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Should We Be More Focused on Battling the Cold?

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by car compulsive, Mar 30, 2013.

  1. car compulsive

    car compulsive Active Member

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  2. css28

    css28 Senior Member

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    Not really relevant around here, as far as I know.​
    This winter wasn't particularly cold.​
    With natural gas prices plunging, I pay less than 50% more in unadjusted dollars to heat my home than I did 18 years ago.​
    The article pronounces it "a horribly British disease". I'm not aware of large numbers of deaths from the cold in North America.​
     
  3. ForestBeekeeper

    ForestBeekeeper Active Member

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    Deaths 'spike' a bit every winter. This past winter's death spike was less than usual.

    A slow 'news' day.
     
  4. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I think this is more of a british phenomena
    Deaths from cold 'to hit 2,500' | Mail Online




    They mention in these articles it is not as much of a problem in colder Finland, Russia, and Norway.
     
  5. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    Insulating our houses properly will reduce global warming and winter deaths. ...and save money. ... and improve the economy.
     
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  6. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I think most of us understand that in the US and even in Russia, but the writer was in England, and they seem to have forgotten the cold is not going to disappear It appears the government there has decided that its going to get warm and forgot they have a problem with cold damp homes without proper insulation and inefficient heat.
     
  7. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    I only wish it were so. Most homes in my area (Maine) are substantially under-insulated (and air-sealed). But yes, my mother lives in the warmest part of the UK and pays more for heat than I do in Maine.
     
  8. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Normally our winters are very mild and as such we have fairly poorly insulated buildings. There are government grants for insulation and some utility companies will install it for free for those aged over 65. If they choose not to have it installed, then suffer the high cost of heating.

    I had my house insulated on a grant scheme and I saved more in the first year than the insulation cost to be installed. A complete no brainer. It's along the same lines as SUV drivers complaining about the cost of petrol.
     
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  9. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    This is the tragic, and almost funny thing if it weren't so sad (and Grumpy, I know you were not making this argument).
    Global Warming or climate change means 'change' not uniform warming. Yes, the average global temps are going up, but that doesn't eliminate cold snaps.
    As such, any politicians that plan on just slightly warmer temps all the time are serving their constituents poorly.
    We can make some pretty good guessing about what added water vapor will do. But the interactions of the arctic warming faster than the lower latitudes creates some interesting effects. A big one is that the jet stream becomes slower, and weaker. Blocking weather systems have an easier time stopping up the system and cold air dives south, while warmer air has an easier time heading north.
    The UK depends largely on ocean currents for its warm winters, if those change, the UK will feel it first.
     
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  10. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    And thus the telegraph article quoted by the OP.
     
  11. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    If I remember correctly, the fresh water from the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, and Canada melt is supposed to shutdown the "Atlantic Conveyer", the residual heat from the North American, Gulf Stream current. My understanding is the UK and parts of Europe should expect colder weather.

    Bob Wilson
     
  12. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Let us not be too quick to suggest that Gulf Stream current may be dying. I understand it to be quite robust. About 8200 years ago it took a hit, but that was related to fresh-water inputs of a scale we will not soon see again.

    Euro will continue to get cold winters as they have had, more or less. It is a superb idea to better insulate your house, more so if there are governmental $upport$. Fix the attic, and then learn that window infiltration is what's really costing you money. But, that's the way of it.

    Shoveling snow peels off a few older, 'would-be' athletes. Slip on ice and hit your head, and the outcome could be bad.

    But what really kills in winter? As on top, please discuss.
     
  13. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    No problem, discussing the topic:
    Source: London's Great Smog of 1952 has lessons for modern Beijing - InterAksyon.com

    The 'energy tax' Fraser Nelson writes against comes from another die-off, two decades before his birth in 1972. It is a common argument asserted by a local climate scientist, Roy Spencer, who curiously enough, also claims ". . . the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world. . . ." ( Roy Spencer (scientist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). Our local paper has carried interviews where Roy's views echo those of Fraser Nelson.

    In the Marines, we used to say,"Pay me now or pay me later." Cheaper energy can come with another killer, poisonous or deadly air. But then again, none of us gets out of this life . . . alive. This article says nothing about the threats of cheap but deadly energy . . . because of the 'tragedy of the commons.' Today the tragedy comes from those who see an energy 'tax' as deadly without giving credit to the beneficial effect on air quality, that funny stuff we inhale 10-20 times per minute.

