Yang Fujia, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS), the vice president of the China Association for Science and
Technology (CAST) and the first Chinese president of University of
Nottingham in Britain, has called on all universities and colleges
throughout China to take the initiative constructing
energy-efficient buildings.
He expressed his views in a special report presented at the
Annual Conference of China Association for Science and
Technology.
He's very dissatisfied with Chinese academic buildings that
feature glass curtain walls. He said that the heating energy
requirement for Chinese architecture is approximately two or three
times more than that of advanced countries that have similar
climate conditions as China.?
Moreover, glass curtain walls are not popular in foreign
countries because they allow light pollution to enter the building.
They're also fragile, generating another hidden danger to
cities.
Yang said that he had visited many universities and colleges in
China. Unfortunately he found few universities or colleges that
took note of potential environment problems when building their
campus.
Chinese universities and colleges have the world's biggest
gates, the highest architecture and the largest libraries but few
consider energy efficiency. Princeton University was constructed in
1720 and the Harvard University gate is very small, yet they're the
best two universities in America, said Yang.?
"Universities and colleges should take the leading role
regarding energy-saving and environment-friendly issues. I feel
gratified that Tsinghua University has noticed this problem. In
2005 they started constructing a demonstration building with
ultra-low energy consumption," he added.
"In western countries, even five-year-old children are tuned
into environment protection, but we are still trying to teach
college students how to behave environmentally?-- that is a
big difference," he added.
(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, September 13, 2007)
