John Van Doren is an architect and engineer by training and practiced architecture in California during the early energy crisis days of the 1970's.  In the early 1980's he made a career change and spent over two decades leading turnarounds and startups in the manufacturing sector.  Burned-out and discouraged by the outsourcing and downsizing of corporate America, he returned to architecture and began writing a handbook on sustainable home design.   In the process of writing that “handbook” he began to question the direction of the “green building movement” and determined that there was a vast difference between what we accepted as “green” and what was truly sustainable.  He would eventually conclude that the imminent peaking and global decline in production of oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium would render much of what we do in “green building” is nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The Sustainable Home Blog
Musings on the sustainability of the American home

CHILL in the Living Room
Books and survival strategies for dwelling in a post peak (fossil fuel) world.