The thin green line: cross it at your peril

It was when I saw an internet tweet comparing me to Nick Griffin — with 2,000 people signed up to it — that I realised just how much trouble I was in.

It was when I saw an internet tweet comparing me to Nick Griffin — with 2,000 people signed up to it — that I realised just how much trouble I was in. My sin: I had written an opinion piece entitled ‘Is global warming hot air?’ I’d wanted to see if my 18,000 architect readers agreed with the line now adopted by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) that ‘man-made’ climate change is the greatest challenge facing the profession. Given that about a third of them have lost their jobs in this recession and some will never work again, I wondered if the institute might not have some more immediate issues to address.

Privately, many architects question whether the emphasis on making all homes ‘zero carbon’ by 2016 while ignoring the carbon that is produced during construction is the best solution.