Diary of a Cowichan Carbon Buster – Week 4

The Heat is On

By Peter Nix

Ancient Neanderthal men and women must have enjoyed their fires as they wondered through a chilly Europe during the last ice age. Keeping warm is still a basic human need even in the relative warmth of the Cowichan Valley – and even for the Cowichan Carbon Busters, committed to reducing their carbon emissions.

But hey, we are not a bunch of toque-wearing fanatics with bulging foreheads. We are smarter that ancient European peoples who let most heat escape through cracks in their caves. We can install effective insulation. We can buy more efficient furnaces and stoves. This is easy to do and will save us money.

When I built our house, we had the basement walls insulated by a “sandwich” of Styrofoam blocks, which has proven effecting in keeping the heat in. And more lately, I squeezed 20 tubes of exterior caulking into exterior cracks and crevices to keep out winter breezes.

We also installed an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) system which is the “sliced bread” of energy efficient inventions. An HRV forces out stale, moist air from the house and replaces it with fresh air through a heat exchange system, saving over 90% of the heat that used to escape through those cracks, up chimneys or out windows. Besides saving on fuel costs, we now no long need to scrap off black scum (fungi) from window ledges every spring, which grew due to high moisture levels inside our tightly insulated house.

One member of our Carbon Buster group had an energy audit of his house this past week, at a cost of about $150. Two specific recommendations were to increase the attic insulation from R20 to R50 (seemed like a good idea) and to buy an $8,000 heat pump (seemed a tad pricey).

Another member is renovating an older house. Energy saving features included styrofoam insulation of the cement basement walls, low e argon windows and an insulating foam “shell” placed outside the exterior 2 x 4 walls. In addition, he is looking into a heat exchange system using pipes in the ocean (using heat from the ground is another option).

As the climate crisis escalates, reducing energy consumption and increasing energy conservation will bring you the best bang for your buck; that is, you will get the highest saving for the lowest cost by conserving energy everywhere you can, around your house and by your choice of transportation. A simple and cost-effective strategy

Unfortunately, some learning curves can be steep. Even after our discussion about electricity last week, our mayor continues to bang his head as he dutifully unplugs his computer power bar located, sadly, under his desk. If he only hung it higher up. Maybe he thinks head scars are needed to harden him for the upcoming civic election.

Governments are starting to act on carbon reduction programs– and getting political scars for their efforts. In BC, the provincial “livesmart” program has lots of information to help you reduce your carbon emissions (http://www.livesmartbc.ca/). You can see their full-page ads in the local newspapers.

North Cowichan is about to roll out a “Wood Stove Exchange Rebate Program” that will pay people about $400 to upgrade their old wood stoves. This program mostly relates to the health hazard of smoke, but any kind of wood burning should banned or made economically undesirable in the near future though the use of carbon taxes (discouraging the release of carbon) or carbon credits (encouraging the salvage of waste carbon).

Our habit of open burning emphasis precisely how a carbon tax would be the most efficient and least bureaucratic method of reducing our society’s thoughtless and destructive release of carbon dioxide into the air. Carbon taxes would make any kind of carbon emission expensive. And that would be good.

Developers and foresters continue to burn wood from clear cuts. But burning waste wood for no net energy gain is an act of “neanderthalian” proportions if you consider the fundamental and critical need to avoid global warming

On a positive note, the North Cowichan Environmental Advisory Committee has recently recommended that Council “consider carbon reduction as the primary environmental lens that is applied to the Official Committee Plan”. As well, the CRVD Environmental Commission has recommended that people start to take carbon reduction measures seriously.

We are in a giant planetary race to reduce our carbon emissions. Winning would mean that we will utilized our intellectual and economic resources to reduce carbon emissions before climate change events sucked up our social and economic energy. Losing would mean that multiple climate change events such as droughts, agricultural failures, insect infestations and economic refugees will have preoccupied our time and energy and prevented us from minimizing the release of carbon into the air - the primary problem of global warming.

The race is on. Get used to hearing those two words – ‘carbon reduction”.

Peter Nix is a retired environmental scientist at cowichanglobalwarming@shaw.ca