Staff writer William Kelly is a guest blogger today for the Green Wave.
Here’s his contribution. (Thank you, William.)
What if there is no technological magic bullet to free us from our dependence on climate-altering fossil fuels?
An urban architect from Miami, Steve Mouzon brings a fresh perspective to the global energy dilemma. Mouzon says we need to change the way we think, and learn to live in buildings that are sustainable.
Before the age of central air-conditioning and heat, our ancestors knew how to build and live in “green” buildings because they had to in order to survive.
They also grew their food locally, which meant their fruit and vegetables tasted better and cost less because they weren’t shipped from a point 1,500 miles away.
Mouzon told a Society of the Four Arts audience recently that, before we can live in sustainable buildings, we must first create sustainable places. No matter how small your home’s carbon footprint, it’s no good if you still have to drive everywhere in order to live there.
No matter how efficient it may be, no building will stand the test of time unless humans want to preserve it, Mouzon says. For that to happen, we must be able to love it. Durability, flexibility and frugality also are important.
“If you can’t preserve something, you can’t even dream about being sustainable,” he said.
Mouzon’s big idea, the Original Green, is a concept based on a living tradition, something that draws on knowledge we already have and common sense approaches that endure the test of time.
He says we’re wasting our time debating global warming in the political realm or by hoping our leaders will find way to go carbon-neutral by, say, 2030.
“The things we ought to do are the things we very seldom do,” he said. Instead, “We need to do the American thing and just get it done.”
That means growing better instead of bigger, and living closer to where we work so we drive less and walk or bicycle more. It means living in season, as our ancestors did, and eating food grown in urban gardens or local farms.
Mouzon said South Florida’s gated subdivisions are the slums of tomorrow, because people will be forced to return to community living in order to live in a sustainable way.