We continue to be worried about climate change and sustainability in general. Now that we own the house, we are able to spend some time trying to make it more sustainable.
These are the things we (actually Brendan) have done so far:
Insulate the roof.
Insulate the walls.
Insulate under the floor (still in progress).
On our list of to-do things:
Replace the aluminium-framed windows with wooden double-glazed ones. In The Future we'd like to get all the windows double glazed. In the meantime we might put cheap fake-double-glazing on some of the windows (this is like gladwrap).
Draft proof around the doors.
Fit the curtains with pelmets.
Get a water tank.
Install greywater system of some kind.
Gradually replace the incandescent globes with fluorescents, as they blow. The problem there is that they don't fit into the old light shades, so we have a few ugly exposed lights around.
Grow more of our own food. I have just ordered a huge amount of seeds from the Digger's Club, so I should get to work on making those vegie patches. I have already planted broad beans, rocket and radishes in one of them, but there isn't that much that grows in winter.
The insulating is one of the few things that people say makes financial sense, as well as environmental sense. I was a little bit disappointed that we got it done immediately, because now we can't measure the difference. The other thing that would pay its own way would be solar hot water, but the gas hot water heater we have is pretty new so I don't think we'll be doing that any time soon.
The measurement is important to me, because I wonder about whether we spend our time (and money) on the most worthwhile projects. For example people seem to like to put solar panels for electricity on the roof, but I can't help but think that this seems rather expensive, compared to the amount of greenhouse gas you save.
So I worked out how much greenhouse gas we currently use. I only considered electricity, gas, petrol and aviation fuel (ie trips to Melbourne to see you!). Food, and other stuff that we buy is too hard for now.
Over the last year, we used 23.7 kg of CO2 per day. This works out to being around 8.5 tonnes a year, compared to the average Australian household's 14 tonnes per year. Of course we have some advantages-- we are a small household, we live close to the central city with public transport, and so on.
This is the breakdown:
As you can see, the biggest part was electricity--- most of it from when we lived in Legge St in that cold cold house over winter, with no heating apart from the electric oil heaters. Now that we have gas room and water heating that should decrease.
We were surprised that the petrol component is so large--- it doesn't feel like we drive the car much, but apparently we drive (on average) between 25 and 50 km a day.
Another factor I haven't added in is that we also "buy green power" (it is a weird system) from the electricity company. If we added that in we would only be using 8.7 kg per day, which I think is quite reasonable.
I don't expect much from John Howard's so-called emission trading. It appears to me he will give no incentive for many of the largest polluters to clean up--- let's hope that Labor will be more serious about doing something. And that they get in, of course.
Much love to you,
Julie.
