If simple observation hasn’t made it clear, the report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this past August left little doubt: the earth is warming at an alarming rate. Even if mankind sharply cuts greenhouse emissions immediately—and quick action seems unlikely, given the outcome of the international climate summit in Glasgow in November—a hotter future is essentially assured, says the IPCC’s panel of scientists, convened by the United Nations. As the planet continues to warm, the report says, changes that are already happening to our climate—from more intense rainfall in some regions, to drought in others, to extreme heat in many—will escalate, further endangering ecosystems and human health.
The takeaway for architects is that they must do more than design buildings that mitigateclimate change through measures to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions—they need to create buildings adapted to the impacts of global warming that will come or are already here.
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