Climate Change for Builders: The Biggest Opportunity
Faced with consequences equivalent to a giant asteroid set to hit the earth in 10 to 50 years, we designers and builders owe it to the future to do our part—and we need to start right now.
When people say, “Earth’s climate has always changed,” I think back to a college geology class I took in 1992. The professor’s PhD research specialty was drilling deep in glaciers, peering back hundreds of thousands of years, and comparing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels with surface temperatures. My professor would agree that both temperature and carbon-dioxide levels have always varied. But he would add that they have always correlated very closely with each other. The relationship is complicated, with higher temperatures often preceding higher CO2 levels, but they always end up following a similar path, largely because of what we now know as the greenhouse effect—the CO2 and other gasses trap some of the sun’s energy from leaving the atmosphere. The problem is that CO2 levels are now much higher than ever before, and the temperature is just beginning to catch up. (CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, but it’s by far the most common, so it is used as currency: other greenhouse gasses are typically converted to the damage they would do if they were CO2.)
Even with supercomputers, scientists can’t predict exactly what the results of climate change will be, any more accurately than they can accurately predict the weather for next week—there are just too many variables to consider.
But just as we know within a certain range what the weather next week will likely be, scientists have an increasingly accurate picture of what the future holds for us, and it’s not good.
In October 2018, the United Nations released a report from their International Panel on Climate Change, summarized with, “Large, immediate and unprecedented global efforts to mitigate greenhouse gasses are required.” Previously, the Paris Agreement had bound 200 nations to keep temperature rise to 2°C, but the IPCC report cites 1.5°C (2.7°F) as the maximum we can reach without catastrophic results. While a couple of degrees may not sound like much, it will have enormous impacts on the world as we know it: stronger storms, acidifying oceans (and the associated loss of shellfish and coral reefs), a weakening gulf stream in the Atlantic that would cause much colder and more extreme weather in Europe, and the decline of species and ecosystems. Increasing drought and higher temperatures will cause migrations that will spark hostility. Some sources seek to inject uncertainty into the UN’s predictions, but the vast majority of the world’s scientists agree and are already measuring the changes as they occur, though they are often all but impossible to observe directly. A 1°F temperature rise isn’t exactly obvious.
Believe it or not, buildings do matter
This is the biggest challenge humans have ever faced, and it requires the world to act together against this common cause. Every action, large and small, has consequences, and this is an unprecedented opportunity to work together. We need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, and we need to prepare for the possibility that we won’t be able to prevent climate change from accelerating.
Buildings have a big impact on greenhouse gas emissions, in two ways: (1) their operating energy, the total impact of the energy needed to heat, cool, and ventilate a home or other building, and to power its lights, outlets, and appliances; and (2) their embodied energy, which includes everything needed to create and install a material or product and, some argue, to recycle it as well.
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In the United States, both operating energy and embodied energy are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Globally, almost 40% of energy used is related to building construction and operation. The only country that contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than the United States is China, which has twice our emissions but four times our population. According to the Department of Energy, U.S. buildings account for 39% of primary energy consumption and 72% of all electricity consumed domestically, and together they contribute more to total greenhouse gas emissions than either the transportation or the industrial sectors. Including embodied energy, the United Nations calculates the impact of U.S. buildings to global warming emissions at 48% of our total emissions.
What we can we do about it: Small steps
The ways to reduce energy consumption are well known: improve airtightness and insulation levels; install efficient windows, doors, fixtures, and equipment; design to take advantage of the sun’s rays (while guarding against overheating); be smart about how you operate your home.
Energy improvements with a return on investment of 5% or higher are a safe place to put any extra money, and even lower returns can represent an affordable donation toward environmental stewardship, with better returns than bank savings accounts. |
Some simple ways to reduce operating carbon are to use LED bulbs (with the variety now available there is no excuse for people still clinging to incandescents or halogens). Air-seal your home; as much as 50% of energy lost is through air leaks. Add insulation. Install more efficient equipment. Be ok with being a little warm in summer and a little cool in winter; previous generations were not the wimps that we have become. More-efficient envelopes can be more susceptible to mistakes, so learn the building science needed to make them safe or hire people who already understand how to do it. It’s not hard, but it is different than building in 1950. Net zero energy homes—those that generate as much energy as they use on an annual basis—need to be mainstream, not niche.
