Discussing the coincidence of the 50th anniversary of EPA with the first Earth Day in 1970 was the agency's administrator for District 9, serving the West from San Francisco, John Busterud, and Professor Noah Sachs at the University of Richmond School of Law in Virginia. The professor wryly noted, “The EPA is often called the federal agency no one likes to be the head of because it’s a punching bag for every interest, from the left to the right.” For sure, it’s been politically influenced over the years, and administrators with varying commitments to environmental responsibility have led it. Still, the agency has improved our lives, with cleaner air and waterways, a Superfund to remediate the mess we've made for more than a century and a robust recycling system, which now employs 757,000 people who receive $36.6 billion in annual wages. When EPA was founded in 1970, the national recycling rate was less than 10 percent. Today that has more than tripled to about 35 percent.

Interior designer Tanya Shively founded Scottsdale’s Sesshu Design Associates in 2005, and home designers Doug and Kevin Edwards began their Edwards Design Group, also in Scottsdale, 45 years ago. Both firms pioneered sustainable home design and construction in the Southwest. Solar positioning and solar power, generous overhangs, insulation and green materials are a few fundamental home-building strategies, Doug explains. “Designing an active solar home can produce enough energy to run the home 24/7 without the cost of your utility company. A net-zero energy home can be achieved today.” In turn, Shively’s interior design philosophy is, she calls it, “WELL Designed”: You can support and enhance well-being and wellness by using an eco-conscious approach, including repurposing and recycling, while also embracing both luxury and livability. 

Across political aisles, Americans support the preservation of our national parks, aligning with the goal that established the National Park Service more than 100 years ago: to ensure that these lands remain in perpetuity as shared national treasures. The parks, though, are threatened as well as our national forests, wildlife refuges, monuments, says author Stephen Nash in his Grand Canyon for Sale: Public Lands versus Private Interests in the Era of Climate Change (University of California Press, 2017). Central to the destruction is human-created climate change. Other assaults are attempts to privatize and commoditize them; overgrazing; mining on sensitive lands near the parks; the growth of gateway towns; and the noise of Grand Canyon overflights by scenic airplanes and helicopters. What do all of us do? Yell in the direction of Washington, D.C.

Scientists agree that the earth has warmed during the last century and that human activities are the cause. The past four years (2015–2018), in fact, are the warmest since meteorological records started about 1880. The primary cause, the greenhouse effect, is an imbalance between the Earth’s retaining solar energy and reflecting it. These factors include burning fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Deforestation, the use of aerosols, for example, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), intensify this. Ozone is still another factor. In contrast, long-term climate changes occur across thousands of years as a result of orbital position. Our responsibility: Work together to change climate change. Recall the Kenyan proverb: “The Earth . . . was not given to us by our parents. It was lent to us by our children.”

“This spring is a beautiful place, surrounded with fine scenery, and if the water proves possessed of medicinal properties it will certainly be a place of resort in a few years,” wrote pioneer settler Abraham Harlow Peeples, in the Arizona Miner January 30, 1874. Castle Hot Springs did become a resort, opened by another Arizona pioneer, Frank Murphy, in 1896 for the health conscious about 50 miles from Phoenix in the Bradshaw Mountains. From here, his brother, Territorial Governor Nathan Oakes Murphy, made the first Arizona telephone call in 1902. The resort later welcomed, in January 1945, a Massachusetts naval lieutenant, John F. Kennedy, who completed a post-war rehabilitation here. The 220-acre “green-inspired” resort reopened February 1, 2019, with luxury bungalow and cabin accommodations. Come: “Take the waters.”

"You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths,” wrote John Wesley Powell in The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons. This year, 2019, we celebrate the 150^th anniversary of Powell’s milestone 1869 journey through the mouths and labyrinths of the Grand Canyon in what is today Arizona. We also celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the creation of Grand Canyon National Park, by President Woodrow Wilson, February 26, 1919. At the same time, we recognize that in celebrating the parks by even visiting them as often and as lovingly as we do, we harm them through wear. Stewarding the Grand Canyon National Park through another 100 years, then, is as challenging today as it was a century ago.

Forty years ago, Love Canal, near Niagara Falls in New York State, was an environmental nightmare that awakened America. Approximately 22,000 tons of chemicals, stored in steel drums, buried and capped in clay from 1942 to 1953, had leaked into the adjacent working-class homes. By 1978, the released diozin, halogenated organics, chlorobenzenes, heavy metals and hazardous waste had begun to produce high incidences of heart disease, cancer, rashes, kidney failure, allergies, immune diseases, epilepsy, asthma, migraines, nephrosis, birth defects, leukemia and miscarriages. Today capped, fenced and closely monitored almost two decades following EPA remediation, the 70-acre site still contains most of the chemicals. Some positive results were Superfund legislation and our state environmental agencies. But the best outcome was the inspiration to prevent similar future events. (Thanks to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for the Love Canal images.)

