I thought of titling this column, “Back to the Future,” in honor of older technologies for buildings being rediscovered and re-purposed, such as daylighting for health and vitality, natural ventilation instead of forced drafts, operable windows to catch a spring breeze and even radiant floor heating to warm all those cold feet. With modern sensors, electronic control technologies and building automation systems, we can make just about any technological system for building comfort perform well. But sustainability in and for the built environment requires a greater leap of the imagination and a broader understanding of the human purpose.

Reading a new book of essays by the septuagenarian – and very wise - poet Gary Snyder (Back on the Fire, 2007, Berkeley: Shoemaker and Hoard), especially his essay, “Entering the Fiftieth Millennium,” reminded me that the ancient peoples of Europe, our distant ancestors, were no less human, subtle or sophisticated about eternal verities than we imagine ourselves to be. They left us their art as a great gift, though without any thought of the long-ahead future.

Learning from personal visits to the ancient cave paintings of southwestern France, Snyder describes a world more than 30,000 years ago, in which people studied animals with great intensity and then, with great labor and planning, reproduced amazingly accurate images in caves deep underground, for reasons we cannot really fathom. It’s hard for us moderns to imagine living in that world – so circumscribed geographically, so filled with everyday danger and pucker-factor terror – but so open to the infinite wisdom of the Earth Mother, to magic, myth, ritual, song and ceremony.

Looking at modern architecture, building design and construction, from the lens of 50,000 years of self-consciously sentient human activity, one can ask from where we draw our wisdom as urban people, now bent on remaking the planet in our own image. Are we simply “smart but not wise,” with our structures and cities condemned to disappear over a rather short period of time (because of their lack of suitability for people or planet over the long haul)? Or, instead, can we figure out a way to remake our civilization on this earth in a way that honors the Creator’s original intent, that this place should support habitation for our species for another 50 millennia, indeed for all time?

Doesn’t taking the long view mean that design should deal more with “eco-effectiveness” than with real-estate “efficiency,” more with creating real functioning of buildings for centuries rather than simply building “people warehouses” for the next decade? Housing another 50 million people – sustainably – in the U.S. over the next few decades will tax our ingenuity as a people. Building design needs to meet up with creative regulation in a way that speaks, however poorly, for our common needs and aspirations, for health, comfort and productivity, with planetary economy in mind.

In this respect, the growing movement toward sustainable design, green buildings and carbon-neutral solutions for the human environment needs everyone’s help. The most promising signs appear to be evolving from the actions of an odd amalgam of far-sighted developers, corporate sustainability mavens, experimental architects and engineers, and local government officials determined to take action against climate change – and for people-friendly buildings – in ways both large and small, global and local, immediate and in the future.

Think about how much the dialog, debate and practice of green building has changed in just the past few years, from a few noble beginnings to the mass adoption of LEED certification by one institution after another. Consider the August 2007 announcement by the major retailer, Best Buy, that it would build all future stores to be LEED-certified. This move heralds a wholesale movement into green buildings by the entire retail sector (the second largest commercial building sector, at $25 billion per year construction value). Then consider a similar set of announcements by a growing list of universities and colleges, mandating LEED certification for all new campus buildings, typically at a Silver or Gold level. We are clearly making progress!

Look at projects all around you that are pioneering what it means to be truly sustainable, living only on local solar and wind income, on harvested rainwater, biomimetically moving toward the goal of photosynthesizing like a tree – generating a dense growth of biomass from nothing but sunlight, rain and a few minerals in the soil.

We’re just at the beginning of a new way of looking at the world, captured now by the slogan of “sustainability,” that promises to usher in difficult-to-imagine leaps – backward as well as forward – in building design, technology, construction and operations. Let’s hope that in this great rush into the future that we don’t forget to include a generous space at each building site, every school and campus, the many urban infill projects, as well as open-space-oriented exurban housing developments, for our companions and cousins these past fifty millennia – the creatures, plants and cultures of the vast planet Earth. Let’s also keep our keen senses alert for how we can incorporate into our buildings and developments the ancient wisdom of our ancestors, their fine-tuned awareness of the need for ritual, appreciation and living lightly on the earth. “With gratitude, taking what we need, with delight giving back what we must.”