Imagine!
Spring, in all its greenest finery! Giddy goats gamble on grassy hillsides, the fresh scent of new-mown hay wafts in through the kitchen window between billowing curtains. All the fantasy glories of a green energy future come alive and permeate every home.
There is something of a nip in the air, however. The inhabitants gathered the table for Easter celebrations shiver a little as they watch the family elder cleave slices off the huge raw festive rutabaga with a knife and a mallet.
From an fantasy perspective, peachy for all except pesky meat-lovers. But from an energy conservation viewpoint, positively amazing!
Consider: in order to achieve maximum energy efficiency with near-zero carbon emissions, there is an instant solution for entire temperate zone nations with one simple and immediate step.
Turn off the heat! All of it.
Bundle up in winter, go naked in summer, eat raw, and wallow in that wonderfully energy-green world.
It’s a useful exercise in imagining green futures to read the following Scottish Housing News article. Do so more as a skim than to puzzle its details, which will be only understood by policy wonks and certain kinds of environmental engineers conversant with otherwise gobblety-gook technical standards of national energy policies.
One important takeaway from this skim is that the pursuit of green energy goals can easily achieve success while ignoring basic human needs, like a health-giving, warm and cozy home.
From a public housing perspective, this is at least mildly frightening. We are talking here about a form of human shelter where, in an unfortunate number of advanced nations, the basic health and comfort needs of its occupants are routinely, frequently, and chronically, ignored. Lead in the water? Mould in the bathroom? Radiator not working? Building cladding dangerous? Suck it up.
Can we assume that governments will fairly balance living standards for public housing tenants against potential energy savings? Already, reading between the lines in the following article, while public housing been given a future energy prescription and timelines, private housing has not yet received its green marching orders. Why the delay, and why, ultimately will public and private prescriptions not be the same?
Read more from Katy Syme, a senior researcher for the Scottish environmental charity, Changeworks, in Scottish Housing News: Meeting the challenges of fuel poverty and climate change
