According to new research, by 2100, the area in lower Manhattan near the wall that kept the original settlement safe from invasion will need to be protected, with dykes. Or something.

Wall Street was named for that ancient protective wall.

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Saving energy in buildings is both one of the easiest things that can be done, as well as one of the hardest. The principles for creating a building that needs less energy and operates more efficiently are well known. Most building technology is fairly basic and easy for even non-experts to understand. This makes it simple. We don’t have to wait for expensive, high tech solutions (though they can contribute greatly and will provide new flexibility and compelling possibilities for building better buildings in the future). Heavily insulated buildings can be easily constructed with readily available and well known technology. Adding more insulation to walls is easy, though there is a cost. Consumers and building owners need to become more aware of the long term costs of operating a building, and give consideration to more than just the initial construction costs. And overcoming economic considerations and taking a long-term view is the hard part.

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While the AIA has another program it also began last year titled “Walk the Walk” that offers a good number of resources on sustainability both for architectural clients and the general public, as well as for architects and other building professionals, the topic is not highlighted in the Architecture Week program in any significant way.

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Blade Runner

(The interspersed quotes in this article are taken from the Architecture 2030 "Think You’re Making a Difference?" page.)

Architecture 2030 is a foundation established by architect Ed Mazria in 2002. Mazria famously created the pie chart graph (see illustration) showing that buildings represent 48% of the total energy used in this country. As the largest single segment of energy use, responsible for nearly half of all energy use in the country, buildings need to have more attention paid to them. Architecture 2030 is dedicated to reducing all fossil-fuel, greenhouse-gas-emitting energy use for buildings by 2030, with an immediate 50% reduction (as compared to the typical energy use for particular building types), and phased increases in the reduction percentage until the 100% target is reached in 2030.

Buildings are responsible for more of an impact on the environment than cars or other elements of energy use because they last so long. As you drive around cities in the country, almost all of the vehicles on the road were built within the last 20 years. But the majority of the buildings are at least that old, and many are decades older. Buildings last a long time. They need to be substantial in order to accomplish their purposes. This makes them long-lasting, but they also are slow to adopt new, more efficient technologies. Replacing them is also incredibly expensive and extremely material and energy-intensive. So making sure that our buildings are built efficiently and with an eye to the future is crucial.

For building operations, carbon offsets are one way many people are looking to reduce the impact of their energy use. And while those steps can help to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, the scale of even large scale efforts dwindles to near insignificance when compared to the amount of carbon that building energy use puts into the atmosphere.

"Home Depot is funding the planting of 300,000 trees in cities across the US to help absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions…

The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized (500 MW) coal-fired power plant, in just 10 days of operation, will negate this entire effort."

Conservation steps can be helpful. Cutting your lighting energy usage by switching from incandescents to compact fluorescents is a step that many sources strongly advocate. (I’ve even mentioned it once or twice myself.) The energy savings are dramatic, and can cut energy use by more than half. Multiplied across millions of households, this amounts to a huge energy total, but lighting is just a portion of total building energy use.

"If every household in the US changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a compact fluorescent…

The CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort."

Lighting energy reduction is a good first step, but there needs to be more done to build on these improvements. In addition to having all buildings be built to neutral GHG-emissions standards by 2030, they are also calling for an equal amount of existing building area to be renovated to matching levels of efficiency. Many steps are being taken presently to increase the efficiency of existing homes and buildings, but often, these steps are just doing less-bad than they are turning things around to the point of doing good. These are positive steps, certainly. But we need to continue to press for further improvements still.

"Wal-Mart is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of their existing buildings by 20% over the next seven years. If every Wal-Mart Supercenter met this target…

The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just one month of operation each year, would negate this entire effort."

Even if all of Architecture 2030’s goals are met, there will still be billions of square feet of buildings that have not been renovated by 2030 that will still be needing fossil-fueled energy supplies for their operation. Joshua Hill’s recent article noted the latest imperative from Architecture 2030 which calls for the elimination of coal as the "silver bullet" necessary to stop global warming. In 20 years, it is possible to begin to make significant changes in our energy infrastructure, so that renewable power sources represent an increasing portion of the energy being generated. Those developments, combined with increasing the energy efficiency of the buildings we are building, can help turn our energy profile to one that does not put such a carbon burden on the environment.

Image source: Architecture 2030