As reports and revelations about the diminishing credibility of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) continue to unfold daily, there is no question that it has major implications. If the science behind AGW were beyond doubt, it would provide a powerful argument for greater government regulation and economic participation. It would empower a worldview geared against greater personal liberty and a rising standard of living. Accumulating wealth would depend more on subsidies and catering to a marketplace in which supply and demand are dictated by government policy rather than actual needs and wants of free people.As professionals who try to address such needs and wants in all of its variety, architects are very much subject to AGW's affect on buildings, both in the way they are designed and engineered and in the way they respond to government mandates. In fact, architects are very much wedded to AGW, as it justifies their guiding design philosophy and helps structure their firms' core values. Many signature designers, including a few that I personally know, have put global warming at the the center of all that their work aims to be about--whether it be in the aggressive employment of green technologies in their buildings, to their promotion of a planning solution (e.g. smart growth) or building type that can be shown to be earth-friendly (e.g. skyscapers). The issue's inherent demand for greater control over the environment in the hands of an enlightened elite complements well with architects' own (and as yet, unrealized) ambitions of becoming the major shapers of the built environment. Idealistic architects ultimately want to transcend the rough-and-tumble, at times crass, reality of the free market, and if the global warming issue makes this possible they will quickly jump on the bandwagon.
