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We need to change the way we build homes, towns and cities now.
Why the urgency?
Because global warming is picking up speed and the villain is carbon dioxide.
Atmospheric carbon will almost certainly increase and raise the global average
temperature to well beyond the 2C tipping point into irreversible climate
change. Experts like James Hansen in the US and Lord Turner in the UK warn that
we should begin preparing now for a 4C rise in average temperature.
This
translates to a 13C rise in Siberia with its massive stores of methane. The
Copenhagen COP15 was an almost total disaster. It failed in its primary aim
which was to get the major polluting countries to agree a cap on their CO2
emissions.
The reversion of the State of Massachusetts to the Republicans dealt
a massive blow to the President, placing the Climate Change Bill in jeopardy.
Without a firm CO2 abatement commitment from the US, which produces 25% of
world emissions, all other major polluters are off the hook.
Buildings last hundreds of years. Many homes in Sheffield are approaching 200
years old. Buildings constructed now face an uncertain future. What is certain
is that it will be much worse than we can imagine. Government policy is to
design to keep out cold.
That’s mainly what zero carbon means. In the fairly
near future the priority will be keeping cool. How will the matchstick homes
we’re building now fare then?
  
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