Losing Money Through the Walls

The planet may be warming, but where I work in Colorado, our bean counters are in permanent freeze-thaw. Downstairs in the finance department, almost everyone has at least one inefficient electric space heater on in the winter. In the summer, sometimes the heat sticks on. I have seen our CFO typing in fingerless gloves and marketing staff in shorts and muscle shirts. Why? Our office building's heating system doesn't work so well, at least down there.  This situation may sound like an unfortunate inconvenience; a reader's suggestion might be that I stop whining. But it's nothing so trivial. This building—with our justifiably grumpy cold accountants, our overheated marketing team, and Barb at the front desk with the door open and the heat on (not her fault)—represents ground zero of the climate wars; our very future depends on fixing structures just like this one.    Buildings account for 43 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and consume 48 percent of all energy produced. They consume ... (link)