With this.
Posted on 05/29/2005 7:24:58 PM PDT by blam
3m homes 'should be demolished' to cut global warming
By Charles Clover
(Filed: 30/05/2005)
Some 3.2 million homes must be demolished over the next 45 years to fulfil the Government's aspirations for tackling global warming, academics have warned.
The report, by researchers at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute and Heriot Watt University, is bound to re-ignite the controversy caused by the proposed demolition of 400,000 homes in the Midlands and the North.
Households account for around 30 per cent of Britain's total energy use and the researchers conclude there is a "desperate need" for a clear strategy for housing stock to bring about the 60 per cent reduction in the country's fossil fuel emissions that Tony Blair has said he wants to see by 2050.
The academics say that Britain's 25 million homes are among the oldest and least efficient in Europe and recommend that 14 per cent of the current stock - 3.2 million homes - should be pulled down by 2050.
Listed buildings would be spared, but the plan would quadruple the present demolition rate to 80,000 homes a year by 2016.
"Care must be taken not to invest money in upgrading those homes that will ultimately be demolished," say the authors.
Even so, two thirds of the housing stock of 2050 has already been built and this will have to be made more efficient. The immediate priority is for walls and lofts, then solid walls, to be insulated. By 2050 all windows will be double or even triple glazed. The report, the "40 Per Cent House", emphasises the need to construct the 10 million new homes that will be built by 2050 to far greener standards than in current building regulations.
John Prescott's department has said that from April 2006 all publicly-funded new homes - including 120,000 planned for Thames Gateway - will comply with a new code for sustainable buildings, due to be released this year.
Quinlan Terry, the leading classical architect, criticised the researchers' recommendations last week at a conference in London about designing sustainable buildings.
He said the proposed demolition missed a "bigger picture", which included the fossil fuels already expended in putting up existing buildings and how long the new buildings would last.
He said that the embodied energy in each Victorian terrace house scheduled for demolition as part of the Government's urban renewal plans in the North was equivalent to 15,000 litres of petrol, according to the Buildings Research Establishment.
The carbon from the fossil fuels burnt to build our existing housing stock was already in the atmosphere, warming the Earth. "So why repeat the process?" asked Mr Terry.
"Care must be taken not to invest money in upgrading those homes that will ultimately be demolished," say the authors.
These people are nuts!
Didn't the Luftwaffe demolish a bunch of homes over there just 60 years ago?
They could start with #10 Downing Street.
Good grief!
well maybe they could fire up some of those old stukas maybe some old nazi pilots would help them out
this is insane
First the homes next the people. It's getting closer and closer.
So where are the people going to go?
We should do this here and start with my neighbor who has this big black cat who comes over to my house and picks on my old vintage cat and at the same time upsets the cardinals who are nesting in my azaleas. I say his house should go.
I think Americans should watch the British government closely - this is where we're headed if we don't fight back the trend toward socialism here. For the two, or one, small government conservatives left in England, all I can say is if you want to come to the last beach, cross through Mexico ... nobody's looking.
would it be safe to assume it's not their own homes they want destroyed?
The report, by researchers at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute and Heriot Watt University, is bound to re-ignite the controversy caused by the proposed demolition of 400,000 homes in the Midlands and the North.
Pointy headed Academic Geeks with a Government Grant.
Cut off their funds.
And no, I'm not thinking about using smokey ol' rockets to do it. We could build a gigantic, environmentally friendly trebuchet instead!
With this.
Britian's gov't has gone WAY over the edge.
Cut off heat and paper supplies and the internet to these people and you will do more for society.
Amongst other things...
Ok. I vote that all the homes to be demolished belong to the EnviroNutzies.
We're headed down that same path lickety split if Hillary is elected. Scary, scary stuff....
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