“Before the current age of technology, people all over the world protected themselves from the extremes of weather and climate by working with nature. They shaped their homes and landscapes to minimize nature’s harshness and make the most of its beneficence.

“However, around the middle of the twentieth century, we modern humans adopted a new comfort-enhancing process, one that has continued essentially unchanged since that time. In total innocence, and without any intent to do harm, we ignored basic, well-understood methods to prevent heat from accumulating in our houses. Instead we put our faith in strategies that would remove the heat after it had already accumulated.”

-from Energy-Wise Landscape Design, page 5