I am just coming back from a conference in Little Rock where I had the pleasure of hearing David Suzuki speak. Many of you have heard him and know that he talks about just how much destruction has already been caused by humans, and that he is eloquent in pointing out how faulty our paradigms are (i.e. "The Economy" is takes precedence over the natural world.) His talk reminded me of an experience I had at our meeting at Pocantico - which I may already have shared with a few of you. I believe it was late on the first day that we did a visioning exercise, when we looked forward 50 years to see where we will be. Many of you were coming up with positive images of what the future will hold. I, for one, found myself confronted with the belief that this earth is in very serious trouble. I believe that disaster is coming - is already upon us - and that it is too late to stop what we have started. I had to hold myself in my seat - I wanted to leave the room and cry.

However, this was not a negation of what you all were saying. I just don't happen to believe that we will be able to fix ourselves that quickly, if ever. But thinking that way does not make me give up. Rather, it enforces the knowledge that all we have is today. That the best we can do is do our best. And it reinforces my belief that the two most constructive things I can do is to try to encourage change - and to really appreciate our incredible natural world.

This point of view also coincides with comments I and others made about the tendency to be human-centric in our thinking. We tend to want to save the world for ourselves - for humans. Maybe what we should be doing is saving the world for its own sake - regardless of what happens to mankind.

As for the follow-up questions: I thought the visioning tool that was developed on the second day has a lot of potential. When the border station team met the following Monday - we agreed that that tool might be a useful one for us. Further, the team felt not only energized but in possession of some good concrete ideas to use as we continue with the project. Thanks for all the great input. As we develop our process, we would like to explore how to further harness your great ideas and expertise.

As I said during the workshop - I don't believe the point is to "fix LEED". I was struck by the revelation that LEED has opened the doors on so many projects. LEED is the reason that many projects are even talking about green at all. Certainly LEED is the reason that many of us get the chance to be involved on so many projects. It appears to me that the USGBC is well aware of that LEED needs improvement, and that they are working on it. I would submit that this group should focus not on LEED - leave that to USGBC - but to developing other tools that can be used along with LEED.

It occurs to me that much of what is still missing in the projects that I am working on is simply knowledge. Coming in contact with all of you opens my eyes to so much expertise. Is there a way that we can make all that knowledge more generally available to all projects? Maybe this relates to the conversation about R&D and the fact that there really is no coherent design and construction industry. In any case, I think that making more good hard information available to design teams would be very helpful. Certainly I would recommend to GSA that a resource for design information be developed as a part of the greening program.

Thanks all