"97% of scientists are in agreement that Global Warming is real and happening now."
"Scientists from all over the world are warning us of the dangers of a changing climate and they have concluded that the change is due to human activity rather than natural planetary cycles of warming and cooling."
No. Factually and categorically to both statements
a) "Global Warming" <> "Climate Change.
Most climate scientists and climatologists would agree that we appear to be in an overall period of warming that began about 700 years ago.
b) After that, almost NO scientific consensus exists, with quite a bit citing pretty solid evidence CO2 is a lagging marker not a causal element.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/joseph-bast-and-roy-spencer-the-myth-of-the-climate-change-97-1401145980
"The last international report was full of graphs and charts that looked pretty convincing to me. "
Pretty pictures of predictive modelling is the only way to gloss over the weak to non-existent factual evidence and support the political narrative over the scientific one without seeming to do so.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125883405294859215
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-famine-of-fact-at-u-n-climate-panel-11567201352
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704188104575083681319834978
"We are trying to save human civilization."
When the cure is worse for mankind than even the worst-case disease they fear, any rational mind must take pause and question what's going on. Two Nobel prizes in economics were awarded to economists who proved this.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-climate-listen-to-the-nobel-1539125320
Logically speaking, on the "climate change" issue, rather than spend $100T to "do our part" to control a climate 2/3 of the world (China, India, Russia) are NOT even going to bother with to not even result in 0.5deg cooling and with no guarantee that will do ANYTHING for global warming... why not simply accept that the planet is warming for whatever reason and re-tool to build adaptably for a world economy that still has $99T left to spend on other things FAR more troublesome to mankind like disease, famine, poverty.
But ultimately, and to the OP: NONE of that has to do with what the AIA is here to do: support our profession and us as professionals working in it. Let those who want to get into the politics of anything else do so on their own dime and time.
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Michael Poloukhine AIA
Owner
ReSquare Architecture + Construction
Los Angeles CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-21-2019 18:31
From: Wayne Swan
Subject: NET ZERO INITITIVE supported by the AIA
As a member of the AIA, I am NOT pleased with the support of the political ideology for all buildings to be NET zero by code adoption of the IECC. While I agree many innovations have come from research and development, I am not in support of weaponizing the Building Safety Codes to implement this wasteful strategy. It far more appropriate to apply natural life cycle replacement strategies and incentives . The forced compliance for ALL Buildings to be net carbon ZERO in the permit process and increased tightening of the codes has led to unintended results in most communities.
The unintended consequences of the weaponizing Building Codes are clear---This practice needs to stop.
- Owners have chosen to recycle old space WITHOUT PERMITS & INSPECTIONS mostly without the services of Architects and Engineers.
- The AIA has supported mandatory IECC regulations and spawned a new cottage industry for handyman and value minded tradesman to work without permits and inspections.
- IT is very wasteful to toss out reasonably recyclable lighting fixtures and wiring rather than reuse it ends up in the landfill. The same can be said for aluminum window wall systems
- Retrofit kits may not have the engineering that support the UL labeling, so they cannot be approved for use in commercial projects. Again more landfill debris.
- HVAC systems are again the target of new refrigerants so they will no longer be supported in the USA but are fine in Mexico or most other countries. Again they go to the landfill before there life cycle is complete.
- The owners complain that their portfolios cannot incur the additional funds so the projects die in the later design phase or during final costing prior to construction.
- While it may be a new boon for new manufacturing, we are killing our design existing opportunities for adaptive reuse and recycling these older structures.
Wayne Swan AIA President
INTERTECH Architectural Interiors, Inc
6089 E Grant Road
Tucson Arizona 85712
(520) 298-6306