
English Village Becomes Climate Leader by Cleaning Up Its Own Patch - e15ctr0n
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/science/english-village-becomes-climate-leader-by-quietly-cleaning-up-its-own-patch.html
======
adamcharnock
Never thought I'd see my dad on HN :)

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> Eden Mills, a small community in Ontario, Canada, is one of them. Charles
> Simon traveled to Ashton Hayes in 2007 to learn how to translate their
> approach to his town, adopting the apolitical, voluntary, fun method.

> About 200 towns, cities and counties around the world — including Notteroy,
> Norway; Upper Saddle River, N.J.; and Changhua County, Taiwan — have reached
> out to learn how the villagers here did it.

Here is a fun math problem. How many people from other towns need to fly to
Ashton Hayes for the town's improvement in carbon emissions to be offset by
the increased emissions from people taking government funded flights to learn
how to cut carbon emissions.

I think a lot of the visceral opposition to fighting climate change comes when
people see the elite (leaders and journalists) who adopt a "good for thee, but
not for me" attitude as they fly around to different climate conferences (how
many leaders and journalists flew to Paris?) where they talk about measures
that will significantly affect the "little guy" but not them.

I think a good way for the elite to show just how seriously they take climate
change is to have an absolute ban on travel to a climate conference.
Everything should be done via teleconferencing alone.

~~~
SamBam
> Everything should be done via teleconferencing alone.

So that information can be spread in the least efficient way possible, and no
real lessons about combating climate change are really spread around the
world.

100 or 1000 leaders filling seats in planes a few times a year is a minuscule
drop in the bucket compared to the actual changes that can result from
international cooperation.

------
keeganjw
This feels like one of the most effective ways to solve climate change.
Working at a national or international is slowed way down by a ton of
competing interests. Working at a personal level like you're barely making a
dent. But working a community level feels right. It's big enough to notice an
impact but small enough for individuals to make a difference.

~~~
Retric
24% reduction is something like 2% more than the EU average.

 _about 1,000 people... reaching its 10th anniversary this year, has led to a
24 percent cut in emissions_ vs. "The EU(27) even with active legal measures
have maintained a fairly level CO2 emission rate but have managed to reduce
their CO2 emissions/head by ~22% since 2005. " [http://euanmearns.com/the-
record-of-recent-man-made-co2-emis...](http://euanmearns.com/the-record-of-
recent-man-made-co2-emissions-1965-2014/)

It feels good, but that's about it. Further, per person they are probably
doing more damage than the average person in London or other major city.

------
WalterBright
The way to generally motivate efficient reduction in CO2 emissions is
straightforward - tax CO2 emissions. Raise the tax until it becomes worthwhile
for people to change their habits.

Use the tax revenue to subsidize cleaner alternatives, like solar, wind,
geothermal.

~~~
umanwizard
Yes -- unfortunately, the way to get everyone to agree to implement this tax
is not straightforward at all.

~~~
mlinksva
Decades late, but some momentum now [http://www.carbontax.org/where-carbon-is-
taxed/](http://www.carbontax.org/where-carbon-is-taxed/) and an important
initiative [http://yeson732.org/](http://yeson732.org/) in Washington State
(U.S.) this November.

~~~
WalterBright
732 is certainly a step in the right direction.

------
dangravell
PV panels are useful but the best way of combating combat change in domestic
dwellings, by far, is to improve the performance of the house by improving its
fabric.

The tools to do this have been around for 30 years and yet we are still
building houses that we'll have to fix in the future.

~~~
pbowyer
> improving its fabric. > The tools to do this have been around for 30 years
> and yet we are still building houses that we'll have to fix in the future.

I'm looking to buy my first house and I've looked at houses dating from the
1890's to finished 18 months ago. While I expect the older ones to have bad
energy efficiency (single wall stone cottages) I've been horrified by the
standard of the 1990's+ housing.

Sure the ones built 2 years ago reach a 'B' on the UK's energy efficiency
scale, but it appears to be by removing breathability while using traditional
construction approaches still.

I dream of building my own eco-home. Straw bale preferably.

~~~
dangravell
There are a number of reasons modern builds are still poorly performing.

First, the regs ('code') is still very unambitious.

Second, the assessment process is poor and not rigourously enforced.

Building practices since the war have slowly led to lower intrinsic
performance. There are a number of examples. Cavity walls are way over
specified and introduce a number of thermal compromises. Plasterboard
('drywall') on bare block is a disaster area. Downlighters acting like
chimneys into cold lofts. Dumb extractor fans that leak heat even when not
running.

Note that modern house do not have the same 'breathability' requirements as
older ones. This is an extremely complex area.

For me it's not so much the eco credentials that matter; it's building
something of a high quality that does what it is supposed to do.

~~~
pbowyer
Any materials (books/websites/people/organisations) you can recommend to learn
more?

Like you it's not so much the eco credentials that matter to me, and I want to
improve my grasp on the complexities.

Plus I only knew one of your examples (extractor fans).

~~~
dangravell
Sure, the AECB, Passivhaus, the Green Building Forum,
[http://www.greenspec.co.uk](http://www.greenspec.co.uk),
[http://www.houseplanninghelp.com](http://www.houseplanninghelp.com) all
useful for starters.

[http://www.greensuffolk.org/assets/Greenest-
County/SGBN/Sust...](http://www.greensuffolk.org/assets/Greenest-
County/SGBN/Sustainable-Construction/refurbfinalpdf.pdf) is a good overview of
common problems.

------
detritus
Lovely but the headline sorta implies that the village has reached balance
with itself, which doesn't take into account the manufacture of the panels and
glasses and building materials it's using to reduce carbon emissions going
forward, nor the production of cars - of which I see at least two of in the
picture there.

Laudable, but local closed systems don't mean too much if the macro system's
belching out god only knows what to keep innumerable microsystems functioning
anyway.

------
carsonreinke
> 500 pounds (about $650) a year for electricity and heating

I wonder how much specifically this is? Maybe if we could start sharing more
of this info we could all set some goals.

~~~
adamcharnock
If it helps, in the UK (London) we pay 14.15 pence / kWh, which is the
equivalent of 16.38 pence if you factor in the 18.90 pence/day charge.

The first figure is probably fairly representative, maybe up to 15 pence.

~~~
nimish
That's quite high-- I pay closer to 10p/kWh

Bulb energy offers a fully renewable energy plan which is worth looking at.
Their business plan is pretty interesting as well

------
dabeeeenster
I wonder if they are curbing their consumption of meat?

