s book raises important questions about progress and where our civilization is headed. The critical lessons in the past are simple enough. Na-ture has limits. Those civilizations that did not live within the carrying capacity of their natural envi-ronment eventually f loundered and crashed. With well over six billion people on the planet today, picking up and starting over again somewhere else, should the foundations of our civilization fail, is not an option as it was for those that survived collapsed societies in the past.

The concept of progress with respect to the better-ment of humankind needs to be considered careful-ly. Attention to environmental limits and the needs of future generations should perhaps be integral el-ements for anything to be labeled as progressive for humanity. In that light, the Living Building Chal-lenge™ green building rating system can be held up as a sterling example of something, a system in this case, that can truly be considered progressive. It is based on sound ecological principles, long-term thinking, and awareness of humanity’s connection to the natural world, moving beyond the status quo and embracing transformational sustainability prin-ciples. Considering the global impact of the build-ing industry on energy and resource consumption, as well as carbon emissions, leadership in this realm is critically important.

A Short History of Progress concludes with Wright pointing out that today we have the advantage of be-ing able to look back to understand the mistakes of past civilizations; that we still have time to find solu-tions to the progress traps that we face if we act quickly while still in a favorable position. But, he warns, “Now is our last chance to get the future right.”

A quick read, A Short History of Progress provides plenty of fascinating, thought-provoking material. Wright’s ability to distill and synthesize a vast amount of information into a succinct and compelling book is impressive.

www.cascadiagbc.org/trimtab

CASCADIA’S MAGAZINE FOR TRANSFORMATIVE PEOPLE + DESIGN

TR ANSFORMATIONAL THOUGHT

The Essential Role of Women in a Restorative Future

The Living Building Challenge From Concept to Certification

TR ANSFORMATIONAL DESIGN

There’s Danger Underfoot. Where Do You Stand?

SARAH HARMER

TR ANSFORMATIONAL ACTION

TR ANSFORMATIONAL PEOPLE

issue 008cascadiagbc.org

WINTER 2011

ALSO:

The Tooth of the Lion: Beauty, Logic and the ILBI Logo

Removing the Roadblocks to Material Reuse

The Path to Net Zero: Oregon’s Story

How Do We Love More?

Leaping Ahead Without Leaving Others Behind

Book Review: Half the Sky

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Spring 201180

MOVING UPSTREAMMOVING UPSTREAM

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Contact [email protected] and put “Moving Upstream News Lead” in the subject line.

MAKING PROGRESS?

BERTSCHI SCHOOL LIVING BUILDING SCIENCE WING OPENS!

The Bertschi School Living Building Science Wing

recently celebrated with a grand opening featuring

students, speakers, a ribbon cutting and an open

house in the new space. Built to Living Building

Challenge version 2.0 standards, the smart little

classroom will be a “living laboratory” for grade school

scientists. Listen to the feature on KUOW radio.

WASHINGTON’S LARGEST COMMUNITY SOLAR PROJECT IS TEACHING KIDS TOO!

Poulsbo Middle School is being transformed into a

model for sustainability through Washington state’s

Community Solar Program. The 7,500 square foot, 390

module project is almost complete. And students will

be able to monitor solar production on-line, we call that

a win – win!

OKANAGAN COLLEGE SELECTED FOR SUSTAINABLE STUDY

The trades training building for Okanagan College is

one of two Canadian projects that have been selected

for presentation at the World Sustainable Building

Conference later this year.

ANNIE LEONARD’S THE STORY OF CITIZENS UNITED

Why have corporations gotten so powerful? And what can

we do about it? Watch Annie Leonard’s new film to see what

she thinks.

THE GREEN MACHINE: ALGAE CLEAN WASTEWATER, CONVERT TO BIODIESEL

Just think, algae grown from wastewater to make biodiesel

in order to power buses, farm equipment and the like. Water

savings, fuel savings and better emissions! Read more to see

what researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology are up to.

OBAMA INTRODUCES ‘BETTER BUILDING’ PLAN

“President Obama recently put forward the Better Buildings

Initiative, an incentive program designed to stimulate

spending on energy-efficient retrofits for commercial

buildings.” One of the goals is to increase the efficiency

of commercial buildings 20% by 2020. We think we can

increase the number even more, do you?

THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM. To steer teams toward feasible and innovative solutions for their budding projects, the Institute now offers an optional service in which an Institute faculty member performs the role of in-person facilitator for this 8-hour kick-off meeting. The goal of the charrette is not to prepare a final design but to explore and understand potential issues and opportunities, and help to define topics for further exploration throughout the process of pursuing Living Building Challenge certification. The information shared and the understanding gained by the participants is the most important product of the day.

MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE. Because decisions made early in the design process have an outsized influence on a project’s success, the Institute now offers an optional service to review and comment on the Design Development drawing set and draft Project Manual. Noted observations will parallel the requirements of the 20 Imperatives of the Living Building Challenge and highlight areas that may be in conflict with the intent of the program. The resulting report can be a useful reference when preparing the subsequent documents for construction.

For inquiries on pricing, further details and scheduling, contact [email protected].

The International Living Building Institute is excited to announce two new opportunities for project teams pursuing certification under the Living Building Challenge to receive guidance and feedback.

CHARRETTE FACILITATION

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT DOCUMENT REVIEW

BECOME A FRIEND OF CASCADIA

The Friends of Cascadia are the who’s who of the green building movement in the Cascadia bioregion and beyond.

