The House of hot air

LARGE amounts of hot air are escaping from Parliament - and here's the proof.

MPs keen for the public to save energy need to get their own House in order. The wasteful situation was revealed by photographs using a thermal imaging camera. The same technique found that the wastage was even worse at Buckingham Palace, where heat is seen disappearing through its large windows. The images are published a day before the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change comes into force.

The international agreement sets targets for industrialised countries to cut their emissions of greenhouses gas, which are at least partly responsible for global warming.

Energy

Areas in white demonstrate the highest temperatures and therefore where most heat is escaping. Parts of the building in red and yellow are only slightly better, followed by green. Blue and purple are colder areas where less energy is escaping. The coldest spots are black.

The image of Buckingham Palace shows all the windows in white and the areas immediately round them in red and yellow, showing significant heat loss.

An image of the Houses of Parliament, taken from across the Thames, shows many of the windows in red, particularly those to one end.

The remainder of the building is mainly green and yellow, suggesting a medium to high amount of heat loss in these areas. None of the building is in blue, purple or black.