What has to be confronted is that the unsustainable arrives at a rate that constantly outstrips those actions that strive to advance sustainability. The evidence of the unsustainable is most overtly seen in the rate of increase of impact population . To understand this consider that at the opening of the 20th century the global population was 1.3 billion, at its close it was 6.0 billion. Continual rapid urbanisation throughout the world and the impetus of globalisation to maximise the numbers of consumers and consumption-base lifestyles, constantly increases the impact of populations, while at the same time raw population numbers are projected to rise by over 2 billion in the next 50 years. It is against this backdrop that one has to view environmental problems like global warming.
Solutions are what is wanted.
However, without a preparedness to confront the problem of the unsustainable, in general and in circumstantial conditions, one cannot define what a solution would be. So many actions that get presented as solutions de facto sustain the unsustainable. These remarks do not imply everything done in the name of sustainability is worthless - clearly a good deal of value is learnt, but they are drops in the ocean. But the task is enormous, complex and we are still at the very start. 3.Architecture has to break out of its ghetto and reinvent itself as far more than an egocentric service industry in the spaces of privilege that are, in actuality, on the margins of the built environment.