Article Review : The Climate Is Changing. So Must Architecture

                Is there truly a need for change in architecture with the changing climate?

A critical review of Cramer, Ned (2017, October 04). The Climate Is Changing. So Must Architecture.[architectmagazine.com/design/editorial/the-climate-is-changing-so-must-architecture_o]

Literature Review

Ned Cramer, author of this article served as editor-in-chief of ARCHITECT from the publication's founding in 2006 until 2020, and as vice president, editorial, at Hanley Wood. 

In this article review, I summarize the article and offer critical analysis on some selected aspects of the article. 

Article Review

What is really climate change? After going through the article it is clear that it includes global temperature rise, warming ocean, shrinking ice sheets, decreased snow cover and many more. And this change will continue through this century and beyond. Rise in temperature will continue, more droughts and vast changes in precipitation will happen and we would not be able to control these changes over a short period of time. 

The author talks about that all other concerns are not as important as this major change. They are nonetheless ancillary to this concern. 

Primarily the cause of this huge change is the burning of fossil fuels over time by the human race and this increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, which eventually is warming the planet. 

Electricity consumption in building operations represents nearly 55% of global electricity consumption. emissions from the buildings construction industry, this share increases to 38% of total global energy- related CO2 emissions.[2020 Global status report for building and construction PDF].

Author quotes " Architects face a choice: to remake the built environment so that it produces no CO2, or to carry on, business as usual, and live with the consequences." [Cramer, Ned (2017, October 04) The Climate is changing. So Must Architecture]

He points out the negligence of society towards our deteriorating environment. He compares the small profits which industries make with the improvement of the built environment. 

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change

The effects of this include extreme events like Hurricane Harvey which took 70 lives in the Houston area, Texas, US. Even if we stop producing Carbon dioxide gas, the climate change would continue because of the presence of greenhouse gases which are already present in the atmosphere that could take thousands of years to dissipate. 

And in this Architects should consider that rise in temperature would affect construction very hard. 

The author's description is so to the point that it hit hard to the "so called construction industry" and their way of working in this environment and there company which takes our future into hazardous surroundings. 

He also points out the effect it will have on job productivity. But the actions taken by leaders of the nation to decrease the production of greenhouse gases are also commendable like "Paris Climate Accord agreed to limit emissions that could prevent average temperature rise. And every country except Taiwan and Syria agreed to this plan. 

“83 percent of peer-reviewed papers and 80 percent of internal documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only 12 percent of advertisers do so, with 81 percent instead expressing doubt.”[Cramer, Ned (2017, October 04) The Climate is changing. So Must Architecture]

But there is still hope like in 2016 solar energy became the cheapest way to produce electricity. 

And if we control, amend regulations on the use of fossil fuels, incentives would be present, then there's a small hope in climate change in a positive way.

Critical Review

The author misses some of the concerns of heavy concrete use in building construction, the effects of huge machinery used in construction  which produces greenhouse gases. He missed to write about the advantages of vernacular use of material in buildings and green buildings. He should have talked about uses of environment friendly construction materials to change the climate in a positive way. But all the information provided by the author is on point and befitting to the Title.