To go a little further, like many designers of efficient homes, I use an energy modeling program to weigh building options: everything from overall shape and orientation to window and equipment selection to wall and foundation systems. I use BeOpt, an energy modeling program that is simple to use and a free download from the Department of Energy, and show clients the return on investment to go above code-minimum construction. BeOpt’s most unique feature is that it can automatically show the most financially-prudent path to specific energy use targets, all the way to net zero or net positive annual energy use, using nationwide average costs. The user can modify costs or add new assemblies to the substantial list programmed in. I tell clients that considering the stock market is due for a slow-down, energy improvements with a return on investment of 5% or higher are a safe place to put any extra money, and even lower returns can represent an affordable donation toward environmental stewardship, with better returns than a bank savings accounts or similar low-risk vehicles.
Finding the balance point between expenditures and gains is also the intent behind the Pretty Good House approach to home design and construction, which you can read more about at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.
Traditionally, operating energy has been considered much more important than embodied energy, as the overall emissions from operation for a typical building are around 80% over 50 years compared to 20% for embodied energy. But with the climate clock ticking, it is critical to reduce embodied energy as well. (Read The New Carbon Architecture by Bruce King for a thorough analysis.)
The simplest way to reduce the impact of the materials used is to use less of them: design and build smaller homes, renovate instead of building new, recycle or up-cycle whenever possible (and use materials that can be re-used in the future), shift to multi-family buildings instead of single-family homes. Another is to avoid materials that contribute more heavily than others; two common construction materials strongly tied to global warming are certain types of foam and concrete.
The most readily available and affordable rigid foam, extruded polystyrene (XPS) uses blowing agents that are 1400 times more damaging than CO2. There are two viable alternatives: polyisocyanurate and expanded polystyrene (EPS). I have been designing high-performance homes on tight budgets for over five years, without specifying XPS, so it is possible—it just requires a little more legwork to get the right materials. (Note that I said I had not specified XPS; it still shows up occasionally because it’s so versatile and easy to get that builders sometimes use it instead of what I spec.) Conventional closed cell spray foam has blowing agents that are almost as bad as those in XPS.
Many cast concrete footings are oversize, built to standard sizes instead of optimized for their particular sites and structures. Foundation walls are often thicker than they would need to be if they had proper steel reinforcing and were allowed to cure slowly. |
Concrete is the most commonly used construction material in the world and is responsible for 7% of total CO2 emissions. It’s not going away, but it is possible to reduce its impact. The easiest is to simply use less of it. Many cast concrete footings are oversize, built to standard sizes instead of optimized for the site and structure; foundation walls are often thicker than would need to be if they had proper steel reinforcing and were allowed to cure slowly. Where basements are common they are rarely necessary, and they require more concrete and insulation (almost always climate-damaging foam) than a slab foundation. It’s even possible to minimize the amount of foam used in a slab-on-grade foundation; I recently designed a small house with a concrete-free slab; we simply ran an insulated grade beam around the house, and inside that we floated a wood floor over high-density EPS foam. I’ve also been specifying concrete with pozzolan admix, which uses industrial wastes (typically fly ash) to replace part of the Portland cement while maintaining or improving the strength. Another, new technology injects CO2 captured from factory emissions into concrete, resulting in a stronger concrete and capturing the greenhouse gas. CarbonCure, currently the only producer in this category, is already available at limited plants around North America.
Building-science discussion groups are popping up; if you don’t know of one, start one. |
Buildings that use less energy and have less embodied energy require a deeper understanding of construction than we needed in 1950 or 1970, so we should expect that more education is necessary to design and build good homes than in the past. There are many educational sources, but one I recommend is to find or start a discussion group. For the last ten years a building science discussion group has met monthly in Portland, Maine, led by builder Dan Kolbert and hosted by Performance Building Supply, and was the source of the Pretty Good House concept. Last spring I started a similar one near me (search “Building Science + Beer” for more info.) Similar groups are popping up elsewhere; if you don’t know of one, start one. Just getting professionals and interested parties together in one room for an informal, open discussion leads to a surprising amount of learning and relationship-building. There are also more formal groups: NESEA, Architecture 2030, Passivhaus/Passive House, USGBC to name a few that I have found valuable.
What we really need to do: Giant leaps
Ideas such as those above are a start and should be the minimum level of thought put into any new home. Unfortunately, the situation is dire, and much stronger action is needed, including:
We need policy changes to force the free market to respond. There are some things that industry and individuals are just not inclined to do without pressure, even when the result will be strongly positive for everyone. The free market can be a wonderful thing, but it’s not good at everything, and has not proved effective against climate change; we are at the point where we need governmental intervention to encourage behavior in the right direction—and not just our government, as the US does not exist in a vacuum. Very little in the market is not controlled in some way, and fossil fuel production is heavily subsidized in various ways; instead it needs to be taxed, with the earnings going toward policies and technology to help us through this next age of climate change. A carbon tax is the simplest and often-recommended policy change, in use and effective elsewhere.
