CLIMATE IMBALANCE? When I'm writing these lines I have in mind recent natural disasters caused by extreme weather events that happened during the first quarter of 2010...

CLIMATE IMBALANCE?

When I'm writing these lines I have in mind recent natural disasters caused by extreme weather events that happened during the first quarter of 2010 and that have made headlines for its intensity and its geographical location, heavy rains in Andalusia ,Spain, France and Europe in general, heavy snowfall at the beginning of springtime, floods in Madeira and Canarian Islands, the unusual snowfall that paralyzed Washington, floods in California, and so on among other, like low temperatures unusual for the season, leading many people to ponder if global warming is or is not a real prospect as it has been presented in scientific circles and media.

They have been and will continue manifestations of imbalance, extreme imbalance, but we do not have to hide the other side of climate change manifested in the evident reduction of polar ice and the retreat of glaciers, an unmistakable symptom of global warming,
Probably the global warming is likely the cause of these imbalances and extreme climate phenomena we are experiencing , as well as of the increased virulence of tropical cyclones.


The geological evolution that has occurred on Earth in its long history has a leisurely pace of hundreds of thousands or millions of years, but the current pace of change is different, and certainly has the mark of human intervention in industrial development . Emissions of greenhouse gases are polluting the atmosphere at an accelerated pace, with the CO2 gas to a greater proportion responsible for this phenomenon, gas that should be absorbed by plants and forests to maintain a necessary balance, but whose function unfortunately is also affected by deforestation caused by fires and irresponsible exploitation. The greenhouse effect undoubtedly exists and creates a risk that has been repeatedly denounced for many years (Svante Arrehnius issued its first report more than half a century ago).

Initiatives to reduce emissions and halt the rise in CO2 concentration up to a limit of 2% are not well accepted in developing countries which favor the immediate benefit of its industrial activity of high-polluting energy level, despite of some regulations and controls that have been dictated internationally, not without difficulty, in the modest agreements reached. Everybody is engaged in researching new technologies to produce cleaner energy, but it still depends on a large scale of fossil fuels, while renewable energy sources contribute only a small fraction of its wasted capacity.

In relation to buildings as responsible for 40% of global consumption, we recall the European Directive 91 Energy Performance of Buildings recommendations on energy saving and conservation, on equipment efficiency based on technology and maintenance, as well as protocols for measuring and monitoring environmental impacts in units of CO2. The Directive has been applied by European members in their specific regulations.

Hospitals are buildings of intensive energy consumption and the opportunities to improve energy efficiency are numerous. The UK National Health Service is more demanding in the calculations of environmental impacts on institutions because of their energy consumption and considers not only its direct emissions from chimneys, and the indirect ones derived from their electricity consumption, but also those derived from other consumer goods under its responsibility, like supplies and external services that form part of its business.

The message is that despite of the fact that the energy cost is only a minor part of the operational expenses of a Hospital, the sum of efforts by each one of them in saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions , represents a high contribution to the global objective of Sustainability

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