Introduction mass flooding do not seem to work.

Only the likelihood of

20 SUSTAIN AND DEVELOP

financial demise seems to trigger governmental action.
The Kyoto Protocol is not without problems; 21
notably those that contributed to dissuading the US
We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environ- from signing it in the first place: India and China have no
ment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear requirement to reduce emissions due to their status as
plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more developing nations, even though China exceeded the US
offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve to become the world’s number one emitter in 2006. The
now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will global recession of 2008 reinforced the fragility of
lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations the global economic system while it stimulated promised
and among the different regions within our own country. investment from China into sustainable infrastructural
If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and projects and renewable energy. In this context if the
political crisis that will threaten our free institutions. Communist Party of China decides to direct policy
But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare towards environmental sustainability and structured
right now. We can decide to act while there is time… 1 regulation a real and rapid reduction of emissions could
be feasible at a pace that is simply not possible through
It is 1977 not 2009 and Jimmy Carter is about to the political processes of Western democracy. Current
reveal his new energy policy advocating conservation indications are that China has no intention of reducing
methods and the invention of new renewable technolo- emissions as part of the revised Protocol. This revision
gies. Resulting from the tumultuous period of global will take place in December 2009 in Copenhagen as part
economic re-balancing during the 1970s in which the of the United Nations Climate Change Conference with
US had already suffered the indignity of the 1973 the aim of initiating a further framework beyond 2012
oil embargo——a protest by the Organization of Arab with the fundamental challenge to persuade the US to
Petroleum Exporting Countries against US military sup- sign and for China and India to agree to reductions.
port for Israel in the Yom Kippur War——Carter realized China’s rapidly growing new prosperity and enormous
that the continued development of the US economy was population make it both the most active development
predicated on finding alternatives for its dependency economy and the most acute ecological precipice on the
on oil and becoming more sustainable. planet. There is perhaps no better place to feel this ten-
Thirty years on and our predicament is worse sion than in Dunhuang, an ancient oasis on the Silk Road
rather than better. But the issue is still the same: how and site of the Buddhist enclave at Mogao Grotto, where
to sustain and yet continue to develop? This paradox China has built its first municipal solar power plant and
remains the contentious issue blocking any form of largest wind power array. Since 2007, China has required
global agreement on how to facilitate a reduction of large power companies to derive 3% of their output from
carbon dioxide production and stem global climate renewable sources; projections are for China to produce
change. The US refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 30,000 megawatts of power from renewable sources in
1997 due to China’s exclusion from the requirement to 2010——previously the 2020 target.3 These extraordinary Nail houses resist development amid fields of rubble near the ancient city wall, Xi'an, China, March 2009
reduce emissions as well as the fear that any reduc- achievements pale in comparison to the challenge of
tion of their own would damage economic development. providing for the power needs of the 720 million rural poor hybrid sustainable development ——an expression 1. Jimmy Carter, “The President’s Proposed Energy Policy.” 18 April
Despite this, the Protocol’s ratification in 2005 set up citizens of China in the coming decade. Especially in that more often than not exposes the basest op- 1977. Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. XXXXIII, No. 14, May 1, 1977,
a mechanism through which carbon could be traded to China’s dry west, development often comes paired with portunism of both terms——but as independent and pp. 418-420
assist developing countries in financing carbon-reducing political agendas that can be as threatening to local coextensive fields that together comprise the practice 2. [Link]
projects; in effect the excess of the developed world populations as the impending desertification they are of architecture. Likewise, this practice recognizes [Link]
would subsidize sustainable projects in developing meant to abet. In majority Muslim Kashgar, the Central that neither sustainability nor development contains a 3. Bradsher, Keith. “Green Power Takes Root in the Chinese Desert,”
countries. The Protocol set out a clear mandate: that Government’s development plans call for razing up to categorical imperative, or demands absolute obedience. New York Times. January 2, 2009
the only way to persuade countries and businesses to 85% of the old city; their implementation comes amidst The pursuit of either must be considered in a state of 4. Wines, Michael. “To Protect and Ancient City, China Moves to Raze
cut emissions was either through set targets or by rising unrest and ethnic strife.4 Throughout China, protracted poise relative to the other. It,” New York Times. May 27, 2009
providing financial incentives. resistance to development can be seen from the sub- This volume of 306090 compiles approaches
The Stern Report of 2006 commissioned by the sistence plots being tilled adjacent to new skyscrapers that are grappling with this problem through specific
British Chancellor of the Exchequer2 presents the to “nail houses”——private residences that refuse to interventions; investigations on existing phenomena;
economics of climate change as an issue that could vacate for commercial development. theoretical positions and cultural responses. Some
jeopardize the global economy. By financially evaluat- As China demonstrates, the practice of archi- are serious, some more playful. Sustain and Develop is
ing climate change Stern argues that the cost to the tecture and urbanism is entirely intertwined within a global poll of urban and architectural actors, from
world economy would be 5% of global GDP per year every the quagmire of global, economic and political forces. China, US and Europe, on the cusp of a new global
year compared to an investment cost of 1% of global Working in architecture, landscape and urbanism today direction on climate and resource awareness. With a
GDP per year to reduce emissions to a controllable level. means operating in the tension between development newly inaugurated US president advocating Change
In effect Stern inverted the problem; in order to and sustainability. Forms of practice have evolved that there is real optimism for a significant global agreement
develop, one must sustain. not only respond to the question of sustainability inciting a new era of architectural and urban strategies
Both the Stern Report and the Kyoto Protocol but propose new positions through which sustainable enabling development through sustainable invention.
represent a strategic shift emphasizing the economic strategies catalyze new forms of economic development We hope the contents of this volume will be
imperative of climate change rather than the fear and vice versa. superseded urgently and imminently.
factor of environmental Armageddon. The threat of im- This new practice holds that sustainability and
minent meteorological disaster, starvation, drought and development are not mutually exclusive, but constantly –– Joshua Bolchover and Jonathan D. Solomon, Editors
overlap and mingle. Their steady state is not as the

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