Greener Buildings

Following our article last night urging everyone to turn off their lights for five minutes, we saw on the news how the Eiffel Tower did just that. The Eiffel Tower, which is illuminated by an incredible 20,000 bulbs, turned off most it's lights in a show of unity.

According to reports from the BBC this morning France witnessed a 1% drop in energy consumption as a result of people taking action and turning off their lights and power supply.

Great effort - but what happened at 19:00? Did all the lights and power go back on again? Did the Eiffel Tower just go back to normal? Done our bit kind of thing?

A similar message has come from the UK Government following the publication of (another)document attempting to tackle climate change. The goal is to ensure that every new house built is to be zero carbon by 2016.

Ruth Kelly is reported as saying within the RICS Business (Feb 07) that 'Climate Change is a real and imminent threat'.

There are daily reports on how large and looming the problem is and yet all we can do is plan twelve years ahead and turn off the lights for five minutes?