Comments on: Impacts of Climate Change on Household Energy Budgets in Australia http://www.envirojean.com/2008/07/15/impacts-of-climate-change-on-household-energy-budgets-in-australia/ Save Money with ISO 14001 and other systems Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:12:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Paul Wiszniak http://www.envirojean.com/2008/07/15/impacts-of-climate-change-on-household-energy-budgets-in-australia/comment-page-1/#comment-926 Paul Wiszniak Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:31:01 +0000 http://www.envirojean.com/2008/07/15/impacts-of-climate-change-on-household-energy-budgets-in-australia/#comment-926 The Climate Institute report uses too many comparative references to Europe that don't really gell with Australian circumstances, and takes a while to make its points - and herein lies the predicament for Australia. We are an isolated continent with huge geography and vast differences in environments, culture and economies. What is good, viable or plausible in one corner of Australia is not automaically right for another corner. Such is the difficulty for policy makers to create a unifying scheme for equitible balance in mitigating climate change, in Australia. Yet, it makes the situation very clear. Namely, we must embrace a very wide variety of options, large and small, that suit individuals and regions while collectively aiming for long term goals. The low hanging fruit common to all of us is the ability to harvest energy efficiency. It's the kind of thing that everyone can do at home and work, and which surprisingly amounts to a very substantial and real opportunity to save energy, between 30% to 70%. A suitable water industry analogy is 'like watching the storm water rush out to sea, while the rivers run dry". The Climate Institute report uses too many comparative references to Europe that don’t really gell with Australian circumstances, and takes a while to make its points – and herein lies the predicament for Australia. We are an isolated continent with huge geography and vast differences in environments, culture and economies. What is good, viable or plausible in one corner of Australia is not automaically right for another corner. Such is the difficulty for policy makers to create a unifying scheme for equitible balance in mitigating climate change, in Australia.

Yet, it makes the situation very clear. Namely, we must embrace a very wide variety of options, large and small, that suit individuals and regions while collectively aiming for long term goals.

The low hanging fruit common to all of us is the ability to harvest energy efficiency. It’s the kind of thing that everyone can do at home and work, and which surprisingly amounts to a very substantial and real opportunity to save energy, between 30% to 70%.
A suitable water industry analogy is ‘like watching the storm water rush out to sea, while the rivers run dry”.

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