Deja-Vu and carbon
Our digital history can be quite surprising when it resurfaces, like this article responding to a hot topic in 2011 in Norway: passive houses and the need for energy-efficient buildings!
Since then, a lot has happened. We have now established a national passive house standard, and the building codes have eventually reached passive house levels, just six years after I wrote this article.
What's even more interesting is understanding the role of culture and chronocentrism in adopting new and sustainable solutions.
The arguments against change are not always rational but often based on empirical and anecdotal stories, with references to the recent past projected into the future. For example, Dr. W. Bakke, a doctor who worked with non-passive houses, had a certain credibility among regular people on a topic he was not qualified to speak on.(link in norwegian)
Of course, subsequent developments dismantled all his anecdotal arguments and showed that the science-based ones were correct and should have been considered earlier.
Now, 12 years later, we are facing a similar discussion at home regarding our carbon footprint and the human-caused climate crisis.
Norwegians are number 1 among the European climate skeptics, with one in four strongly disbelieving that climate change is caused by humans, and one in two not believing that the temperature has increased more in the last 100 years compared to the last 1000 years, despite scientific measurements supporting both claims. This skepticism may also be due to a national cognitive dissonance regarding oil, our main source of wealth, which makes us one of the biggest donors for supporting climate causes worldwide, with the former overshadowing the latter in the latest UN climate summit.
So, returning to the development of energy efficiency, I wonder what will be the trigger to actively reduce our carbon footprint today, and not in theoretical 60-year LCAs, in the face of this new challenge, both at home and at the European and global levels, in time?
How can we overcome the constraints of chronocentrism (projecting the future based on the last 20 years) and understand that our inaction may have a dramatic impact not only for the next 10 years but for the next few hundred years?
Do we, as normal individuals, comprehend the tipping points we have already passed on a global scale, with feedback loops that will outlast our generation and fully manifest when our children reach our current age? Do we truly grasp that mindless and superficial consumerism has a significant physical impact on finite resources in a finite planet and system?
How can we convey to climate skeptics that this is not about ideologies, left-right, liberal-conservative, but about something that will affect all of us and everything that is precious to us?
How can we make decision-makers and real estate owners understand that the choices they make are not purely monetary in the short term but have indirect impacts on society, eventually closing the loop back to them as individuals?
Unfortunately, I don't have the answer to these questions, even though through data and AI help we try to support more informed decisions in existing real estate. However, just as 12 years ago, I wonder how we will look back at 2023 and read about this debated yet scientifically proven topic of the climate crisis and what we can do about it.
Time will tell, but it seems like history repeating itself, and I hope that we can act faster this time.
Daniel's articles represent his personal opinions and may not necessarily reflect the views of the company, other employees, or the investors he is connected to.
(However, it is important to note that these opinions shape his beliefs.)