Climate protection through house construction: Call me simple-minded, maybe I’m seeing it all too simply, but we here in Germany are not the world's environmental destroyers. Just this hype about plastic alone! Plastic bags, straws, and cotton swabs are seen as huge evils in the supermarket, but more and more small packages are appearing on the market, with every cookie individually wrapped. Or those awful "squeeze pouches" with curd or puree for children. Tea bags are individually wrapped once again, coffee capsules, vegetables, and fruit are individually wrapped in foil. Is that really necessary?
And what’s the point if we drive electric cars and operate heat pumps, but ultimately have to buy the electricity from abroad, from unreliable nuclear power plants at Germany’s borders?
It continues with house construction. All the thermal insulation glued to the facades has to be produced somewhere and – even worse – at some point also disposed of again. My mother-in-law had her house wrapped in full thermal insulation protection 10 years ago. It will never pay off; there are already damages in places, green spots, elsewhere the plaster is flaking off.
I also believe that everyone should decide for themselves how efficient their house should be. After all, we’re paying enough for oil, gas, electricity – everyone should calculate for themselves with what standard and consumption they are satisfied.
Sure, we could completely "seal" and "wrap" our old half-timbered house. It would only cost a few hundred thousand and carry the risk that in the end everything rots. I’d rather spend a few euros each year on a (less than expected) higher consumption of oil and improve with care.
Where one could really make a strong impact in terms of climate protection would be air and sea travel as well as sea transport. Flights and travel should simply be more expensive; it can’t be that you can/may fly to Barcelona for 30 euros. That’s luxury at the expense of the environment. When I see that in the travel agency 2 weeks in Egypt including flight cost less than 2 weeks of vacation on the Baltic Sea, something is wrong. And bananas for 1 euro per kilo aren’t necessary either.