An efficient home may use $300 per month less in energy costs than a poorly built home, money that could go toward a mortgage. |
We need to greatly reduce operating energy in all our buildings, through efficiency measures and through cleaner forms of generation. The Passivhaus program was designed in the 1990s to limit each person’s building-related emissions from contributing to climate change. It’s very hard to meet the standard with single-family homes or in more extreme climates, and relatively simple with multi-family dwellings—a hint at which is better for the planet. Going further, the Living Building Challenge charges participants with creating buildings that use fewer resources of all types than they take to build and operate. It’s a challenge indeed, but also quietly setting a new direction in the high-performance world.
The LEED standard has been effective for institutional buildings but the initiative has run out in the residential sector. Building to Energy Star standards is popular where it is subsidized, but the standards are not particularly stringent, and many states don’t provide incentives. Architecture 2030 aims for all new buildings to be carbon-neutral by 2030, 20 years ahead of the timeline set in the Paris Agreement, but in alignment with the recent UN report.
New buildings need to be carbon neutral to meet the necessary targets, but the existing building stock contributes much more to operating energy use; we need mass weatherizing and equipment upgrades. |
Banks need to consider operating costs when providing loans. An efficient home that uses $300 per month less in energy costs than a poorly-built home could pay for a $60,000 larger mortgage to fund the energy improvements and solar power generation. A few banks are already doing this but it’s rare.
For power generation, arguments against subsidized photovoltaics are valid, as they favor those wealthy enough to afford a PV system. But those are typically the same socio-economic class of people who also profit from owning stocks in subsidized fossil fuel companies, so the argument does not hold up to scrutiny. The more PV that gets installed, the more affordable they become, and the more they contribute to a stable, distributed energy generation system. But those smaller systems are not being built quickly enough; what we really need is much more industrial-scale renewable power generation. As an aesthetically-oriented environmentalist I hate to see the changes these power generators bring to the viewscape but compared to the alternatives I don’t think we have a choice. At least creative farmers can graze animals among PV fields and wind turbines. (The UN report also had a harsh critique of industrial animal-raising practices, but some encouragement for small, diversified farms including multi-species rotational grazing, which dovetails with using fields for PV generation.)
We need more housing to accommodate a population that, for better or worse, will continue to grow. But we can’t all live in 3,000 sq. ft. custom homes in the countryside. At bare minimum, we need to build smaller, more efficient homes, but we really need to be building multi-families buildings, which are a much more efficient use of resources. New buildings need to be carbon-neutral to meet the necessary targets, but existing building stock contributes much more to operating energy use; we need mass weatherizing and equipment upgrades.
As for materials, one technology that is nascent in the US but has proved itself elsewhere and is gaining traction in the US is Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). It will probably never pencil out for single-family homes, but it has long been used in Europe for larger buildings, where it can replace a significant amount of the carbon-intensive concrete and steel normally used in such buildings. If it comes from a sustainable source it can be a strongly carbon-negative material, meaning the more we use, the more we save, for buildings where steel, concrete and foam or mineral wool insulation would normally be used.
Some approaches are on the fringes, but as consumers become educated about alternative ways to build, they are becoming more popular: straw bale construction, high-performance offsite construction, tiny homes (on or off wheels). All have tradeoffs compared to conventionally sized and built homes, but each has advantages.
Use local materials. While moving large quantities of products from one side of the globe to the other can take a surprisingly low among of energy on a per-unit basis, the heavier the product the better it is to buy local, especially if buying local supports your local economy. In Maine, the most heavily forested state in the country (on a percentage basis), the most affordable wood siding comes from the west coast. We are just now getting our first CLT plant, and research is under way on wood-fiber insulation, long common in Europe.
What if we don’t do enough?
