A less thought, but effective solution to global warming is building green. Building green is basically designing and building buildings with the surroundings or environment in mind. The practice of building green can hugely contribute to bringing an end to global warming. Houses are known to be major contributors to global warming as they emit green houses gases. Houses in US alone contribute 38% of this greenhouse gas emission.

Minimizing the use of energy required to maintain comfortable living in houses is a sure way of cutting green house emissions and eventually help bring to an end global warming. Ways of doing this include:

The first thing is to consider the building materials used. Renewable sources such as straw and bamboo are some perfect source of building materials. One can equally use building materials that come from near the building site. This not only cuts down on greenhouse gases emission as a result of transportation, but also cuts down on cost. An example is building stone houses using local stone.

Deforestation is a known global warming contributor, thus, to avoid cutting down more trees, one can erect buildings using recycled materials such as wood from older homes. Other house contributors of global warming are heating and cooling. To tackle this, one can erect the house strategically to allow natural light come in through windows and warm the house and at the same time allow breezes to blow via the same windows and cool.

Still on point, one can use passive solar energy to heat and cool the house hence cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. Insulation is also integral to help utilize the heat and cool in the house. Proper insulation means needing a less powerful heating or cooling source. Hydropower, wind power and solar panels are the main sources of heating and cooling in most green houses. Each of these sources powers the house causing very negligible effects on global warming, without compromising on sustaining the household comfortably.

Non- profit organizations in US are emerging that foster green building methods in an effort to curb global warming. The State of Washington enacted a law in 2005 that requires all builders of constructions larger than 5000sqft to practice green building; all in an attempt to stop global warming. If green building has been proven to combat global warming by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, it might be time for everyone to embrace green building.

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