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The politics of harsh winters
In the past, extreme weather and disastrous harvests have proved socially divisive. We have been warned, say climate researchers
In the winter of 1432-33 people in Scotland “had to use fire to melt the wine before drinking it” ran a line in the research about the coldest decade of winters in the last 1,000 years.
Short of real temperature readings, descriptions of such incidents and records of rivers and lakes freezing over for months at a time, tree rings and ice cores are what climate scientists have to use to trace weather extremes of the past.
Continue reading...Mark Butler on the Renewable Energy Target
Climate change: 90% of rural Australians say their lives are already affected
Overwhelming majority believe they are living with the effects of warming and 46% say coal-fired power should be phased out
Ninety per cent of people living in rural and regional Australia believe they are already experiencing the impacts of climate change and 46% believe coal-fired power stations should be phased out, according to a new study.
A poll of 2,000 people conducted by the Climate Institute found that 82% of respondents in rural and regional Australia and 81% of those in capital cities were concerned about increased droughts, flooding and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef due to climate change, and 78% of all respondents were concerned there would be more bushfires.
Continue reading...Thinking about a sustainable retrofit? Here are three things to consider
If you're feeling hot this summer, consider a retrofit. Fan image from www.shutterstock.comSitting at home in the summer heat, your mind may start to wander to that fancy new air conditioner.
But when it comes to making your house comfortable and sustainable, prevention is better than cure. By prevention we mean simple retrofits that will set you on the path to comfort and sustainability.
As we spend more than ever on maintaining and improving our homes, we’re also becoming more aware of how their design and use impact on our health and society. Add to this climate change and rising energy costs.
There are many ways to reduce energy and stay comfortable (for instance here and here). Numerous reports suggest it should be possible to reduce your energy use by 50-80% using existing and available materials and appliances.
Appliance are the easy bit, and you can find the most efficient appliances using energy star ratings. But before you go out and buy that air conditioner, consider the following principles that can help you decide what you need to create a comfortable home.
Prevention better than cureFor a long time the perfect “room temperature” was considered to be around 21℃. But we now understand that as humans we like temperature variations rather than vanilla indoor environments.
As explored in Lisa Heschong’s book Thermal Delight in Architecture (1979), most of us are not looking for a beige thermal environment after all. So to start with, we need a change in attitude. Bring back the cardigan for winter and the shorts for summer!
The next point is basic knowledge about your climate zone. For instance, in Melbourne there are more heating days (159) than cooling days (35). So, if you are retrofitting in summer, remember the main annual task is actually letting the sun in in winter.
Even with climate change, Melbourne will still require heating on more days than cooling for decades to come, whereas in Brisbane the priority is keeping out the heat and catching the breeze.
So Melbourne homes need reversible sunblock. You can use plants with seasonal foliage to shade summer windows, or temporary techniques like temporary sail shades or movable window awnings can work. Plants can also cool outdoor spaces through evapotranspiration, which helps combat the growing “urban heat island” problem and makes the backyard a more pleasant place to be.
Despite some bad press over the years, insulating ceiling, floors and walls where possible remains the best way to address 50-80% of heat gains/losses. In many homes ceiling insulation is cheap and easy to fit and can even be topped up. Insulated homes have also been found to perform better during extreme weather events and are quieter, more comfortable and natural places to be.
In summer sun, black roofs are bad news. Coating surfaces can reflect excess heat. Coating technology has been employed in paint products for your walls and roofs, and is also being developed in landscaping materials for the backyard.
Single-glazed windows are responsible for 10-35% of heat gains/losses in our homes. A range of double-glazed window products is now available, or you can even get a secondary glass pane to place over existing windows.
Double-glazed (or triple-glazed) homes are more comfortable in extreme weather, and are also quieter and more comfortable. Add drapes and blinds for added temporary use to keep out sun or keep in warmth when needed.
While these preventive passive measures might seem basic, the fact is that (a) technologies, markets and pricing are changing rapidly, so it makes sense to be open to new retrofitting ideas and products; and (b) comfort remains the big-ticket item and it will only get more so as climate change affects all of our homes. Addressing this first will reduce the requirement for other technologies and appliances.
