So we are counting down the top four most effective ways to transform markets to green buildings as I wind down my weekly column to make time for developing a book based on the concept of market transformation. The framework for these articles has been Donella Meadows' seminal piece "Leverage Points -- Places to Intervene in a System," which describes in ascending order the most effective ways to transform a system.

Two weeks ago I talked about changing the structure of the system and last week about changing the goals. But where do goals come from?

Bear with me, I know the air is getting a bit thin up here, but the source of the system's goals comes from peoples' general mind-set, usually expressed by the unbearably wonky word "paradigm." Einstein recognized that everything we create emanates from our worldview; he understood that without changing our thinking, we won't be able to truly solve the big problems.

Our mindset reflects how we think things "should" be. For example, in the West, the mindset is that individual freedom is paramount, while in the East, the good of the whole trumps individual concerns. This is one reason why new cities are being built in record time in Asia: All domain is eminent.

Another mindset that is adeptly putting our species on the road to ruin is that Nature is somehow subordinate to Man. It is this paradigm that allows us to put profit above the continued existence of many species.

Ego-nomics has at least one foot firmly planted in this mindset. The human-centric mindset allows for the principal system of human interaction to be essentially divorced from any physical reality of the consequences of those interactions. Thus, natural or human exploitation (as distinct from utilization) is "off the balance sheet," in accounting terms, or in normal parlance, free.

Ego-nomics allows us to build rude buildings -- buildings that consume excessive resources either in their construction or operation, or both. There's no price or consequence for this rudeness, unless it's imposed politically. And because the exploited generally don't wield much or any power, we cover the indignities with a fig leaf and crow about our emperor's clothing.

By and large, green buildings are about beginning to civilize this rude and ultimately self-destructive mindset. At least we are now acknowledging that wasting energy, water, materials, land is bad. We are still belching at the dinner table, but we are saying excuse me. Now, we need to stop overeating.

Our mindset allows us as individuals to own land, a concept alien to indigenous cultures. Since it is ours, we can do whatever we want with it, within the limits of the law. Garrett Hardin wrote about the "Tragedy of the Commons," which is an inevitable consequence of our short-term human-dominant mindset. Our individual wealth is enhanced by developing land to its maximum human potential, never mind the loss in planetary wealth -- wealth, ironically, that ultimately supports our ability to exist. The entire accounting system is rigged against properly valuating these efforts because why should it waste time on unimportant (so we think) things.