13 Skyscrapers and Environment

（单词翻译）

13 Skyscrapers² and Environment

In the late 1960's, many people in North America turned their attention to environmental problems, and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized. Ecologists pointed³ out that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking lot capacities.

Skyscrapers are also lavish⁴ consumers, and wasters, of electric power. In one recent year, the addition of 17 million square feet of skyscraper¹ office space in New York City raised the peak daily demand for electricity by 120, 000 kilowatts-enough to supply the entire city of Albany, New York, for a day.

Glass-walled skyscrapers can be especially wasteful⁵. The heat loss (or gain)through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times that through a typical masonry⁶ wall filled with insulation⁷ board. To lessen⁸ the strain on heating and air-conditioning equipment, builders of skyscrapers have begun to use double-glazed panels of glass, and reflective glasses coated with silver or gold mirror films that reduce glare as well as heat gain. However, mirror-walled skyscrapers raise the temperature of the surrounding air and affect neighboring buildings.

Skyscrapers put a severe strain on a city's sanitation⁹ facilities, too. If fully¹⁰ occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate 2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year-as much as a city the size of Stanford, Connecticut , which has a population of more than 109, 000.