We are at the most critical juncture in human history. Your future self, your children, and your grandchildren will know that you had the opportunity to do something now and either chose to or chose not to. Every decision matters. |
The United Nations’ recent has set a dire prediction. We will find ways to do better, but we all must prepare for a more severe climate (including stronger and colder winters) and what that will do to various societies. The damage we are inflicting today won’t be fully felt for decades, so it’s hard to focus attention on something that feels intangible. But we don’t have a choice. I recently described the situation to someone who was trying to convince me to focus on serving the needs of those who suffer from Lyme disease, currently at least 200,000 Americans. A noble cause, and their needs are real, but compare 200,000 individuals with every single person and other animal on the planet. Just in the next hundred years that’s at least 20,000,000,000 people who will be affected, many severely. That’s 100,000 times more people than currently afflicted with Lyme disease in the US, and more than 50 times our current population. Our failure to act will mean all of them will suffer, and many species will be eradicated, because we couldn’t act in time. And that’s just in the next 100 years. Consider the common question, “if you could go back in time and change one thing, what would you change?” We are at the most critical juncture in human history. Future-you, your children and grandchildren will know that you had the opportunity to do something now and either chose to or chose not to. Every decision matters.
With the significant changes that will likely happen, despite our efforts, we need buildings that are more resilient in the face of stronger storms, longer droughts and potentially questionable power supply. We need to show developing countries how to build resilient communities that are interdependent and secure. (And we could learn a lot from the low-impact lifestyle often practiced, out of necessity, in developing countries.)
What if we don’t need to do anything?
There is the slimmest of chances that climate change deniers are right; after all, this is science that is impossible to prove with 100% accuracy, and the climate and its interaction with all of the earths’ systems is a big, dynamic thing. What if all of the societies on the planet work together toward a common goal, instead of warring over resources? What if people had cleaner air, lived in healthier homes, lived healthier lifestyles and had more close relationships, in more comfortable homes? What if we support local economies instead of sending our money overseas and complaining that locals don’t have work? What if we are better prepared for droughts, storms and power outages? What if we better understood the connection between ourselves and our planet’s ecosystems? Wouldn’t those all be good outcomes?
20 billion people and incalculable species are depending on you to do the right thing.
Michael Maines is a Contributing Editor
More about climate and energy on FineHomebuilding.com
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Great article, Michael
Thought provoking content and detail. It seems we have a lack of mainstream education for builders and on my local level, there is zero incentive or accountability for destructive decisions of regarding materials and design. Change starts with education and it would be pertinent in avenues of not only academia, but popularized media and government. Local groups hosting discussion is an awesome start. Thank you for lighting the fire!
I wrote many things like this, but more than 20 years ago. I knew then very few were paying attention, and that the situation would not change until people could see clear examples of what the future holds. Now they have.
The problem, of course, is that what people see now is the result of their choices 20 years ago. The climate system takes that long to adjust. That means we have 20 years worth of change ahead no matter what we do. But, the effects are being applied to a system that is already less stable than it was. So, the changes will be even more dramatic.
What I'm getting at is that the choices we make now are only a reflection of moral character, and are made so we may believe we have acted morally. In practical terms it's quite clear humans don't have the capacity to do that on a scale that will avoid the worst case future. This observation would imply cynicism to some. But to anyone who has measured all parts of the problem, it's simply reality.
3 pages devoted to climate change alarm? Really? Seems to be standard faire these days I guess. 30 years of climate alarm in which we should have toppled over many predicted "tipping points" already and there is still no evidence of anything catastrophic occurring to the climate. Polar bears are doing fine. Storms, droughts and floods aren't any better or worse than they have been in the past. The Arctic ice coverage and volume appears to be completely normal and appears to be growing after minimums in 2007 in what seems to be normal cyclical changes. Greenland has had two huge years in terms of ice accumulation. Sea level is not doing anything unexpected. Most islands are growing in size and not sinking as predicted. Yet, here we are with the diehard catastrophic climate change promoters still crying "Wolf!" and constantly telling us that doom is just decades away in the future. It's always decades away in the future, and we have to act now, but our imminent demise never seems to arrive. It's convenient to ignore all the forecast doom events that have come and gone.
Why are we still using fossil fuels for electricity generation? Because it works! 24/7/365. Mr Maines tries to promote solar PV, but there's just one small problem: it doesn't work and it's not a solution. At best, it provides 8 hours of electricity per day. That's fine if you're recharging a small battery for occasional use on a sailing boat, but completely inadequate for the electrical grid. Based in the state of Maine, Mr Maines would be well aware of PV shortcomings, but chooses to ignore them anyway. Even with PV and wind generating electricity, the reliability and susceptibility to rapid changes in output with clouds and changes in wind and weather means that conventional electricity generation HAS to be running as backup regardless. Solar and wind just add to the cost without doing anything to the bottom line. The advances that the US has made in recent years in reducing its CO2 footprint is due in large part to the substitution of gas fired electricity generation over coal fired generation. It has remarkably little to do with solar and wind generation. If Mr. Maines was really concerned about CO2, he'd be promoting low CO2 technologies that work instead of contraptions that don't. But mention nuclear generation around a climate change promoter and the chances are you won't receive a favorable reaction. Even upgrading older coal-fired power stations to High Efficiency Low Emission (HELE) generators would bring an immediate drop in CO2 production of around 15%, overwhelming any minute decline brought about by concentrating on wind and solar. But once again, the climate doomsters are on an ideological mission. Practicalities, returns on investment, market forces mean little when the perceived mission is to "Save the World".
