2003 issue of SOLAR TODAY. “The American
architectural community has the unique oppor-
tunity to lead the way in reversing the destructive
trend of human-induced climate change,” Maz-
ria wrote almost a decade ago. “They hold the
key to the lock on the global thermostat.”
A complementary article in Metropolis Maga-
zine, “Turning Down the Global Thermostat,”
brought the issue to a larger audience yet. An
explosion of laboratory activity in energy-effi-
cient design followed, for the first time since the
energy crisis in the 1970s, which led to many
of the leading passive heating, passive cool-
ing, daylighting, natural ventilation and water-
reuse strategies that are in use today. “We have
a much better understanding of how all these
things work together in a building,” Mazria said.
“The applications now run the gamut — from
single-family dwellings to larger commercial and
institutional buildings.”
Mazria: Taking a
Movement to
New Norm
Famed architect Edward Mazria contributed to
SOLAR TODAY’s predecessor, Solar Age, back
in the late 1970s. At the time, he and University
of Oregon colleagues were establishing rules
of thumb for passive heating and shading. The
findings were published in Mazria’s seminal text,
In January 2006, Mazria issued a solution
to the climate change crisis — the Architecture
2030 Challenge ( architecture2030.org). He
worked with climate change scientists to estab-
lish incremental emission-reduction targets for
buildings. Goals were set for the building sector
with respect to total emission reductions nec-
essary to keep global average temperature less
than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Ultimately,
Architecture 2030 calls for carbon neutrality in
the sector by 2030.
dan bihn© nancie battaglia
The Passive Solar Energy Handbook. For decades
following, advances in passive solar and energy-efficient design moved along, but “at a
steady pace,” Mazria said.
Mazria’s challenge was immediately adopted
by the American Institute of Architects. The
next year, the federal government pledged to
comply on all new federal building construction
and major renovations. “About 40 percent of
In 2003, a Mazria discovery
shifted the dynamic. “At the
time, it was thought that the
transportation sector was the
largest emitter and consumer of
energy,” Mazria recalled. “We
essentially looked at the data and
created a building sector. There
was none — there were transpor-
tation, utility, industrial, residen-
tial and commercial sectors in the
conventional datasets. There wasnobuilding
sector, but it crossed all the lines. We created
one, and lo and behold, it was about half of all
emissions. That [discovery] essentially changed
the dialogue both nationally and globally.”
all U.S. architecture firms have
adopted the 2030 targets. And
nearly three-quarters of the
top 30 AE firms in the coun-
try have,” Mazria said. “That’s
huge. They’re essentially the
top AE firms in the world.”
Mazria went public with the building sector’s
connection to climate change in “It’s the Archi-
tecture, Stupid!” which ran in the May/June
“In the long term, car-
bon-neutral planning and
design will become ubiq-
uitous. There is no doubt
in my mind, it will tran-
scend being considered
a movement and become the norm,” Mazria
said. “In a similar way, the Modern Move-
ment, which had its origins in the 1930s and
’40s, became so pervasive throughout the
20th century that we forget how revolutionary
the ideas were in their day. What is extraordi-
nary today will seem ordinary in the not-too-
distant future.” — MIKE KoSHMrl
Copyright © 2012 by the American Solar Energy Society Inc. All rights reserved.
Kutscher kept the theme going with a semi-regular “Tackling Climate Change” column in
the magazine. The column has recently been on
hiatus because he’s chairing the forthcoming
2012 World Renewable Energy Forum (WREF
2012), where, for the first time ever, the ASES
National Solar Conference will combine with
the biennial World Renewable Energy Congress
and attract experts from around the world (see
story, page 46).
The WREF 2012 theme is “EmPowering the
World with Renewable Energy.” Says Kutscher,
“To address the climate change problem we need
to rapidly deploy renewable energy on a large
scale around the world. A key to success will be
empowering people to push for the needed energy transition, especially in developing nations.”
If the success of SOLAR 2006 is any indication,
you won’t want to miss WREF 2012 (wref2012.
org). — MIKE KoSHMrl
“In the long term, carbon-
neutral planning and design will
become ubiquitous.”
Ed Mazria
“We’re right at the moment where
solar is making the switch from
being a curiosity to an obvious part
of the electricity mix.”
Bill McKibben
solartoday.org SOLAR TODA Y January/February 2012 21
Bill McKibben:
Battling Big Oil for the
Climate’s Sake
Bill McKibben has long pushed for more “
connectivity.” Americans, he’s argued, should be more
intimately connected to our neighbors, our food
system — and our electric grid.
A journalist by trade, McKibben mused
over our connectivity deficit in “Getting Connected” (May/June 2008 SOLAR TODAY). “I
enjoy looking over at my neighbor’s house and
