Thief13x on 21/5/2007 at 02:22
in that case, what are you doing about it? what is anyone doing about it? don't look at me, I'm not going to do anything about it! government, won't you do something about it? ... so what does it matter whether I care about it or not?
SD on 21/5/2007 at 02:50
Well, at the moment, governments around the world are trying to do something about it. It'd sure help the cause though if, like, next time, you guys could vote for someone who wasn't so keen on ploughing the wilderness into the ground; I think we might make more headway then.
Right now (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading) carbon trading seems to be the preferred method for tackling emissions, although while the US refuses to sign Kyoto, and China and India are exempt from its requirements, it's a bit like trying to wash dishes while a dozen gorillas fling shit around the kitchen.
Digital Nightfall on 21/5/2007 at 03:54
Designing properly for climate and energy efficiency really doesn't have much to do with someone personally believes about trends in global weather changes, politicians, or buzz-words like green building or sustainability. The type of systems and design ethics you use to combat climate change, or to follow the path marked out by sustainability are the same systems and design ethics you should use even if none of that was taking place. They're the ones that make sense - the ones that provide the most human comfort for the least amount of energy, i.e fuel, consumed.
Where you build determines what you build. In a northern hemisphere sub-tropical zone, you protect the southern side from heat gain and keep the northern side open for ambient light. Further north, you want to allow much heat gain as possible on the southern side and keep the northern side - which can be a source of much heat loss during the colder months, as insulated as possible. On the equator, you have to protect both the north and the south from heat gain. There's a hundred different examples for a hundred different climates and microclimates and weather zones.
The problem of course is that, while much of that takes place in the classroom, in the real world, it seldom does. The client wants what they want, they don't care about their climate, and the architect/developer just goes with it, because it's hard to fight with the person paying you and stay payed. A client in Florida demands a glass box skyscraper - they get it. It's a beautiful, majestic building - and coincidentally is also a greenhouse. It's a very poor, poor design choice for this climate, but it gets built anyway, and they spend a large fortune on air conditioning and burn enough fuel to get it to power ten suburbs.
Good, smart, reasonable architecture coincidentally (sarcasm, it's not a coincidence) is exactly the same as architecture that reduces fuel consumption. That's something that's the most frustrating ... there's no new technology to figure out or systems to invent. If builders had just followed the rules everyone already knew, then none of this would be an issue. There's really no reason to debate or believe in anything. Build for the climate. Period.
Aircraftkiller on 21/5/2007 at 04:21
Watching people argue about things they themselves know nothing about is a highly amusing past-time of many interweb goers. It's like visiting a zoo, except there's a lot more interaction with the local wildlife. ;)
Shug on 21/5/2007 at 04:42
Clearly not everybody can have your tact, eloquence and clear thinking skills
Rug Burn Junky on 21/5/2007 at 16:44
Quote Posted by Aircraftkiller
highly amusing [...] like visiting a zoo
I hear retards love the zoo.
Chimpy Chompy on 21/5/2007 at 16:48
How exactly are people arguing about "things they know nothing about" here? I think many of our posters here are quite well-informed.
And what's the justification for the "please punch me in the cock"-brand smarmyness?
Vigil on 21/5/2007 at 16:51
cock-punching fetish
demagogue on 21/5/2007 at 17:12
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
If builders had just followed the rules everyone already knew, then none of this would be an issue.
Another -- I'm sure quite unintended -- coincidence to this thread is it's on the heels of the announcement of a massive global initiative to fund upgrading inefficient urban buildings to be more energy efficient, starting in 16 major cities around the world, with commitments by five banks to make up to $1 billion in loans each, spread out to building owners ... the loans getting paid back with savings on lower energy costs, which, the article says "can cut energy use and costs by 20 percent to 50 percent." ((
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/us/17climate.html?th&emc=th) Coalition to make Buildings Energy-Efficient). And this is just for the "test run".
It's actually sort of big news because a BIG percent of global energy waste is in inefficient urban building. And seriously everybody's a winner with this kind of initiative ... the tenants, the landlords, the banks, the global environment, the cities and their politicians. It just took the commitments to get it up and running. Really, they should have been pushing these sorts of easy win-win policies from the start, instead of scare-mongering/fatiguing people by fighting for the hard to win lose-lose (but reduce carbon emissions) ones ... there's an interview with Clinton where he admits that was the biggest mistake in climate change policy when it got started.
I don't mean to add more sense to this thread ... I follow this sort of politico-techy stuff on my own ... so it's nice for me to see it come up here, at least.
Aircraftkiller on 21/5/2007 at 18:20
Because everyone here is a "climate scientist" and makes a living researching this shit, so that makes all of your opinions the fucking definitive edition of What Science Has Decided Is Probably True TODAY!