Mr. Maines would also be well aware of the debacle with the British home insulation scheme. The Grenfell Tower fire appears to have been made significantly worse by an infatuation with going "green". Perhaps he should familiarize himself with the Pink Batt scheme in Australia, which if memory serves me correctly, has claimed 4 or 5 lives and caused lesser ongoing issues. Germany's love affair with wind and solar electricity is rapidly coming to a screeching halt now that electricity prices are three times those in the US and there has been no change in its CO2 production for 10 years despite government promises. China has planted on the brakes and demanded economic viability from its wind and solar producers. How's that green impetus in Canada? Toronto voters took the political ax to the instigators of that massive debt load. Australian electricity has gone from one of the cheapest, most reliable supplies in the world to one of the most expensive with a grid on the brink of collapse in just a few years thanks to an infatuation with wind and solar.
But never fear! The US is 5 years behind German, Australian, Canadian and Great Britain's efforts with going green. We are doing nothing different to their efforts, because there are no other options on the table. We're going to make electricity far more expensive too and our efforts will be as equally futile and ridiculous with failure staring us in the future. We can also send our poor into energy deprivation like those overseas. We'll also have images of our retirees huddled under blankets because they cannot afford to heat their homes, but we're going to feel good going "green". What's that well-used cliche about insanity and doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?
Mr. Maines likes to use examples of clean environment, low cost, the end of wars over precious natural resources, communal living, and ultimately world peace. Does anyone really believe this? Solar electricity that only works for a few hours on average per day when it's not really needed, but is almost completely devoid at peak times of 7-9 am and 6-8 pm when demand is highest? And wind generated electricity is notoriously unreliable and is lucky to produce even 30% of nameplate capacity and can't even function independently of a reliable base load generating source.
If a homeowner has the funds and inclination to install batteries to provide a little more assurance of a reliable electricity supply, more power to him/her. It's a nice feeling to know that there is mains electricity providing 24/7/365 backup to his/her green virtue even though he/she is relying on Joe T. Ratepayer to support his/her virtuous inclinations. I'd much rather pay 10c/kWhr for electricity from a reliable source than fork over 20c/kWhr to pay for that reliable source AND the subsidies to my wealthy neighbor with solar panels on the roof who is hooked into the exact same electricity supply.
I'm not going to respond to all of your claims and opinions not backed up by any references, by someone hiding behind a screen name.
I will note that my most recent new home design, in Maine, is on track to be net positive after 8 months online, even with owners who use a lot of hot water, the most notorious energy consumer. I address the subsidized aspect of PV in my article.
Another first-hand report from Maine, at 45°N latitude: my in-laws have been off-grid for over 40 years, and since they put on a new PV array a couple of years ago, they have not needed to use their generator. They do use propane for hot water and cooking. It's not a big array, yet they live a normal modern lifestyle. Those who say PV is not a solution are not holding back those of us who are proving that it is at least a big part of the solution.
Another item that I addressed in my article is that just because you personally don't see the results of climate change, does not mean that it's not a problem. I agree that the economics of renewable energy are not as easy as those for fossil fuels.
As I read the article, I kept seeing highly political statements and disappointingly little practical information. I suspect that the age difference is a big factor here, especially since I recently read how the educational system has changed since my college science days in the 60s. Your article heavily references the UN IPCC and its alarming projections, assuming, as do most media reports, that it’s the gold standard of reliable information rather than a political organization with a science veneer. Apparently your education has convinced you that this is fact, despite actual measurements (only global since weather satellites were put into orbit) which haven’t detected the feared acceleration in slow warming. (As a long-time supporter of environmental organizations, I initially believed the claims. After retirement, I searched out data and discovered that it didn't support the "science".)
