Climate scientists have been speaking out for decades about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid a significantly warmer and less livable future. Now that climate change is finally part of the public discussion, the future is already here—and it’s only getting warmer. Designing energy-efficient buildings is an important step toward preventing more drastic warming. We need to redouble these efforts—the 2030 Challenge goal of carbon-neutral buildings by 2030 will be a difficult yet critical standard to meet. But by stopping there, are we turning a blind eye to the changes that scientists say are coming even if greenhouse
gas emissions were turned off tomorrow? More and more experts acknowledge that while we must continue to do all we can to slow greenhouse gas emissions, we must also begin designing buildings that will work in a changing climate. This article examines the science of global climate change and looks at how we can adapt the built environment to a world that will, by most accounts, be very different by the end of this century from the one we know today.
gas emissions were turned off tomorrow? More and more experts acknowledge that while we must continue to do all we can to slow greenhouse gas emissions, we must also begin designing buildings that will work in a changing climate. This article examines the science of global climate change and looks at how we can adapt the built environment to a world that will, by most accounts, be very different by the end of this century from the one we know today. Debate may continue in some circles about whether humans are causing climate change, or even whether it is happening at all, but the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly clear. A report issued in June 2009 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGRP)—which coordinates climate change research of 13 federal agencies and operated as the U.S. Climate Change Science Program from 2002 through 2008 under the George W. Bush presidency—estimates that global average temperatures have risen approximately 1.5ºF (0.8ºC) since before the Industrial Revolution and could rise another 2ºF–11ºF (1.1ºC–6.1ºC) by the end of this century, based on modeling of a variety of greenhouse gas emissions levels, mitigation efforts, and economic scenarios. “The reality of climate change is unequivocal—we see it in many aspects of the Earth’s climate system,” said Jonathan Overpeck, Ph.D., co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the USGCRP report.
