Masterclass

[A Gābl Sessions Educational Entertainment Experience] LYNES Presents: Going Green How Choices, Systems, & Stories Shape Climate Futures Category « Project Planning & Design Going Green is a 2025 Signal Awards Gold–winning, documentary-style climate podcast that traces the history of the environment; from the Industrial Revolution to today’s climate crisis.  Host Dimitrius Lynch Jr., an award-winning architect and storyteller, guides listeners through how design, architecture, politics, technology, energy, and economics intersect to shape our planet. This series has been adapted into an 11 part HSW, AIA Approved continuing education course inside The Gābl Sessions, an exclusive CE Catalog featuring special limited series Educational Entertainment (“Edutainment”) CE Master Sessions you can take for CE credit. If you’re searching for environmental history, climate change documentary style storytelling, industrial revolution and climate context, sustainability and policy, or a clear “how we got here and what’s next” framework, this course delivers research-driven narrative with practical context that supports professional learning. AIA CES Program ID# « GMGG.001 – GMGG.0011 CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE COURSE These sessions trace the people, discoveries, and turning points that shaped modern environmental reality, from early climate and atmospheric science through the rise of fossil energy, industry, and global systems, into the political, technological, and economic forces driving the risks we are designing within today. They connect foundational research to real-world outcomes in infrastructure, cities, materials, and everyday life, showing how big forces become built constraints. You come away with a clear historical throughline and solid scientific context that supports smarter, safer, more resilient decision-making across the built environment. Approved Credit Hrs: 8.25 LU|HSW Program Length: 9.1 Hours Approved Type: HSW Program Level: Entry The Going Green Gābl Sessions Trace Back Through History To Understand Tomorrow’s Climate Realities Going Green is a documentary-style continuing education podcast series hosted by architect Dimitrius Lynch Jr. that explores the intersection of design, politics, technology, and the environment. Rather than simply defining a lifestyle trend, the series serves as a historical and scientific investigation into how the modern climate crisis developed and how the built environment—and the professionals who design it—can respond. Based on the provided sources, “Going Green” can be defined through its four primary narrative arcs: 1. Historical and Scientific Foundations The series traces the roots of climate awareness back to the Industrial Revolution and early scientific discoveries. It highlights the 19th-century work of figures like Eunice Foote, John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius, who established the greenhouse effect and calculated the warming influence of carbon dioxide long before it became a political issue. It connects historical land mismanagement, such as the aggressive homesteading policies that led to the Dust Bowl, to modern climate science and resource-efficient architecture. The narrative posits that understanding these historical patterns—from the use of steam engines to the measurement of atmospheric CO2 by Charles David Keeling—is essential for making informed design decisions today. 2. The Intersection of Politics, Industry, and Economics A central thesis of “Going Green” is that climate inaction is largely the result of manufactured confusion and political strategy rather than a lack of scientific knowledge. Obstruction and Misinformation: The series details how fossil fuel interests and political operatives created doubt about climate science. It covers the “greed is good” era of the 1980s, the deregulation under the Reagan administration, and the rise of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Greenwashing and Astroturfing: The program explains how corporations used “astroturfing” (fake grassroots campaigns) and concepts like the personal “carbon footprint”, popularized by BP, to shift responsibility for pollution from systemic corporate actors to individual consumers. Legal and Political Battles: Recent episodes examine the influence of “dark money” networks, the overturning of the Chevron deference, and the “Project 2025” agenda, which aims to dismantle environmental regulations and erase climate language from federal agencies. 3. Evolution of Architectural Theory and Practice “Going Green” tracks how architecture has responded, or failed to respond, to environmental realities. Design Movements: It explores the divergence from Modernism to Postmodernism and the early countercultural movements that embraced “living lightly on the land,” such as Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti. Resource Efficiency: It highlights Buckminster Fuller’s philosophy of “doing more with less” and the Dymaxion House as precursors to modern resilient envelopes. Institutional Responses: The series documents the rise of sustainable design frameworks, including the formation of the AIA Committee on the Environment and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which created the LEED rating system. Modern Solutions: It advocates for actionable strategies such as designing walkable, car-free communities, prioritizing building reuse, and addressing “embodied carbon” (emissions from materials and construction) rather than just operational energy use. 4. Health, Safety, and Welfare (HSW) The series frames environmental issues as critical Health, Safety, and Welfare (HSW) concerns. It connects environmental mismanagement directly to human suffering, such as the health impacts of the Dust Bowl, the dangers of “McMansions” and sprawl, and the disproportionate exposure of minority communities to toxic waste, a central tenet of the Environmental Justice movement led by figures like Robert Bullard. It emphasizes that architects have an ethical duty to protect public health by understanding these environmental contexts. In summary, Going Green is presented as a “communications challenge” as much as a scientific one. It challenges design professionals to move beyond surface-level sustainability talking points and engage with the deep historical, political, and economic forces that shape the built environment to ensure a resilient future. Program Description: The 11 sessions trace the historical, scientific, and societal roots of climate change by beginning with a personal narrative about growing up in Southern California, observing smog, wildfires, and changing environmental conditions. It connects these experiences to broader patterns of industrialization, suburban sprawl, fossil-fuel growth, and the imbalance introduced into Earth’s natural systems. The episode provides an in-depth historical review of early climate science, highlighting the work of Eunice Foote, John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius in uncovering the greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide’s influence on global temperatures. It also explains how industrial advances—including the steam engine and coal-powered manufacturing—accelerated emissions and disrupted Earth’s climate equilibrium. The