Last week I read in the Huffington Post that scientists agree (again) that climate change is happening.
Apparently to refute some Americans' silly notion that scientists don't agree that climate change is happening and that people are causing it, researchers looked through nearly 12,000 scientific articles.
Guess what? 97% of those abstracts that expressed a position on people-driven global warming were in agreement that global warming is happening and we are causing it.
The biggest cause of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels, which put tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And hospitals burn a lot of coal to power their heating and cooling units. Creating more energy-efficient hospitals, however, is moving to the top of many healthcare executives' agendas. Because not only do more energy efficient hospitals help improve the earth's atmosphere, but they are cheaper to operate.
A new study called Targeting 100! published last week by the Integrated Design Lab at the University of Washington says that deep energy reductions in the healthcare sector would have a significant impact on carbon emissions and atmospheric pollution.
This is not news to most of us in the healthcare design industry. But the study provides a conceptual framework and decision-making structure to reduce energy consumption by more than 60%.
The project, which began in 2006, was supported by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance's BetterBricks Initiative and the U.S. Department of Energy through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Research collaborators included SOLARC Architecture & Engineering, TBD Consultants, and NBBJ.
Check out Targeting 100!'s interactive website, which provides lots of information that can be easily accessed and used.
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