Sponsor Cascadia and…

• Connect with the region’s influential green building thinkers and practitioners

• Announce yourself as an industry leader

• Support our training, lectures, programs and standards

SPONSORSHIP

For Friends of Cascadia Sponsorship opportunities contact Sarah Costello at [email protected] or 503.228.5533.

CASCADIA-IN-THE-HOUSE

Green Building Education Designed for Your Needs, Delivered at Your Office

Is your organization looking for customized green building education? Check out Cascadia’s menu of targeted educational topics. We’ll bring expert practitioners right to your office and get you and your colleagues caught up with the tools and know-how you’ll need to create Living Breathing BuildingsSM.

SAMPLE TOPICS OF COURSES AVAILABLE INCLUDE:

• Living Building Challenge Roadshow• Site Design• Energy• Materials• Water• Business• LEED• Process

Please contact us at [email protected] for inquires on pricing and further information, or pick up a copy of our program guide.

Let us know if there are other topics you are interested in and we may be able to help!

LIVING BREATHING BUILDINGS SM

UNDERSTANDING THELIVING BUILDING CHALLENGESM

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Identify the key components of the Living Building Challenge

• Discuss the rationale for restorative design principles

• Understand successful strategies for compliance with each performance area

• Recognize financial, regulatory and behavioral barriers and incentives related to high performance design

• Describe the Living Building Challenge Community resources and certification process

IN-HOUSE WORKSHOPSDESIGNED FOR YOUR NEEDS, DELIVERED TO YOUR OFFICE.

This 6-hour workshop provides an in-depth introduction to the program, and also includes discussion of contextual information such as development patterns and density, and regulatory, financial, behavioral and technological barriers and incentives.

UNDERSTANDING THE LIVING BUILDING

CHALLENGE IS APPROVED FOR 6 AIA

LEARNING UNITS AND 6 GBCI CONTINUING

EDUCATION HOURS

For inquiries on pricing, further details and to schedule an In-House workshop, contact [email protected].

View other educational offerings online at www.ilbi.org/education.

Spring 201184

ETHOS: A NEW FILM ABOUT CONSUMER RESPONSIBILITY

Ethos lifts the lid on a Pandora’s box of systemic issues that guarantee failure in almost every aspect of our lives.

“IF WE BLOW A HOLE IN THE ESCARP-MENT THE WILD ONES WON’T HAVE ANY-WHERE TO GO.”

Sarah Harmer, Canadian Singer – Songwriter and Activist is speaking and performing at this year’s Living Future in Vancouver, BC. Watch her

sing her hit song Escarpment Blues about protecting the Niagara Escarpment from further development.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

Seven action steps to a new economy: David Korten on Talkback.

FIXING THE FUTURE

How do we fix the future? Yes, it sounds like a daunting question. Listen to what our

fellow Cascadians have to say about this question. David Korten, Michelle Long with Sustainable Connections and BALLE share their expertise on the subject.

TELLING STORIES

Green media maven Simran Sethi is teaching students to be storytellers by training them to install solar arrays and then Tweet about it.

THE INNER MIGRATION TO PROFOUND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

Jason F. McLennan’s new book, Zugunruhe: The Inner Migration to Profound Environmental Change, is explored by

the Bainbridge Island Review.

FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION TO ADVANCED LIGHTING GUIDELINES ONLINE

This newly updated resource gives you access to expert information on best practices in energy-efficient lighting technologies and advanced

design techniques. Free trial subscription is available through Friday, April 15. Register as an individual professional. When prompted, enter this key code: GBCCAS041511

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EVENT CALENDAR APRIL – JUNE 2011WORKSHOPS, LECTURES + OTHER OPPORTUNITIES THROUGHOUT THE BIOREGION.

FOR COMPLETE DETAILS, PLE ASE VISIT W W W.CASCADIAGBC.ORG/CALENDAR

EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS PRESENTED BY OR IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CASCADIA

LEED CANADA CORE CONCEPTS AND STRATEGIESVictoria, BC – 04/13

LIVING FUTUREVancouver, BC – 04/27 through 04/29

FUN CAMPS FOR KIDS, TWEENS AND TEENSVancouver, BC – 04/27 through 04/29

UNDERSTANDING THE LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE WORKSHOPVancouver, BC – 04/27

LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE REGISTERED PROJECT TOURSVancouver, BC – 04/27

THE NATURAL STEP WORKSHOPWhistler, BC – 04/27

3-DAY BACKYARD BIOMIMICRY WORKSHOPVancouver, BC – 04/29 through 05/02

LEED CANADA FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION TECHNICAL REVIEWVictoria, BC – 05/04

LEED CANADA DOCUMENTATION COURSEVancouver, BC – 05/18

LEED CANADA FOR EXISTING BUILDINGSVancouver, BC – 06/09

LEED GREEN ASSOCIATE STUDY COURSEVictoria, BC – 06/13 through 06/14

OTHER EVENTS

GREE NEIGHBORHOODS: THE VANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC VILLAGEVancouver, BC – 03/31 through 04/02

FUTURE ENERGY CONFERENCEPortland, OR – 04/12 through 04/13

NORTHWEST ECO BUILDING GUILD GREEN HOME TOURKing County & Olympia, WA – 04/16

WASHINGTON STATE MAIN STREET AND PRESERVATION CONFERENCEWalla Walla, WA – 05/11 through 05/13

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Trim Tab v.9 - Spring 2011

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