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Insulation is good for the environment too

Around a third of our New Zealand’s electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas which emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (the other two thirds are generated from renewable sources such as hydro). Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which prevents heat from leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and contributes to global warming. To help reduce these emissions, New Zealand households needs to be more energy efficient. Making cold homes more energy-efficient through installing insulation is a crucial part of achieving this goal, and CEA is playing an important role in doing so at a local level. CEA may explore the potential of adapting existing tools to calculate the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions achieved by CEA on a house by house basis.

Influential leaders world-wide are promoting household energy efficiency measures as a key means by which individuals and entire households can help to prevent or maybe reverse the negative impacts of climate change. Al Gore and Bill Clinton (United States) and David Suzuki (Canada) are three very high profile figures who promote this strategy. New Zealand’s own Office for Climate Change makes similar recommendations, and these can be viewed at the following link: http://www.4million.org.nz/climatechange/takingaction/home.php

To learn more about Al Gore’s film about climate change

“An inconvenient truth,” click on http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/whatyoucando/index3.html . The DVD of this film should be available in New Zealand early next year, or you can buy it through the website.

You can also visit David Suzuki’s website at:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/WOL/Challenge/Newsletter/Four.asp