The principles of retrofittingAnother area of technology progress is digital data systems to monitor indoor energy services. Energy supplier portals, temperature loggers and smartphone apps are now widely available.
For the more enthusiastic, if you buy a couple of temperature loggers and place one in your main living area and one in your main bedroom you can collect data at intervals as small as one second. You can use this data to identify how your house is performing and how you are using it. More importantly, you can satisfy yourself that the retrofit you’ve just paid for has made a difference.
We’ve only covered a few focus areas in this article. There are many good options we haven’t dealt with. However, we propose three principles for any retrofit project:
prioritise big-ticket items (such as thermal comfort) – what do you need most and what uses the most energy? – to plan and design around your climate zone and home needs
prevention is better than cure – focus on passive elements before turning to appliances
diversity is better than standardisation – don’t aim for 21℃, aim for controllable comfort, openable windows and adjustable systems room by room. Design in easy adjustment through movable technologies such as fans, curtains, plants and shades.
With all the hard work done, it’s time to sit back and enjoy the new indoor environment, but be aware that, as with our climate, our conventions, routines and expectations of comfort are constantly changing.
Some argue for evidence of a comfort dividend, where occupants of newly eco-retrofitted homes increase their use of heating or cooling appliances (or both).
Undoubtedly, as consumption patterns change and social standards shift, we will need to adjust our eco-retrofit priorities. Homes are not just a material work in progress, but are sites of social and cultural life after all.
Trivess Moore receives funding from the Australian Research Council and built environment and related bodies from time to time to fund research on housing, including sustainable housing retrofit.
Andrew Carre has previously undertaken life cycle assessment studies of buildings for Forest and Wood Products Australia.
Ralph Horne receives funding from the Australian Research Council and built environment and related bodies from time to time to co-fund research on housing, including sustainable housing retrofit.
Barrage of questions for Swansea Bay tidal lagoon | Letters
You report (Tidal lagoon power is ‘reliable and affordable’, 13 January) that the Swansea Bay scheme “would be the first of its kind in the world”. In France, the Rance estuary plant has been operating since 1966. In Canada, in the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world, the plant at Annapolis Royal has been operating since being opened by Prince Charles in 1984. However, the French have no firm plans for more such plants and the Canadians have abandoned them altogether. In Canada, a major consideration has been the devastating impact on fish stocks.
It seems to me that the major objective of the proposal might be to extract taxpayer funding for no useful purpose, and the government needs to study the proposals very carefully to ensure we do not end up with a number of very large white elephants in the Severn estuary.
Ian Brittain
Owermoigne, Dorset
Levels of e-waste soar in Asia as gadgets become affordable, UN says
Amount of electronic waste up 63% in five years, with China’s more than doubling, United Nations University report finds
Levels of electronic waste are rising sharply across Asia, as higher incomes mean hundreds of millions of people can afford smartphones and other gadgets, according to a UN study.
The amount of e-waste in Asia has risen by 63% in five years, a report by United Nations University said, warning of the need to improve recycling and disposal methods across the region to prevent serious environmental and health consequences.
Continue reading...Prince Charles co-authors Ladybird climate change book
Protests escalate over Louisiana pipeline by company behind Dakota Access
Louisiana residents are starting to get involved in environmental issues and are making themselves heard about the disputed Bayou Bridge pipeline
Scott Eustis did not stop smiling for hours. The coastal wetland specialist with the Gulf Restoration Network was attending a public hearing in Baton Rouge. Its subject was a pipeline extension that would run directly through the Atchafalaya Basin, the world’s largest natural swamp. Eustis was surprised to be joined by more than 400 others.
“This is like 50 times the amount of people we have at most of these meetings,” said Eustis, adding that the proposed pipeline was “the biggest and baddest I’ve seen in my career”.
Continue reading...Photos show Japanese whalers killing minke in sanctuary, says Sea Shepherd
Anti-whaling campaign group alleges it photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary
Anti-whaling campaign group Sea Shepherd says it has photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary, the same day the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was in Australia on a state visit.
In the first documented killing since the international court of justice ruled Japan’s Antarctic whaling illegal in 2014, Sea Shepherd released photographs of what it says is a dead minke on the deck of the whaler Nisshin Maru at 11.34am on Sunday.
