Cultural revolution

I’m sure you know the old story about the frog and hot water. If a frog comes into contact with hot water, it jumps out. But if you put it in cool water and heat it up slowly, the poor creature won’t notice until its too late. Could we be like those frogs, unable to detect the enormity of the changes going on around us?

We live in a fast-changing world. Most thinking people now accept that the climate is changing – and accept that this is largely due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels. So we are encouraged to take a low-carbon diet.

Building services engineers can do a lot to help here. We can design energy efficient heating and ventilation systems. We can advise on integrating fabric and services to reduce emissions. We can install renewable technologies in buildings. It’s estimated that we could cut energy use in buildings by one fifth using cost- effective measures. We have the technology!

But in the hard light of day, many of these things don’t happen. In the commercial market, the end users who benefit from low running costs are detached from the investors who put up the cash to build. And in the domestic sector, the government has just passed up a chance to insist that when people undertake major renovations on their home, they should also make cost effective energy efficiency improvements to the whole building.

Outside buildings, the next largest source of carbon emissions is from transport. Again, we have the technology to change this – but it doesn’t happen.

So what’s to do?

We may have the technology, but we clearly lack the willingness to use it. And that is where real change will have to happen. We are going to have to change the way we build things and the way we do things. It’s not just about adapting our buildings to climate change, but it’s about adapting our culture and our lifestyles. It’s as much about social engineering as it is about low carbon engineering.

As people begin to realise the impact of climate change, such as its impact on property values, they will realise the need for change and start to adapt. Already, there are houses in areas at risk from flooding that cannot obtain insurance.

Rising fuel and energy prices will also give people another jolt in the right direction: the increasing number of cyclists in London, and the fact that the GLA’s Energy Efficiency Commitment targets were exceeded by 40%, show that there is growing demand for energy efficiency if the price and solution are right.

But will such incremental changes be enough? Over the next 20 years, the current generation of nuclear power stations will close, reducing output by about 20%. Over the same period, the government wants to see a similar amount of renewable capacity installed. But we also have to cope with anticipated growth in demand, so we will need to realise the 20% cost effective energy efficiency savings just to stand still.

We also face other challenges. In the longer term, we will have to adapt to a world without abundant and cheap fossil fuel. And when that happens, we will need all the technological expertise that building services engineers can offer, to cope with a revolution in the way we use energy.

The forthcoming debate about nuclear power asks a fundamental question – do we want to change our nukes, or change our lifestyles? Or are we like the frog – oblivious to the enormity of the question being asked?

Bryan Franklin is chairman of the CIBSE Policy and Consultation Committee