By Warren Evans
During the lockdown, there is some good news.
Pollution levels during the height of the pandemic lockdown fell dramatically because of the lack of economic activity and the interruption of worldwide travel.
The question is this: As we recover from the pandemic, is there anything we as individuals can do to maintain these low pollution levels with little or no sacrifice?
We believe the answer is yes, it is possible. On a personal level, while you were locked down you probably noticed many great things about your home, on the other hand, if you’re like me you also saw a lot of things you needed to fix or change. You can start out by getting a home comfort and energy assessment and completing the recommended solutions. That’s the way each of us can begin to lock in some of the benefits of the low pollution levels we saw during the lockdown and help to achieve an overall sustainable and resilient global recovery.
At the start of the pandemic lockdown, we realized that our home solar panels weren’t producing as much electricity as we expected. Under normal circumstances we would’ve been too busy to even noticed the difference, but like most everyone else we were in lockdown so we had extra time to take a closer look at our home.
We decided to bring in a solar system maintenance team to inspect the entire system and get everything back in working order. Once the team removed the roof top solar panels they discovered something very surprising as you can see in the pictures below, squirrels had chewed a hole right through our rooftop and into our attic.
This discovery was quite a shock, we were obviously unaware that our attic was this exposed to the elements, this wasn’t the type of ‘solar power’ we had in mind. As an additional consequence of this exposure, the three feet of cellulose insulation that was blown into our attic several years ago to improve our energy efficiency had disintegrated, it’s gone.
Now thinking back, this actually made sense to us, when the insulation was installed years ago the house became instantly more comfortable, now that these issues were uncovered it explained why the upstairs had gradually changed for the worse; it had grown warmer in the summer and colder in the winter.
In retrospect it’s clear that the comfort of our home declined over the last couple of years as our heating and cooling energy bills increased to compensate for the wasted energy due to the hole in our roof. Hopefully the lessons that we learned are clear, what you don’t know can cost your bank account, your family’s comfort and your impact to the environment, the answer for us, and maybe for you, is an upgrade to the “clean energy life.”
The clean energy life is a journey, and there are people who are further along on that journey than us. We all know and enjoy our first world lifestyle, but the lifestyle is very carbon intensive especially in the U.S. While the average worldwide carbon footprint is five metric tons/year while the average U.S. carbon footprint is over three times larger at 16-plus metric tons/year.
There is hope however, as sustainable and renewable energy technologies improve and are supported by breakthrough economic thinking, we can use these accelerating advancements to lower our large first world carbon footprint, upgrade our lifestyle and save money all at the same time. That triple win is what we call the “upgrade to the clean energy lifestyle.”
It’s an upgrade because the clean energy life can improve your health, comfort and convenience while reducing your waste, costs and carbon footprint. It is a journey, so as you go, your life gets better, less expensive and more environmentally friendly.
The takeaways: You can minimize the carbon footprint of your home, or business, by using less energy and if possible supply the energy you do use from lower cost renewable energy resources.
Next actions: Measure your carbon footprint, set goals to lock in the benefits of the upgrade to the clean energy life (carbonfootprint.com); get a free home energy audit and assess your opportunity to save money at NYSERDA-Energy-Audit-Programs; community solar allows an easy sign up for a home or business for lower cost clean electricity at ampion.net/energybrothers.