Continue reading...Call of the wild: can America’s national parks survive? | Lucy Rock
America’s national parks are facing multiple threats, despite being central to the frontier nation’s sense of itself
Autumn in the North Cascades National Park and soggy clouds cling to the peaks of the mountains that inspired the musings of Beat poets such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg 60 years ago. Sitting on a carpet of pine needles in the forest below, protected from the rain by a canopy of vine maple leaves, is a group of 10-year-olds listening to a naturalist hoping to spark a similar love of the outdoors in a new generation.
This is one of 59 national parks which range across the United States, from the depths of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the turrets of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. All – plus hundreds of monuments and historic sites – are run by the National Park Service (NPS), which celebrated its centenary last year. The parks were created so that America’s natural wonders would be accessible to everyone, rather than sold off to the highest bidder. Writer Wallace Stegner called them America’s best idea: “Absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”
Continue reading...Two cheers for Swansea’s tidal lagoon
Britain’s west coast is facing a revolutionary change. If renewable energy advocates get their way, swaths of shoreline will soon be peppered with giant barrages designed to turn the power of the sea into electricity for our homes and factories. These tidal lagoons could supply more than 10% of the nation’s electricity, it is claimed.
Last week former energy minister Charles Hendry published a review that strongly backed the construction of a £1.3 billion prototype lagoon in Swansea Bay. The trial project was a “no regrets option”, Hendry concluded.
Continue reading...Plants and preservation
Plants and preservation
UK Police defend choice to warn thousands to evacuate as storm falters
East coast residents have derided the severe storm warnings as ‘a load of rubbish’
Police and Environment Agency officials today defended their decision to warn tens of thousands of people living near the east coast of England to leave their homes because they were at risk of flooding.
Thousands were evacuated on Friday after the Environment Agency issued 17 severe weather warnings – which warn of danger to life – with people living in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex told they were most at risk.
Continue reading...SpaceX rocket successfully takes off
‘The last five years have not been great at Greenpeace’
With former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson poised to lead US foreign policy, activists like Peter Willcox, skipper of the Rainbow Warrior, are needed more than ever. But are they losing their nerve?
Dawn was breaking when the campaigners used slingshots to fire ropes on to the rig. But as they began to scale the Prirazlomnaya, aiming to unfurl a banner denouncing Russia’s attempts to drill for oil in the Arctic, their hopes of another successful Greenpeace “action” swiftly faded. They had been anticipating high-pressure hoses that sprayed freezing seawater at intruders. They weren’t prepared for balaclava-wearing soldiers shooting at their inflatable boats.
One soldier grabbed the rope used by one of the climbers, slamming her body repeatedly against the rig. They captured two other activists. Then the Russians demanded to board the Greenpeace ship. But the Arctic Sunrise’s captain, Peter Willcox, fearing his boat would be seized, resisted.
Continue reading...It's never too early for spring song
Airedale, West Yorkshire A book from a century ago tells me when I might hear the ‘spring’ songs of each common songbird
The robin has uncorked its spring song. This one – a male, I suspect, giving it some welly in the upper reaches of a bare horse chestnut – is the loudest, the fullest, I’ve heard so far.
David Lack, the author of the landmark 1943 study The Life of the Robin, wrote that its autumn song was “thinner and less rich” than its spring reprise. In autumn, robins are more likely to mutter, to essay half-hearted impersonations of other birds, to engage in circling, absent-minded vocalisations known as sub-song, like a man whistling idly to himself as he walks in the woods.
SpaceX rocket set to return to flight
Flying for your life 3: An unlikely saviour
Adani coalmine activists gear up to fight: ‘This will dwarf the Franklin blockade’
As the protest against the Carmichael project – Australia’s largest proposed coalmine – moves beyond the courts and into the realm of civil disobedience, activists have a clear warning: ‘If you’re in bed with Adani, you’re a target’
Across Australia a secretive network of activists are laying the groundwork for what they expect will be the biggest environmental protest movement in the country’s history.
Of course this won’t materialise if Adani and the rest of the miners proposing to open up one of the world’s biggest coalfields walk away from Queensland’s Galilee basin first.
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