At the Minnesota State Capitol, Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) pulled his best impression of George W. Bush last week, suggesting that he and he alone would balance the state budget. He does have the line-item veto authority, but he would also have to use the unallotment tool by a factor of almost 10 times more than any other time in state history.
The Governor has chosen to go it alone, cutting our hospitals and nursing homes deeply, and increasing property taxes again - on top of his $3.1 billion in property taxes already.
In between trying to prevent the deep, deep cuts Governor Pawlenty wants to make singlehandedly, I buzzed over to give the commencement address at the University of Minnesota College of Design. I thought it hit on the very crux of our challenge, both in Minnesota and on the national level.
Thank you Dean Fisher, for the invitation to speak today.
Thank you, graduates and family, for the privilege of sharing this energizing day with you. Congratulations on your great work. I have incredible respect for your persistence and for your work ethic, because if who are about to become a Master of Architecture, you have progressed much farther than I did
I stand before you to make a great confession. I am an architecture school dropout.
That said, for a politician, my background is very typical. I hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics, from this University. Soon after, I moved to an abandoned farmhouse in Taylors Falls, Minnesota - with no heat and no water. You know the Buddhist mantra - Chop Wood. Carry Water. Every Day? I lived it. For five years. For four very cold winters.
As much as I loved the simple life of the village potter, the long hours alone in the studio slowly ate away at my extroverted spirit. The thrill of teaching and community involvement far exceeded the solitude of daily work. Wanting to find a greater mix between making things, public work, and academic challenge, I enrolled in architecture school at the University of New Mexico.
And three weeks later came September 11, 2001. It felt at the time that what we had ignored for too long had come to roost. Though the first few days were a time of national unity, those with a bully pulpit told us, "Go shopping."
The tremors rippling through the economy have now become major quakes. No doubt, the challenges we face are many, and they are great.
Perhaps less obviously, the social foundations of our country's post-war paradigm are being eroded more quickly. The myth of endless progress, of limitless resources, of permanent growth, are meeting the physical constraints of the natural world.
The constraints are made more evident by the information age. We can now read in almost-real-time the impacts of our actions on others.
No longer can we dump toxins or byproducts directly into a stream, because one person can monitor the visual quality of the downstream waters on Google Earth.
No longer can we ignore the "Made in China" label without recognizing the working conditions where our clothes are made.
No longer can we borrow from the future to pay for present excesses.
The 20th century paradigm has run full speed into the hard brick wall of the 21st.
This conflict is playing itself out right now at the State Capitol. I will reserve political comment for the House Floor, but I will note that the debate is between a philosophy of pay-as-you-go and a philosophy that we can continue to get whatever you want without accounting for the costs. On energy, on education, on the budget as a whole – the debate really is between the 20th century and the 21st.
As we come to terms with the transformation happening in our time, it is helpful to look in the rear-view mirror, at another time when myth and reality clashed.
During the early years of the Enlightenment, classical alchemical myths of Aristotle were forced into reconciliation with the new knowledge gained by scientific exploration. For 2,000 years, little was known about why different materials were transformed by fire.
Anyone who has lit a wood fire knows that the logs are heavier before burning than the ash that remains after. A full cord of dry pine turns into just a few pounds of light, fluffy ash.
German scientist Johann Becher explained this transformation in the 17th century. After decades of experiments and analysis, Becher explained that an element called "phlogiston" exists in all matter. This phlogiston is released by heat and by fire; as it is released, the objects become lighter.
Becher believed that he had discovered a universal theory to replace Aristotle’s two-millenia-old alchemical notion of hot and cold, dry and wet. Becher believed he would leave a long legacy after him.
While Becher was busy philosophizing, other scientists were in the lab, experimenting. Becher’s phlogiston theory held true, until magnesium was burned. Somehow, upon burning, it became not lighter but more dense. Phlogiston was supposed to be released and make objects less dense.
Becher, eager to save his life’s work, refused to accept the harsh truths confronting him. Phlogiston, you see, was actually found in two different forms – the light phlogiston released on burning; but another form of phlogiston – "heavy phlogiston" which actually attracted more air upon burning to become more dense.
We all know today that Becher was on the verge of discovering carbon dioxide and its role in combustion. But Becher was so tied to his own pride - to his ideological myth of phlogiston – that he could not see the true opportunity in front of him.
This is why the world needs you.
The lesson of Johan Becher is the need for critical thinkers, for practical designers.
The challenges facing our world are great. The need for transformative solutions – in every part of our economy, in every part of our life – is real, and it is urgent.
325 years after Becher’s death, the International Panel on Climate Change has issued urgent warnings about carbon dioxide emissions and global climate change.
Trained as a potter, I am a tactile, practical person. We cannot see carbon. We cannot touch it. But we do see the terrible inefficiencies of our 20th-century infrastructure. Every day I drive around the recently built tract homes plopped down in the middle of old corn fields, designed as if the sun’s rays carried no heat, the northwest winter winds no cold, and the view out the window could be controlled by a computer and not the sensitivity of the designer.
I ran for the Minnesota House of Representatives because architecture teaches us all to think to scale. Yes, I was personally frustrated by the ascetic and solitary life of the studio. But I also wanted to be able to work at the biggest scale I could.
My architectural training helped me win my election and my reelection, as a Democrat in a district where Republicans dominate nearly every other election. We analyzed our site, we listened to the needs of our client (the voters) and I articulated a vision that resonated with them – the People’s Needs come before Political Ideology – and the that our core infrastructure demands attention now – Roads, Schools, Hospitals, Nursing Homes and the Environment.
Winning a close election, I was assigned to the Energy Committee, among others. While others clearly were leading on the issue of Renewable Energy, I wanted to apply my interest in energy conservation and green building. So I asked around about who the experts really were on conservation in the House, and people could only scratch their chins. After a few weeks, I started to hear this answer: "We thought it was YOU."
Imagine, in a few weeks, graduates, that you have been given the commission to design the entire Central Corridor light rail project, or the new Twins Stadium.
There I was a freshman legislator, chief-authoring the nation’s strongest energy efficiency bill – requiring a reduction of electricity and natural gas consumption by 1.5% every year. And we are on our way to achieving this goal.
We included requirements for research and development in new efficiency standards and technologies, and last year passed the Minnesota Architecture 2030 bill, to move to a zero-energy building standard by 2030.
And today, when I return to the Capitol, I will pass Minnesota’s Green Jobs Bill, to invest almost $200 million of energy stimulus funds to retain and create jobs, a vast majority of which is in weatherizing homes and renovating both publicly owned buildings and privately-owned commercial and industrial facilities.
I am excited because these funds are a down payment on the new energy economy. The Green Jobs Bill will quicken the transition from the 20th-century ideology of endless resource to the 21st-century energy-efficient economy.
We must resist the temptation of Johan Becher – to pound a square peg into a round hole. We need designers more than ever, to recognize the realities of the day, and design real, pragmatic and elegant solutions.
In 1962, President Kennedy explained that he chose to "go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills."
Today, we have embarked on a new Apollo Mission, radically different in challenge and even greater in scope than the one before it. The 21st-century will be defined by whether we can recognize the limits of our natural resources, and design a more symbiotic relationship with those limits.
As graduates of Minnesota’s land grant University, on behalf of the State of Minnesota, I look forward to working with you in service to your craft, and in service to the State of Minnesota.
Congratulations on your great accomplishment. Congratulations on completing this part of your life’s education.