Want to plant inspiration, respite and education in your life? Visit an arboretum, which showcases trees, shrubs and other woody plants for research, educational, ornamental purposes and cultivation. The 150-acre campus of Mesa Community College in the east Valley near Phoenix is classified an arboretum, and Arizona is also well served with examples at ASU and the University of Arizona in Tucson. And, the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix is world famous. The MCC Arboretum maintains thousands of plants, including low-water-use native and desert-adapted trees and rare examples such as the Guyacan (Guaicum coulteri), a small Mexican tree. Sustainability and education are the primary goals, and eco-benefits include helping to reduce the heat island effect and recycling storm water. Stop by and saunter; you won't need your shades.

The estimated $68-million Desert Encounters, Discovery, Global, Education (EDGE) center in Scottsdale has been envisioned since 1993. If finally approved, the nonprofit educational and research center would be at the Gateway Trailhead of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve (MSP). As currently planned, the LEED-targeting campus would require 5.34 acres and occupy 47,586 square feet. Eight low-slung indoor/outdoor pavilions would highlight relationships between humans and desert. Those who oppose the center argue it would destroy the concept of a natural desert preserve, lower residential property values and add a commercial venture to the site as well as noise, traffic and congestion. Proponents say that it would be minimally invasive and provide an educational center to celebrate the biology, ecology, geology and history of the Sonoran Desert and support tourism. The outcome of Prop 420 this November in Scottsdale will determine the next steps on this trail.

Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve (MSP) is the triumphant result of four decades of work by citizens and city, including the acquisition of more than a billion dollars of otherwise developable land. The preserve encompasses 30,580 acres and 195 miles of hiking/biking/equestrian trails in a sublime section of Earth’s most biologically diverse desert. Among the heroes of the preserve effort were legendary Mayor Herb Drinkwater, who was inspired in the 1990s by Phoenicians such as the late Senator Barry Goldwater, who helped set aside the Phoenix Mountains Preserve two decades before, providing miles of hiking and biking trails for a city reeling from sprawl. Desert EDGE, a proposed nature-education center inside the MSP has brought praise for its innovative virtual approach to desert education, though some have criticized it because, they say, it violates the terms and spirit of the agreements creating the preserve. Scottsdale City Council is awaiting the results of a citizen petition drive, due this July, to stop Desert EDGE from being built inside the MSP boundaries. Stay tuned for more.

At 124 feet, Falcon Nest is the country’s tallest single-family house, designed by Phoenix architect Sukumar Pal, AIA, and built beside landmark 6,514-foot Thumb Butte in Prescott, the mile-high city an hour-and-a-half car-ride north of the Valley. Completed in 1994, the 4,362-square-foot mid-rise home, also known as the Palsolaral House, uses solar energy and air currents through the chimney effect of convection. This creates warmth in cold Prescott winter nights and summer cooling, when daytime temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, even at this elevation. On 1.08 undulating acres of granite, the ten-story single-family home has three bedrooms and four bathrooms. “We called it ‘Falcon Nest’ because falcons generally nest just below the eagles, which need the top branches to spread their large wings,” Pal explains. “For us, the top of Thumb Butte is the eagle’s nest, and we are just below that on the next tier of branches. We are the falcons.” Come, soar.

In designing this 8,240-square-foot Contemporary in Paradise Valley, Scottsdale architect Vern Swaback, FAIA, incorporated many of the sustainable concepts that Wright espoused and realized in his work — long before LEED certification and “green” design and construction. Swaback was one of the great architect’s last apprentices. In addition to requiring connectedness to the home site, Wright’s organic architecture stressed the use of indigenous materials, so here Swaback called for Arizona-quarried Sedona brown ledge stone and, for the exterior terraces, Arizona sandstone.The owners also requested a palette that celebrates earthiness and the flat colors reminiscent of Indian pueblos and the desert. We think FLW would have enjoyed.

A generation ago, those who wanted to add direct light from the sky into their homes had to also invite the attendant heat gain. In the desert, this was a bright prospect for our luminous winters but not a very warm idea in summer, when direct sunlight on windows, especially those flat on the rooftop, has traditionally been a budget buster. But Mark Morganstein, founder and owner of Phoenix-based Sky Design Concepts, which has been designing and supplying skylights for almost three decades, has good news with today’s sustainable skylight designs, which maximize passive lighting for lifestyle enhancement and filter out infrared heat and resist thermal transfer of heat. Now you can enjoy solar, and moonlight, sonatas without singing dirges for high-dollar utility bills.

