Necessity is the mother of invention. I don't remember when or where I learned that. But I'm wondering if apathy grows out of not needing anything. Or if people have stopped thinking they need to change things because they don't seem to have a problem.

That's why I don't think the way we build things is likely to change all that much in my lifetime. LEED certification and Zero Emission buildings are a nice start, but at times it feels like buildings are designed as they always have been and then later, after the initial design has been accepted (i.e. It doesn't look like a tree-hugger designed it), do the architects begin to “make it green.” And so they make a few changes, maybe add some solar panels, special cladding, and bam! They've achieved LEED status.

We don't REALLY want to change how we build things. We've got a good thing going here. Materials are cheap, they've all been safety tested, we know how long it'll take for them to burn, to melt, collapse. But what are we really doing to the environment? What have we been doing to the environment? Isn't there a better way?

I think there is. I think if we look to the places that have little resources to work with, where the intention is to build using only what is needed and use materials to their full potential, I think we can learn a lot. We live in the age of information. But that information is being wasted on people who don't care to change because they don't need to, except when they feel guilty about their lifestyle. There needs to be a better attempt to exchange information, not by making the have-nots jealous of what the wealthy, wasteful havers have. Not only by having the research centers of the northern hemisphere share what they know about how to improve how the southern hemisphere builds. But what if the north learned from the south how to make better use of our resources and to make wealth out of our waste? I think great progress could be made in the building construction industry if we rethought our priorities, and built what we need, not everything we want.