Global changes in temperature and weather, driven by accumulating greenhouse gases (GHG), are beginning to exacerbate food insecurity, displace coastal communities and undermine livelihoods, especially for people in developing countries.  At the same time, within the past two decades millions of people have emerged from poverty in countries like China, Mexico and Brazil, thus spurring dramatic increases in energy consumption.  Escape from poverty is an unquestionable...

The most sustainable projects reach across time and allow people to draw upon what they value most from the past while also harnessing new understandings to create a better future.  This philosophy guided a major project at Oregon State Hospital (OSH), the location for the Academy Award-winning film, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which both preserved a national historic landmark and transformed it into a model of modern psychiatric care.In the process, a su...

On May 10, 2013, a grim milestone occurred as scientists at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory announced an average daily atmospheric carbon dioxide reading just above 400 parts per million, thus confirming Earth’s entry into a new era of climate change and its related risks.  This reading, the highest recorded in more than three million years, serves as a clarion call for the need to adapt to a “new normal,” which already includes severe and destructive weather e...