A guardian angel; the Mesa Fire Department responding to the alarm within two minutes; an outstanding team from Farmers Insurance; a fine rebuild contractor, DC Restorations of Mesa; Salt River Project; and Ron Steege, formerly of La Casa Homes: Rebuilding my home after a fire two years ago was facilitated by these and other people. We rebuilt the wood-frame 1,200-square foot one-story starter home with energy efficiency in mind: foam insulation, dual-pane windows, a high-performing 18 SEER HVAC system and an Owens Corning garage insulation kit. We also installed DualMax® Toto toilets, with a water-efficient flush option of 0.9 gallons or 1.6 gallons. Electric bills for the last two summers have dropped by at least 40 percent, in conjunction with other green components. Thanks to everyone.

Through the leadership of Derrick Hall, the team's president and CEO, Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2001 World Series champions of Major League Baseball, have been winning for years in sustainability initiatives through the team’s Playing for the Planet — a commitment not only to monitor and improve the organization’s environmental performance but also to influence players, fans, employees and corporate partners to effect environmental change. At Chase Field, the downtown Phoenix home of the team, the Arizona Public Service (APS) Solar Pavilion contains 336 roof-mounted solar panels that can generate 75 kilowatts — enough electricity to light Chase Field for 11 games each year or 8–10 homes for a year. That power, though, is directed to three electric-vehicle charging stations, available to fans who hook up their EVs and attend the game while their cars recharge. First-place material, for sure: Go D’Backs!

Treehouses aren’t just for children and childhood dreams. Aloft in stately trees, they attract us adults, too, serving a variety of mature needs: for functionality and caprice, affordability and spare-no-expense luxury, for green consciousness and eccentricity. As offices, getaways, lovenests away from the children and resort suites, they are our reminders of The Swiss Family Robinson and their island’s rhythms and songs; The Lost Boys in Peter Pan and their Hanging Tree, a refuge from egregiously nasty malefactors; and the forest elves of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. A recently published coffee table book, Tree Houses, reveals this multigenerational joy of living high, arboreally, and we celebrate those real-world play forts, houses and even some tree cabins erected in environmental protest. Join us, get away from it all and see what's up in homes.

At two last-quarter 2013 car events, SEMA, the annual trade-only automotive specialty-equipment industry event in Las Vegas and the Los Angeles Auto Show, attendees saw recent sustainable vehicles, including electrics and hybrids, bikes and new technologies. At SEMA, Chevy revealed its Spark EV Tech Performance concept. And, in Los Angeles, almost every manufacturer showed an electrified vehicle, including the Chevy Spark EV and the VIA Motors pick-up truck. In addition, Toyota showed its 2014 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and the Honda Accord won the ninth annual Green Car of the Year award. “Perhaps the biggest change [revealed in the show] is the rapid adoption of advanced technology, such as the autonomous driving systems and sustainable vehicles, which is completely changing how we think about transportation,” noted Brendan Flynn, senior director of marketing and communication for the LA show.

Arizona history and environmental awareness are both at home with the Clines, a Tempe family anchored in 150-plus years in state and territorial history. Their remodeled and expanded home, built in 1968, celebrates various influences: his growing up on a horse and cattle ranch near Payson in the Star Valley; her love of the Spanish Mission style; Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture; and the work of Greene and Greene, whose Arts and Crafts style inspires the work of Larry Langhurst and Bernie Becker of Phoenix-based Woodesign, which handcrafted the beautiful millwork. The design team also included the team of general contractor, R.D. Hendrickson, of Scottsdale-based Modern Group; Tony Sutton’s interior design firm, Est Est Incorporated, Scottsdale; and architect Joe Conk, AIA, principal of Fort Worth, Texas-based Conk Architecture.

Arizona schools are graduating with green honors. Educators are making sustainability a part of the curriculum, putting it into the bricks and up on the blackboards. Four, among others, have attained A’s: Shalom Montessori School, Scottsdale; Mary Belle McCorkle Academy of Excellence K-8, Tucson Unified School District #1; Marcos de Niza High School, Tempe Union High School District; and Prescott College. The United States Green Building Council Arizona Green Schools Committee supports green schools at all levels, preschool to college. Along with sustainable, they are described as conserving energy and natural resources; improving indoor air quality; removing toxic materials from places where children learn and play; encouraging recycling; and teaching environmental awareness. At the athletic stands at these schools, say, "Go Green!" 

This Arizona school intends to get a Big Zero and brag on it. For Net Zero certification, a building must generate on site as much or more energy than it consumes. The Arizona office of Turner Construction Company is completing the $22 million Colonel Smith Middle School in Fort Huachuca. Begun August 2011, the project, at the Army intelligence-training post about 90 miles southeast of Tucson, is expected to be the state’s first net-zero school and the nation’s twelfth. Colonel Smith will not only be a net-zero building but, matching functionality with function, a living-lab teaching a STEM curriculum: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. A slick energy dashboard will monitor the school’s energy and environmental functions; other green components are solar panels, HVAC units and three wind turbines. Put your sustainable thinking caps on and matriculate in.

