Most painters forget to spend sufficient time looking at the subject. It’s a golden rule to spend 60% of the time looking at it, 20% time looking at your canvas and the rest 20% looking at what you’re actually painting. Look deep and analyze your subject to bring out the best on your painting.

This all signifies that consumption of raw materials will keep on increasing. And it doesn’t seem to be sustainable. We are loosing natural resources fast, and if nothing is done to stop this drain, we will be hit hard. We already see the effects of Global Warming, like the El Nino effect. These tornadoes and Cyclones keep increasing in intensity and frequency every year.

Can fixing energy-wasting buildings stave off global instability? Former president Bill Clinton thinks so. In the biggest project his foundation has taken on since securing a supply of cheap generic AIDS drugs for third world countries, Clinton has brokered a $5 billion effort to finance the retrofit of old buildings in 16 cities around the world.

The project, which Clinton announced at a climate conference in Manhattan yesterday, creates a financing and labor pool to replace energy-hogging light fixtures, as well as install better building insulation and more efficient HVAC systems. ABN Amro, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS will offer loans, which landlords will repay with the savings gained on their utility bills. Johnson Controls, Honeywell, Siemens, and Trane will manage and audit the work while three trade associations, including the U.S. Green Building Council, will train minority contractors and “long-term unemployed” laborers in the construction techniques. “This will create a system to make it easier for building owners to make improvements,” Clinton said.

Sounding a bit like his former vice president, environment guru Al Gore, Clinton added that cities emit three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gases and that buildings account for between 50 and 80 percent of this toll. The program’s first wave of cities–Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto–will start by retrofitting publicly owned buildings. Proponents are keeping the program open to private landlords as well–the landlord of Clinton’s offices in Harlem, Cogswell Realty, has signed on. Clinton’s foundation will also team with the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, a coalition of mayors and business, to promote the program and spread it to other cities.

Ever the optimist, Clinton promised the program would reduce utility bills and create good jobs everywhere it goes–including here at home in the U.S. “Much of the material needed will be made in this country,” he said, “and with all due respect to the mayor of Mumbai, you can’t outsource the greening of a roof.”

As an example of the great architecture Cuzco, the capital of the Incas’ empire, should be mentioned. The architecture of this city turned out to be the most surviving. No mortar was used to build the walls of Cuzco. As a proof of its strength in 1950 only 10% of the Cuzco’s buildings were damaged when an earthquake hit it. Another peculiarity of the Incas’ architecture was the form of the constructed buildings, though they paid much attention to the beauty as well, especially when it concerned the décor and design of the fountains. The Incas indisputably loved water.

They were moving huge stones for the distances of several kilometers easily, even nowadays it demands enormous efforts. How did they do it? How did they put together the puzzle-looked walls? Scientists throughout the world are still wondering looking for the answer. No other tribe tamed the stone completely, the Incas managed to do it. The Incas used a unique technique of stone separating.

Another thing that might single out the Incas from the other tribes in South America is their way of keeping records. Who knows maybe it’s even better than using the standard paper and pencils. The Incas used the quipu. The quipu looked like a big cord and the smaller strings. The strings had different colors and lengths. On the strings they tied knots, then making some groups of them. The decimal system of numbers was represented by those knots. It was not easy to use such kind of system, but it was accurate. Advanced mathematics and creative architecture mixed and executed the masterpieces of constructions.