Could Tougher Building Codes Fix Climate Change?
Could Tougher Building Codes Fix Climate Change?
States that adopt updated building codes also could see big savings in energy bills
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No, but looser zoning codes can. We need more multi-family housing and less single-family housing, both because sharing walls between units saves energy on heating and cooling and because walkable dense development saves energy on transportation.
Right? If since 1988, 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions, then housing codes are gonna do fuck all.
That's not what I was saying at all.
What I was saying is that single-family house in a car-dependent neighborhood, even one that's a net-zero passivehaus, is likely to cause more overall greenhouse gas emissions than an apartment in a walkable city center, even an old, uninsulated one, simply because the former forces the occupants to drive everywhere but the latter doesn't.
Sure, we need to regulate industrial emissions at the source instead of transferring blame to consumers, but housing and transportation emissions have nothing to do with that. Increasing energy efficiency of housing really would do a lot to lower emissions, but ending car-dependency of housing would do even more.
"That's not what I was saying at all."
Oh that's too bad. Good that both things can be true.
"Increasing energy efficiency of housing really would do a lot to lower emissions, but ending car-dependency of housing would do even more."
And yet still be a drop in the bucket.
And yet still be a drop in the bucket.
That's not true. Housing and (car) transportation are a large fraction of total greenhouse gas emissions.