“This sustainability thing” isn’t a fad. The price of water and energy will continue to go up. No matter what you do, energy bills will rise — but by how much? That depends in part on decisions you make when you build or renovate a home. Fortunately, advancements in products, science and technology now make it possible to construct an energy-efficient, healthy home that was unimaginable even a decade ago. Since 1990, Scottsdale-based La Casa Builders has built some of the finest luxury, and green, homes in the Southwest. Principals Ron Steege and Tim Larson routinely discuss established and on-the-cusp energy-saving strategies and technologies with their clients, and with you. Step in.

To design their Contemporary three-bedroom retirement home in Fountain Hills, this couple called on respected Scottsdale architect, Nick Tsontakis, AIA. Their two-level golf-course home insets the foothills, with views to 7,000-foot-plus Four Peaks and the distant Mazatzal Mountains. Following their requests, Tsontakis provided a home with a variety of sustainable elements such as building into the hillside; low-E glazing; spray foam insulation; placing ductwork in conditioned space; variable-speed 22-SEER heat pumps; energy-efficient lighting and appliances; and recyclable materials. Living well and living coincide, right on the green.

Near Arizona's legendary Superstition Mountains (Gnarly prospector, Jacob Walz (the Lost Dutchman), never returned, and his mine has stayed his for 150 years), this 4,900-square-foot home, by La Casa Builders of Scottsdale, re-uses a variety of woods: from a bridge across the Great Salt Lake; Canadian granaries; and a dock along Lake Superior. Drink deep: The home even recycles oak from antique English hard-cider barrels.

Completed in 2006 by Scottsdale-based La Casa Builders Inc. in Silverleaf, north Scottsdale, this luxury desert home demonstrates that even a large residence can be designed and built in the spirit of sustainability through state-of-the-art technology and reclaimed materials. Designed by Yeewing Yiu, NCARB, LEED AP, with interior design by Wiseman and Gale Interiors, Scottsdale, the hillside home was an early participant in the Scottsdale Green Building Program and incorporates low-impact site/building integration through its solar building orientation, shaded outdoor living spaces, permeable site hardscape materials and native plant palette. In addition, it has a tight and sound thermal envelope with energy-efficient windows, lighting and heating/cooling.

Sterling at Silverleaf, the multi-phase development at Silverleaf, one of the Southwest’s premiere luxury home golf communities, recently won Gold level certification by the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) through the ICC 700 National Green Standard™— the benchmark for sustainable single-family and multifamily homes, site development, and residential remodeling projects. Phase one of the 12-acre north Scottsdale community is the first and only single-family new construction project in Arizona to be awarded this certification by the National Green Building Program (NAHBGreen). The villas met the Standard’s categories such as lot and site development, origin of building materials, indoor environmental quality, the use of advanced building methods, homeowner education, and overall resource efficiency.

Earth, Wind, Air and Fire: Four building-industry professionals - an architect, contractor, landscape designer and interior designer - incorporate sustainable technology and methods into their projects. Elemental Homes, Holmes.

Three Scottsdale-based interior designers committed to sustainability: Tanya Shively, ASID, LEED AP; Rondi Kilen, ASID, and Susie Hersker, ASID. Recycled glass, textiles, lighting, indoor plants, salvaged materials, and partnering with local professionals are among the sustainable approaches of Shively, CEO and principal designer of Sesshu Design Associates Ltd. For a recent remodeling of her Scottsdale kitchen, Kilen incorporated many strategies such as, for her cabinets, “Echo Wood," an engineered eco-wood veneer; for lighting, an LED tape; and an energy-efficient induction cooktop. Hersker incorporates sustainable fabrics into her projects such as pure New Zealand wool and smart meters that monitor and allow for the control of home-energy usage.

Phoenix sisters Genna Batycki and  Allyson Tewers build sustainable features for their preschool students from the ground up. Their Natural Choice Academy in north Phoenix is the Valley’s “first all-natural preschool" for infants through pre-kindergarten. The educators have innovatively recycled a 25-year-old building, incorporating green principles throughout: materials, power, water, products. They've even created the Garden of Eco - an environmentally sensitive backyard tended by the older students and the faculty. Is there a better way to grow Earth conscience?

Phoenix-area architects Nick Tsontakis and Tom Norris demonstrate that environmentally sensitive building is rising to new stories. Come in and join these two eco-minded pros for some of the steps they are taking. They might offer you a better look of what can be done green.

Greenery enveloping it and green itself: Scottsdale-based architects, Swaback Partners, is targeting Camp Lodge at Martis Camp, the mountain ski and golf community near North Lake Tahoe, Nevada, for LEED Silver certification through the U.S. Green Building Council. Put your feet up by the lobby fire and warm yourself: For eco-sensitivity, this forward-thinking community shoots for and finishes well below par.