City
vidTO: Olivia Chow's Green House Tour
[ - runs 5mins - ]
Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow and Canada's NDP party leader Jack Layton have a green house - both literally and figuratively.
Beyond the paint: solar panels for heating water and electricity, triple pane windows, extra insulation, energy efficient light bulbs, sun roof lighting, low flow toilets, energy star compliant appliances, and a rain barrel for watering the garden are a few of the features of their Toronto home.
At times, the system is so efficient that the home reverts power back to Toronto Hydro for credit via grid tie export.
The take home message? Global climate change and energy costs can be curbed with efforts, and those efforts need to start now. For more info on how the NDP hopes to address some of these issues on the national level, see their 5-point Green Agenda for Canada.
Discussion
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How many years or energy saving are required to make up for the costs of installing all of these extra green systems?
Also, what kind of condiditions are required and how often can the house create a surplus and feed power into the system?
Lets hope they like it so much they go inside and never exit, freeing political discourse from their self-aggrandizing braying.
I believe there are some financial aid or tax cuts for making your house more energy efficient, but I don't know much about it.
These are things ALL political leaders of ALL parties should be doing.
IMO, whether you're left or right, or somewhere in between, the environment and climate change should really be a priority.
I agree with your final comment. I'm not bashing the president and first lady of irrelevance for being environmentally motivated. My point is that the lemmings in the comments section think that this is a real alternative or policy choice that average people can attain, or that will have a noticable effect or impact on the issue. They remind me of the person who installed a windmill on his roof at a cost of $30,000 and said that it would pay for itself in the enery savings in 20 years. If you do a rate-of-return analysis, that $30,000 would be far better spent on research and development towards better energy efficiency or in establishing carbon markets etc. which give the polluters a real stake in reducing fossil fuel use. I loathe the self-righteousness of this couple and how it bleeds into their official party platform. The sticker cost of the conversion would be astronomical. Spending a small personal fortune to convert your house into a mall of solar power options is not a viable policy option and it is not commedable to advocate others to do so when the money would be far better spent at a macro level. In short, its obnoxious and irresponsible.
There are various approaches to "saving the environment".
We can invest our money and faith in research led by governments and hope that a top-down approach reaches the citizens (via education, policy and regulation creation and enforcement, etc).
Alternatively, we can start now as citizens and begin a bottom-up approach by making small changes in our habits and homes that cumulatively and collectively make a large difference.
I find it highly commendable (and not at all irresponsible) that Chow and Layton are advocating BOTH.
http://www.bullfrogpower.com/
Our neighbourhood downtown has many examples of state of the art green installations.
Those living around the Art Gallery of Ontario may notice a small windmill on top of Professor Steve Mann's house. He has a solar awning, solar tables for his roof deck and during my tour of his house, also showed me solar shingles. Wow.
There is also the incredibly innovative project at the Acadia Co-op on Queen's Quay. They organized the largest installation of solar panels on a residential building anywhere in Toronto. They save over $8000 in hydro costs/year by generating their own hot water.
Any other good local examples out there?
Check out the Ottawa Citizen coverage of the video here:
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=450f4692-4afb-42ed-845a-38518ca4bb75&;k=33757