Sustainability gets side-tracked by Climate Change

Tony Blair once said; “We can debate this or that aspect of climate change, but the reality is that most people now accept our climate is indeed subject to change”.

It really is sad that any movement towards a more sustainable world has been totally side-tracked by the argument about man-made climate change. The answer to the question, of course, is that it doesn’t matter if man made climate change is real.

What really matters is that we cannot sustain the world as we know it without changing the way we operate in a number of ways, including;

·         stoping the depletion of the earth’s resources at a greater rate than nature is able to renew,

·         stoping polluting our natural environment whether it be the air that we breath, the oceans that are so necessary to sustain life on earth or the land from which so much of our sustenance comes,

·         stopping the destruction of ecosystems which maintain the fine balance of flora and fauna,

·         begin to rebuild the biodiversity on which our whole existence depends.

It is all very simple really and should not be lost in a dumb debate about the science and the reality of climate change. It really doesn’t matter why or how the problem occurred or who is to blame.

It only matters that we all work towards a sustainable future.

Everything else is just a distraction from the main game or is political point scoring which is only working to polarise the population, create unhelpful animosity and doing plenty to discourage people from actually acting sustainably. Unfortunately, the language so often used by the proponents of climate change indicates that they hope to bully the rest of the population into submission. This won’t work.

Buildings and how we use them are crucial to sustainability and this puts building designers at the frontline in efforts to secure the future.

Over the past month BEDI has been equipping Endorsed Sustainable Building Designers to effectively address the four imperatives mentioned above. These designers will be able to design buildings which meet the sustainability requirements of the Building Code of Australia and the Queensland Development Code.

More than this they will be able to research materials and technologies to design buildings that don’t deplete the earth’s resources, don’t contribute to the pollution of the environment and don’t destroy our ecosystems. They will actually work towards restorative sustainability by attempting to assist nature to repair some of the damage of the past and will advise their clients on how to occupy the buildings in a more sustainable way.

It’s time for all the talk, all the bravado and all the bully tactics to end and be replaced by real action and we know that Endorsed Sustainable Building Designers are ready to stand up and lead the way.

Russell Brandon