Sustainable Communities and For The Greener Good

The National Building Museum’s website (www.nbm.org) has recently started offering videos and “Q&A Forums” after many of the lectures in their Sustainable Communities and For The Greener Good program series.

A few weeks after the event, the speakers’ answers to selected questions are posted online. Both of these lecture series address issues related to sustainable development, green architecture, government policy and more. Through these forums, people who can’t attend their programs still have a chance to interact with the experts -- and they open the audience up to, potentially, the entire world.

They recently completed their first Q&A, with developer Jonathan Rose, and are currently accepting questions for the editors of National Geographic and C about their “Sustainability Roundtable” presentation on global warming and its effects on the built environment. You can find links to both forums (and to upcoming ones as they become available) at www.nbm.org. The question window for the Sustainability Roundtable is open until February 24.

I watched the introductory portion of the "For The Greener Good" video, which includes a sobering presentation by Dennis Dimick, executive editor of National Geographic magazine. His slide show graphically demonstrates the effects of global warming. The following discussion between him and Robert Ivy, editor of Architectural Record magazine is worthwhile.