Paul Hawken spoke last night at Living Future in Vancouver. He covered a wealth of topics from the future of buildings (self sustaining) to the purpose of nonprofits (to join together) to cities being the best birth control available. He also said he reeallly likes engineers.

But at its core, Hawken’s talk offered a central warning for those in the green building movement: get ready because things are going to change so quickly it will shock the world.

Hawken said we’re heading for a world where the price of everything will keep rising in a seemingly endless cycle. To get at oil and natural minerals, drills will dig deeper, which will use more energy, which will spread to cost hikes in basically everything including food. He calls it the “red queen dilemma.” It’s this price rise, he said, that will be the catalyst for the world changing the way it does things.

“I believe we have shifted from one regime to another. One that subsidized us and our lifestyle… to one that is going to radically change our relations to ourselves, sustainability, mini-mansions….”

That change will put designers, architects and developers that are already at the forefront of green building through practices like the living building (in its base definition a building that is self sustaining) in the spotlight, as all the world turns to them for advice and leadership.

But before you, green building professional, throw your hat in the air at all the new business you will retain, Hawken’s next sentence offered a warning. “I just want to caution you. I think your star may rise faster than you’d want it to… I’m not saying this to flatter you. I’m saying this to warn you.”

What do you think? Can this focus on green building and design come fast enough, or is this a form of fear mongering?

In the meantime, Hawken said people should think about what it means to be prepared. What will it be like, he asked, if the sandbags sustainability folk deal with on a day to day basis from higher costs to government codes, dissapear? What do you think, would you even know what to do or would the endless possibilities overwhelm you? In Hawken’s world, your skills will become “imperative as opposed to an elector.”

Having seen Hawken speak at the USGBC’s Greenbuild conference in November, he seemed more concrete and informative this time around, though he did use some of the same material yesterday that he did in that speech. He spoke about how both the social justice movement and the environmental movement are the same thing; he played his film of worldwide nonprofits that you would have to sit through for 2 months to see all the names.

This talk also featured a q and a session. In that portion, he addresssed a question about how to better build 500-year buildings. He said, “I want to question the idea that we should be building buildings that last for a really long time.” Instead, he said we should focus on better designed cities, as the world’s population should peak at 9 billion and then go down to 1 or 2 billion (yikes!) This is where the “cities are the best form of birth control” comment came in. What do you think of that perspecive? Any takers out there?

Hawken also issued a shout out to the engineers in the audience. “I think engineers are the cat’s pajamas.” He said he admired how they are methodical and “so careful about what they do.”

Have any of you heard Hawken speak before? How did you find him as a speaker and what are your experiences with his work or books? Is anything here new to you? If you’re at Living Future, what would you tell those who aren’t about the speech? Tell me what you think, you never know who could be listening…

Tags: cities, Famous speakers, future, Living Building, Living Future Conference, Paul Hawken, theories, Vancouver BC

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Famous speakers, Green events, Greenbuild, Living Building, Living Future, Paul Hawken, USGBC, Vancouver. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.