Conservation Comment: Keep the doors closed in winter

Solar roof, South Korea.

Winter is here and it is the time that we spend our nights curled up on the couch by the fire.

Not having a fixed fireplace, I mostly use my down jacket, a hat, and fingerless gloves to keep warm, with a dehumidifier being my main source of warmth plus an electric fan heater for extra-cold times. I manage to keep my power bills low.

It is upsetting that hospitality venues use outdoor heaters so people can sit outdoors in winter. We worry about the world warming and warm the outside air.

This just gives the finger to climate change and future generations. Shops warming the inside while leaving the door open are similar. Support businesses that do not have outdoor heaters and keep their doors closed!

I have just flown to the other side of the world to be with my partner. I do not want to fly any more, but it is the only way to keep the relationship going. It is a dilemma.

Airports are depressing places. Expensive goods, which people think they save money on by buying duty-free, are just more expensive without duty added.

I always feel the need to get out into greenery, but that can be hard to find. At the Korean airport, I was told that I had to take a bus to get to a park, but with trial and error, I found some small ones nearby.

Greenery is so important for mental health. More of it needs to be available in the concrete jungles that many of us live and work in.

A positive thing on my walk was a large roof completely covered in solar panels. The roof was oval-shaped and the panels were cut in such a way that the panels covered the roof right to the edge. This seemed excellent at the time, but arriving in Europe I heard about a fire that was hard to extinguish because of continuous solar panels covering a row of four houses. Keep that in mind when installing these!

Cycling is one of the best things here in the Netherlands. People by and large respect cyclists. They often give way to people on bikes even when they do not have to.

Here I do not get scared when a car passes me closely as I know they get trained to keep cyclists safe. Signs with suggested distances from people on bikes are not needed here.

One of the best things about my partner is that he does not give in to the pressures to modernise his house.

It looks much like it did after it was built in the late 1960s, in and outside! Both our families and most middle-class people here are into renovating their houses at regular intervals: additions, changes, new floors, and walls, as well as furniture and furnishings.

All those renovations cause enormous piles of rubbish and cost huge amounts of resources and energy.

At home in Whanganui, I have a little house, which could do with some improvements, but they are not essential and the reasons above have so far deterred me from doing them.

I have, however, invested in making the house warmer by double-glazing and improved the moisture removal in my shower by installing a double-glazed skylight.

Economists want us to buy and spend, but to reduce the effects of climate change we should minimise spending on non-essentials. Climate change solutions and a “healthy” economy, as we have been taught to believe, are not compatible. It is time the world makes collective decisions to solve this dilemma.