'week four begins at his mum's. in the week ahead, the chris pincher and nadine dorries by-elections (is that right? YES) and the anniversary of the death of marion brown.
today a walk around and a few gardening tasks. a phonecall with his brother. no chat with howard yesterday (he was too knackered). read the torygraph money section...'
these are quotes from yesterday's blogpost but still relevant to today.
there's a rabbit on the lawn. there is frost upon the field. bright eyes.
yesterday a discussion of daphne oram further to a discussion of films about the railways (horsemouth was most impressed by her soundtrack to snow).
yesterday horsemouth posted a viz top tip about leaving the heating on (largely as a result of freezing last winter).
let us review where we are...
gas and electricity prices doubled (as a result of the war in ukraine and the need to ensure the shareholders in gas and electricity companies still got their dividends). the government brought in measures to limit the electoral damage this would cause (using taxpayer cash and borrowed money). but these measures will not be in place for this winter. there will still be measures for people on low incomes though (if people can work out how to claim them).
social housing landlords have been placed under an obligation towards insulating homes more (though the mechanisms aren't clear). private landlords have had this obligation delayed. homeowners have a variety of schemes to help them with the costs (if they can work out how to claim them).
all this should drive uptake in solar panels and insulation and drive the conversion of uk power generation more towards renewables and away from gas-fired power stations. all virtuous shit. behind this sudden outbreak of virtue is a shameful history of the uk government alternately blowing hot and cold upon the uk renewables industry and upon retrofitting the uk's old leaky housing stock which will make all of this more expensive.
just recently there was yet another series of u-turns conducted on the ostensible basis that the government hadn't had an honest conversation with the people about the measures necessary to reach net zero. (you know the way they have a conversation with us before they do anything - like the gulf war for example).
horsemouth's mum was just out feeding the chickens.
let us have an honest conversation about the costs of decarbonisation in the housing and energy generation sectors
there is a stated aim to decarbonise the economy generally and the heating of uk homes in particular. this requires a turn away from gas central heating and towards insulating uk housing and fitting electric-powered air-source heat pumps. all three of these changes actually require vast expenditure - the gas network must be decommissioned if it is not in use, insulation must be fitted to the uk's crumbling housing stock, the electricity grid must be vastly expanded to permit the delivery of the power required and reconfigured to permit the connection of more renewables in a more timely fashion.
these expenses in all probability will be born by the bill payer (you the general public). with both major political parties arguing for austerity it is unlikely the government will step forward to fund most of this (er. but even if they did it would still be your money).
in effect the price rises in gas and electricity (per kwh) and the increases in standing charges will do considerably more to drive lower usage (and thus lower carbon emissions) than the government insulation programmes etc. and that these programmes themselves will drive up cost to the consumer.
there is an argument that the current technocratic response to global warming (that it can all be solved by the application of technologies) is in fact simply re-arranging the deckchairs on the titanic because the political and economic conditions to implement these changes simply don't exist. not on a national level and definitely not on a global level. the wiser thing to do is to plan for the climate driven collapse of civilisation. this is the doomer position.
horsemouth, while a pessimist, does not adopt the doomer position.
horsemouth will carry on trying to get the houses of the communal endeavour insulated up to an EPC C standard by 2030, to a high EPC C standard to permit the fitting of air-source heat pumps at a later date should that be required in line with future government requirements upon social housing providers.
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