To amend the old adage, the road to hell is paved with good intentions that can't be financed. What does this have to do with making energy efficient building New York's "new normal"? Since the City's greener greater building legislation does not directly require building owners to undertake energy-efficiency upgrades beyond lighting systems, skeptics have said not much will change. Even optimists like me, who point to the new requirements for alteration work to comply with the energy efficiency code, have to admit that the Building Department's enforcement resources will be limited. But I'm still an optimist — grim real estate market and the great loan drought aside — because of the potential game-changing power of building benchmarking and PACE financing.

On an ordinary day in 2007, I had a professional epiphany when I was drawn to a presentation at the American Museum of Natural History entitled "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Graphs: The Psychology of Environmental Decision Making." Delivered by Dr. Sabine Marx of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, it detailed the ways in which the human brain processes complex bits of information leading to decisions that either ensure an individual's survival or spells their demise. How information is delivered, argued Marx, makes a world of difference.