CREJ

12 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / June 2020 ADVERTISING: Lori Golightly lgolightly@crej.com SUBSCRIPTIONS: Jolene Wollett jwollett@crej.com ART DIRECTOR: Heather Lewis hlewis@crej.com 1600 Stout St., Suite 1330 Denver, CO 80202 (303) 623-1148 www.crej.com www.crej.com/buildingdialogue/ Publisher’s Note W ell, welcome to the new normal. I didn’t want to use the Cword, but it’s unavoid- able. This is a challenging time for every- one – from both personal and business perspectives. Hopefully by the time this landsonyourdesk, “newnormal”will becloser toactual nor- mal – and families and cities and projects will be recovering and back on track. If you’ll permit me to ramble a bit, depending on the news source, it’s very likely that COVID-19 originated in Chinese wet markets (placeswhere traffickedwildlife –often fromAfrica, In- diaandotherAsiancountries– is sold). Thisdovetailswithmy fo- cus on wildlife conservation. Whether it’s habitat loss due to an ever-growing humanpresence orwildlife trafficking (think rhino horn and pangolin scales ground up and used in Eastern “medi- cine,” or ivory made from elephant tusks), these localized activi- ties are having an influence on human health globally. Strange- ly, its impact this time around turns out to be a moment for the earthtocatch itsbreath. People in Indiacansee theHimalayas for the first time in decades, according to news reports. Less traffic on the world’s highways has meant relatively fewer greenhouse gas emissions. AndasEarthDaycelebrated its 50thanniversary in April,wildlifeof all stripes, spots and tailshasbeengrantedabrief reprieve to be, well, wild. A pandemic lockdown is no way to achieve long-term environ- mental improvement, but ifwe canbuild on the last fewmonths, maybewe can reduce our human footprint at least a little. To that end, Mohit Mehta concludes his “It’s All About the Car- bon” series by addressing some of these very issues. As he writes, our building and construction industries in the U.S. are not pay- ing close attention to what we are specifying, primarily where the materials are coming from (mostly China and other devel- oping nations). This leads to significant habitat and biodiversity loss, changing the way humans and animals interact – creating favorable conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19. Everything we do has an impact, sometimes direct but often un- seenandunfeltuntil a later time–manifesting inwaysunknown to us. It’s all –we’re all – connected. While a couple of design stories in this issue do touch on our post-COVID-19 world, most of this issue is business as usual, fea- turing your beautiful projects and stories. Although this has been a challenging quarter, here’s hoping the tide is turning, that we emerge a little stronger from the lockdown than when we went in, and that we apply the lessons no doubt learned to our lives and ourwork. Kris Oppermann Stern Publisher &Editor kostern@crej.com