On the other hand, dangerous weather events do occur, so information on ways to build more resilient buildings is valuable and doesn't need to reference dire predictions. You don’t need the UN’s publications to make you prefer a house that survives a flood or a storm with its roof in place and still on its foundation. Regarding foundations, I wonder if you considered resilience and robustness in the concrete-free slab design. You seem obsessed with reducing carbon (dioxide?) from construction activity, but being “resilient” gets only a passing mention early in the article. You've passed along the political propaganda that makes alarming claims and not bothered to see that the many non-alarmist scientists (and the actual climate data) show that the "CO2 control knob" hypothesis is false. In short, you've utterly failed to provide the information I expect from FHB articles.
Instead of obsessing over "greenhouse gas", let's focus on efficiency and quality in materials, design, and construction and consider the big picture that includes climate resilience (of which Al Gore seems to know nothing). And you should know, being familiar with Maine, that a properly sealed and insulated basement is energy-efficient shelter in northern latitudes (I'm in Ontario). There might be more improvements in basement construction, but whatever energy goes into building one is a one-shot deal, while the energy savings from its beneficial use continue for the life of the house.
I hope that in time you'll be able to see the green benefits of carbon dioxide and lose the anxiety about building choices
that the IPCC and media foster. The predictions of catastrophe are a danger to mental health and are the real harm. Seeing them for what they really are will allow us to find more joy in our lives, including our work.
South Australia and Victoria: two states in Australia's south and south central region just had rolling blackouts at the end of last week with electricity prices capping out at $14,500/MWhr. At the end of the day, the cost for every man, woman and child for the electricity that was used on that day was $110. That's about $450 for every family for just one day. That doesn't account for lost production from businesses and smelters that were told to shut down to preserve the electricity supply unless the entire grid went down. Welcome to the Third World. There isn't one country in the world with significant renewable energy resources that has cheap electricity. I thought wind and solar was supposed to be free.
I applaud Ddwieland's comments. This is a home building magazine. Building efficiency and resilience are great topics. I can be hit over the head with climate change garbage all day on the Internet and half the newspapers and magazines in the country. Climate change fearmongering has no place, especially when it's not supported by observations.
But since we're on the topic: "Another item that I addressed in my article is that just because you personally don't see the results of climate change, does not mean that it's not a problem." In other words, "There is no observational data to support my position. You just have to believe me."
So what actual observational data exists?
1. Current global temperatures are in decline from the latest peak during the El Nino of 2016. The global temperatures have never matched the predicted rise in temperatures based on CO2 being the predominant greenhouse gas control. Up until the 2016 El Nino, there was 18 years of no significant temperature change at all. After the 2016 peak, the drop in temperature has meant that we're now onto a 20 year run of no significant change in global temperatures. Remember the hockeystick that was paraded with great celebration back in the early 2000's? It was used as another scary graph to persuade people that global warming was indeed happening. Likie every other failed prediction, it has been discarded and the climate change proponents have moved onto something else.
2. Back in the 1990's scientists were sure they would find an atmospheric hotspot as proof of man's influence on global warming. That assertion was dropped in the early 2000's because it never was found.
3. Arctic ice coverage appears to be growing. Slowly...yes. But according to the hypothesis of global warming/climate change, indications of climate change were to be most pronounced at the poles due to a lack of water vapor in the atmosphere. According to the prominent climate change proponents, we were supposed to have ice free summers in the Arctic by now and the Northwest Passage would be navigable by regular ships. Yeah! Right! How'd that turn out? As for the Antarctic: ice coverage there hit a high in 2014 that has not been recorded before. That was inconvenient.
4. How's the sea level going? It's been rising ever since the last ice age. Again, you can pull up all the data from the last 100 years of so and those locations are showing no dramatic change in the rate of change in sea levels.
5. The Great Barrier Reef was supposed to be in imminent demise a couple of years ago due to warm ocean temperatures and acidic seas. How's it doing now? That period of time just happened to coincide with the El Nino. A check of sea levels from Cairns and other NE Australian locations indicated a significant drop in ocean levels at the time as the prevailing winds "pushed" the Pacific ocean east. The surface corals were left exposed at low tides. Strange how all the damage to the reef was supposedly to surface and shallow water corals.
Seems to be a lot of the white global warming heading to the Midwest this coming week with record cold temperatures on the chopping block. Choose another audience for the climate change fearmongering. It degrades the standards of an otherwise great magazine. It seems you can't get away from it these days, but three pages of just political guff in a homebuilding magazine? Really?
We survived predictions of the Coming Ice Age in the 80's... my guess is that this Global Warming Scare will be no different. That said..... there is nothing wrong with being aware of environmental conservation techniques. Let's just stop the fear mongering.