    In 1966, about six years before Fraser Nelson was born, I remember driving a VW bug into the Denver bowl. We saw the red haze from a distance and as we descended, visibility grew visibly worse and the air raw to breath. In 1972, the year of Fraser Nelson's birth, gasoline was cheap but on an overpass in Los Angeles, my eyes suddenly teared up worse than the gas chamber training I'd had in the Marines a year before.

    "Framing the conversation" is a popular technique by advocates who omit the other side, the reasons for an "energy tax." It depends upon the ignorance of those who may not have experienced what caused the "energy tax" to come into existence. The first principles, the first harm, that killed not the advocates but their parents saw relief from what once was a real risk to their grandparents and earlier generations.

    Some of the 'old' the young Mr. Fraser would save by ending "energy tax" are those who also remember or experienced the reasons why it was needed. So human life become a little more complex but this is not without options or ways to deal with the effects.

    Bob Wilson

    ps. So this is what it feels like to be 'old' . . . when we find ourselves complaining about the young . . . because they are young.
     
  14. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    Actually, probably not. In the energy audits I have done, unless the windows are very old or broken down, they won't be a large percentage of the infiltration of the house*. Much of the infiltration will be holes for utilities (wires, outlets, pipes, ducts, and chimneys), attic hatches, and places where construction was not done up to standard (e.g. closets). Much of the infiltration can be fixed with a caulking gun, and spray foam insulation, and some sleuthing around your house. If you are unsure of how or where to proceed, get a competent energy audit**. Note that it is possible to seal your house tight enough that you need supplement ventilation (which is good). If you start experiencing moisture condensation on windows or other signs of high humidity, that is a sign that you are near (or past) that point. Again, an energy audit might be helpful at that point.

    If you want to improve your windows, both in terms of insulative value, and infiltration, I make interior storm window kits, or you can make them yourself from instructions on my website: Green Fret Consulting - Interior Storm Window They add about R-2 to windows, and pay back is between 1-4 years.

    * - For Maine, which has the oldest housing stock in the country. YMMV.
    ** - Make sure that they will do a blower door test, and mark all the air leaks for you to fix later.
     
  15. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    Poverty and bad advice.

    There are a lot of poor people in my area. They often can not afford the exorbitant costs of fuel (usually oil and worse kerosene (the poorer, the more likely they will need the 15% more expensive kerosene)). The bad advice is that there is nothing they can do about it. I co-wrote an article for the 15th Passive House conference about incrementally improving a house energy wise on a small budget. The largest outlay was $1500, and by the 5th year, the cash flow was positive and the heating budget had been reduced by 75%. This was a specific example, of an actual building. I have also made plans for energy improvements based on a zero budget. Merely starting with simple improvements and reinvesting any savings into further improvements.

    In some ways, a significant increase in fuel costs would be a help. Back in summer 2008, people were coming to the conclusion that the whole enterprise was going to collapse. That heating with fossil fuels was going to kill them THAT winter, and if not, then the next. Instead, the economy collapsed, and the panic receded (and people felt less able to do anything). The price of fuel is now near what it was then, but is rising slowly enough to boil the frog this time.
     
  16. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    If they insulate and adequately heat their houses, their beer will get too warm.
     
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  17. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    It's already too warm... :)

    But seriously, that is what a beer cellar is for.
     
  18. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    In a poorly insulated and heated house, the house can be colder than the beer cellar on a cold day.
     
  19. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    And a lot of our houses are built from stone or brick. Because of this they last longer and older buildings can be difficult to insulate easily or cheaply. A wooden house here is a very rare thing, though timber framed buildings are slowly gaining popularity.

    I guess it depends on priorities, my dad gave me and my sister £300 each, which I spent on the insulation to be installed. My sister decided to spend the money on something else. She has a cold house even with the heating running.

    Similar analogy with a Prius and SUV drivers.
     
  20. spiderman

    spiderman wretched

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    I find it rather easy to insult my house when I am working on it... especially with I hit my thumb with the hammer.
     
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