[Greenbuilding] hey, maybe people are starting to get it!

[Kat]

This listserv is starting to drive me NUTS.  Every time I try to post it 
comes through blank the first time.

What I was trying to say is this:

from http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1447/66/

"Green Buildings Could Save More Energy than is Consumed by ALL Cars"

We spend a lot of time talking about greener power and greener cars here 
at EcoGeek. It just seems like that's the obvious place to start work. 
Cars burn billions of tons of gasoline, and greening the grid greens 
everything that consumes power.

But a report 
<http://www.cec.org/news/details/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=2788> put 
out by the tri-national (US, Canada and Mexico) Commission for 
Environmental Cooperation has determined that building greener buildings 
would do more for the environment than any other single measure.

According to the report, which has taken the last two years to compile, 
technology that is already available and being implemented across the 
world could reduce the amount of CO2 produced by buildings by 1,800 
megatons per year. That's roughly the amount of CO2 that was produced by 
ALL CARS AND PLANES in North America last year. There is no other way to 
decrease our CO2 emissions faster, more significantly or more inexpensively.

Buildings produce the largest piece of the CO2 pie, at 35%. This energy 
is consumed both in the building phase (8% of CO2 emissions come from 
the prodution of concrete) and throughout the lifetime of the building's 
operation. At the fore of lifetime energy use is heating, ventilation 
and air conditioning, while lighting, water and appliances eat up energy 
as well.

The crazy thing is, this isn't unproved, still-in-development 
technology. These technologies, making climate control, lighting, 
heating and appliances more efficient, are available now. But only 3% of 
buildings in America currently use these technologies. The report 
indicates that widespread adoption and retrofitting of older buildings 
will be necessary but, in the end, not prohibitively expensive.

Looks like we at EcoGeek need to spend some more time talking about 
buildings...because this is pretty exciting news.