Phoenix Rising
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006A Report on the Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), October 4-6 2006
My only previous experience with Phoenix Arizona was a couple of years ago changing planes on a flight from San Luis Obispo to New York. On the descent to the airport I was arrested by the sight of an L.A. scale megalopolis in the middle of a vast desert patched with hundreds of golf courses, thousands of swimming pools and dozens of artificial lakes bordered by marinas and mansions. It struck me at the time that this must be the most ecologically unsound, resource-wasteful place on earth.
That impression was reinforced earlier this week, when I walked out of the air-conditioned “Sky Harbor” terminal into a 95 degree atmosphere which burned my eyes and clenched my chest. I had arrived to attend a conference of AASHE: The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. The choice of location seemed bitterly ironic.
Three days later, by the end of the conference, I understood that choice differently. The mistakes of development causing the present environmental crisis can only be rectified by massive transformations of places like Phoenix Arizona. And right there such transformations are beginning.