Greenbuild 2007: Nearly 8,000 people attended the opening plenary with President Bill Clinton, who captivated the audience for 45 minutes. (Oscar Einzig Photography)

Hundreds of green architects, builders and other attendees were turned away from the Grand Ballroom at McCormick Place, asked to join exhibitors in the expo hall to watch the two-hour keynote via remote monitors. The annual conference was expecting big crowds, but it has even more interest than anticipated. There aren't enough seats, enough meals, enough printed programs, enough staff.

From the perspective of the green building industry, It's a great problem to have.

Bill Clinton was the highlight of this morning's keynote addresses. I'll summarize the essence of his 45-minute speech:

The U.S. lost an opportunity when it did not sign onto the Kyoto Protocol while Clinton was in office. The country wasn't ready. First, we had to convince ourselves and the world of the inconvenient truth: climate change is real and man-caused.

That sale is made, thanks to Al Gore.

Now the task before us is to prove to the world that a response to global warming is not a hardship. It's the biggest opportunity for economic and social mobilization since World War II. It's the job of Greenbuild attendees to prove it. Without that proof, China and other non-signatories will not join the effort.

The proof is in Denmark, where the economy and wages are rising while energy consumption stays level. The proof is in the UK, where Gordon Brown has reported massive job creation attributed to the kingdom's efforts to control its carbon emissions.

These countries are beating their Kyoto commitments, Clinton says, and it is not dampening their economies. It's helping them, while the U.S. struggles to replace lost jobs with even lower-wage jobs.

America is in the solutions business, not the complaining business. When you give Americans a challenge, we're as good as anyone else at getting it done. We must convince everyone we can that stopping climate change represents a staggering economic opportunity.

We have no idea where this opportunity will take us, but we need to get started, because there's no time to waste.

In five years, anyone would be crazy to design a building that isn't green. Greenbuild will be about zero net energy buildings, and about technologies to increase the amount of excess energy building owners can sell on the grid.

Quote of the day:

"Speaking at Greenbuild is like preaching to the saved, as we say back home."

Former President Clinton also announced a major partnership to retrofit public and private schools across the U.S. The USGBC, the Clinton Climate Initiative, GE Real Estate and the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) are working together to create a Green Schools Retrofit Program to retrofit U.S. schools and universities. Clinton said there are more green prisons than schools today, and children deserve at least as good as inmates.

More on Greenbuild 2007.